Circe

*"Would you like to see what it is that the gods fear?"*
―Circe
***Outcast Of The Gods***

**Circe** is an ancient demi-god, an immortal sorceress, orchestrator behind the fall of the gods, and sworn enemy to Diana Prince, also known as Wonder Woman.

## Biography

### Origins

#### Zeus's Fears

*"You... Zeus... king of kings... You're afraid of me."*
―Circe to Zeus
Circe was the daughter of the Goddess Hecate and an unknown mate, though throughout most of her childhood, she had been told her father was nothing more than a lowly mortal. With such speculation, Circe was ostracized from the moment she was born, with her own mother lamenting that she rather Circe turned out to be a boy. Despite this, Circe was still taught the ways of magic by her mother and had developed a strong understanding of it at an early age. This was in part due to Circe's constant and somewhat morbid curiosity, as she would frequently experiment with what she had learned on whatever she could get her hands on, which were often humans and animals. Hecate, along with the other gods, rarely found this troubling, as they were gods and stood above the mortals by birthright. Unfortunately, Zeus began to grow cautious of Circe, not for her behavior, but at the sheer speed that she progressed.

By the time she had matured, she had far surpassed her mother's skill in sorcery, already establishing her as one of the more powerful of the Greek Pantheon. Zeus's caution had festered into paranoia. With each passing day, he saw the death of Olympus in her more and more. Hoping to stifle her growth in power, Zeus hastily banished Circe to the hidden island of Aeaea with no contact with the outside world. Circe demanded to know why such a punishment was inflicted upon her, Zeus refused to indulge, resulting in Circe being able to conclude herself that he was fearful of her growth, causing her to taunt Zeus with this truth. Enraged, Zeus stripped her of her divinity and sent her to the island to live the rest of her days.

#### Return

Bitter and outraged by her banishment to Aeaea and stripping of her power, Circe trapped herself and the island in a cycle of destruction and rebirth. Unable to leave the island, Circe spent her days transforming insects and bugs into towering titans of power only for her to subject them to a slow and agonizing death moments later. Or she would merely mutilate the abomination further, and let it hobble off with a tortuous existence ahead of it. With each cast of violence, Circe imagined its effects on Zeus and the other spineless gods who stood by him.

However, one day, she was visited by her mother, Hecate, who dearly missed her daughter. In a final act of motherly love and desperation, Hecate gifted her daughter with her soul and godly magic so she may have the strength and power needed to leave the island. In her last moments, she begged her daughter to make amends with Zeus, something which Circe begrudgingly agreed to. Circe left the island and made her way back to the peak of Mount Olympus. There she plead her case, asking for Zeus's forgiveness. However, Zeus sought to take advantage of the situation, demanding she kneel and tearfully beg him not to strip her of her mother's power and send her back to the island. Begrudgingly, Circe obliged, but Zeus still wasn't done.

For a final task of loyalty, Zeus had Circe accompany him to enact judgement on the princess of Colchis, whose beauty and generosity had been said to surpass the gods by her own people. Zeus and Circe arrived during a public banquet in her honor, where Zeus ordered Circe to "remind them all of their place." Circe understood the intent all too well. With a newly reinvigorated fury in her heart, Circe mutilated and murdered those present at the banquet before silently swearing to wipe out the gods of Olympus.

### War of the Gods

#### The Corruption of a War God

Though Circe sought retribution, she was not so arrogant to think she alone could stand against the might of Olympus. As such, she sought to make an ally, before deciding upon the god of War, Ares. Over time, Circe planted seeds of doubt and suspicion within the minds of humanity, sparking conflict whenever possible. Circe knew that the brewing wars amongst the humans were of little concern amongst the gods, as they thought themselves far above the affairs of mortals. However, she knew that Ares, who psychically fed off of the conflicts of man could not ignore it. As the wars grew greater, so did the strength of Ares. But his mind also began to cloud with not only a thirst for more power, but with the pains and madness of a battle that could never end. Circe began to influence the minds of those who fought, increasing their sadism and depravity to further fuel Ares's power and madness.

However, Circe's plans were complicated by the creation and arrival of the Amazons, who were tasked to quell the conflicts and distrust Circe had worked so hard to create. Circe turned her attention to the Amazons, seeking to destroy their trust in the world of man, proceeding to organize countless slaughters and defilements of the Amazons. Her plan worked, as it drove the Amazon named Hippolyta to take up the sword and convince the rest of her Amazon sisters to take up arms. However, Circe did not relent on her torment of the Amazons and instead doubled down, plunging the world of man to even greater depths of depravity and sadism. Her actions not only further drove the Amazons to become distrustful and hateful of the men they were supposed to protect, but also drove Ares to even greater madness until the horrors of man's wars reduced Ares to little more than a rabid and animalistic shell.

#### The Final Play

Circe unleashed the unhinged Ares upon Mount Olympus, where he tore through the ranks one-by-one. While Olympus was preoccupied, Circe opened the gates of Tartarus and released the demons and dead onto the surface world, compounding the chaos. Circe watched the battle unfold further, enthralled as Ares entered the battle on Earth, with what remained of Olympus in pursuit. Circe delighted in the ensuing battle, right up until Ares was defeated by Hippolyta. To Circe's dismay, Hippolyta chose to spare Ares, and instead opted to turn him over to the gods to face judgement.

Ares was to remain as the Amazons' prisoner, with his power suppressed so that his mind would heal. With Zeus still alive despite her plans, Circe became enraged. That night, Circe sought to slaughter the weakened remains of Mount Olympus, but instead she bore witness to the reward the remaining gods had intended to give the Amazons: A hidden island home and "a child born of no man." Circe saw these rewards as mockeries personally directed towards her efforts and struggles and as testaments to her failure. Enraged, Circe let her presence be known to the other gods, and Zeus, using the last of his strength, attempted to seal her away. However, with her last breaths, Circe declared she would return when the Gods had grown too weak or too dead to keep her chained and she would exact her revenge on the symbol of the god's unrepentant arrogance: "The Child Born of No Man."

## Powers & Abilities

*"If such spineless creatures can be gods, then what shall we call Circe?!"*
―Circe