application: bloodcarnival
CHARACTER INFO
Name: The Dark Ace (no original name known)
Canon: Storm Hawks
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Crime Committed: Multiple Murders
Personality: Vicious, cunning, and bad to the bone, the Dark Ace is not a man to underestimate. He’s a violent and unscrupulous bastard without a thought for morality, except in ways to subvert or undermine it, and things like law, honor, and morality are nothing more than footnotes to be ignored. He lies, he cheats, he plays dirty, and he really doesn’t care what people say about him because of it, so long as all their disdain is tinted by fear. He’s brutal and unmerciful and there’s nothing in the world that can stop him from achieving his goals once he’s set his sights on them.
As well as brutal, the Dark Ace is also incredibly arrogant. He’s smug, narcissistic, and egotistical beyond normal self-confidence because he’s been so successful at being a criminal in his life, and thanks to that, he’s been the source of a lot of people’s fear. Being personally responsible for so much hate and fear and ruined lives can really lift a man’s ego when he’s as much a bastard as the Dark Ace is. He has absolutely no problem with people disliking him; he doesn’t want people’s loyalty, only their fear and respect through fear. And also their admiration for being such an effective monster. Being doubted, questioned, criticized, or looked down on irritates (and often infuriates) him; being defeated, in any way, is completely unthinkable to him. Anyone who manages it earns his eternal ire and he won’t stop trying to return the favor (or kill them) until it’s no longer worth the effort.
The Dark Ace can be charming. Unfortunately, he’s only charming when it serves his purposes. He’s a consummate liar and deceiver, willing to make any false promise or show of courtesy to get him where or what he wants. He’s a mocking manipulator who knows everyone and everything in the world is beneath him, worthy only of his contempt; in conversation, he’s more fond of sarcasm and snark to cut people down and prove just how stupid they really are. He is, after all, a highly intelligent perfectionist, and he’s more than happy to use his intelligence against people. As both a police cadet and the right hand to a powerful criminal syndicate, he learned how to be a skilled tactician, an excellent fighter, and an effective leader - all skills he intends to use to get himself out of the situation he’s been put in.
While not a good person by any strained definition of the term, there is one area where his vicious brutality and dishonorable backstabbing are set aside: when it comes to the leader of the criminal syndicate he works for. As her right-hand man, his only loyalty is to her, and he’ll do anything she asks even if it leads to his own death (though he’s quite sure she’d never order that of him, even with his recent capture) and would protect her with his life. He doesn’t take insults or threats against her lightly. The only time he’s ever been known to be gentle is when he’s around her, but her own deadly personality is equally matched with his; his most heinous crimes were committed at her word.
Background: Under whatever name he was originally born with - he’s long since abandoned it, even to himself - the Dark Ace was bound to be a difficult person from the start. His parents were both very aggressive people, so it was no surprise that he turned out aggressive as well. He was diagnosed young with a conduct disorder that never really went away: he fought with other kids at school, he lied and argued with authority constantly, and it hardly took anything to drive him into an egotistical rage spiral against the world in general. As he got older, even his angry parents took note of his aggression, and unwilling to have a juvenile delinquent on their hands, they often demanded compliance of him: stop being so much trouble. Don’t argue with your teachers or the police. Be normal. Be good.
By all rights, he should have grown into the criminal life from the moment he was old enough for it. But fate intervened in the form of a police officer when Dark Ace was fourteen. The man saw through the vicious, furious outer shell and into the highly intelligent and rough-skilled core of a kid who knew he could achieve greatness but didn’t know how. He tried to turn Dark Ace onto the straight and narrow, or at least the moderately unbent, and the Dark Ace grudgingly began to follow it out of a wary respect for the only person who didn’t treat him like a hopeless punk kid.
After that point, the Dark Ace started putting more effort into his schoolwork - more out of a desire to prove his expertise and intelligence than to really learn anything - and graduated early, near the top of his class. He curtailed his more criminal desires as best he could. At his mentor’s urgings, he went into law enforcement shortly after high school and began his training as a cadet. Soon he would be responsible for protecting his home and city. Soon, he figured, he would have power. But it wasn’t all power, and he didn’t make friends very easily; his lack of empathy, tendency for violence, and universe-spanning ego often put his job at risk. Still, his mentor supported him and did everything he could to keep the Dark Ace from giving in to his darker side. For a while, it seemed to work.
Then, about not long after he’d become a cadet, a criminal syndicate that the city had been having trouble with for decades launched an offensive. Their original intent was to wipe out rival syndicates and smaller gangs, but the resulting level of violence was unacceptable and drove the police force into action. They began pushing back on the syndicate, fighting them with everything they had, keeping a close eye on the criminals to ensure that nobody got by them and everyone they could catch got sent to jail. They wanted to bring down the violence, and they would do it by stopping these vicious people in their tracks.
They should have been keeping a closer eye on their own. Seeing the potential for a whole new life unburdened by petty morality and laws, the soon-to-be Dark Ace, his unhappiness with his life situation having grown and finally rotted into a hate for everything around him, attacked the squad he was out on patrol for a number of high-ranking members of the syndicate with. He murdered all of them, including his long-time mentor, taking the man’s gun and a list of important names with him when he left. With the blood and the list as evidence of his decision, he presented himself to the syndicate, who were quick to take him in. The decision allowed him to rename himself and create a whole new persona to be feared rather than looked down on or pitied. The Dark Ace became a force to be reckoned with, quickly earning the trust of the syndicate’s leader - and the trust of the old woman’s intelligent, calculating young granddaughter.
Wise far beyond her years and somewhat lonely, the little girl grew fond of Dark Ace, and eventually, he returned the sentiment. She was smart, sharp, and ice cold, with no objections to killing to defend herself even at such a young age. Her grandmother’s fondness for her made the Dark Ace reflect well to the old woman, especially after protecting the girl from an assassination attempt. Shortly thereafter, he was made her bodyguard. While most wouldn’t have seen the role as anything to be pleased with, the girl used him less as a protector and more as her personal right hand in all matters relating to her inevitable ascension to the syndicate’s leadership. The Dark Ace did more killing, stealing, and planning than wearily defending, and that suited him just fine.
When the leader died with instructions that her granddaughter, barely in the double digits, succeed her, there were naturally unhappy objectors. Any and all coups were stopped in their tracks, mostly bloodily, in very short order due to the teamwork of the girl and her right-hand man. She became the leader; the Dark Ace became her most trusted and loyal minion. He took command of the tactical efforts and served as the iron fist in his leader’s decision to acquire more territory by force. For years he was a terror and a danger, a bane to the police by right of somehow being untouchable while simultaneously murdering anyone who got in his path.
While the syndicate nearly wiped out a number of other gangs and criminal syndicates, they were equally unkind to any law enforcement foolish enough try and stop them. The charges racked up higher and higher particularly in regards to the Dark Ace, who never bothered to hide himself or his growing reputation. It wasn’t much of a surprise - except to the syndicate and the Dark Ace himself - when the government and several city police forces created a coordinated effort to deal a blow to the syndicate during a major takeover attempt. The Dark Ace, acting on his leader’s direct orders, was one of the many people caught in the raid. He was also one of the few among those who refused to give up any information and was unhappily willing to go to his death on multiple charges of murder (and a whole host of other crimes) so long as it protected his leader. For months he sat on death row, nearly escaping once or twice thanks to outside efforts, and so, finally sick of his existence but not entirely willing to execute him, the government handed down an ultimatum:
He was going to Deadman Wonderland.