Fight Gus!

As you've might have already noticed, my latest deviations are all related to my old stuff, complex (or just messed up and complicated) stories, re-imagined to cleaner versions of the characters. They all served in someway, even if with the tiniest details, as a backbone to the Apkallu Mythos and to my creations as a whole.

But this one in specific was one of my favorites. His original name was "King Aplô". Here he's re-imagined as King Gus.
It was back in 2006 when the Apôlôrak Series immersed itself on the world of medieval fantasy, after a long run on sci-fi material (such as time travelling) or after basing itself on platformer games. Of course the references goes back to our subconscious, deposit of everything we consume, so it becomes a maze to distill from where this might have come from. But here it is quite clear: the "11" (my number on school's attendance list from the 6th grade) on his shirt indicates it's a soccer team uniform (it was created during the world cup), his sword is almost like Sir Jayko's and his shield is fashioned like a Lego Knights' Kingdom one, but after a stylized Dunkleosteus (my all-time favourite animal) face.
During that time, on the character's story, he was already King of the Aplôraks (beings which look like this), serving as a diplomat between the underwater world and the surface. The Aplôraks and its allies, the Minotaurs, served their creator the Spirit of Water. This was just one of the elementals from a league of benefactor spirits. To gather their people, there were created efforts such as the Vohk Knights and the Paladin League, which gathered at a Hall of Heroes. The story of the character began with him as a Paladin to protect the spirit of water. After becoming a King, he was undisputedly the leader of the paladin league as well. So all in all, despite his accumulation of jobs and responsibilities, he was in a fine and enjoyable life.

He defeated his major enemy Lapolo (who's the spirit of fire in his son form on the Un-Holy Trinity) more than some three times already. The universe of this continuity had characters from many cultures using some fantasy-inspired armors, no matter to where they were sent (underground, volcanoes, frozen tundras, rainforests...). At cities of the overall globalized world, this one used a quite "spider-man symbiote" suit with a knight helmet instead of mask. But despite this, in this part of the story he lost his crown, and then, all the armor which generated from it. To supply it for the battle ahead, again facing the same old villain, he dragged a belt (or band) to use in his head. It had scripts from the "Apolókhen language" (Apolókhens would be but like a generic tell to the Maori culture - even though the writing system is like nothing there is on earth). That's the funny part. Despite in this latest version I didn't show anything written on the white bandage, I used to hide its meaning, taking use of the fact it would never fully show a sentence (as his hair covers it up), making no use having the "Apolókhen decoder" (I did an alphabet, so I had the decoder too) to translate it.

Whilst in the comic book I did to show the last battle of this arc it was meant this belt served as a talisman of water elemental powers, it was more like a love letter that another character gave him. It was like if his love for Ann (a paladin like him) was what could replace the powers that came from his lost crown. I'd never admit they had a relationship back in 2006. Unfortunately, the story has undergone on a darker twist before I could ever affirm it. It was a differential for all the renditions of the protagonist character, who at all times used to be a loner and never having a girlfriend, despite his best efforts. After him, as well, the brown hair became a constant. He himself had black hair just in the last comics before this arc. The stories of King Aplô overall had inter-dimension travelling, but almost never he let to fight the last batles without armor. When he did, he was drawn almost like this version (but of course with the traces of a 12 year old).