Festive. . .
REAL//IDENTITY
AGE: 52
GENDER: Female
APPEARANCE: standing at just under six feet, Merle is a fairly lanky woman, lacking a curvaceous figure. Her body is a thin, wiry one, her skin having taken on the idea of aging a little too comfortably. Wrinkles have begun to appear across her face and hands, something Merle still feels is much too early.
It's not often that Merle grows her hair out, having taken to keeping it short and neatly combed, brushing her bangs off to the side and forming a nice part. It's ruthlessly unmanageable, however, often resorting in something of a bird's nest messily perched on top of her head. As of a decade ago her hair began to gray. It's something she's learned to embrace rather than hide. She never understood the need for women to pretend they weren't getting on in age.
OCCUPATION: current member of The Seventh Division
LOCATION: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
FAMILY/FRIENDS/OTHER:
- Maurine Moreau: Merle’s mother; once employed as a nurse and taking pride in aspiring to be Housewife of the Year on the side, Maurine Moreau was a sweet, mild-tempered woman with a secretive competitive streak. And the other stay-at-home housewives on their block were her pet peeve. Maurine remained a strong role model throughout Merle’s life, even after her death. Maurine ultimately died at the age of 73 due to lung cancer;
- Malcolm Moreau: the breadwinner and all-around good man, Malcolm Moreau was a tall, handsome man with a penchant for fast cars and big machines. Taking on multiple jobs throughout his life, Malcolm balanced his workaholism and stability in his family’s life moderately well, though the stress got to him in his later years. He died at the age of 49 in a car crash;
- Marcella Moreau: Merle’s fifty-six-year-old sister, mother of six, and recent divorcee. Marcella was the daughter the Moreau’s always wanted: girly, nose always in a book, eyes always to the sky. Successful, ambitious, driven and strong-willed, Marcella was the first and only of their family to attend college. When it became known that Merle was a psychogenerative, Marcella was the only family member to initially support her sister. She currently resides in Kansas having found minor fame as a published author;
ABILITIES:
- Telekinesis: having honed the ability over several decades, Merle has even gone on to grapple with telekinesis on a microscopic level. Rather than feel just the sheet of paper itself, Merle can feel the fibres composing paper and, with effort, unravel each strand. Granted, it’s not her strong point, and it takes considerable concentration to achieve;
- Levitation: through her telekinetic ability, Merle is able to mentally grip onto surfaces and push herself away from the object – to some limitation. The further away she gets, the less she can “feel” the surface, therefore limiting her to needing to be within eyesight of the designated spot. Therefore, she often propels herself forward, locking her concentration onto new surfaces as she goes.
STRENGTHS: having often been referred to, or demoted to the role of, “sidekick,” Merle has grown accustomed to being a keen listener over the years. She pays strict attention to the task at hand, remembering fine details and taking orders without issue. As the often second-in-command, she demonstrates a supportive, trusting demeanour.
Not necessarily quiet or catlike, Merle likens herself to being a fairly decent amateur spy. Having worked alongside The Poet for many years in the field, Merle has picked up the basics of retrieving intel/breaking in without force or disruption. Merle is good at blending into crowds, improvising on the spot, resourcefully hiding when necessary and scoping out environments to better prepare herself the moment before. She’s not an expert at the incognito life, but Merle has a knack for it she prides herself in.
WEAKNESS: Unlike many other members of The Divisions, Merle has never been one for hand-to-hand combat. Her skillset is restricted to her telekinetic abilities. If, for whatever reason, her ability is nullified, Merle is useless in a fight.
Over the past few years she’s learned how to put her foot down but, for the most part, Merle had grown comfortable in anyone else’s shadow. Though she (imagines herself to be, at least) is a strong person, Merle is not a leader in any sense. She’s not inspiring or the first to charge; she looks to others for motivation and direction.
From all of the things Merle has had to face – from being young and on the frontlines of WW3 to seeing her mother’s cold, limp corpse on their family couch – she has grown exhausted and jagged over the years. In the early days she used to care deeply about humanity, the ideology of being an all-loving race working together. Recently, especially after the fall of The Sixth Division, Merle has lost the willingness to feel as compassionate about humankind. She’s irritable, tired, has anger and anxiety issues; she prefers solitude and yet has grown so accustomed to companionship that she is unsure of how to be on her own. Merle is experiencing a wide array of conflicting, dangerous emotions and is relatively unstable.
Likewise, from AW1, Merle has developed a case of anxiety and what she assumes must be a minor form of PTSD. She experiences night terrors, unsettling flashbacks, panic attacks from loud noises and an uneasiness in being in large, public areas. She never had been the social butterfly at parties even at the height of her minor fame, but now more than ever, Merle is uncomfortable with even moderate-sized masses of people.
BACKSTORY:
Born to Maurine and Malcolm Moreau just outside of Cleveland, Merle Moreau was the fourth and final family member to carry the “MM” naming trait – her older sister, Marcella, being the third. Mrs. Moreau worked as a nurse and would later go on to become “M.E. Moreau,” infamous for the “Charred Charter” trilogy. Mr. Moreau painfully worked his way up the ladder to being the district manager of a successful café franchise. Despite their stable income, Merle never knew how well off they were. She was raised to be appreciative and respectful of money, the hard-earned struggle to get it. She didn’t understand their wealth until living on her own and experiencing firsthand just how well-off her childhood had
been.
When The First Division first started circulating the airwaves and the world just started its frenzy over them, Merle had been thirteen. A gangly girl with a gaunt face, ratty hair and the unflattering nickname “Ostrich” due to her large eyes; kids said, like an ostrich’s, Merle’s eyes were bigger than her brain. She was a quiet, reserved girl who burrowed into books during breaks and after school. Though she had friends and there was no genuine reason for Merle not joining them in the cafeteria or to hang-out, she preferred the quiet escape of science fiction and fantasy. Oftentimes she would daydream about becoming a superhero – donning a cape, saving the world, being the hero everyone needed. It was a fantasy she lapsed into often, neglecting real-life duties in favor of writing tales about her superhero counterpart. From her early teenage years up until the time she was seventeen, it was a hope she entertained daily.
Merely days after the infamous death of Polar Storm sparked the rioting and arrests, Merle rejoiced when she first felt something foreign in her head. As if she had sprouted fingertips in the core of her brain, she could feel the warm smoothness of the mug on the bedside table next to her in her mind, like she had absorbed the object inside her skull. It held her curiosity for minutes until the unexpected crackle of thunder startled her and was immediately followed by the shattering of the mug. Somehow, in the split second Merle whipped around to gasp at the window, the mug had been launched across the room and long trails of murky brown coffee were leaking down the wall. As her sister Marcella had been one of her closest friends, it was she who first heard about Merle’s incident. Marcella instantly chalked it up as Merle looking for attention, clinging to the latest trend – until Merle telekinetically lifted the pencil from Marcella’s hands, and Marcella believed her. Instantly Marcella’s stance on it transformed into a protective, fearful one; she warned Merle to not let anyone know, to not let Merle become a target for the government to capture.
Sticking to her sisters’ wishes, Merle remained quiet about the telekinetic episode for the following year – dabbling with the minor elements of it she achieved (mainly just “feeling” objects) – until the Thursday morning at 2am in 1991 when there was a knock at the door, the faint murmur of muffled voices speaking to Mama Moreau. Merle pressed her ear to the door and listened, trying to pick up any significant bits and bites of the conversation, until her own bedroom door burst open and she scuttled away. When she regained consciousness, she was in the back of a moving vehicle, her wrists tethered together and a pounding migraine weakening her senses. That moment would always be a blur to Merle, the gap in-between when she woke up and when she was suddenly clattered on the floor, heaving for air, a sharp pain in her side, and the wails and gunshots of frantic men. The door to the vehicle was torn open – there was heavy smoke in the air slithering into Merle’s nostrils, suffocating her. Like the other woman next to her, Merle clambered onto her knees and ignored the motionless, unbreathing armored soldier. She made her way out of the vehicle, stood on solid ground, and first came face-to-face with the man who would redefine Merle’s life: Eugene Rice. She had known his face for years – the whole world had. And when he requested her help, Merle felt a surge of excitement inside her overlap the fear she was feeling. Suddenly, in the midst of chaos and wreckage, of bodies and bullets, Merle was needed. By The First Division.
Her time during The First Division was a short one. The death of Eugene Rice a short time after Merle teamed up with the leader cut the group’s duration short. However, with the only two other members – Amanda Weisz and Donna Tate – leaving for their own safety, and the other members still in prison, Merle had been the only active member for two weeks until Vivian Pang was released and took over the leadership role. Along with the other members, Merle rejoined and become an official member of The Second Division.
For months Merle’s parents developed an uncomfortable disposition around their daughter, unsure of how to react to their daughter being psychogenerative. Marcella was more supportive, allowing Merle to live with her and her fiancé during Merle’s off-time. Mostly, Merle spent her days at the various locations The Second Division operated at. Being a member of the crime-fighting group became her life. She was an obsessive fan living the dream she always wanted, but that quickly died. It quickly became real. The circumstances in which she joined The Second Division were simply because she was the only remaining member who fought by Eugene’s side during his final days. Even then, Merle was just a budding telekinetic; she never had been much help to Eugene Rice. Under the command of Vivian, Merle was expected to perform to the group’s standards. The young telekinetic spent most of her time practicing, straining herself to hone a skill she had never been taught was possible before. During the first rise of Desecration in the ‘90s, Merle was backseat member. She took on smaller tasks, solved smaller crimes. To a group that had hassled with fame, Merle was just a background extra for the time being. Rarely did she see the spotlight; most of the world knew of her, but the name “Zenith” didn’t take hold until 2003 when WW3 began. In-between The Second and The Third Divisions, Merle returned home and stayed with her parents who had begun to accept Merle after seeing the work she had done. For a year, Merle travelled with The Poet who, despite not being telekinetic, taught Merle a fair deal. When WW3 began, Merle had been more prepared; she was part of the first group of The Third Division members to head over to China. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Merle’s face was plastered over propaganda posters and in commercials. Next to The Poet and The Good Doctor, Zenith – the fair-skinned, bug-eyed woman in the dazzling gold headscarf – was pivotal to the group’s identity. The prospect of war stole Merle’s attention, but every now and then she caught the wandering eye of a soldier and felt the pressure of growing popularity.
After WW3 ended and Merle lost several friends, she followed the others and decided to retire. Returning home to America suddenly meant people wanted pieces of Merle. She appeared in several television and radio interviews, but the idea of publicizing that aspect of her life felt wrong after a while. Initially it was exciting; she wanted to tell her stories, embellish the tales; she was still a diehard fan underneath living the dream, but she had seen enough over the years that it felt wrong to still be that. She was in her thirties – she was a grown woman who had been to war and back. She had killed, almost been killed. It only became a tangible realization when she was sitting on couches or chairs in front of cameras retelling her half of the story. When the war was over and only real life remained. Suddenly there was no more fan gushing over all those times she fought for the greater good. It was just a battered, aging woman who knew nothing else in life. She had gotten so wrapped up in the idea of being something great that, when it was all over, she had nothing else except for the nightmares, the haunting memories, the blood embedded in her hands.
Like most things, her time in the limelight died down, and after a year of touring, Merle was once again left to find a life to nestle into. She found a home in the countryside of Kansas, adopted a bunch of dogs and painted the sunset. As much as she could, she struggled to forget the life she half-heartedly left behind. She saw multiple therapists, limited her use of telekinesis, and dated a normal, non-psychogenerative woman. Yet, at the end of the night when the television set played the nightly news well into the early hours of the morning, Merle sat up and watched the world still go on. No matter what The Divisions had done for the world, there would always be petty crime. Merle tried to pretend there never was anything wrong, but she always had the itch to fly out into the night and stop the robbers, the rapists, the wrong-doers. She didn’t know what else do to with her time. Life felt empty without Zenith.
There was a point when Merle contemplated she wasn’t Merle Moreau. She was Zenith, only Zenith.
The group was reformed by Sung Jin Lee in 2011, and Merle did not hesitate in rejoining. It felt right; there was an exhale of relief when she stepped into the center of the cramped, circular room, saw all the files sprawled across desks that Lee had been pouring over, and thinking, “this is where I am. This is who I am.” Merle fought alongside The Fourth Division to bring down the resurgence of Desecration and his Cult. At the end of it, she felt the same sort of emotional exhaustion. She lost Nicole Schuester, The Poet, and Sung Jin Lee himself. She had become close to Alex and Shirley Mackey, only to have them leave. When it was all over and Zenith found herself still standing in that circular room, alone and defeated, she didn’t know what came next. She gave up the life of Merle Moreau. She wanted Zenith – needed Zenith. It was the only way she felt whole, felt like what she did mattered. It was the only identity she felt mattered.
For the following two years, Zenith went solo, creating even more of a name for herself; she became known as “The Fashionable Fighter,” and headscarves with open blazers and muscle shirts became the new trend. On her own, Zenith stopped sex trafficking rings, child prostitution and drug cartels; she started, “The Zenith Zone,” an after-school program for young psychogeneratives to feel understood, to find help. At one point, Zenith was a popular joke suggestion for the US Presidency Elections. She felt broken, but accomplished. As one person, she achieved so much, and she didn’t even know that those were her glory days. That time, as a solo superhero, Zenith was at her best.
Eventually, however, important tasks beyond just her carried her to reunite with Vorian von Traupitz – The Good Doctor, the man responsible for backing The Divisions over the years with technology, armor, weapons, and anything else they would ever need. Along with others the two recruited and accepted, they started The Fifth Division. This time, Zenith didn’t feel like the back-up to call on when needed. She wasn’t the timid, quiet woman who went with the flow. She felt empowerment, felt strong. She felt pride and arrogance. It was not the same woman who supported The Divisions throughout all those years, it was a woman who wanted to lead The Divisions how she felt suited her. Rarely did Zenith embrace the fame – she entertained it, was amused by it. Finally, she saw it as power. She used it to her advantage.
It was pure self-righteousness until AW1 began. It still trailed along with her when Vivian Pang re-emerged and took over leadership duties alongside Merle herself and Vorian. Zenith felt that same strength and confidence up until the moments when she stared down the first alien ship that descended.
When she saw all her friends die around her, and when she stood in the emptied street with rubble and ruin all around her, Zenith wept. Harder than she had in years. She broke, wholly, crumbled into soggy pieces. There was no rejoicing in facing the others that survived.
After all things had settled and they left the mess behind, Merle wasted no time in heading back out to Kansas where her little home resided. She draped the singed and tattered headscarf with the “z .” sewn into it over the coat rack, collapsed on her bed, and slept. It was a sleep she wished lasted for the rest of her lifetime.
Two years were wasted to depression, anxiety, to crippling flashback and mourning. Isolated, unfriendly, prone to breaking into sobbing fits at the drop of a hat, Merle Moreau felt like a bruised failure that would never stand again. There wasn’t a lot of other direction pointing to how she should be feeling. At the same time, she finally came to terms with her age, finally understood she was in her fifties and was no longer a young thing that should be running around. Her body ached constantly, not able to keep up with the demanding lifestyle. All that was left in that former life was a small fraction of her brain clinging to the good ole days like it was a lost lover she could never let go of.
Just as she began to grow accustomed to the solitude, Merle found a letter on her doorstep. Simply, it listed coordinates and read: “They’re coming back,” and a small signature at the bottom reading, “Vault”. It took Merle another two weeks of the letter being the only thought on her mind before she wrapped the dusty “z .” headscarf around her and stepped outside.
Like every other time before it, Merle Moreau never was sure giving up on the only life she knew was something she could do.
been.
When The First Division first started circulating the airwaves and the world just started its frenzy over them, Merle had been thirteen. A gangly girl with a gaunt face, ratty hair and the unflattering nickname “Ostrich” due to her large eyes; kids said, like an ostrich’s, Merle’s eyes were bigger than her brain. She was a quiet, reserved girl who burrowed into books during breaks and after school. Though she had friends and there was no genuine reason for Merle not joining them in the cafeteria or to hang-out, she preferred the quiet escape of science fiction and fantasy. Oftentimes she would daydream about becoming a superhero – donning a cape, saving the world, being the hero everyone needed. It was a fantasy she lapsed into often, neglecting real-life duties in favor of writing tales about her superhero counterpart. From her early teenage years up until the time she was seventeen, it was a hope she entertained daily.
Merely days after the infamous death of Polar Storm sparked the rioting and arrests, Merle rejoiced when she first felt something foreign in her head. As if she had sprouted fingertips in the core of her brain, she could feel the warm smoothness of the mug on the bedside table next to her in her mind, like she had absorbed the object inside her skull. It held her curiosity for minutes until the unexpected crackle of thunder startled her and was immediately followed by the shattering of the mug. Somehow, in the split second Merle whipped around to gasp at the window, the mug had been launched across the room and long trails of murky brown coffee were leaking down the wall. As her sister Marcella had been one of her closest friends, it was she who first heard about Merle’s incident. Marcella instantly chalked it up as Merle looking for attention, clinging to the latest trend – until Merle telekinetically lifted the pencil from Marcella’s hands, and Marcella believed her. Instantly Marcella’s stance on it transformed into a protective, fearful one; she warned Merle to not let anyone know, to not let Merle become a target for the government to capture.
Sticking to her sisters’ wishes, Merle remained quiet about the telekinetic episode for the following year – dabbling with the minor elements of it she achieved (mainly just “feeling” objects) – until the Thursday morning at 2am in 1991 when there was a knock at the door, the faint murmur of muffled voices speaking to Mama Moreau. Merle pressed her ear to the door and listened, trying to pick up any significant bits and bites of the conversation, until her own bedroom door burst open and she scuttled away. When she regained consciousness, she was in the back of a moving vehicle, her wrists tethered together and a pounding migraine weakening her senses. That moment would always be a blur to Merle, the gap in-between when she woke up and when she was suddenly clattered on the floor, heaving for air, a sharp pain in her side, and the wails and gunshots of frantic men. The door to the vehicle was torn open – there was heavy smoke in the air slithering into Merle’s nostrils, suffocating her. Like the other woman next to her, Merle clambered onto her knees and ignored the motionless, unbreathing armored soldier. She made her way out of the vehicle, stood on solid ground, and first came face-to-face with the man who would redefine Merle’s life: Eugene Rice. She had known his face for years – the whole world had. And when he requested her help, Merle felt a surge of excitement inside her overlap the fear she was feeling. Suddenly, in the midst of chaos and wreckage, of bodies and bullets, Merle was needed. By The First Division.
Her time during The First Division was a short one. The death of Eugene Rice a short time after Merle teamed up with the leader cut the group’s duration short. However, with the only two other members – Amanda Weisz and Donna Tate – leaving for their own safety, and the other members still in prison, Merle had been the only active member for two weeks until Vivian Pang was released and took over the leadership role. Along with the other members, Merle rejoined and become an official member of The Second Division.
For months Merle’s parents developed an uncomfortable disposition around their daughter, unsure of how to react to their daughter being psychogenerative. Marcella was more supportive, allowing Merle to live with her and her fiancé during Merle’s off-time. Mostly, Merle spent her days at the various locations The Second Division operated at. Being a member of the crime-fighting group became her life. She was an obsessive fan living the dream she always wanted, but that quickly died. It quickly became real. The circumstances in which she joined The Second Division were simply because she was the only remaining member who fought by Eugene’s side during his final days. Even then, Merle was just a budding telekinetic; she never had been much help to Eugene Rice. Under the command of Vivian, Merle was expected to perform to the group’s standards. The young telekinetic spent most of her time practicing, straining herself to hone a skill she had never been taught was possible before. During the first rise of Desecration in the ‘90s, Merle was backseat member. She took on smaller tasks, solved smaller crimes. To a group that had hassled with fame, Merle was just a background extra for the time being. Rarely did she see the spotlight; most of the world knew of her, but the name “Zenith” didn’t take hold until 2003 when WW3 began. In-between The Second and The Third Divisions, Merle returned home and stayed with her parents who had begun to accept Merle after seeing the work she had done. For a year, Merle travelled with The Poet who, despite not being telekinetic, taught Merle a fair deal. When WW3 began, Merle had been more prepared; she was part of the first group of The Third Division members to head over to China. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Merle’s face was plastered over propaganda posters and in commercials. Next to The Poet and The Good Doctor, Zenith – the fair-skinned, bug-eyed woman in the dazzling gold headscarf – was pivotal to the group’s identity. The prospect of war stole Merle’s attention, but every now and then she caught the wandering eye of a soldier and felt the pressure of growing popularity.
After WW3 ended and Merle lost several friends, she followed the others and decided to retire. Returning home to America suddenly meant people wanted pieces of Merle. She appeared in several television and radio interviews, but the idea of publicizing that aspect of her life felt wrong after a while. Initially it was exciting; she wanted to tell her stories, embellish the tales; she was still a diehard fan underneath living the dream, but she had seen enough over the years that it felt wrong to still be that. She was in her thirties – she was a grown woman who had been to war and back. She had killed, almost been killed. It only became a tangible realization when she was sitting on couches or chairs in front of cameras retelling her half of the story. When the war was over and only real life remained. Suddenly there was no more fan gushing over all those times she fought for the greater good. It was just a battered, aging woman who knew nothing else in life. She had gotten so wrapped up in the idea of being something great that, when it was all over, she had nothing else except for the nightmares, the haunting memories, the blood embedded in her hands.
Like most things, her time in the limelight died down, and after a year of touring, Merle was once again left to find a life to nestle into. She found a home in the countryside of Kansas, adopted a bunch of dogs and painted the sunset. As much as she could, she struggled to forget the life she half-heartedly left behind. She saw multiple therapists, limited her use of telekinesis, and dated a normal, non-psychogenerative woman. Yet, at the end of the night when the television set played the nightly news well into the early hours of the morning, Merle sat up and watched the world still go on. No matter what The Divisions had done for the world, there would always be petty crime. Merle tried to pretend there never was anything wrong, but she always had the itch to fly out into the night and stop the robbers, the rapists, the wrong-doers. She didn’t know what else do to with her time. Life felt empty without Zenith.
There was a point when Merle contemplated she wasn’t Merle Moreau. She was Zenith, only Zenith.
The group was reformed by Sung Jin Lee in 2011, and Merle did not hesitate in rejoining. It felt right; there was an exhale of relief when she stepped into the center of the cramped, circular room, saw all the files sprawled across desks that Lee had been pouring over, and thinking, “this is where I am. This is who I am.” Merle fought alongside The Fourth Division to bring down the resurgence of Desecration and his Cult. At the end of it, she felt the same sort of emotional exhaustion. She lost Nicole Schuester, The Poet, and Sung Jin Lee himself. She had become close to Alex and Shirley Mackey, only to have them leave. When it was all over and Zenith found herself still standing in that circular room, alone and defeated, she didn’t know what came next. She gave up the life of Merle Moreau. She wanted Zenith – needed Zenith. It was the only way she felt whole, felt like what she did mattered. It was the only identity she felt mattered.
For the following two years, Zenith went solo, creating even more of a name for herself; she became known as “The Fashionable Fighter,” and headscarves with open blazers and muscle shirts became the new trend. On her own, Zenith stopped sex trafficking rings, child prostitution and drug cartels; she started, “The Zenith Zone,” an after-school program for young psychogeneratives to feel understood, to find help. At one point, Zenith was a popular joke suggestion for the US Presidency Elections. She felt broken, but accomplished. As one person, she achieved so much, and she didn’t even know that those were her glory days. That time, as a solo superhero, Zenith was at her best.
Eventually, however, important tasks beyond just her carried her to reunite with Vorian von Traupitz – The Good Doctor, the man responsible for backing The Divisions over the years with technology, armor, weapons, and anything else they would ever need. Along with others the two recruited and accepted, they started The Fifth Division. This time, Zenith didn’t feel like the back-up to call on when needed. She wasn’t the timid, quiet woman who went with the flow. She felt empowerment, felt strong. She felt pride and arrogance. It was not the same woman who supported The Divisions throughout all those years, it was a woman who wanted to lead The Divisions how she felt suited her. Rarely did Zenith embrace the fame – she entertained it, was amused by it. Finally, she saw it as power. She used it to her advantage.
It was pure self-righteousness until AW1 began. It still trailed along with her when Vivian Pang re-emerged and took over leadership duties alongside Merle herself and Vorian. Zenith felt that same strength and confidence up until the moments when she stared down the first alien ship that descended.
When she saw all her friends die around her, and when she stood in the emptied street with rubble and ruin all around her, Zenith wept. Harder than she had in years. She broke, wholly, crumbled into soggy pieces. There was no rejoicing in facing the others that survived.
After all things had settled and they left the mess behind, Merle wasted no time in heading back out to Kansas where her little home resided. She draped the singed and tattered headscarf with the “z .” sewn into it over the coat rack, collapsed on her bed, and slept. It was a sleep she wished lasted for the rest of her lifetime.
Two years were wasted to depression, anxiety, to crippling flashback and mourning. Isolated, unfriendly, prone to breaking into sobbing fits at the drop of a hat, Merle Moreau felt like a bruised failure that would never stand again. There wasn’t a lot of other direction pointing to how she should be feeling. At the same time, she finally came to terms with her age, finally understood she was in her fifties and was no longer a young thing that should be running around. Her body ached constantly, not able to keep up with the demanding lifestyle. All that was left in that former life was a small fraction of her brain clinging to the good ole days like it was a lost lover she could never let go of.
Just as she began to grow accustomed to the solitude, Merle found a letter on her doorstep. Simply, it listed coordinates and read: “They’re coming back,” and a small signature at the bottom reading, “Vault”. It took Merle another two weeks of the letter being the only thought on her mind before she wrapped the dusty “z .” headscarf around her and stepped outside.
Like every other time before it, Merle Moreau never was sure giving up on the only life she knew was something she could do.
DIVISIONS BELONGING TO: has been a constant member since The First Division, in 1988.
. . .
MASKED//IDENTITY
NAME/TITLE: Zenith
APPEARANCE: having never favored concealing her entire face, Zenith dressed simply in headscarves and loose-fitting, billowy clothing for the most part. For a stint she dressed in a black blazer and bell-bottoms until it caught on as a fashion statement.
Recently Merle has resorted to wearing a simple black, hooded cardigan over top of whatever simplistic blouse/pant combination she finds. She still drapes a silver and indigo headscarf across her head when out in the field in hopes of inspiring others to return to their former superhero counterparts.
TOOLS/WEAPONS: after a confrontation with a Cult of Desecration member who possessed power-nullifying abilities – rendering Merle useless and severely beaten – Merle has periodically taken to carrying a .9mm. When worn, it resides in a brown, leather holster that various Division members have etched their names into over the years. “I <3 Man O’War” is the most noticeable signature.
TRADEMARKS: the symbol “z .” has circulated over the years in regards to Zenith’s small fanbase. It refers to “the zenith point of the sky,” Zenith’s alleged origin of her name. In a costumed interview, Zenith stated, “I went with “Zenith” because of the zenith point in the sky – the middle, highest part. I want people to know that, whenever they look up to the sky, I’ll be there.” During her time in The Fifth Division, Zenith received a headscarf with the “z .” logo sewn into it. Zenith donned the scarf up until AW1.
Though Zenith never had one exact costume over the years, headscarves of various colors and intricate patterns had become somewhat of her trademark. It was the cause of the rise in popularity of headscarves amongst North American women during the 2000’s.
