Prototype Zeus

Prototype Zeus is the inner virus of the former GENTEK scientist and bio-terrorist of New York: Alex Mercer.

Early History
Prototype Zeus's life is not one for those feint of heart. He began his journey as a soul of Alex Mercer chained in the deepest and darkest corners of the hive mind while Alex still didn't have it developed. During his time in the first outbreak, Zeus could only watch as Mercer slayed his way through various infected monsters, Blackwatch Soldiers, Cops, Marines, Gentek Scientists, and Innocent Civilians in his way to find his past and kill whoever made him the monster he was. When the hive mind itself was created, Zeus could see the people that Alex had consumed and needless to say, he was not happy.

When Mercer had discovered that he himself was the virus when hit by the Bloodtox, Zeus was positive that Mercer would end his fruitless crusade, but alas it was not to be as Mercer continued to destroy the more peaceful ways to destroy the virus forcing the military and Blackwatch to resort to the nuclear bomb. When Mercer took that out, that was the moment to strike, but Zeus needed the people's help to do so.

Mercer had left New York to find someone, something, to believe in, an anchor of sorts since Dana just wasn't cutting it due to her fear of him. When Mercer went back to Manhattan, Zeus witnessed him unleashing the virus a second time but with a stronger dose of Redlight added to the mix instead of Blacklight itself. He made creatures that were stronger, made people into evolved, and sabotaged some of the cures created for the virus.

It was when the man infected James Heller, did they see their chance of defeating Mercer for good. When Mercer encountered Heller again, Zeus took over and told Heller how to get stronger as he was not strong enough to face Mercer in battle. When Heller encountered Mercer again after killing Konieg, the hive mind souls took note of Mercer's slip up and realized their plan was working. When Mercer was about to consumed Heller, Zeus managed to make an acid to melt off the arm implanted in Heller's chest, making the man believe to be un-killable by Mercer. It was when Heller got to the Red Zone and began to take more of Mercer's minions and Blackwatch operations did Alex now get infuriated. When Mercer confronted Heller for their final showdown, Zeus held him back to not use his full power since spreading the virus had drained his power to sliver of what it once was. When Heller emerged victorious, he consumed what was left of Alex before Zeus hightailed it out of there when the people told him to live his life however he sees fit. Inside a crystal Prison, Zeus was content to remain there forever. But, it appeared fate had other plans for him.

Hunter vs. Zeus
When the monster known as the Supreme Hunter comes back from the dead, he goes on a mindless rampage to bring out his father, Alex out of hiding. With no luck finding him, Hunter spreads his strain of Blacklight across all of New York, killing everyone caught within the viral cloud. This event brought Zeus to life, who investigated the destruction before him. He figured out that something was responsible and that something was the Supreme Hunter, after its powers were pushed beyond their normal limits since not even he was capable of this much damage with his own powers.

When he got to the Mountain Valley where he followed Hunter's scent with his new feral senses, he battles it out against Hunter in a brutal battle that does serious damage to the entire valley of Mountains they are in before they get interrupted the arrival of Splice and Black-heart two new organizations that specialize in destroying infected rather than creating them. The troops target both monsters, giving them the code names Hulk and Wolverine. Black-heart attacks them both forcing Hunter and Zeus work together to take down Black-heart until Splice intervenes bringing out superhuman experiments not infected with the virus but mutated and genetically altered by it upon injection with their blood streams along with doses of differing radiation. Splice and Black-heart see the results and are impressed by the two's teamwork. The two monsters are eventually defeated by the overwhelming forces and are taken to the base of Splice to be tested for their levels of power. While this is happening, Zeus finds some secret file on Blackwatch and Gentek's history with Redlight and sees that it was more spread out instead of being kept in one place. He breaks out of his prison and sets off to free Hunter while taking out the guards in his path along with the super human experiments.

The two break out and kill every Black-heart soldier and Splice scientist involved in the project but the super-humans manage to fight them both until the two monsters absorb their life force adding it to their own. Zeus and Hunter do another battle this time to the death and Zeus using tactics instead of brute strength, emerges victorious before absorbing the Hunter's life force and its powers gaining the muscle hammers. With Hunter fully dead, Zeus sets out to find out the truth behind Blackwatch and Gentek, who made them, and their history with the super-viruses.

Prototype: Quest for the truth
On the hunt to find out what the truth about Blackwatch and Gentek along with the viruses themselves, Zeus goes to the place where it all started, Hope, Idaho. When he goes there, he begins to find clues. So far, he finds nothing that can give him any leads and seeing himself hit a dead end leaves him to find out where any inactive operatives are and talk to them to get some information.

Going straight towards Miami, Zeus went looking for the closet former Soldier being Commander Darkness. Finding the man was easy but getting some answers without killing him proved to be challenging for Zeus. When the man gives him the information he needed, he goes straight towards Africa to find some clues as to how the continent was a spot for Blackwatch and Gentek for the viral tests. He infiltrates the convert city facility and finds some of the footage that plays from the 1980's where the soldiers and scientists not only experimented on animals but also humans as well turning them into something more than ordinary. The changes intrigued him to an extent meaning Redlight went a lot further than Idaho. His progress is interrupted when an evolved with shotgun-saws attacks him. He defeats it easily and absorbs it life-force and its powers gaining the shotgun-saws themselves.

Going back to his main mission after the interruption he finds some of the locals following him through cameras on the buildings. Needing to disguise himself, he changes his clothes to a color palette while also shortening his hair and lessening his muscles. When he goes to a local pub, he finds some clues in the books they place has and goes to Las Vegas. There, he finds that Blackwatch and Gentek had been doing some experiments hidden from the government and the military both to keep something unknown and covered up.

Growing suspicious, he then travels to Texas only to get attacked by a superhuman with whip-tendrils. Zeus fight the superhuman but the whip-tendrils prove to be too much for him, until he fires his blade claws along with spikes from the arms, which wound the girl. He asks who she is and why she attacked him. She told him because he was discovering to many secrets about Blackwatch, Gentek, and the virus and he needed to be put down before he goes any further. Angered by this response, Zeus absorbs her life force and gains the whip-tendrils at his disposal and goes further heading to Chicago. The boy then finds out that Blackwatch had Gentek create a new virus from the Blacklight virus itself but seeing how powerful and dangerous it was they kept it top secret and buried it away.

Zeus then finds out bout the Illuminati group and goes to there based in Detroit where Blackwatch was still sanctioned. Fighting the entire armada of soldiers and their equipment wasn't easy but he managed to prevail and in the end fought his way up to the top where he encounters a group of men and women inside the tower. However, instead of fighting them, he gave them a warning that if they even step out of line and come for him let alone anyone else for their sick plans, he'll come for them and permanently put them down, and he left them ready to begin his new life.

Prototype 2: the bane of Jack Arson
Two years after his quest for the truth, Zeus is enjoying his new life in Russia being a restaurant worker making some good money to pay for his place. While traveling home, he is suddenly attacked by an evolved who mistakes him for someone named 'Arson' and he fights back. Discovering the evolved had a mind control chip attached to her neck, he takes it off freeing her from its control. The girl snaps out of her violent trance and realizes she had been mind raped by Arson and heads back to Japan, not knowing that Zeus put a tracking device on her left leg.

The following night, Zeus creates a clone of himself to hold his job position until he comes back to Russia before heading off to Japan. The tracker leads him to Shibuya where finds the entire city covered in black bio-life force instead of biomass. He encounters one creature called a dire wolf and battles it gaining its strength making him destroy entire city blocks within his sight when he's holding back his power, even though he can decimate mountains and now he could destroy an entire island if he wanted to do so. When he gets to the spot of life city, he finds out that Blackheart is taking some people inside of concentration camps to separate the people from the evolved and made new viral scanners to scan the entire body just by walking through them, making sneaking inside really hard for infected creatures disguised as humans. But, this didn't deter superhumans whose abilities were natural to them and didn't come from a virus itself. Zeus went back and found some clues to Arson and what kind of person he had been before becoming a monster.

It turns out he was a former Navy SEAL commander before he was infected by an infected superhuman named Samuel Zorksin, who lost his entire family of his parents, siblings, and grandparents in a viral outbreak when Blackray made itself known to the world after the creatures of Blacklight were away. Zeus finds files on a new super-soldier program called project Prometheus which are stronger, faster, and much tougher than the d-codes and Orion super soldiers. When he goes to a camp with only ten of them, he is surprised when none of them make a move to spot him or even confront him. He realizes that he is not their target as the Blackray infected beings are the real enemy to face. When he sets out to find some of the Blackray infected, he is attacked by one super soldier who is a female in build but muscular in stature while still being normal sized. He fights her, but spares her life as he is not the enemy let alone with those monsters.

This information surprises her and she asks him why he's in Shibuya. He tells her about what happened while he was in Russia and wants to find some answers on what's going on in Japan. He then flies off into Osaka where he finds some evolved that we’re looking pretty muscular in build to do some heavy damage to a Prototype made out of biomass, too bad for them he wasn’t even made of biomass. When he goes to find Arson, a female evolved attacks him. He fights her with his powers but her jet pack makes it difficult to land any hits with his close ranged weapons. He resorts to his tendril-whips but she dodged those as well. He then imagines a pair of canon legs and they form from his legs. He manages to hit the evolved with the canon on his left and hits her with it multiple times severely damaging her.

He fires more rounds until she hits the ground, bringing to his level of play. Zeus questions her but she refuses to give him answers and tells him to go to hell where he’ll rot, Zeus retaliates by saying she goes first and absorbs her life force. He gains the jet pack power before he feels more flow through him and falls to the ground unconscious. He wakes up and finds himself surrounded by multiple evolved. He then unleashed a devastation similar to Heller’s but more powerful and different in output as he stomps the ground hard, and unleashed a wave of spikes, tendrils, blast waves of life force. He kills the doctor responsible for their creation and goes to his partner, Doctor Zoey. The boy finds her gone, only to realize she was on his trail from the start when he arrived. He does battle against her after taking out her ambush attempt, finding out that Arson had evolved her with his strain of Blackray.

The boy is then confronted by the former Navy SEAL commander, and he is told by Arson himself that he didn't mean or even wish to unleash Blackray, but he didn't have a choice in his grief. Zeus gets curious about this information and was going to question Arson until he finds some sort of GPS map pinpointing Tokyo as the Green Zone. Zeus goes there and finds some video footage of Arson and his family enjoying a good time at the mall of Tokyo until he is found and confronted by Blackdeath soldiers who shoot at them. The bullets went through Jack but killed his wife and son. Arson was so stricken with grief and anger that he unleashed the Blackray virus which killed the soldiers but mutated everybody else. Zeus got that Arson just wanted someone strong enough to kill him. He then infiltrates a meeting for a cure called white-ray and sees the effects that cure the virus meaning Arson hadn't poisoned it like Mercer did with the Whitelight cure back in New York.

The boy then goes to a military base in disguise of a Blackdeath soldier to get some answers as to how the cure was created, but is found out by a super soldier. Zeus fights against the forces and hightails it out of the base before the strike team arrives, but the damage was already done and now Blackdeath was on his trail. Zeus manages to get to the heart of the city and hides for a while to let things cool down, on a walk he is potted by a female evolved who greets him and takes him to a hideout. Multiple evolved who are civilians are plotting to kill Jack but seeing how powerful he is in comparison to them, they believe Zeus is the only one to kill him. Zeus goes to a facility on his own accord and finds out that Arson had a secret dose of his blood dripped into an air balloon carrying the whiteray cure within. He destroys it and this gets Arson's attention.

The man attempts to consume the boy but finds he is more durable than him so he sets out a leviathan to kill Zeus. Zeus emerges victorious but finds out that the monster was a distraction so Arson could consumed the evolved rebels. He gets back to the base and sees puddles of blood including the female evolved Sierrica. Zeus now knew he had hit a dead end in his journey but with luck, he found a new ally in the form of Arson's daughter, Laura. The two meet up in Kyoto being the red zone of sorts despite it being small.

Laura tells him that her father is wishing to spread the disease all over Japan and only Zeus can stop it. Zeus heads out towards the point of the balloon holding the cure and uses his feral senses to see that they are all poisoned with Blackray. Zeus destroys them all by burning them, frying them, using whatever method to eliminate the virus. When he hears about a plan to use battleship torpedoes blowing the entire country to smithereens, he destroys them while taking some of the hits himself. He then goes back to Laura and finds her missing, only to find a message from Arson telling him to find him if he wants her back. Zeus then confronts Arson on in a park and the two battle. Zeus emerges victorious over Arson, and the man tells him to protect his daughter from harm. Zeus absorbs Arson's life force and uses his new power to destroy the virus in all areas before finding Laura who was locked in a bank vault.

Zeus then asks Laura if she wants to come with him to Russia to leave Japan behind and she gladly accepts his offer. The two leave the country and Laura is ready to begin her new life.

Prototype 3: destruction of Blacklight
Two years after the Arson incident, Zeus now 18 years old is living back in Russia with Laura taking refuge with a changed name. Zeus is still working at the restaurant but he's now living with Laura who had nowhere to live or even go at the time. As he is walking home from work he thinks about how he managed to get Laura to stay with him until he pulled some strings to let her live in a place of her own, until then she could stay with him. Laura was excited by this news and loved it there at his place with some decoration required.

On his way home, Zeus hears a scream and checks it out. He sees a woman being attacked by a creature of bizarre nature in shape and form. The creatures roars and lunges at him but he manages to dodged it at lightning speed. He prepares to fight the creature with his blade-claws but the creature flees the area prompting Zeus to take the woman to a hospital. Laura sees the news footage and digs up some more footage, seeing the creature in different areas. She sees the creature actually consuming people into it's body as opposed to Zeus who absorbs the life-force of his victims.

The next morning, the creature makes and appearance in broad daylight and spreads the Blacklight virus all over god-town city, infecting everyone in the vicinity. Zeus and Laura are unharmed by the deadly gas of death, and the two decide to engage the beast. The creature gains and upper-hand and pins them both down, trying to infect them but their skin was too durable. The creature left the two in the ravaged city and the two fought their way out with Zeus gaining a pair of wrist blades, a sword hand, tank armor, and dragon wings whereas Laura gained a pair of knives, a dagger arm, a pair of berets, a battleship torpedo launcher, an echolocation sense, and a pair of bat wings for flight. The two battle through the horde of infected creatures while the creature continues to spread the virus until the two Prototypes encounter it again.

The creature is revealed to be the Blacklight virus embodied that wants its existence to finally end. Both Zeus and Laura fight the creature with everything they've got and manage to defeat it before cutting to pieces and consuming it. The two unleash a devastator destroying the virus across Russia becoming extremely powerful as a result and the two now leave Russia and move to Germany to start a new life for themselves.

The Prototypes
Ten months after the Russia fiasco, Zeus and Laura are ready to finally relax with no battles. The two have been thinking of getting married to each other. But, that would have to wait as humanity is aware of super humans and begins a war against them. Zeus and Laura survive an ambush and the two are forced to fight in order to survive. The two prototypes then encounter a Zypdonian who leads them to a bunker hide out. Zeus is surprised to see other evolved there and ask why they are there.

They explain that they're joining the war after the military in their new home countries had killed their friends and some of their family members. Zeus was furious about this but Laura managed to calm down his rising animal fury. The group of super humans make plans to fight back against humans without being lethal, but they see that they won't work, so they have to hurt the humans back to give them a message. They mobilize and put down the hunting groups without any sign of remorse for the loss of human life.

When the group is attacked by an armada of aliens, the humans shoot them down and tell them that a ceasefire has been called to take care of the alien invasion. Zeus is suspicious about this but complies while the others had interest. They go with the military base where the other super humans are stationed at and form a plan of attack for the aliens when a ship as huge as the sun covers the sky. It sends out battle troops stronger than a Kryptonian but still weaker than a Zypdonian that could crush stars and star-shaped planets. Zeus, Laura, James, and Natasha dealt with them easily even though Heller and Parker were weaker in comparison to Zeus and Arson. The four prototypes manage to gain a win but upon absorbing their life-force, they discover the aliens are planning to destroy Earth along with the universe by awakening Azathoth, the monster that is dreaming all of reality. This makes them shudder in terror and tell their group before the ship unleashes a canon with the power of the entire cosmos. Heller and Parker are killed in the blast but Zeus and Laura survive.

The two make it back to base only to see more aliens with various powers and abilities battling their faction. The two then decide to take the fight to the aliens and wreck the sun sized ship to pieces with Zeus slamming into one the size of a VY Canis Majoris. They discover the invasion is just a distraction as one the size of an NML Cygni is going towards the heart of the universe and awaken Azathoth. They defeat the incoming armada with some help since they weren't the only ones who could breathe in space and the group gathers to destroy the last ship. They see it near the heart of the universe itself and intercept its pathway with Zeus taking charge.

Once the group destroy the ship by blowing its power core, they all head home and celebrate their victory over the alien invaders. Zeus and Laura retire to a cabin near mountain canyon and enjoy their quiet life together, forever. And Zeus's life of fighting is officially over for good so he can grow as person from here on out.

Apperance
When Zeus began his journey, his clothing consisted nothing short of a brown long coat with a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans, and brown boots while he had an athletic muscle build. Overtime however when he grew in size he changed his clothes to a more traditional black leather overcoat, a black t-shirt with a red biohazard symbol on his chest, black jeans, black steel-toed boots, and black fingerless gloves. His physical appearance changed with his muscles being more defined like they were sculpted onto him while his hair grew to his shoulders and was pitch black in color while his eyes remained ocean blue for the remainder of his journey.

Personality
Zeus started out as an untrustworthy individual who can be easily angered whenever provoked and tends to fight like an animal, but he grew out of that phase on his quest for the truth and only fought in self defense, just wanting to be left alone.

He then began to trust people much more becoming more open with them and his heart began to find love when he met Laura Arson. He likes to use his power to protect rather than aggressively attack and can become enraged whenever the thing he protects gets hurt or even killed, never going into depression.

There are times when he thinks deeply on some things and gets ashamed whenever he remembers his past actions, but when it comes down to a mission, he's focused and serious to the core he sometimes makes a sarcastic remark or two but often times he's quiet and blunt to get to the point. He utterly hates long talking and just gets mad whenever it goes on too long and asks someone to shorten their speech just so he can "go home." He also hate monologues and just give the person doing so two options: either cut to the chase or shut up and get out of his way.

Other times he tends to keep to himself and stays away from others but whenever someone offers him company he accepts it just so he can save time from arguing with them, even though some sharp others notice his mood change.

Powers and abilities
Zeus being the first and possibly last inner virus to come to life has his powers and abilities different from Mercer, Heller, and other prototypes to a colossal degree.

Superhuman strength- Zeus at first started out with his power being below Hunter's, being able to destroy an entire city in just one smash with his own two fists while one punch could destroy an entire town. He later grew stronger to decimate entire island to continents even stars with his own sheer strength alone. He is able to pick up battleships, skyscrapers, islands, and half of a moon while flinging around alien ships the size of stars. He's also pretty strong in the legs as he can jump great heights and distances going 500 miles across and 600 meters up.

Superhuman speed- Zeus is able to run at speeds of Mach 5,650 which is faster than the fastest jet plane in existence. He is also able to react to bullets and lasers from laser pistols and even catch bullets while deflecting laser beams with his armored shield.

Superhuman durability- His durability is greater than any other prototype on the planet as he is able to take mountain busting punches from Hunters muscle hammers while also taking hits from super-humans who can destroy stars themselves and even planets larger than Earth itself with no sign of injury. Heated up bladed weapons can still hurt him if he doesn't dodge them in time.

Superhuman endurance- Zeus's body structure is different in that he has muscles, bones, and organs but they are a lot harder to injure. When he falls from a very great height, he often leaves a crater the size of a meteor landing with a width of 12 feet. His stamina is so great he can fight for a whole year without rest and even still has enough energy to keep on fighting, thought there are times where he needs to rest up and let his reserves charge back to full health.

Shape shifting- like many others of his species, Zeus is capable of shifting his form but unlike others who need to consume biomass and shift into humans, he can simply turn into a puddle of black-light and enter a hosts bloodstream taking their shape without killing them and shift his entire body to a plethora of weaponry.

Superhuman agility- Zeus's agility is unlike anything ever seen due to him using lightning fast reflexes and reacting to rockets and missiles just by hearing them come for him. He can also dodge lasers and beams of light being fired at him and dodge multiple fast attacks making it look like he's dancing instead of fighting.

Life force absorption- Unlike the previous prototypes, Zeus can absorb life force from any living and nonliving object within his reach with either his bare hands or his shapeshifter weaponry.

Offensive powers
 * Blade claws- Zeus's first power was the blade claws, a combination of the blade and the claws. When in use they are deadly up close and personal being able to scratch up tanks and cut down jeeps, trucks, and choppers. Unlike Mercer and Heller however, his blade claws actually come from his knuckles instead of replace his fingers. He has a claw pounce, and a claw lunge with these monsters.
 * Muscle hammers- the most powerful weapons in his arsenal. He uses these to crush battleships with multiple punches while they can obliterate tanks with just one while also having ground spike equipped with them. He can use hammer dive and hammer elbow drop onto enemies and objects, while also having a strong punch that send out a wave of spikes towards enemies, and a great smash that sends out a wave of spike the size of skyscrapers.
 * Tendrils whips- The tendril whips are useful for combat and travel. The combat situation is for when he whips them around like chains slicing through foes while the tendrils do what was used by Heller but send out the life force around him instead of using his own, but if there isn't any of it he'll use his own life-force. The travel part is for when he links to a building and uses them to either get him on the building roof or swing him around a corner quicker.
 * Wrist blades- The wrist blades are more quick to cut through flesh and bone and have more stabbing power than the blades claws since they can rip up a spine with a stabbed twist and rip it out of the victim.
 * Sword hand- a longer use than the arm blade since it produces from Zeus's hand and he uses this to slice through bullets, missiles, and torpedoes coming his way along with stabbing multiple objects like a babushka before throwing them in the direction he points at.
 * Chain fist- The chain fist is a lot stronger than the whip fist since it can be used to bring down buildings on multiple enemies in front of Zeus.
 * Stone fists- Stone make Zeus fists a lot larger than the Hammer Fists themselves and can cause untold destruction, and are even stronger than the muscle hammers themselves being able to crack open a star to its core.
 * Shotgun-saws- A combo of saws and shotguns where Zeus can fire double rounds of life force for ranged attacks while using his saws as chainsaws to cut his enemies.

Defensive Powers
 * Armor guantlets- Zeus's armor guantlets are the most potent defense power as they defend him from missiles and jet bullets that punch through tank armor like butter while forming onto his arms.
 * Dragon scales- Dragon scales protect Zeus and increases his durability thousand fold to take torpedoes and attacks that destroy planets and stars.
 * Thick skin- gives Zeus very thick skin that is slightly stronger than the dragon scales and can protect him from all forms of light attack while heavy ones can still hurt him.

Travel powers
 * Jet pack- Zeus can fire up a jet pack on his back and use them to fly at the speed of sound.
 * Canon legs- The canon legs help Zeus increase his jumping height, jumping distance, and blast off into the sky to give his dragon wings or jet pack a boost for flight.
 * Dragon wings- The dragon wings can help Zeus fly though the air and glide much more safely to through ground.

Skills
 * Hand to hand combatant- Zeus surprisingly has an incredible amount of hand to hand skills even using them to defeat Parker and use them to defeat and even kill Supreme Hunter.
 * Weapons master- Zeus is a professional in weapon use where he can use various bladed weapons and guns.
 * Intelligence- Zeus's intelligence can help solve the most complex puzzles, decipher alien language, and understand foreign language being spoken to him.

Weaknesses
Zeus always tends to be pretty aggressive with his opponents and they can use that to their advantage to make him sloppy in his attack patterns.

Heated blades can slam through his skin and pierce his muscles, bones, and organs. So Zeus tends to dodge them rather than take head on since they can hurt and even kill him.

Quotes
''Sometimes I always felt like I was an animal fighting to defend himself from threats. ''- Zeus talking to his aunt Dana Mercer, after everything calmed down. (Hunter vs. Zeus.)

People always rarely think about how others would feel since they always want to be the big fish - Zeus feeling resentment towards humans treatment of other species that wish to be equals. (Prototype 2: The bane of Jack Arson.)