Chapter Text
Most stories begin at the start of the story, but this one takes place at the end. But that ending is, itself, the beginning of this new story. That's just how it goes sometimes.
Once upon a time, in a distant land of kings and knights and magic, a thief and his partner tried to steal an enchanted amulet from a spooky tower. A pompous knight tried to stop them, and when the thief and the knight broke out into a scuffle, the tower collapsed and killed all three of them. The thief was resurrected as an undead servant by the enchanted amulet, which had possessed the body of the knight, and the world was plunged into an age of darkness.
Luckily, a hero saved the land and destroyed the amulet. The day was saved. And yet, the undead servant remained. What use is a knight with no liege to serve? What purpose might such a being have?
This is the story of Specter Knight, formerly known as Donovan the Thief, and the tale of his ending, which ended up also being his beginning.
---
A pleasant day in the Lich Yard isn't pleasant by the standards of anywhere else. Even with the hordes of the undead put (mostly) back to rest, the place had a perpetual sense of unease and a literal dark cloud hanging over it. Between the decrepit buildings and piles of skulls lying around, it wasn't exactly the kind of place one would want to build a vacation home.
But it was dreary enough to keep most people away, and Specter Knight was perfectly fine with that.
During his period of mandatory servitude to the Enchantress, he had been posted here as one of her eight Knights of the "Order of no Quarter," primarily to serve as a stopgap to prevent do-gooders from reaching the Tower of Fate. It had been meant as an insult to his mortality status, given his consistent straining against her command.
Now those days were gone, and still he lingered here for some reason. On the one hand, the solitude of the place was preferable to interacting with the buffoons outside of it. On the other hand, perhaps this place was what he deserved, given everything he had done.
The third (and perhaps most important) reason was that he had stowed his locket here for safekeeping. Once upon a time, his partner in crime had given this prized family heirloom to him. Once upon a time, the Enchantress had bestowed upon it the ability to bring him back to life if he obeyed her commands.
And, once upon a time, he used the magic it had stored up to save the life of his partner's son, forsaking his own life in the process.
So much had been stripped of him already-- his life, his partner and best friend, his volition. If that locket was the one vestige of his former existence, so be it. He could afford the dalliance of sentiment now and again.
And it was there in the Lich Yard that he discovered it missing.
The chest that had contained it lay open and plundered, its lock blasted clean off. The waterlogged underground room that contained it bore scars of black gunpowder on the walls and floor. It couldn't be more obvious what had happened.
Specter Knight clenched his fist as he took in the scene. He usually showed displeasure with cold contempt and biting remarks; less often, he would express anger by shouting. But this rage knew no words.
This pain knew no words.
He slammed his fist onto the lid of the treasure chest, trembling slightly. Then, in a fit of rage, he lifted the chest into the air with his magic and cleaved in two with the massive scythe at his side. Retribution would be had. The criminal would be punished. And when everyone else saw what he did to them... no one would ever think to encroach on his property again.
A distant bolt of lightning crackled outside, briefly illuminating his ghostly form as he ascended from his crypt. His red, tattered robes tossed in the wind, flapping against the bronze armor beneath. With the oversized scythe in his hand, he was ready to take down any fighter or monster in the kingdom. And if there was a force in the land that dared to stand in his way, he inwardly dared them to try.
---
"And then, instead of the vial he MEANT to add, he somehow added BLEACH to the solution," Mona said with a hint of a smirk.
"Bleach? To a vinegar solution??" Plague Knight's mask was unexpressive as always, but Mona could hear the barely stifled guffaw underneath. "Was he trying to get a lungful of chlorine gas?" Plague Knight let out a full belly laugh that echoed in the Explodatorium corridors.
Mona, in spite of herself, found her chuckling along. Plague Knight's energy was infectious like that.
"If you ask me, he was too distracted by his pretty lab partner to read the labels of his ingredients," Mona said with a twinkle in her eye. Plague Knight just laughed harder.
"Oh, our minions sometimes, hee hee!" he laughed as he wiped a tear from under his mask. "Why do we keep them around again?"
"Because you need minions who can reach the top shelf for you," she said as she tapped him on the mask.
He swatted her hand away. "And you need minions to collect coins and ingredients for you!"
Mona smiled mischievously. "Nah, I have you for that," she said as she blew him a kiss. Plague Knight suddenly stiffened as though struck by lightning; Mona swore she could see him blushing through his mask. She snickered.
Suddenly, a knock at the door interrupted their flirting.
"At the Explodatorium? Who could that be?" Plague Knight wondered aloud as he walked to the door and opened it. "It's a little late for visi--"
Suddenly a blur of red robes tackled Plague Knight to the ground.
"What the hell?!" Mona shouted, summoning an explosive flask in each hand.
"E-easy there, Mona," Plague Knight said weakly from the floor, where Specter Knight had him pinned to the ground with the blade of his scythe.
"You took something that belongs to me," Specter Knight said with cold, barely restrained fury. "You will return it at once."
"Hee hee!" Plague Knight's laugh came out like more of a hiccup than an actual laugh. "Ah, well, you'll have to be specific. I haven't a clue what you're talking ab--ackk!"
Specter Knight's scythe pressed into Plague Knight's throat.
"You know what you did, and I won't repeat myself!" Specter Knight said, voice raised.
"Hey. Let's talk this out," Mona said calmly, but her brusqueness betrayed her worry. "You put down your scythe, I put down my explosives, nobody loses any body parts. Okay?"
"Yes, yes, what she said!" Plague Knight squeaked from the floor, voice thin.
Specter Knight hissed, but pulled his scythe back. Plague Knight started coughing.
"A locket," he said coldly. "Heart shaped with a blue insert. The size of that contraption." He gestured to a nearby flask with his scythe. "Return it at once or I'll--"
Mona interrupted his threat with a green flask, which exploded in Specter's face. He hissed loudly as he staggered back.
"Plague, get out of here!" Mona hollered as she summoned another flask. "I can hold him off!"
Plague Knight knocked back a health potion and stumbled to his feet, shaking his head. "Absolutely not. This entrance corridor is no place for a fight. Now kindly TAKE THIS OUTSIDE!"
And with that, he lobbed a cluster bomb at Specter Knight. The explosion threw him back through the doorway and onto the ground outside.
Mona closed the door and locked it, but ominous slashing noises still came through from outside.
"Plague, what is he even talking about?" she asked with annoyance.
Plague tapped his index fingers together in thought. Then suddenly he raised his head in recognition and burst out laughing.
"Haha! That old piece of junk? What on Earth would you want with that, Specter?" he cried out gleefully.
A wide gash appeared in the steel of the door. Mona's eyes widened briefly.
"If we don't need it for our experiments, maybe it'd be easiest to just give it to him?" Mona said as she looked around at her surroundings. Nothing much terribly valuable-- just some spare glassware and a bookshelf of old experiment data. An end table with a flower growing on it. Nothing that'd be terribly handy in a fight.
"I don't have it!" Plague Knight snapped as another gash in the door appeared. "I pawned that antique the first chance I got!"
Mona pursed her lips. "Ok, then I guess that's that, then." The green flasks in her hands disappeared and were replaced with a larger purple flask. "Time for the big guns."
Just as a third slash in the door appeared, Mona heaved her purple flask in its direction. The massive explosion sent papers and glassware flying everywhere and destroyed what was left of the door. It also sent the door-- and Specter Knight with it-- flying some 20 feet backwards.
Mona grinned. Plague Knight remembered why he fell in love with her all over again.
Mona stepped over the steel door shrapnel and went outside. Specter Knight had been battered by the blow, but he was already getting back on his feet.
"He doesn't have it, okay?" Mona barked. "We can't give it to you because we don't have it."
Specter Knight turned to Plague Knight, brandishing his scythe menacingly. "And what exactly did you do with it, then?"
Plague Knight snickered. "What are you going to do, make me tell you?"
Mona gave Plague Knight a wide-eyed glare. Specter Knight raised his scythe eagerly. "Try me," he said coolly.
Plague Knight snickered and tossed a black powder bomb into the air. In a sudden flash, Specter sliced it in half and propelled forward, tearing through Plague Knight's torso. Mona winced.
"Heh, you think a wound like this'll keep me down?" Plague Knight snarled as he knocked back two more health potions. Specter Knight hissed.
"Stop!" Mona ordered. "You both are acting like children. I don't care if you're knights. You can't solve all of your problems by fighting each other!"
"Then tell me where it is!" Specter Knight roared. This was the most either Mona or Plague Knight had seen Specter care about… well, anything, really.
But Plague Knight held his green hand against the seeping wound on his chest, and he stared directly into Specter's inscrutable bronze visor as he spoke:
"Over. My. Dead. Body."
Specter Knight's fist clenched and began to glow purple as he reared back for a Dread Talon strike.
But before he delivered the strike, he was interrupted by a voice.
"What's all this commotion?" a horse-man called out from the ruins of the Explodatorium entrance.
Plague Knight seemed to squint in the direction of the entrance.
"Percy?!?!" he called out incredulously. "What on earth are you doing here?"
"Well, I heard an explosion that sounded bigger than usual, and not in the area explosions usually happen, so I got curious, and--"
"Never mind that!" Specter interrupted. "Do you know the location of a gold and blue locket?"
"Hmm," Percy muttered as he thought, apparently oblivious to Plague Knight's repeated waving and finger-drawn-across-the-neck gestures. "Is that one of the old relics you sold to Chester, Master?"
Plague Knight stood dumbfounded for a moment. "Uh… No. Of course not. Why would I do that! Hee hee! That's crazy talk!"
"You sure?" Percy said, sounding sincere. "Because you were bragging about those arcana you got from Chester, and you said we don't really have the budget to buy that stuff, so it'd make more sense for you to trade--"
"Ok Percy, that's enough! HEE HEE! Thank you for your contributions to this conversation!" Plague Knight said with exaggerated cheer as he pushed Percy back into the Explodatorium.
Specter Knight stared blankly for a long moment before finally turning to Mona.
"It seems I have business elsewhere to attend to, but to deter future incidents, I'll leave you with a parting gift." Then Specter Knight took to the skies and floated away.
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Mona barked after him. But her question was quickly answered as some two dozen skeletons rose up from the fields, armed with weapons and malice. Mona cursed under her breath.
"Plague, we've got company!" she called out to him. "And maybe quit stealing stuff from people, wouldja?"