The Five Greatest Warriors, also known as the Five Warriors, are people who throughout history have affected things relating to the Machine.
History[]
Early History[]
At at unknown point in the past, a prophecy was foretold of five individuals who would come to have an impact on various elements relating to the machine created by the Super-Ancient Beings to repel the Dark Sun. These individuals would come to be known as the Five Greatest Warriors. It is unclear who foretold the prophecy, or how they did so.
In any case, the prophetic Rhymes of the Warriors spread as far as Eastern Asia, though few traces would remain known until the present day. The secretive rulers of the world known as the Four Legendary Kingdoms would learn of the prophecy of the Warriors; in Laozi's temple beneath Witch Mountain, there was a carving that depicted the Five Warriors standing behind Kings of the Four Kingdoms (though who carved it and why is unknown).
The First Warrior, Moses, was actually an Egyptian priest of Pharaoh Akhenaten's regime called Thuthmosis. Akhenaten and Thuthmosis preached monotheism, the belief in only one God, as opposed to the traditional many Egyptian Gods. Thuthmosis fled Egypt after Akhenaten was assassinated for their belief, taking with him some of the Six Sacred Stones and the six Pillars of the Machine. Shortening his name to Moses, he would go on to claim the Twin Tablets contained the ten commandments of God and scatter the rest of the Sacred Stone he carried, while keeping the six Pillars within his adopted brother's bloodline.
This bloodline continued down to the Second Warrior, Jesus the Nazareth. Jesus would take the Pillars he had inherited and give most of them away; he gave two of the Pillars to the families who would eventually become the Great Houses of Europe, and gave three Pillars to his brother James, who hid one in the Temple of Solomon, and kept the other two Pillars at the fortress in Van. Jesus would keep the final Pillar for himself, and would be entombed with it after his death.
In the early thirteenth century, the Third Warrior, Genghis Khan, and his army invaded Van, and he took possession of the First and Third Pillars. Genghis would give the First Pillar to a Bedouin tribe as a gift of thanks for aiding him, a tribe which became the Royal House of Saud. The Third Pillar was given to the Shogun of Japan (which in turn was later given to the Royal Imperial family) at Hokkaido. The Shogun in turn gave Genghis a shield painted with images of the entrances to the six Vertices, taken from a petrified dinosaur egg inside the Third Vertex, and was put to rest with it in what would become Genghis's tomb in his Lost Arsenal.
The Fourth Warrior, Napoléon Bonaparte, would seek out the Six Sacred Stones, Vertices and Pillars as part of his fascination with Egyptian history. While he would never find any of Khufu's Treasure, Bonaparte's interest in astronomy led him to become aware of a lag in Jupiter and Saturn's orbits and, after consulting with the brilliant mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, he came to suspect the existence of the Dark Sun.
Before The Five Greatest Warriors[]
During her research to locate the long-lost Pillars and Vertices for Carnivore, Diane Cassidy came to focus on the Five Greatest Warriors as her primary point of reference. Cassidy would spend many years trying to figure out who the Warriors were, and eventually settled on Moses, Jesus Christ, Genghis Khan and Napoléon Bonaparte as the first four Warriors, however she could not identify the Fifth since the prophecy indicated they would only be present at the time of the return of the Dark Star.
In his own research into the Dark Sun, Max Epper briefly looked into the Five Greatest Warriors, and while he couldn't make them fit with what he had already discovered, he left a reference to them on one of his research sheets.
Jack West Jr would overlook the note in Epper's research about the Five Warriors, as would everyone else who read the sheet during the meeting at the Burj al Arab.
Later, while he was retrieving the Philosopher's Stone from Laozi's trap system, Jack briefly noted the carving of the Five Warriors with the Kings, but was unable to spare any time to investigate it further.
The Five Greatest Warriors[]
When the Coalition of Minnows began preparing to research the locations of the remaining Pillars and Vertices, Cassidy offered them her assistance by sharing what she knew of the prophecy of the Five Warriors and her suspicions of their identities. Lachlan Adamson suggested that the Fifth Warrior might be Jack West Jr, though Jack was doubtful that he was the subject of an ancient prophecy. While Zoe Kissane was skeptical of Jesus and Napoléon, Jack and Wizard recognised that researching the Warriors was the team's best course of action.
In the next month of the Coalition's period of research, many notes regarding the first four Warriors were made that had relevance to the team's mission. Napoléon's obsession with Egypt were made, and his suspected deduction of the Dark Star's existence. Julius and Lachlan were able to trace Moses's lineage down to Jesus Christ and determine that the so-called Prophet of God had passed the six Pillars down his familial line and where the Pillars had gone to from there. Having uncovered evidence that suggested that Jesus had been buried with the sixth Pillar, the team realised that they would have to try and find his tomb to retrieve it. Finally, the team determined Genghis's history with the two Pillars he had obtained, and figured that the "Dragon's Egg" with the images of the entrances to the six Vertices was likely kept at Genghis's lost arsenal.
Jack's team located the arsenal after Wolf and the CIEF, finding that Tank and the Japanese Blood Brotherhood had destroyed the egg. As Jack and Epper looked for another way out, Epper spotted Genghis's sarcophagus in the chamber, realising the truth of the arsenal. As he lay dying, Epper tried to explain what he had realised, but it wasn't until Zoe pointed out the obvious sarcophagus that Jack realised Genghis's body was nearby. After opening the sarcophagus, they discovered Genghis's body and the shield, and, remembering the Mongolian Emperor's maxim, uncovered the filled-in secret escape route beneath the sarcophagus, giving the team a chance to escape.
Meanwhile, Alby Calvin questioned why Napoléon's discovery, the Rosetta Stone, was in the British Museum, and his research into the matter led him to determine where the Basin had ended up, resulting in Pooh Bear, Stretch and the twins being sent to retrieve it.
When Carnivore questioned Vulture about Jesus's tomb and the Pillar he'd supposedly had with him, the Saudi spy confirmed that his people had heard whispers of its location. As a result, Carnivore sent, Vulture, Scimitar and Mao Gongli to retrieve the last Pillar for him.
Jack and Lily decided to try and retrieve the Pillar themselves, and with Iolanthe's help they located the tomb in the Dead Sea, where Jack infiltrated the tomb containing Jesus's body. Jack found himself unable to look upon the face of Jesus, believing that he was committing an outrageously sacrilegious act and didn't deserve to, before taking the Pillar and resealing the chamber.
Five weeks after the repelling of the Dark Star, Zoe noted that they had never uncovered the identity of the Fifth Greatest Warrior, and suggested that it was in fact Jack. Jack in turn revealed that he had figured out it was him; having realised at the last Vertex that the Rhymes of the Warriors describing the Fifth Warrior did in fact match him. The amused Zoe noted that they'd likely never hear the end of that fact.
After The Five Greatest Warriors[]
Jack and Zoe would later share their revelation of Jack being the Fifth Warrior to the rest of their teammates, leading Jack to occasionally be referred to as the Fifth Warrior. Jack's identity as the Fifth Warrior was also realised by the Four Legendary Kingdoms, which made him desirable to some of the royals as a potential husband, despite his marriage to Zoe.
Jack's later (forced) participation in the Great Games of the Hydra served as a source of intrigue to the gathered royals, some of whom believed him to be a wild card. Hades, for one, considered it an honour to have one of the Five Warriors participate in the Great Games, though he also noted that Jack's role as the Fifth Warrior of the ancient prophecy would serve no purpose during the Games. Jack would be embarrassed by Hades' words, since the attention it brought him also brought glares from many of the other participants in the Games. (The Four Legendary Kingdoms)
When Jack was held at gunpoint by Ezekiel in the Supreme Labyrinth, the Omega monk taunted Jack that his time to save the world had passed since the time of the prophecy of the Five Greatest Warriors. (The One Impossible Labyrinth)
The Warriors[]
Moses / Thuthmosis[]
Moses, born Thuthmosis, the First Warrior, stole some of Khufu's Treasure (the six Pillars and some of the Six Sacred Stones) from Rameses II.
Thuthmosis was among the very few who preached the idea of a single God in his homeland, and because of how badly this was received, was forced to leave to preach his ideas elsewhere, stealing the Pillars and Sacred Stones. He would claim that the writing on the Twin Tablets was the word of God, naming them the Ten Commandments. He passed the Pillars on to his brother Aaron, who in turn passed them down through his family until they reached the possession of Jesus Christ, a distant descendant of Moses.
Jesus Christ[]
Jesus Christ, the Second Warrior, is the union of two royal lines, his father being descended from David, and his mother descended from Aaron.
With Moses as a distant ancestor, Jesus was passed on all six of the Pillars. He affected the final locations of each of the Pillars. He then split them, five being left to his brother James, and keeping the Sixth Pillar with him, being buried in his tomb with it. James passed two of the Pillars on through the family, eventually reaching two of the Royal Families, while the remaining three were placed in the fortress of Van.
Genghis Khan[]
Genghis Khan, the Third Warrior, received some of the Pillars and gave them away, and knew the locations of the Vertices.
Genghis's army invaded Van, and took the First and Third Pillars (the Second having already been stolen). Genghis gave the First Pillar to a Bedouin tribe as a gift of thanks for aiding him, a tribe which became the Royal House of Saud. The Third Pillar was given to the Shogun of Japan (which in turn was later given to the Royal Imperial family) at Hokkaido. The Shogun in turn gave Genghis a shield painted with images of the entrances to the Six Vertices, taken from a petrified dinosaur egg inside the Third Vertex, and was put to rest with it in what would become Genghis's tomb in his Lost Arsenal.
Napoléon Bonaparte[]
Napoléon Bonaparte, the Fourth Warrior, set out in search of the scattered Khufu's Treasure.
While he never did locate any of it, he did discover the Dark Star due to his curiosity about Jupiter and Saturn's lagging patterns (caused by the Dark Sun). His search for the Vertices and Khufu's Treasure did provide a vital clue as the location of the Sixth Vertex.
Jack West Jr[]
Jack West Jr, the Fifth Warrior, is the one who helps bring together all of Khufu's Treasure and makes the ultimate decision as to allow the Machine to be utilised.
His identity was unknown to Cassidy, who theorised that they would be someone involved in the Machine's restoration in the present day. It wasn't until after the Dark Star had been repelled that the Coalition team confirmed the previously dismissed notion that Jack was indeed the Fifth Warrior, having been involved in collecting and using most of the Sacred Stones, and placed almost all of the Pillars himself.
Rhymes of The Warriors[]
Sphinx Tablet[]
This rhyme was written on a tablet that was found between the paws of the Sphinx when it was uncovered
- The First shall be the noblest, scholar and soldier both
- The Second a natural leader of men, none shall achieve greater fame than he
- The Third shall be the greatest warlord known to history
- The Fourth is the great obsessor, seeking only glory, but glory is a lie
- The Fifth shall face the greatest test and decide if all shall live or die
Wu Gorge Pedestal[]
This rhyme was inscribed on a pedestal in the Wu Gorge, which now lies underwater
- 1. A humble priest, son of the great god of wisdom, will flee his home, and a great king's hatred
- 2. A seer, a healer, a man all would be, will die atop a hideous tree
- 3. A lord of war but a ruler most wise, from the barren plateau his kingdom will rise
- 4. He shall seek empire but find only tears, his empire shall last not one score of years
- 5. A mortal battle between father and son, one fights for all, and the other for one
Black City Gate[]
This rhyme was found on the gate-door to Karakorum, the Black City, made in the time of Genghis Khan
- The First, the Warrior-Priest, will bring the treasure out of the ancient land and found the great lineage
- The Second, the Warrior-King, will join two royal lines and thus continue the God King line. He will break the treasure in two and leave his mark on the world forever
- The Third, the Horse-Warrior, will loyally guard the treasure in his halls of iron and pass it to those he deems worthy
- The Fourth, the Emperor-Warrior, will pursue the treasure for his own glory and succeed only in scattering it further. It shall forever remain out of his reach
- The Fifth, the Brilliant-Warrior, will be there at the Second Coming and will decide the fate of all
Function[]
The Five Warriors were foretold by a prophecy back in ancient time to be key figures who would affect the fates of Khufu's Treasure (things that are connected to the Machine, as well as the Golden Capstone), be it the Pillars, the Vertices or the Six Sacred Stones.
Trivia[]
- Isaac Newton is considered to be an honourary Warrior, due to his knowledge of the Dark Star, the whereabouts of the Spring of the Black Poplar, and his desire to transmutate elements (like the Philosopher's Stone's function with the cleansing of the Pillars).
- In The Four Legendary Kingdoms, Hades notes that none of the Five Warriors had ever participated in the Great Games of the Hydra, however the only one who was likely to be alive at the time of one of the three Great Games preceding the present day one was Moses.