Zielo

* "Fallen"
* Original

"*I am everything and nothing.*"
―Zielo
**Zielo** is the main antagonist of the *The Murder of Me* comic series created by Gigi Dutreix. He is the leader of his Soulless and the youngest of the three original gods, Celios and Heephis. Being corrupted by sin and murdering his own brothers, Zielo is forever bored, currently "playing a game" with all of existence and the Sons of Heephis themselves. His original appearance is similar to that of Silver the Hedgehog.

## The Fall

A long time ago, the brothers Zielo, Heephis, and Celios lived in a universe without evil. Then, "sin" corrupted the brothers. It is said that Zielo, the youngest of these three brothers, was corrupted the most. Filled with new, evil energies Zielo slayed both Celios and Heephis. Through his murder, he also absorbed their power.

Zielo then became the only god in existence, drunk with limitless energy. After this event, it is assumed the Dark God was put to asleep.

## The Final Sacrifices

Two unlucky characters, Jonathan Hedgehog and Fox, had been lead into one of Zielo's temples by Anna Croi. Trapping them in Ini Pyramid, Anna Croi uses them as final sacrifices for Zielo to "reawaken" (Issue #1).

## ​​​​"The Glowies"

Zielo had taken pieces of Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Silver the Hedgehog's souls when they were very young. He seemingly took Sonic's when he was 6, then subsequently murdered Jules the Hedgehog. When Zielo took Silver's piece, it was after a mass murder of his people. Shadow's piece was taken while in captivity, the location unknown.

The order in which he took the 'Glowies':

* Sonic the Hedgehog (Age 6 at the time)
* Shadow the Hedgehog (Age unknown)
* Silver the Hedgehog (Age unknown, was very young)
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## ARC 1

In the beginning of Issue 2, Zielo first appears seemingly playing a "game" with Bernadette the Hedgehog, referring to her as a "spark". Zielo's energy controller is then taken from Bernadette, though he did not seem to care. If anything, it seemed this event was made start to his "game." When Zielo returns to an unknown location, a soulless asks Zielo forgiveness for not returning the energy controller Bernadette had stolen. After asking for mercy, Zielo immediately incinerates him. Afterwards, Zielo turns Sonic's mother into a soulless herself. He became bored of Bernadette, and thus felt her spark had “burned long enough."

​​​​​In Issue 3, Zielo is seen watching Sonic from the buildings in silence, as if waiting.

​​​​​​In Issue 4, Silver's world is seemingly consumed and torn by pure darkness. A voice booms through the darkness,

"This worthless world displeases me. Let everything be erased from existence!"
-Zielo (Issue 4)

When Sonic, Shadow, and Silver are united, a soulless is shot from a strange location to his death, the soulless screaming "Master please have mercy!" After the trio of heroes arrive at the Master Emerald altar, hundreds of soulless plead for their lives. All of them look towards the top of the pedestal, all crying out for their "god" and "master". (One soulless was destroyed in particular, causing the crowd to freak out more.) Suddenly, a silhouette figure comes from behind the Master Emerald. Seemingly angered, Zielo slams his hand on the Master Emerald, causing it to crack. Zielo then walks into view of his slaves and Shadow, Silver, and Sonic.

Sonic recognizes Zielo as the one who murdered his father, and in anger almost storms to Zielo. Shadow and Silver hold Sonic back quickly however, and then covering his mouth. Meanwhile, the soulless cries only become louder and more desperate, praising Zielo in hopes of sparing their lives. Annoyed with the chatter, Zielo silences them all. While walking down the Master Emerald Alter, he elaborates that his soulless had directly disobeyed him in attacking Sonic, Shadow, and Silver (referring to them as "Sparks"). When he grabs a soulless frozen in the air, he demands an explanation for their disobedience. After blabbering excuses, the soulless decays immediately. This causes all of his soulless to decay into nothing, causing Sonic, Shadow, and Silver to just stare in shock.
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Recovering from his own inner turmoil, Sonic pushes Shadow off and charges at Zielo. Sonic is suddenly stopped, mobilized by Zielo. Zielo then starts decaying Sonic's face, as he started becoming slightly annoyed after being having to "repeat himself". He is stopped by Silver, who uses his power to hold ZIelo. The Dark God then throws Sonic to the ground, disinterested, and walks towards Silver. Silver attempts to push his power on Zielo further, freezing him, but Zielo easily breaks out of the hold. He stands over Silver, reminding him that Zielo was the one that destroyed his world. Being brought to tears after Zielo nonchalantly talks of the many lives he stole from Silver's future, Silver pulls a tree from the ground and threatens to destroy him. Annoyed once more, Zielo causes Silver sudden internal pain and makes him throw up blood. Zielo smiles wildly for this, until he is interrupted by Sonic once more. Sonic, using his new "god powers", tells Zielo to leave his brother alone. The Dark God only points at Sonic in annoyance, not liking to be interrupted, which causes Sonic's powers to hault. After turning back to the blood covered Silver, he finds Shadow's "Chaos Cannon" being pointed at him. Shadow stands up to Zielo, interrupting and threatening the Dark God. More annoyed by this, Zielo causes the trio of heroes to hold their heads in pain as his bottled anger rises from this. He demands them to bow to him, in which Shadow, Silver, and Sonic are forced to the ground. Zielo then takes the energy controllers the trio found in Issue 2 and 3. When asked who he was, Zielo proudly states that he is the Dark God, the most powerful being in the universe.

Shadow challenges Zielo, considering being a god was a very big claim. Excited by this opportunity, Zielo suddenly brings upon the 7 chaos emeralds, to which he easily destroys. This erases chaos energy completely, causing the whole world to suddenly feel dark and empty. ( This also makes Shadow lose his own chaos power) After showing off a touch of his power, Sonic's mother take the trio of heroes to the edge of Angel Island, and then drop them into the destroyed city below.

 Zielo is not seen again until Issue 7, where in the beginning he seems to be watching Shadow, Silver, and Sonic struggle against the Perfect Chaos creature. After Shadow, Silver, and Sonic's god powers glitch out after fighting with all of Zielo's soulless, the Dark God himself appears on the water. He seemingly floats towards them, disappointed on how boring they seemed for him. Intending to take their souls, Zielo's mouth cracks through his whole muzzle unnaturally and starts sucking their souls into him. Zielo had almost taken their souls when a flash of light from the sky distracts him. This causes Zielo to stop and look up at the sky, where a bright light lands between him and the trio. From the smoke, Antoine D'Coolette raises his sword at Zielo and warns him to back away from the trio. Zielo erupts in excited laughter, commenting...

"One Game Ends... Another Begins!"
-Zielo (Issue 7)

At the end of Issue 8, Zielo is sitting in a strange place crawling with soulless. His thoughts bounce off the soulless, his concern to always seeming to be bored. He admits to giving Silver, Shadow, and Sonic the energy controllers to make them more entertaining, but worries it may not be enough. He then spots a soulless Amy Rose after commenting "I need something to *break.*.." and then erupts in laughter.

## ARC 2

After Sonic is able to knock out his soulless mother, Zielo appears and throws Sonic around the buildings. He does this in hopes to see Sonic's rage, and after some time it works. Sonic comes from the rubble, enraged and fueled with his god power (now with the Heephis energy controller helping it). Sonic pushes himself throwing every attack he has at Zielo, who uncaringly "waits". While forming his energy sword and attacking, Sonic starts to loose himself in his own power, as it becomes so much. His energy controller tries to tame it, but when Zielo is seen silently looking down at Sonic, it angers the blue hedgehog. Enough to make Sonic slip into god language and make his attacks more intense and uncoordinated. By this point, Sonic is so lost in his power that he accidentally stabs through his mother, who stands in front of Zielo after Sonic attempts to stab Zielo. After Sonic's mother turns into ash, Zielo laughs at the silent Sonic, commenting "has your spark already burnt out"? This angers Sonic so much, he turns into Tainted Sonic.

Tainted Sonic goes more crazy, tapping into more power and making comments slightly similar to Zielo (EX: "Lets play a game with god!"). Zielo does not show much change in emotion to this, and continues to look down at the Tainted Sonic. At one point, Zielo throws Tainted Sonic to a building hard, tempted to fight himself but afraid he may erase Sonic in the process. Tainted Sonic starts making less and less sense, insanely blabbering of his own power being "So much". Zielo wonders if Sonic's sanity has broken him more than expected. Tainted Sonic then takes Silver and Shadow's powers, and uses it to attack Zielo full force. After laughing of the idea of Sonic hurting him, Sonic catches Zielo by surprise.

And almost scratches Zielo.

Zielo's emotions ripple through every living being in the universe, causing the color to seemingly drain from every place. His soulless freeze and look towards his direction, feeling his anger. Silver, Shadow, and the demi gods are touched by the raw emotions. The emotions being so powerful that it causes them to hold themselves and hunch over, feeling a strong sense of "wrong". After relaxing, Zielo throws Sonic to the ground, exclaiming to not interrupt him ever again. Tainted Sonic mocks him, to which Zielo hums the Tainted Sonic away.

After Tainted Sonic loses Silver and Shadow's powers from overuse, he tries to attempt to stab Zielo once more, but Tainted Sonic's power falters and shuts down, causing Sonic to fall down, paralyzed. This slightly surprises Zielo, but after lifting Sonic to inspect, he finds he can still torture Sonic, and that his game is not over yet.

We see in issue 13 that Zielo is severely malnourished, almost similar to Silver back in ARC 1. The reason for his physically weakened state is not known and it does not seem to affect his power.

In issue 14, we get the first look at Zielo untainted. He appears to stay silent as Celios confronts Heephis over the misuse of his powers. His body language is reserved and closed off, which may give a hint to the power dynamic he has with his brothers.

## Snowfall Dreams

At the very end of Snowfall Dreams, we see Zielo watching over The Sons of Heephis as they laugh and play in the snow together. His appearance is brief, but we can see that Zielo's appearance remains deathly thin.

## Personality

Zielo is often seen as very aware of how much power he has, as he often remarks how powerful he is. He also likes to display it in some occasions, such as shattering the chaos emeralds or making Silver throw up blood without so much as a touch from him. It is believed that Zielo is currently corrupted, as shown through his nonchalant murders of his own followers or seeing someone suffer. He particularly likes to play games with those he finds will amuse him.
Zielo is also a meticulous planner, and becomes enraged when one thing does not follow his plan (ex: the soulless attacking the Triple S). Zielo hates any display of interference or free will, and deems every living things beneath him. Zielo has a tendency be very unpredictable, as his emotions jump from calm and collective to extreme annoyance or giddy excitement.
The Dark God is extremely selfish and self centered, seemingly making the soulless praise him even though he destroys his followers anyway. Sometimes, when Zielo is observing or thinking, he plays with his large quills/hair.

## Trivia

* ​​​​​​TMOM hints that Zielo may have been much nicer before the corruption (AKA The Fall), but there has been no flashbacks or confirmation other than teases made by Gigi.
* There was an Ask Zielo Day on Gigi's Tumblr a few years ago, which gave more hints to Zielo's character, though Gigi claimed that nothing about Zielo's answers were canon to his character.
* Zielo often has blood in his mouth, and it is unknown if it's someone else's blood or his own.
* Zielo's va, FantasyVader, is a trans girl and goes by she/her pronouns.
* In various fan works, more specifically The Lover of Me, Zielo is associated with control, the flow of time, space, and stars. **NOTE\*:** Gigi has said the game's depiction of the gods are **not canon**. The following information should be taken *very lightly.*
	+ There is a heavy importance of control of your save file, your character, and your choices. This is a nod to the amount of control Zielo has over you being a pawn in his game.
	+ In Silver's route, Zielo is less cruel to his copy and instead speaks to him in a civil manner. The reason for this is unknown, as he is particularly cruel to Sonic and Shadow in their respected routes. Fans have taken this as Zielo seeing himself in Silver.
	+ Zielo is omnipotent and knows everything you do. Similar to his knowledge of everything happening in the comic.
	+ In Silver's route, Zielo is often compared to the moon. This is to contrast how Heephis is often called and referred to as "the sun".
	+ There is heavy importance of stars in many routes of the game. Reason being Celios would make them for Zielo as they made him happy.
* According to Gigi via tumblr: "*Zielo was originally going to be a form of Silver and not his own character. This was waaay back before I even had gotten a DA. This was also when I was more of a bad speller and thought I should’ve spelled Zielo’s name as Zylo, I kept the spelling because it just looked unique. I don’t think his name has any other language significance other than it means “green” in spanish."*

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