Zeus
Present Alias:
Richard “Dick” Deus (Day-us)
Appearance:
A robust man remarkably tall, topping around 6’9”. Heavy shoulders, muscular arms, and a narrowed waist oft accentuated by tailored suits worth more than the GDP of some third world countries. Short, tar black hair is slicked back in a sleek businessman’s cut, a neat, close-cut beard shadowing a masculine jaw. Tanned olive skin of Mediterranean descent and indeterminate, statuesque features that could place his age anywhere between a cultured late-thirties to a glowingly healthy male in his early-fifties. Appraising eyes shift in hue with the ambient light; from a blue as pale as summer’s sky to a flinty grey ominous as thunderheads on the horizon. His intimidating appearance is secondary to his particular aura. He holds himself with the heedless confidence of a man born to rule and accustomed to having his orders obeyed, and obeyed immediately, without question.
Current Occupation:
CEO of Deus Industries, a multi-billion dollar company which owns majority stocks in a multitude of energy companies in the U.S., as well as owning whole energy providers in several lesser developed foreign nations, as well as dabbling in minor research ventures around the globe. Deus Industries has been criticized in the past by political pundits for sharing too cozy a relationship with certain senators and House members in Washington, D.C., not to mention the company's lavishly generous political donations. But this coziness and the somewhat shady beginnings of the company have recently been shrouded by very public charity work and philanthropic givings: new schools, new community centers, new city parks, new art galleries and museums, all in communities scattered across the U.S.A. and all bearing the lightning-bolt DI logo. The reason for the change is obvious and seen on every news station and in every newspaper: Earlier in the summer, Richard “Dick” Deus, businessman and investor, loyal patriot and humanitarian, devoted husband and sentinel for universal equality, announced his candidacy for President of the United States.
Vignette:
The time was ripe.
Power. Power was eternal. The mortal scholars and alchemists, the wizards and priests of a New Modern Age, had written power could not be destroyed, nor created. In so many ways, they were the blind leading the blind, groping through the dark, fumbling for a Truth to make meaning of their piteous, small lives. To grasp what could not be grasped, to Learn what was not meant to be Learned. So arrogant in their assumptions, so conceited in the mastery of this sorcery called science. But in that one thing, in power, they were right. It could not be made; it could not be unmade. But it could be taken. It could be hoarded as the dragon hoarded treasure and trinkets. It could be built from the ground like the marble temples of old. It could rise like the sea, and swell like the storm. It could fall like a conquered city and be trampled unto dust.
It had been taken from him. Power.
A bleeding wound that had festered through the ages, sapping his strength, stifling the thunders that had once rolled unfettered from one end of existence to the other. Dimming the lightning that had once crackled between his curled fingers with the primal violence of a forming world. The dawn of a new mortal awareness had drained him these past millenina. But what could be taken, could be wrested back.
The time was ripe.
The world turned. Men suffered, warred, hungered, and died. The far-flung shadows that modern science had scoured clean of all myth now stirred once more with creatures ancient and dark. Mortal sight and minds struggled to understand. Mortal voices rose in a silence stretched through time, crying out for a savior to guide them. A leader to protect them. A god to rule them.
The heavens flashed...
Thunder boomed in the distance.
Zeus stood in the blackness of his top-floor office in Deus Tower, high in the clouds above New York City. New York. This new world’s Athens. The present day’s Rome. The center of a supposed Age of Prosperity. Lightning flashed again, brightening a blaze in the penetrating eyes that had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, silhouetting the towering, powerful profile of the being that had ruled the Pantheon and battled Titans, the being whose mere whims had meant defeat or victory for conquering armies, the being that had fathered mighty Hercules and countless other Heroes whose praises were still sung to this day.
This being sipped from the glass of wine in hand, counting the heartbeats until thunder rattled his windows. The once-prime deity watched the blow move in across the city, looming black clouds blanketing the night, pregnant with rain and worse. Abreast of the gale drove an ill wind, tainted and fouled with an old, old scent that chilled him to the core. If any creature in existence could read the omens woven in air, it was he. Brothers, Sisters, my Children, do you watch the same skies as I? Ares, do you peer at the heavens from the empire you’ve created, and pause? Hades, wherever you languish, do you feel the dead souls moan and stir, restless with the coming doom? Poseidon, will you hide your face in the seas? None of them could hide, soon. Zeus felt it. Danger neared, but with danger came opportunity.
The glory that had been lost could be found again. The world turned, a storm approached, and Zeus was ready.
The time was ripe.
