Alright, everyone. This chapter had a lot a help from a friend of mine. Thanks, PS2wiazrd!

Chapter 6 – Gem Hunt, Part 1

Kane was scared before. He had been scared when he was kidnapped by S.H.I.E.L.D. for experimentation. He was scared when his vampiric instincts first took over, killing a girl who couldn't have been older than twelve. He had been especially scared when the Secret Avengers and the Thunderbolts stormed the Diablo Muerte base. However, he had never been as scared as he was now; Kane was now in hell, talking with the literal son of the devil, Blackheart.

Doctor Doom and Baron Mordo had no such fear. They were talking to Blackheart in normal voices – friendly, in fact. Blackheart was showing no traces of hostility, and even offered his guests a few party foods (to which Doom whispered to the others that they should decline, on account of Blackheart's cooking ability).

"I don't think I've seen you before," Blackheart said to Kane. "What's your name?"

"Kane, sir," he replied.

"No need to call me 'sir'," Blackheart said. "I don't think I've earned that, yet."

"Oh," Kane said, confused. "Ok."

Blackheart stared at him, his great red eyes blinking only once. "You have a question on your tongue. What is it?"

Kane couldn't hold it in any longer. "What is going on here?! I thought all demons were bad! And here we are talking to Blackheart, the Son of the Devil Mephisto! Ghost Rider had to lock him away because he was so evil!"

Once Kane finished his rant, he became completely silent due to everyone staring at him. No one said it, but one word hung in the air – Really?

"After the taste of reality back at Diablo Muerte," Baron Mordo said, "do you really believe that garbage the 'heroes' keep spouting?"

"They've attacked Diablo Muerte?!" Blackheart asked, alarmed.

"Yes," Doom replied, "but it was nothing that the Collective couldn't handle. Even Kane here," he gestured towards him, "helped beat Elektra."

"Really?" Blackheart said, impressed. "You must have some power, Kane."

"I'm a vampire," Kane said, his tone filled unusually with sadness and regret. "The only one to walk in daylight."

Blackheart sighed, not out of boredom, but of sympathy. "I know how you feel."

"You do?"

"Yes. When you wake up with these powers, you feel like a god. Pretty soon you start acting like one too. Everybody's bowing down in respect, offering gifts and services in return for power. Then something happens. It's a small little thing, something normally anyone wouldn't've spared a glance. But that little thing awakens a small voice in your head, telling you what you're doing is wrong. You're able to ignore that voice until you do something so horrible, so monstrous, the little voice in your head doesn't even want to say, 'I told you so.' You then spend the rest of your life trying to make up for it… but the pain never goes away."

Kane was tearing up by the end. What Blackheart described was exactly what happened to him.

"When I started out trying to redeem myself," Blackheart continued, "I was pretty lousy at it. Saved a little kid from being run over by a car, but the car ended up driving into a house. Armed robbery? Stopped, but there wasn't much left of a building to come back to in the end. And those were my best results."

"That's when we found him," Baron Mordo said. "We offered him a chance for the redemption he wanted so badly, in exchange for his membership. And… well, here we are."

"To get back to what you were saying earlier," Blackheart said, "why were the super-feds in Diablo Muerte anyway?"

"Osborn and Ultron found out what the Inverted are after," Doctor Doom replied. "They're going to wield the Twilight Sword and power it with the Infinity Power Gem."

Blackheart stood up so quickly, one might've missed it if one blinked. "Doom, do you know how bad things would get if they succeeded? Having the demons and Asgardians go to war wouldn't cause a twentieth of the damage that weapon would cause! Whole dimensions would be destroyed with a single swipe of the sword!"

"There's only one way we can counter, Blackheart," Baron Mordo said, quite calm in comparison to the now hysterical Blackheart. "We need the Infinity Gems."

Blackheart calmed instantly. "In that case," he said, turning towards the pond, "follow me."

Blackheart stepped into the pond. Water evaporated at his touch, and the effect quickly spread. By the time that Blackheart got to the bottom of the pond, it was completely dry. Kane and the others stepped into pond as Blackheart put his hands against a rune-covered door. Each rune started glowing a different color as the door actually began to shrink. Soon, there was nothing there at all.

"When you first gave me the Soul Gem, Doom," Blackheart explained as he led his friends down a winding path of stairs, "it took me everything I had to force into a dormant state. I knew it wouldn't last, so I came here to this oasis."

"Two questions," Kane asked. "One – what do you mean by 'force it into a dormant state'? And what's so special about this oasis?"

"To answer your first question, Kane, the Soul Gem is unique among the Infinity Gems. It deals with something everything living thing has – a soul – and it also has a closer relation to magic than any of the other Gems. Because of those qualities, it is quite alive."

Blackheart sighed. "Unfortunately, it doesn't have a sparkling personality. It's constantly hungry, and the only things that can sate its hunger are souls. The only way its hunger could ever be sated, however, is if it devoured every soul in the universe. So naturally, I had to stop it."

"That leads us to your second question, Kane. The water in the pond above us has a very unique property – it saps a soul of all its strength. A single drop could leave a soul weak for 3,000 years. The amount of water in the pond would leave a soul unable to do anything for countless millions of years. Seeing as the Soul Gem is really just a soul – albeit an unimaginably powerful one – I knew of no better place to keep it safe… and keep others from its hunger."

Blackheart and his friends had come upon the chamber he had put the Soul Gem in. It stood on a pedestal that held it three feet above the ground. The Gem itself was a magnificent emerald green, sparkling in a light that didn't exist. Various faces appeared in the facets of the gem – some were known to the others, while most were not.

"Blackheart," a voice hissed. Kane shuddered at the sound. This was malice given form, anger given a voice. "I knew I would see you again."

"Hello, my crystalline friend," Blackheart replied, although it was clear from his voice that he considered the Soul Gem anything but a friend.

"It can speak!" Kane cried.

"Ah, perfect!" the Soul Gem cried. A lance of green energy shot out towards Kane, aimed right at his heart. Kane started to slide his katana out its sheath, but Blackheart stepped in front of him, shattering the lance of energy like it was a pane of glass.

"Do that again," Blackheart said, matter-of-fact, "and I'll send you right to Oblivion."

The Soul Gem didn't try the attack again, but instead asked, "What do you want? And don't try that 'I'm really your friend' trick. You can't pull that off for crap."

"Fine. I'll just get to the point," Blackheart replied. "We need you to help us."

The Soul Gem started laughing. Not a gentle laugh, but a great big ugly laugh. "And why the hell," the Soul Gem asked in between laughs, "would I do that?"

"Because it involves your brother. The Power Gem."

The Soul Gem stopped laughing immediately. Blue energy started leaking out of each of the Soul Gem's facets. The blue energy then started taking on various physical forms. The blue energy was, in fact, souls contained within the Soul Gem, let loose because the crystal's surprise let it lose its hold on them, however momentarily.

"Who dares to attack one of my brothers?" the Soul Gem asked, a hint of protectiveness creeping into its usually angry voice. "Speak!"

It was Doctor Doom who spoke up. "Surely you know of the Inverted on Earth? Of course you do. They're going to cannibalize your brother and use him to power the Twilight Sword. We need your help to stop them."

The blue energy was sucked back into the Soul Gem without a sound. "Fine. Just so you know, I'm not doing this to help you guys. If I had my way, I'd pull your souls out and rip them into tiny little pieces before you could say 'uncle'. I'm doing it to protect my family."

"Understood," Baron Mordo said. "Now, hold still while I come pick you up… literally."

The Soul Gem spat words in a language so ancient, not even Blackheart knew the translation. None of them needed to be fluent in said language, however, in order to know that words were not polite.

"No way am I letting anyone carry me," the Soul Gem snapped. "Watch closely. This is only a parlor trick in comparison to what I can really do."

A terrible screeching filled the air. It sounded like metal, but it was… different. Almost primal. It was as if the metal was protesting, with all its atoms, at being torn apart. Metal as black as the eyes of a great white shark surrounded the Soul Gem as it was lifted off its pedestal. The metal started folding and changing shape, forming a humanoid figure about six feet tall. A flash of yellow light filled the room, forcing everyone to close their eyes. When they opened them, they stared in astonishment at the figure before them.

It was a knight in the style of the medieval ages, but with some radical changes. The visor, instead of having a straight line across, was in the shape of a V that was curved slightly inward, letting nonexistent eyes see farther down. Eight spikes, each a foot long, protruded from where the spine would have been. The gloves each had blades that were two feet long jutting out from the tops of the wrists. On its right shoulder, a shield four feet wide with the face of a roaring lion on it clung to. Not hanging, not stuck to, clung to. In its left hand was a black broadsword with a single red line running down the blade. It was beautiful in the way that an explosion was beautiful – it was an instrument for killing, no doubt, but it did its killing with elegance.

The most notable difference was found right in the area covering where the heart should have been. The Soul Gem was buried halfway into the armor there, like a rock buried halfway in the sand. The Soul Gem itself hadn't changed, showing its same emerald green color.

"Now, this is more like it!" the Soul Gem said, obviously pleased with itself.

Kane was staring at the Soul Gem's new host body in awe. "That," he breathed, "is completely badass."

"I didn't know you could do that," Blackheart said. If he was impressed, it didn't show in his voice. "Anything else you want to tell us?"

"Actually, yes," the Soul Gem replied. "I don't want it known that I have made a new body for myself. Don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention, if you know what I mean. So, instead of calling me the Soul Gem, call me… Black Knight."

So ends this chapter. To answer your question, readers (I can hear you through the computer), Black Knight was an actual Marvel character. I tried to make it so this Black Knight had a pretty self-explanatory origin, so there wouldn't be any confusion. Until next time!