Xerxes

## Character information

### Personality

strong, ambitious, complex, appreciative, faithful, loving, compassionate, conflicted, harsh, ruthless

### Appearance

beautiful, tall, slender, dirty-blonde hair, hazel eyes, prominent cheekbones, full lips

### Occupation

Benefactor of Nebula Prime (formerly)
Revolutionary vessel of the Umbralord

### Affiliations

Nebula Prime
Apostles

### Goal

To further her father's plans for Nebula Prime
To unite with the Umbralord (both succeeded)
To fuse with the Umbralord so she can be with him forever
To destroy the Lumiking and wipe out the Halo Guardians
To create a new world order with demons ruling over the Multiverse with her reigning by her "lover's" side (all ultimately failed)

### Relatives

* Iron Godking (father)
* Himni (brother)

### Powers and abilities

Ferrikinesis
Ferro-Ergokinesis
High intelligence
Leadership
Exceptional charisma
Mastery of terrorism
Strategist
Business skills
Manipulation
Vast resources
Master Martial Artist
Umbrakinesis (through the Umbralord)
Immortality

### Type of Character

Tragic Theocrat

*"I can see where you're coming from regarding the Black Queen. But you're wrong on all three accounts. You see, the cosmos is an ocean. The waves rise up and fall time after time, and they crash into each other. If the ocean was always still, the ecosystem would stagnate along with it, and life could not be. Yet if the ocean was always turbulent, nothing could be safe, let alone productive, in such a horrific environment. If the importance of balance wasn't already obvious, I hope it is now. Within this ocean, good fish and bad fish win hands and lose hands, gradually transforming the ocean floor day by day. The last thing it needs is some self-righteous space witch pouring a bunch of devastating chemical pollutants in there and screwing everything up!"*
―Xerxes explaining why the Black Queen is a detractor of balance rather than a contributor - her most famous quote.[src]

*"Humanity has always been irritatingly opposed to change in any shape or form. Demons have no place living opposite physical beings; we should learn to live together in harmony. And we will, because my love and I will unite everyone! And the Multiverse will know our unbreakable bond of matrimony!"*
―Xerxes disclosing her motives[src]
**Xerxes** is a major character in *Superquack: Focal Point* and the daughter of the mythical warlord known to all as the Iron Godking and the younger sister of an intrepid warrior named Himni. After her father became a religious icon to both the Ironers and the Outriders, both of whom worship him as a ruthless God, she learned about the Lumiking and the Umbralord and fell madly in love with the latter, who the Iron Godking was working to release from incarceration. She merged with the demon, but her extreme recklessness and greed summoned horrific cosmic forces that brutally destroyed her, thwarting her plans of cosmic revolution yet changing the entire Multiverse forever.

## Biography

### Early life

#### Envying her brother

Xerxes was born in a mysterious alternate universe shortly before the Brightening to an extremely mysterious and mythical entity known to all as the Iron Godking, who had long since become a powerful warlord and participated in multiple world event across the millennia. She grew up with him and her extremely doughty brother Himni in Nebula Castle, a citadel located in the Region of Pure Iron, which was the capitol of the Dominion of Iron. Ever since she was a small girl, she took a fascination towards the spirits, began meditating into the Astral Plane, and dedicated much of her life to studying them and their ways, much like her father had done. Her sharp wits and the fact that she was a ferrokinetic prodigy gained her great attention and acclaim from her peers, but it did not prevent her father from being biased towards Himni. Her father began raising Himni as his true heir from an early stage, all while he disparaged Xerxes for making increasingly farfetched life goals and lacking self-restraint as well as for being something of a weakling physically compared to her kin. Despite this, an increasingly bitter Xerxes watched Himni as his father took him into his confidence and educated him in politics from the side, and began to train herself in the nuances of hegemony based off of what she had observed. The Iron Godking had always wanted little Xerxes and her brother to experience the cosmos firsthand, and she once went with Himni and her father to the Black Multiverse.

#### Training

When Xerxes was fourteen, the Iron Godking watched as she came to the rescue of Himni when he almost drowned saving a frog. She became uncharacteristically indignant and courageously questioned her father, inquiring as to why he had not helped Himni. The Iron Godking responded that Himni's life would be of far lesser value had he proved incapable of making it out on his own, but thanks to Xerxes they would never know whether or not Himni would have made it. Xerxes reluctantly agreed that he would be a disgrace to his powerful father if he had not survived his endeavor without interference, surprising the Iron Godking who realized he may have treated her too harshly.

Furthermore, he stopped personally training Himni and had his training carried out by underlings, while his daughter began learning martial arts and ancient lore from his knee. Xerxes' father started favoring her over her brother, believing his daughter had the endurance, complexity, and charisma that his son miserably lacked, believing he had once been too blind to see it. Her father also taught her how to use iron to augment her physical blows in combat to compensate for the proportions of her delicate frame. Over the next decade, Xerxes often displayed her natural talents, along with her tendency for malice and perfection.

In the mix, she briefly interacted with Joey, but became cold when she learned he venerated who she deemed as horrible people and jeered at her for wondering if demons being separated from humans was a bad idea, throwing in some well-placed insults she would not soon forget. She observed as her father grew tired of Joey's repeated failures to complete covert missions, and paid three disenchanted Ironers to start a nasty rumor to discredit Joey in 2049. Thinking he deserved worse for offending her and making her father look bad, Xerxes took matters into her own hands and warped Joey's mind, making him hallucinate and assault three children and gloat over the bleeding, dying boys even as police were arriving on the scene. Joey avoided arrest and, in his shame, went into exile for years to come. Xerxes never told her father what she had done to his former accomplice.

### Legacy

Despite her defeat, Xerxes' actions had changed the entire Multiverse forever. Blaming both himself and the Umbralord for losing Xerxes, the Iron Godking turned on both the demon and his angelic counterpart and pronounced himself their mortal enemies, unwilling to follow through after seeing how his callousness affected the most loyal of his allies. Moving away from Xerxes' delicate and decaying body, the Umbralord was able to save the Iron Godking from being possessed as the Lumiking made for her father's extremely muscular and powerfully built one. This directly led to the unexpected cosmic phenomenon known as the Separation of the Divinities, which would radically affect the entire multiverse for eons to come. While Xerxes' downfall had ultimately brought about her father's redemption and effectively thwarted her plans of cosmic revolution and permanently ended her influence on the Outrider and Ironer civilizations, the civilizations would not soon recover from the ramifications of her actions, despite her father's every attempt to heal his people.

## Personality and traits

*"I love him with all my heart, all my soul, all my might, and all my mind. And our forthcoming romance will quite literally shake the stars."
"This is exactly how dangerous parasocial relationships can form. Legion doesn't love you. He can't love you. Legion doesn't* know *you. He can appreciate you but he can't freaking love you."*
―Xerxes and Superquack[src]
Xerxes is a beautiful young woman, being tall and slender, but not at all muscular, with long, curly, wavy dirty-blonde hair, a widow's peak, unique hazel eyes, and a heart-shaped face with a wide forehead. Her eyes are large and widely spaced. Her nose is thin and her cheekbones are prominent. Her eyebrows are darker than her hair and are relatively thick. Personality-wise, Xerxes is a strong, ambitious, and complex young woman with a brilliant mind and an innate appreciation for the natural order of things, always being happy to be of help to other people. Vowing that she had complete faith in her father, who possessed an extremely strong connection with iron, she admired how he was openly worshiped by the Ironers and she herself forged lasting friendships with those among the species' upper hierarchy. She even proclaimed that her father is the wisest man alive, and she trusted his judgment, citing that any mature individual would certainly do likewise. She is faithful, resilient, kind-hearted, caring, and regardless of her apparently harsh attitude, she's a caring and selfless woman who is rather compassionate towards women, especially Morgan. However, despite being extremely helpful in general, she also seems to be really effervescent and never seems to be genuinely worried about anything.

Beneath Xerxes' bright and perky demeanor was a conflicted woman willing to cross lines differing in several ways from what most would consider acceptable ideals of good and bad. Ultimately, she was supremely defined by her irrevocable and genuine love for the Umbralord, being willing to do anything for the man she dreamed of entering a blossoming romance with. She intended to become the undisputed lady of all life after uniting with the man of her dreams, their thoughts becoming one as their combined power shaped the cosmos as they desired. Whereas her father despised the Lumiking for his role in significantly reducing the role of iron in the Multiverse, Xerxes despised him for the threat he posed to her love interest and wanted him and his followers known as the Halo Guardians dead very badly.

Despite her ruthlessness, Xerxes has always had good intentions, intending to force a new world order of demonology on society for its own good. Xerxes even took this a step farther by brutally ripping much of the light from the body of the Lumiking and murdering several of the Halo Guardians, wreaking such suffering entirely of her own volition because she was enraged that the Halo Guardians tediously limited the Umbralord's influence on humankind. Having been raised by who it was, she viewed her actions as a necessary means to an end that would accomplish the greater good, as her father had taught her. Xerxes did not view her plans or the Umbralord as evil, correctly claiming that maintaining a balance with the darkness on all worlds was paramount to their natural order. Ironically, it was her excitement about finally being with the Umbralord that brought about her tragic demise, as she got too excited over-exerting her new demonic powers and their ability to make everything better, which directly caused her to suffer an agonizing death.

## Powers and abilities

* **Iron Physiology**: While not as strong as her father, Xerxes is an immensely powerful being in her own right who utilized her father's personal technique imparted to her through intense training which involved converting the energy particles within iron to accomplish stupendous feats. She can create, shape and manipulate iron and iron compounds, including pig iron, steel, cast iron, and the like, though not to the degree of the Iron Godking. Since pure iron is quite soft, she commonly combined it with alloying elements to make steel, earning her father's ilk.
	+ **Iron-enhanced condition**: Xerxes is able to use iron to enhance her physical and mental attributes, which is crucial in combat and compensates for her soft muscles and compliments her skinny body. Hence, she is able to jump extraordinary distances due to the increase in strength and react faster due to her augmented speed. However, this augmentation was not in effect when the Umbralord possessed her, leading to her death as without iron enhancing her condition, her delicate body could not sustain the divinity's tremendous dark power.
	+ **Ferro-Ergokinesis**: Xerxes can manipulate the energy released naturally by metals and project swirling energy waves of distortion into her environment that affect the nervous systems of other living beings, causing extreme vertigo, nausea, disorientation, and have them experience hallucinations. Her ergokinetic ripples can render others unconscious, and can also interfere with the superhuman powers of others, preventing their use or causing them to function incorrectly, as shown when she baited Joey to attack the innocent. Xerxes can selectively focus her power on one or more individuals, or affect every being within range (the exact limit of which is never made fully clear).
	+ **Telekinesis**: Xerxes is able to move and influence objects through mere gestures and focus.
* **Animakinesis**: Xerxes was able to make use of her great knowledge of the Astral Plane to gain an advantage over her foes. Thanks to her allegiance to the Umbralord, she and her father were granted control over black spirits, which she used as a vanguard against her enemies.
* **Trans-dimensional interaction**: Unlike ordinary humanoids, Xerxes can touch non-corporeal entities or at least individuals whose bodies are out of phase with the Earthly Plane, being able to burn an enemy to embers with the Hellfire Chain.
* **Singularity**: Due to her divine nature, Xerxes is completely unique in the multiverse, with no variants of her existing in any other timeline.
* **Demonic Empowerment**: Xerxes fused with the Umbralord, granting her incredible supernatural powers at her disposal. Xerxes is able to channel her powers to a degree in her human form, but her powers are greatly amplified while the Umbralord assumes control. The demon believed that if they were fused for longer, then Xerxes would be fully capable of contacting and summoning mystical beings from other dimensions, and she herself believed that with her long-harbored theoretical knowledge on how to summon beings from other dimensions, she would be able to use the Membrane Sphere to absorb their lifeforce within her merged spirit bonded with the demonic legion, in theory enhancing both of their powers to an unfathomable degree.
	+ **Transformation**: One of Xerxes' most prominent and visible ability is to transform into the Umbralord's likeness, during which time the powerful demon takes control of her body. Even before transforming, a fiery red glow can be seen in Xerxes' eyes when she uses her powers. Whenever transforming or using the Umbralord's powers, she sometimes lets out an erotic demonic screech.
		- **Superhuman condition**: Despite having once been physically average, Xerxes displayed a certain degree of superhuman strength, which allowed her to nearly overpower Superquack, even after being thrown across a spatial chamber by the duck. She also became nearly invulnerable to harm or damange when the Umbralord assumed control. Her durability seems to be strongest when she is fully aware of her surroundings.
		- **Regenerative healing element**: The supernatural energies that empower Xerxes provide full recovery from any damage done to her. Xerxes has described herself as nearly impossible to kill.
		- **Hellfire Manipulation**: Xerxes is able to control and generate mystical fire. As a demonic host, she is resistant to fire and seemingly no flames are capable of burning either her or her clothing. She is able to imbue an iron object she touches with fire, using the object as a melee weapon, which she has done to a pipe and a series of chains.
			* **Thermokinesis**: A sub-power to her manipulation of fire and enchantment, Xerxes is capable of applying heat to anything she touches. She can set any object in a high-temperature state causing anyone to feel a burning sensation without infusing fire.
			* **Heat Immunity**: Because of her demonic physiology, she is immune to heat and burning.
		- **Dark Matter Detection**: Xerxes possesses an extrasensory ability that is made to sense and track the presence of objects and beings made of Dark Matter.
		- **Interdimensional travel**: Using a Hellfire Chain, Xerxes is able to open a fiery portal to another location, gaining the ability to move tremendous distances instantaneously and travel between different dimensions and universes, crossing over different planes of existence or traveling across various forms of reality.
* **Master combatant**: Xerxes has a tendency to not involve herself in battle, but when she does partake, she displays great skill, speed, agility, and ferocity. Her fighting style revolves mostly around evasive tactics, using her head to work her way around enemies, even in close combat, in order to unleash iron to enforce their submission. Her delicate muscles are compensated by her using her iron physiology to augment the strength of her blows, making her a considerable force in her own right.
* **Chain mastery**: Xerxes is extremely skilled in using her Hellfire Chain for combat even though she was self-taught. She was able to use it to defeat numerous armed members of Nebula Prime.
* **Master acrobat**: Xerxes' years of training have made her an extremely skilled master acrobat, gymnast, and aerialist, being able to fluidly dodge attacks from multiple directions using coordinated flips, twists, and sharp turns without losing balance. She often utilizes these talents in combat for both evasive and offensive purposes.

## Possessions

*"It's my boyfriend's. He doesn't have much use for it in a cage."*
―Xerxes[src]
**Hellfire Chain**: Xerxes possesses a mystical object given to her by the Umbralord which enables her to open a fiery portal to another location.

## Trivia

* There was initially much confusion amongst readers as to whether the Umbralord's influence drove Xerxes to kill the Halo Guardians as revenge for being trapped in the Cage of Eras, or whether Xerxes did this out of her own volition because she was the vindictive one. D. Isaac Thomas confirmed that she killed them of her own accord on account of being enraged that the Halo Guardians tediously limited the Umbralord's influence on humankind.
* Xerxes can be considered a foil to Wanda.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *Superquack: Focal Point*

Template:D.I.T. Literary Universe