“Needs must when the devil drives.” It has been a saying I have long subscribed to in Arcadia.
It means, when you’re desperate, you must do things you ordinarily would not do.
I realized that when Zeus came knocking at my door just after I had left my parent’s home.
He’d heard of my talents, and he promised me in my early twenties that within ten years if I allowed him to make use of my talents I could be retired in luxury by my mid-thirties.
Well… needs must, and all that.
I set to work for Zeus, any of his problems were my problems.
And I was damn good at making them… disappear.
I was a real weapon of war when it came down to it.
No task too big, no task too small, I did it knowing that eventually I could rest, and maybe then clear my conscience.
Then, I turned thirty-seven, Zeus even held a clandestine party for me.
It was there I told him I wanted to retire.
Over twenty years of “solving problems” I could no longer close my eyes without seeing the face of every one of those “problems”.
They came for me that night, fifteen of Zeus’s elite troopers, and Ares.
Again, the devil drove that night, and I was left with no choice.
Sixteen men came into my home, counting me, seventeen souls in total.
Only two men left breathing…
Ares and my broken body over his shoulder.
When I awoke, I sat before Zeus…
And he gave me the option to reconsider my retirement.
But me, at that age, with all the damage that over twenty years of…
“Solving problems” had gotten me…
I just hung my head a beaten man, and waited for a death that never came.
Instead, I was put here, for how long, I lost track.
Then came Red Hood, asking for volunteers for Deathrow Wrestling, a chance to get out of this purgatory I’d been stuck in…
And a little voice that had been silent for decades said…
“Needs must when the devil drives.”
I listened to that voice, and it has taken me this far.
A Deadman Walking with eight others in the same situation.
But here’s the thing…
I may have grown old and grey here.
But I’m still a weapon of war…
And yes, while still see face of every “problem” when I close my eyes but what’s eight more faces compared to my freedom?
What can eight prisoners do to a man that systematically eliminated fifteen of Zeus’s guards?
Nothing, they can do nothing, and they will do nothing…
Because I’m a desperate old man…
More desperate than they could ever be.
Because I have realized the peace, I was promised in my younger years was nothing but a pipedream.
Now, I am willing to use my talents to take back every moment that was stolen from me.
To make those on Olympus breathe the same fetid air that I’ve now inhaled for decades.
To show them that I am consequence to their lies.
Because I refuse to be a nobody any longer.