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The Vril Energy Suit (V.E.S.) was a weaponized suit that could harness the power of Vril.

Prototype V.E.S.: Prometheus[]

Main article: The Iron Prometheus

The prototype V.E.S. was created by Professor Kyriakos Gallaragas and his daughter Helena to harness Vril. Vril, also called Flamma Reconditus, was a powerful form of energy used by God to create the world and used again by the Watcher Anum to create and later imprison the Ogdru Jahad. The ancient Hyperboreans had been able to wield Vril and eventually they passed the secret on to a few select men.  The secret to summon and control Vril died with these men but Gallaragas was able to rediscover the secret, using a device he invented called "Anum's Fork" to channel Vril into the suit.

Jim Sacks, a lab assistant to Professor Gallaragas and Helena, became the first pilot of the V.E.S.. He was able to use the suit to great effect, channeling the Vril successfully and killing several men interested in stealing the armor. The sorcerer Memnan Saa desired to harness the Vril for his own purposes. He stormed Gallaragas's lab and kidnapped the professor and his daughter but Jim escaped with the suit. Memnan Saa then tortured Gallaragas and cut his brain out of his head to learn the professor's methods.

However wearing the suit changed Jim. He was poisoned by gas and believed dead by Memnan Saa but was able to get up and keep fighting. He was then seemingly killed again by one of Saa's henchmen, reduced to only a skeleton in the armor.  However, the spirit of Professor Gallaragas appeared to Jim. He explained to Jim that the Vril power was within him now, allowing Jim Sacks to become a "newly evolved superbeing." The Vril energy changed Jim, and because he was a good man he was rewarded and could now see "the universe and all her mysteries stripped away." Professor Gallaragas told Jim that he was a part of this mysterious new world and to move on, but before he did Jim got up one more time to use his new power to defeat Memnan Saa, kill his men, and make sure Saa would not be able to use the power of Vril.

The prototype suit was destroyed after this encounter. However, the secret to harnessing Vril did not die with Professor Gallaragas, as his daughter Helena survived.

Project Epimetheus[]

Main article: Sledgehammer 44 (series)

1944[]

Project Epimetheus, also known as "Sledgehammer," is the second generation V.E.S. employed by the United States during the Second World War. Project Epimetheus was commissioned in May 1944 following after Doctor Helena Gallaragas demonstrated a workable Vril energy conduit. In July of the same year, Captain Ledro Fields volunteered to test field the Epimetheus armor in mock combat in the coast of Scotland.

In August 1944, the armor was sent on its first mission to disable an experimental war machine developed by Nazi engineers in D'Ebene Chiot, France. The mission was a success but the armor was damaged and Captain Fields was wounded. Four American soldiers (Privates Larry Bunkers, Ivan Muralla, and Patrick Redding, and Corporal Dale Glesham) took upon themselves in bringing the Epimetheus armor to Allied-control territory. The men took refuge in a small barn after Redding was mortally wounded in a skirmish with German troops. Soon, they were then surrounded by the enemy. When Redding died, his spirit apparently possessed the armor and resuming its function to wipe out the Germans.

The Redding-possessed armor was returned and examined by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm and Doctor Gallaragas. The armor remained unresponsive for months until in October, Major Daniel Elroy of the U.S. Army Air Force, who was test piloting the X.F.W.-12 aircraft, was seized by the Axis supernatural agent the Black Flame. With the help of Captains Frank Zinn and Thomas Martino, the Epimetheus armor saved Elroy and killed the Black Flame while destroying the X.F.W.-12 in the process.

On December 24, the Epimetheus armor went into action in the Siege of Bastogne when Redding learned that Dale Glesham was there. During the conflict, the armor was destroyed, as Redding's attempt to rescue his friend failed. U.S. forces recovered the pieces in January 1, 1945 and later moved to a facility in Colorado where the work of Professor Gallaragas was studied, alongside many other projects conducted by German scientists employed under Operation Paperclip.

Hell on Earth[]

The remains of the armor were discovered by Johann Kraus. After the recent loss of his old containment suit, he sought to refurbish it to serve as a new, more combat-ready outfit for himself. However as he began to work on it with an assistant, he drifted asleep and began to dream of Patrick Redding, the previous bearer of the armor, in his final mission at Bastogne. As he witnessed Redding's final moments, his ectoplasm was pulled out of his suit and the armor reassembled itself on its own. Johann became the new wielder of Epimetheus, and his first demonstration was to join a battle against a horde of hammerheads approaching B.P.R.D. headquarters and eradicating them with blasts of Vril energy. With his newfound power, the B.P.R.D. began to feel confident in their ability to take on the looming threat of the Ogdru Hem, now that he was able to back up Elizabeth Sherman in killing them one at a time. However this new strength came at a price: Johann was locked in the suit, unable to use his ectoplasm to perform his typical medium techniques without damaging the armor.

Their hopes only lasted for so long before a true insurmountable challenge fell from the stars- one of the seven Ogdru Jahad was summoned to Earth in central America, spawning new Ogdru Hem. Liz and Johann attempted to fight the mountain-sized Dragon and its spawn, but despite their seemingly-limitless power, the Dragon was totally unharmed by their attacks. To his surprise, he began to feel a sensation of exhaustion and after narrowly avoiding a plume of fire, he recovered Liz and they were forced to retreat.

Instead, they directed their efforts against the modern incarnation of the Black Flame, who was growing a psychic network of power. Liz and Johann fought the Black Flame together, but he proved stronger despite the numbers advantage. Johann faced a brutal beating at the hands of the Black Flame, who tore open a hole in the armor and began to suck Johann's ectoplasm out. WIthin the suit, Redding's spirit communicated with Johann, urging him to give himself up and embrace the infinity of creation provided by Vril, lest he be sucked out by the Black Flame and his soul trapped in darkness forever. Liz intervened and took the Flame's focus away from Johann for a brief moment. Meanwhile at headquarters, Panya and Fenix channeled a prayer to cut the Black Flame from his power network, a spell which also helped to restore Johann's armor and allowed him to return to the fight and finally defeat the Black Flame.

With the Black Flame dead, Johann and Liz returned to defending B.P.R.D. headquarters from the growing legion of Ogdru Hem spawned by the seemingly-invincible Ogdru Jahad, which now began marching through America. Redding continued to urge Johann to give up the suit and subsume himself into the fabric of reality. With the destruction of the headquarters and the loss of Kate Corrigan Johann began finally listening to Redding's words and came to a startling realization. After teleporting Liz away from the battlefield, Johann confronted the Dragon, which quickly destroyed the armor with a breath of fire that left little to no pieces to be recovered. Regardless, Johann had no need of the suit anymore and used the infinite power of Vril to destroy the Ogdru Jahad. Despite Redding's warnings, he allowed his soul to be destroyed in the process.

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