The Order of the Omega, known to the outside world as the Fraternal Order of St. Paul, is a highly conservative faction of the Catholic Church who study the Omega Event.
History[]
Early History[]
At some point in the past, the Catholic Church was formed out of a group of sun cult worshipers who served the Four Legendary Kingdoms (primarily the Kingdom of Land) as devoted followers. Later, a faction within the Church's Omega Group, who primarily studied the Omega Event and the knowledge of the Super-Ancient Beings, formed and called itself the Order of the Omega. The primary reason for this faction's forming was due to their stronger beliefs in some of the Church's original doctrine teachings, such as women being subservient to men.
The Order of the Omega became a reclusive and private order, and so, unlike the more vocal factions such as the Jesuits and Franciscans, were largely left alone by the greater Church. The people who knew of the Order's existence, and not its real mission in studying the Omega Event, came to know them as the Fraternal Order of St. Paul. The highest-ranking members of the Order would each be given a new, holy name starting with the letter 'e' upon their initiation.
The monks of the Order spent many years of its existence collecting a number of artifacts and artistic items that they believed to be related to their holy mission of studying the Omega Event and the trials of the Super-Ancients, and even managed to make a charcoal rubbing copy of a tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos. These items were stored them at their private lodgings within the Gallerie dell'Accademia. Valuing their collection, the Order would punish those who attempted to steal their artifacts by pouring liquid stone over them.
When he was a young man, Garthon Rastor joined the Order of the Omega, but soon found that their monastic lifestyle was not for him and left.
By the present day, the monk known as High Brother Ezekiel became the Order of the Omega's de facto leader.
Since the time of the Tartarus sunspot rotation, the Order became aware of the exploits of Jack West Jr and his team in overcoming the trials of the Super-Ancients, and even Jack's disruption of the Four Kingdoms' rule over the world after the Great Games of the Hydra.
The Three Secret Cities[]
When the former King of Underworld showed Jack the now-broken tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos he possessed, Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe noted that the Fraternal Order of St. Paul were believed to have made a rubbing of the tablet and kept it at the Gallerie dell'Accademia. After Hades was captured, Jack decided that the team would be better off having all available information relating to the Trial of the Cities, and set out to infiltrate the Order's lodgings to view the charcoal rubbing.
Suspecting Jack's goal, the Knights of the Golden Eight contacted the monks of the Order of the Omega to warn them and request that they delay Jack and his people from leaving the Gallerie in order to give them the opportunity to catch them.
Indeed, Ezekiel and a few of his brothers soon found Jack and Lily West after they had found the rubbing, holding them at gunpoint while noting Jack's notoriety. Ezekiel noted the Oracle of Siwa's presence, but it wasn't until after he had explained who the Order of the Omega really were and demanded to know why they had snuck into their lodgings that he snapped at Lily as she tried to answer. The Order's unofficial leader then showed the pair what they did to intruders, before revealing their intention to delay their departure so that the Knights could capture them.
As Jack initiated an escape, he shot one of the monks and snatched up the bullet-proof casing of the Order's Vitruvian Man piece to protect him and Lily from the other monks' gunfire. After killing the other shooter, Ezekiel and the other remaining monks scattered as Jack and Lily began making their escape.
Some days later, as the Trial of the Cities neared completion, the Order of the Omega gathered up their valued antiquities and departed their lodgings at the Gallerie, evidently to prepare for the final trial of the Ancients, the Trial of the Mountains. When a news report covering the week's events brought up the Fraternal Order of St. Paul's disappearance, Alby Calvin noted to Zoe Kissane his suspicion of their intentions.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
Some time after the conclusion of the Trial of the Cities, Jack, Zoe Kissane-West and Hades went to the Order's abandoned lodgings in Venice to look for anything useful the monks might have left behind.
In the final days before the Omega Event was due to occur, Ezekiel made his way to the third iron mountain beneath Potala Palace, so that he could perform the Fall there and earn passage into the Supreme Labyrinth. In order to improve their chances of success within the ancient maze, Brother Esrael was sent with a group of loyal Romanian soldiers to take control of the second iron mountain at Aiguille du Midi.
At the same time, a group of the Omega monks led by Brother Enoch was sent to Rome so that they could take advantage of the sleep-struck city, caused by Sphinx's use of a Siren bell, to infiltrate the Vatican Secret Archives and locate the uraeus of the Great Sphinx of Giza, in order to examine it and determine the multiple that would tell them where the entrance to the Supreme Labyrinth was to be found.
Enoch's team infiltrated the Archives and made their way into Vault XXII, where the uraeus was kept. As they began their examination, one of Enoch's men reported that had picked up an in-bound aircraft signal, though Enoch was unconcerned when it was reported that it was an aeroplane signature since he believed it would need to land at the airport. Once the multiple, 16 schinos, was determined, Enoch had his men report it to Ezekiel, right as some of his group caught Mae Merriweather and Lynda Fadel watching them. As Enoch fumed that their presence, as women, desecrated their holy location and threatened them, an explosion nearby occurred, and so the Omega monks prepared to leave with the women as their prisoners, albeit ones they would kill if they slowed them down. As they moved to the elevator, two of their number were cut down by a soldier working for General Rastor, who had demanded their presence.
The Omega monks, Mae and Lynda were brought before Rastor in the St. Peter's Basilica, and though Enoch tried to assert that they had no quarrel with the General, Rastor pointed out that they did since they had different goals and was not interested in working with the Order. Rastor then demanded the multiple from Enoch, and the monk's initial refusal cost two of his men before he relented and told the General the multiple. Though he thanked Enoch, Rastor had his subordinate kill Enoch and the other remaining monk.
Meanwhile in Tibet, Ezekiel successfully undertook Fall and was branded with the burning key, and began heading to the Supreme Labyrinth, leaving Lhasa behind some time before Sphinx had the iron mountain there destroyed by a nuclear missile in an attempt to keep any rivals from being able to challenge him.
Shortly after receiving word that Ezekiel had accomplished his Fall, Esrael's group moved to take the second iron mountain, only to encounter Dion DeSaxe and his reinforcements preparing to do the same. Despite their efforts, Esrael's group was unable to prevent Dion from performing the Fall and earning the burning key before destroying the Falling Temple's supports to keep the Omega monks from doing a follow-up Fall.
Esrael and his men soon were surrounded by General Rastor and his men when they arrived. When the large man confronted Esrael himself, he demanded to know if Ezekiel had been successful at Potala before Sphinx had it destroyed by a nuke, and Esrael was surprised that Rastor would know about his comrade's efforts. Rastor began choking Esrael at his lack of response, prompting the Omega monk to confirm Rastor's suspicions. After Rastor dismissed the Order of the Omega's desire to create a world where women served men, he broke Esrael's neck and threw his corpse to the ground before having the rest of Esrael's group killed.
Shortly after Sphinx and his retinue headed into the Emperor's Gate of the Supreme Labyrinth, Ezekiel and a group of Omega monks crash-landed their Learjet in front of the second gate before Sphinx's army of bronzemen and silvermen could move into their defensive positions. Before Jaeger Fünf could do anything to stop them, Ezekiel's group entered the second gate and the Labyrinth, beginning their race to the ultimate throne.
With on day left until the gates to the Supreme Labyrinth were sealed, more Omega monks began preparing to undertake the Fall at the last iron mountain beneath the Sphinx at Giza. While Brother Eli led a group to Cairo to open the entrance within the Sphinx's head, the remaining monks took control of the Lucifer telescope at the Church's observatory in Arizona, so that they could control a lunar rover to remove the thermal foil covering the pedestal on the moon to let them undertake the Fall when it came into alignment with the mountain.
Before the Lucifer team could begin moving the rover, a nuclear missile fired by Sphinx's people destroyed the observatory and killed the monks inside. While the confused Eli tried to get back in touch with them, the pedestal was exposed anyway, and Eli realised that while one of their enemies had been the one to do it, he had to hurry in to do the Fall. But as Eli headed down the shaft, his men were taken down by Jack, Zoe and Lily, who followed the Omega monk into the Hall of the Falling Temple. When he saw his adversaries, Eli tried to initiate the Fall before they could land on the Falling Temple, but was too late and they began the Fall together. As he raced to the bottom level of the Temple, Eli tried to taunt Jack that he would fail, only to be drawn into a fight with the Australian and knocked off the Temple and into the shaft.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
As the Omega monks entered the First Cavern of the Supreme Labyrinth, their arrival was heard by Sphinx and his team, who began attempting to slow their rivals down by destroying a section of the bridge they were crossing. But as the Order of the Omega began their trek, one monk got caught in the greystone trap on the bridge, with his arms and legs getting stuck within the solidified substance. This monk was abandoned by his colleagues as they pushed on to catch up to Sphinx, using a carbon fiber bridging unit to bypass the gap in the bridge and continue on to the Endless Tunnel. Meanwhile, the trapped monk was set upon by a pair of the cannibalistic Vandals Sphinx had left behind, who slowly fed on the hapless monk by taking bites from his exposed sections, causing him great pain and distress.
During their passage through the Endless Tunnel, the Order of the Omega was attacked by a pair of bronze guardians, with the confrontation ending once a crimson orb on the ceiling was struck, causing an explosion that destroyed and melted most of the automatons' bodies, and severely melted one of the monks. The disfigured monk was also abandoned by comrades as he suffered from the liquid fire's effects, who found the several of the "under-tunnels" clogged up by greystone traps that Sphinx's team had intentionally set off to delay them. Once again already prepared for such an eventuality, Ezekiel and his monks used a jackhammer to bore through the solid greystone, allowing them passage.
When Jack and his team arrived in the First Cavern, they heard the pained cries and pleading for death of the trapped Omega monk, and saw the Vandals feasting on him, though they abandoned to monk to go after Jack's group. The agonised monk's wish to die to end his suffering finally came when Rastor started firing RPGs at the stalactite to try to bring it and Jack's people down, likely perishing during the fall as the structure fell into the chasm below.
At around this time, Ezekiel's group arrived in the City-Maze and began attempts to beat Sphinx to the Throne of Life. However, despite their efforts to destroy the bridges leading Sphinx up the Castle and taking down two of the Golden Knights trying to slow them down, most of the monks realised that they would not be able to overtake the Trismagi, and began considering instead taking the Castle and the Throne down with RDX charges so that they could instead travel through the rest of the Labyrinth to the Throne of Death.
When Jack came across the scene of the crimson orb's detonation, he initially assumed that the deformed monk was dead, but after taking his greystone pendant realised that he was still alive. Delirious, the monk whispered to himself the monks' plan to attempt to reach "the second throne if they could not get to the Throne of Life, however Jack didn't understand his meaning since he was unaware there were two thrones, nor could he understand how the terms the monk was using fit.
Shortly after Jack's team reached the City-Maze, a pair of the Omega monks began using sniper rifles to fire upon Sphinx's group as they neared the castle's pinnacle; though Jaeger Sechs was able to return fire and kill one of the monks, the other was able to hit Golden Knight in the chest and send him falling to his death. After Rastor used RPGs to start flooding the City-Maze, a pair of monks making their way down a stranded aircraft carrier were overheard by Jack mentioning the plan to destroy the Castle and head to the Throne of Death. At that moment, Ezekiel managed to place his RDX charges at the base of the Castle, but was unable to set the timer on the explosives before one of Sphinx's remaining snipers forced him to take cover.
To everyone's surprise, Jack used a destroyer's cannon to blow apart the Throne of Life; despite this, Ezekiel quickly ordered his remaining monks to head to the tunnel entrance within the Castle leading to the second half of the Labyrinth and the Throne of Death. As the Order of the Omega raced to the entrance, Jack came across and quickly killed the two monks he had overheard before, while one of the last two monks accompanying Ezekiel was taken down by Rastor's men after they overtook the monks using ziplines. With that, Ezekiel and his final monk made their way into the tunnel behind both Rastor and Sphinx's groups.
After several hours, Ezekiel and his monk came across the Four-Sided Maze and began attempting to navigate it before deciding that they needed to rest properly before tackling it and turned back. To their surprise, they found a sleeping and unguarded Jack, who woke as the two monks loomed over him. Ezekiel taunted Jack about it not being his time to save the world and that the new age following the Omega Event would begin before him, and then ordered his comrade to kill the Australian. To everyone's shock, the monk's bullets were deflected by an active Warbler Jack unknowingly carried, and the monk was then struck in the head and killed by a maghook fired by Zoe as she appeared on the scene.
Furious both at Zoe's appearance and speaking, Ezekiel turned his gun on her, only to be quickly disarmed and beaten up by Zoe, who criticized the Order's dislike of women and their voices, and Ezekiel's own attempt on Jack's life. With one final blow that staggered the monk, Zoe snatched the greystone hourglass from around his neck and shoved it into his mouth, breaking it. As Ezekiel choked on the powder, Zoe emptied her water bottle into the Omega monk's mouth, causing it to begin turning to stone within Ezekiel's throat and stomach. Before the internal damage caused by the solidifying greystone killed him, Zoe kicked him off the ledge and let him fall to his death, ending the last of the Order of the Omega.
Known Members[]
Former Members[]
Goals[]
As scholars devoted to studying the Omega Event, the Order of the Omega prides itself on holding some of the closely-guarded knowledge regarding the cycle of the destruction and rebirth of the universe, and of the trials of the Super-Ancients. In pursuit of their goal, they have acquired many artistic pieces and other antiquities related to the trials.
With the Omega Event nearing, the Order set off to tackle the final trial of the Ancients to ensure they have the opportunity to survive through the Event, and began working to locate the iron mountains so that they could perform multiple Falls to increase their chances of success within the Supreme Labyrinth. There, they hope to have one of their members sit on one of the thrones at the moment of the Omega Event and become the undisputed rulers of the world, which they intend to change into one where women are completely subservient to men.
Trivia[]
- The number of Omega monks accompanying Ezekiel in the Supreme Labyrinth differs from the number stated both when they entered the maze in The Two Lost Mountains and when first mentioned in the First Cavern during The One Impossible Labyrinth; Ezekiel is said to be accompanied by five of his brethren, however the number of monks beside Ezekiel who perish throughout the Labyrinth adds up to seven.