Hercules

For April, Stone Soldiers.info is celebrating the A to Z Blog Challenge with daily letter-themed entries. A separate page with a list of all these entries, plus Character Profiles and Book Synopses will appear on the right hand side of the page in coming weeks, detailing the people, places and things of the Stone Soldiers universe.

Book of Stone: Hercules

(A Stone Soldiers Encyclopedia Entry)

Imagine if you were immortal--that your body never aged, and you always seemed to recover from any wound. Imagine you were the son of petty monsters who portrayed themselves as Gods and tormented mankind for their pleasure. Imagine if you became a Christian...

The legendary character of Hercules has existed in many forms in fiction for well over a thousand years. A mythical man, the bastard son of Zeus, the "king of the gods". A mighty warrior able to defeat supernatural beasts such as the Hydra. 

Kevin Sorbo played the Son of Zeus for four seasons, showing us a Hercules who was not at all pleased with how the Olympian "gods" tormented mankind. His Hercules fought for humanity, using his prodigious strength to defend the weak. All in a pre-Roman era.

But what if Hercules had been immortal? What if he lived on, well past the lifespans of his closest human friends? What would such an immortal do. 

In Black Knight Down, we get the answer. Hercules became a Priest.

No matter where he wandered in the world, the Son of Zeus would have heard of the miracles of Christ. He could have seen firsthand the hope and help this new religion offered those who had been tormented by demons and the offspring of fallen angels. And as the Church liked to convert the most hideous of heathens, and convert pagan sites and holidays, it isn't too much of a stretch to see Earth's mightiest mortal become a man of the cloth.

Working quietly for the Church, moving from parish to parish, changing his name every few decades, Hercules did just that, finally encountering the Stone Soldiers in 2013, in a little town called Salem, in the heart of Oklahoma. Father Lee Schuler had come there to investigate the Black Knight satellite's crashing to earth, bringing with him dire warnings that the satellite must never be opened. For Hercules knew what it contained: the Titans of pre-history, evil First Born off spring of Fallen Angels and the progenitors of Zeus and his malicious Olympians. 

With Father Schuler's help, the Stone Soldiers traveled to Mount Olympus, entering a secret Temple within the mountain, where a magic portal to the true home of the Olympians was hidden away. Together, Son of Zeus and Stone Soldiers defeated the Titans and destroyed the portal, hopefully preventing the return of the last Titan.

Parting ways, Father Schuler returned to the Vatican, more than likely to assume yet another identity and continue the Church's work. But given the dark forces at work in the modern world, it may well be only a matter of time before demigod and supersoldiers cross paths once more...