|
Birth Name |
Dillon Malik Owen |
|
Aliases |
Diomedes, Dio, D, Big D, Baltimore |
|
Date of Birth |
June 20, 1983 |
|
Age |
32 (in 2015), 42 (in 2025) |
|
Place of Birth |
Baltimore, Maryland, US. |
|
Gender |
Cisgender male (he/him) |
|
Height |
6’3 ft, 190 cm |
|
Race |
African-American |
|
Affiliation(s) |
U.S. Department of Paranormal Affairs; Achaea Project; Public Safety and Containment Division |
|
Residence |
Arlington, VA, USA; Baltimore, MD, USA (formerly) |
|
Family |
Theodore Owen (father); Delilah Owen (mother); Camille “Cami” Owen (older sister) |
Dillon “Dio” Malik Owen is the main protagonist of The Achaea Project, and currently serves as the Director of the Public Safety and Containment Division within the titular organisation.
An ALEPH-class contractor, Dillon has been one of the most decorated members of the Project since he was a fourteen-year-old boy. Despite his seemingly legendary reputation, he finds himself crushed by loneliness and isolation. His ilicit relationship with fellow colleague, Oscar “Odysseus” Dane ended in disaster. His work leaves him exhausted, unsatisfied, and cynical. His mother and older sister are estranged from him. For Dillon, inevitably every attempt at human connection turns out futile.
Following his thirty-second birthday and the anniversary of his father’s death, Dillon considers ending his life with a pistol to the head. Before he can take the chance, an unusual, human-like Abnormality is captured by the Project during a research and reconnaissance excursion in Vietnam. Specimen L-247 is unlike anything he has seen before–an ALEPH-level Abnormality capable of transforming between monstrous and human forms. Dillon takes it upon himself to oversee her containment and welfare for the Project’s uses, to the growing concern of his colleagues. As he and L-247 begin to know each other, Dillon finds himself growing dangerously attached.
Dillon is a tall, broad man with a heavy, strong build. He is dense in muscle, albeit growing slightly soft at the stomach due to stress and age. He is not as lean as he was in his twenties, but still strong and functional.
His skin is dark brown and his hair is black. He has multiple scars, including one on his upper-lip, another across his nose bridge, and a cut through his left eyebrow. On his left bicep is a tattoo of a barn owl. He has various other tattoos on his body. In addition, both of his ears are pierced and adorned with small gold hoops.
Dillon keeps his hair in locs that reach past his shoulders. He can often be seen with them styled in braids, barrel twists, tied up, or something similar. He has a full beard that is usually kept neat.
Dillon is known to be intelligent, resourceful, and determined–qualities that have made him exceptional within the Project and equally difficult to live with outside of it. Over a decade of operations within the Project has left him deeply jaded and cynical, not just toward the Project but towards the world at large. He is bitter, stubborn to a fault and set in his ways, unwilling to change his habits, outlook, or routine–which more often than not traps him in a cycle of self-imposed isolation.
Dillon suffers from chronic loneliness and is frequently by himself. He is slow to trust and quick to push people away, yet paradoxically, becomes intensely, almost obsessively attached to anyone who offers him genuine warmth or attention. He instinctively tightens his grip on those he fixates on when he fears their abandonment of him, even when such fears are unfounded. This attachment is rarely healthy, yet Dillon lacks the self-awareness, or the willingness, to recognize when he has crossed the line.
Those who meet Dillon often find him off-putting. There is something unsettling beneath the surface. Perhaps it’s a sadistic streak or capacity for coldness. His sense of humour is often dry and sardonic, delivered deadpan in situations where most people would find it inappropriate. Whether this is a coping mechanism or simply who he is has become difficult to distinguish, even for him.
Underneath everything, Dillon carries one ambition that has never wavered: he wants to be better than his father. Not necessarily a good man, as that seems impossible to him, but a present one. He wants to live long enough to have a child and see them through to adulthood, to give them something Theodore never gave him. It is the singular thing that he strives toward, and the one corner of himself that remains, against all odds, hopeful. Whether he is capable of the emotional labour and patience that goal actually requires is another matter.
Dillon Malik Owen was born on June 20, 1983, in Baltimore, Maryland, as the youngest child of two African-American parents. His mother, Delilah Owen, was a nurse while his father, Theodore Owen, was an Achaea Project Contractor. Theodore died under mysterious circumstances when Dillon turned four years old, leaving Delilah to care for him and his older sister Camille alone. He grew up in near-poverty in the west side of Baltimore alongside his lifelong best friend, Stephen Williams. Despite the circumstances of his childhood, Dillon was academically successful and driven throughout high school; wishing to become a criminal justice lawyer or biomedical engineer
While defending his older sister from a group of adult men, the confrontation became violent and Dillon was momentarily knocked-out. This led to his first encounter with an ALEPH-grade Abnormality known as Athena–the embodiment of the fear of war. She arrived as an owl in his vision, offering a contract with an unknown cost.
He was then targeted by Project recruitors, who wished to exploit his connection with Theodore Owen, and therefore Athena. He and Stephen were both taken into the project as teenagers to begin training to become contractors. Most notably, they were members of the Epigoni, a group of young male contractors who excelled above the rest and, thus, were dispatched to more dangerous and critical assignments.
The prestige of the Epigoni came at a fatal cost. Dispatched on the most grueling missions, the young members were picked off one by one in the field. Most never survived to see their mid-twenties. By the time they were 20 themselves, Dillon and Stephen were the sole survivors of their original cohort. Having outlived their peers, the duo was transferred to the Aulis unit, effectively serving as the adult equivalent to the Epigoni. It was within Aulis that Dillon crossed paths with Oscar “Odysseus” Dane, a witty, clever, and charismatic older contractor.
Dillon and Oscar shared contracts with Athena. Bound by this contract, the two grew incredibly close. This mentorship and friendship eventually blurred into intimacy, and the married Oscar began an illicit affair with Dillon. While Dillon began to catch deep, genuine feelings for him, Oscar never returned them with the same sincerity.
Their relationship inevitably erupted when Oscar's wife and their mutual colleague, Dr. Penelope Nash, gave birth to Oscar’s baby boy. Needing to reshift his priorities toward his growing family, Oscar broke things off with Dillon and eventually stepped away from the front lines entirely, taking a position in the Project’s Legal Division. Left alone, Dillon channeled his focus strictly into the Project. By his thirties, his outstanding performance in the field propelled him into the commanding title of Director of the Public Safety and Containment Department.
As a seasoned contractor, Dillon operates far beyond the limits of baseline humanity. He possesses super-enhanced speed, strength, durability, and reflexes. His accelerated healing factor ensures he can endure punishing, otherwise fatal blows and recover swiftly in combat. Beyond his raw physical augmentation, Dillon is a master-level martial artist and a phenomenally skilled swordsman. His abilities and strength are only second to Alexander “Achilles”, the half-Abnormality, half-human son of ALEPH-grade Thetis.
While some contractors struggle to maintain a single bond, Dillon has amassed a large arsenal of ALEPH- and WAW-grade entities, acquiring them either through a mutual agreement or by violently conquering the Abnormalities himself. Also, he is capable of summoning their actual physical forms into reality and fighting alongside their manifestations as a synchronized unit.
His contracts include:
Dillon typically uses three weapons: a long Mandinka sword, a shorter Khopesh blade, and a Glock 19. When the situation calls for it, he may be armed with an assault rifle.