[The following chapter goes through some personal trauma, and may not be the easiest to read for some people.]

  Before we reach the end of this story, let's go back. Back to the beginning of Perseus' journey. Before he was pulled into the world of the Armatus. All the way back before he was even born. Perseus’ parents, Tomas and Bonnie Yates, had married at a young age when they found out Bonnie had been pregnant with their first child. A daughter they named Liberty. One year later they had a son named Theseus or Theo for short. However, there was a complication and they were told Bonnie would likely be unable to have another child.

  Tomas and Bonnie, who had originally planned on at least four kids were deviated, and spent the next eight years not bothering with preventative measures. After eight years of this with a few early stage miscarriages seemingly confirming that Bonnie would never carry to term they got a surprise when one day Bonnie held a pregnancy past the first month. Tomas was naturally excited as he had prayed for at least one more child, at least one more son. Nine months later, his prayers were answered with a miracle child. Chrysaor, the golden sword. Chrys for short.

  A year and a half after this blissful miracle, and after another miscarriage seemingly confirming this was a fluke, the couple found themselves with another unexpected pregnancy. A now unwanted pregnancy. With this forth and final child born, Tomas and Bonnie both demanded she be permanently fixed to be absolutely sure this was the last child.

  Fast forward seven years and the year is two thousand, Perseus was in the first grade. Just seven years old. Already on a path to try his best to be a good person, in order to be the son his father told his brother he wanted, before he first had the tyrant dream. Although he had already heard the female voice calling to him, it was distant and weak. Sometimes he would hear his name and look up to find no one has called to him.

  Perseus lived in a house with three bedrooms with his parents and three siblings. His eldest sibling, Liberty, was already in her final year of high school as Perseus was in first grade. The woman, who was more like an aunt or second mother to Perseus, would soon be old enough to move out. His eldest brother, Theseus wasn't far behind in age and would also be an adult soon. He was constantly getting into trouble, with the other brother Chrysaor looking up to the delinquent and regularly causing problems.

  Perseus went off to his first day of the first grade, ready to take on the world. When he arrived, he already had a friend he made in kindergarten who happened to have the same name as him. He brought in a new friend, a girl named Sasha. The three of them played every day for the first few months of school with Perseus even visiting their homes. Early on into this they added a fourth member into their group named Alexandra or Lexi for short. However this bliss did not last long as both Sasha and the other Perseus moved not long into the year and had to transfer schools.

  Without these two friends Perseus felt lost. The only friend had left was Lexi, whom he had quickly developed a bit of a crush on. “You know Percy, I've got a cousin who goes here too. I think you two would get along really well.” The next day Lexi introduced Perseus to her cousin. “Percy, this big guy is Victor. Victor, this is Perseus.” Perseus shook the hand of the other child. “Percy is fine. Nice to meet you.’

  The two quickly formed a strong bond, after only a month they were practically brothers. Perseus' secret feelings for Lexi only grew, but his life took an expected turn that would destroy his self confidence and any ability to make new friends let alone confess his feelings for Lexi. Perseus suffered a tragedy, a trauma, that stuck with him for the rest of his elementary school days.

  Perseus had suffered from a condition of some sort, one that resulted in him requiring more frequent uses of the bathroom and making it more difficult to hold it in. Thanks to his delinquent of an older brother Chrysaor, the teacher thought he was simply making excuses to skip out on class and didn't believe he needed to go to the bathroom. Despite saying it was an emergency the teacher declined his request to be allowed to go. Perseus tried to wait as long as he could but found he couldn't hold it any longer. Seeing no other choice but to leave without permission, Perseus started to stand without notifying the teacher.

  The teacher, however, saw him and moved quickly to his desk. The teacher grabbed Perseus' shoulder tightly to the point it hurt and forced him to sit back down in the hard stone deck chair. Try as he might to hold it, he could not. When the smell hit the teacher's nose, rather than apologizing for being wrong and helping him clean up, she encouraged the other students to tease and bully him for crapping his pants.

  Any chance at making new friends was dashed in that one moment, but luckily Victor and Lexi stayed by his side through thick and thin. No matter how hard things got, no matter what happened, he'd always have these two friends. This tragedy was unfortunately not the only one Perseus had to endure that year. Some time after this event, Perseus had the tyrant dream. Later, three third graders had caught him after recess one day and started pushing him around and punching him. The determination to not fight back and turn to evil was reinforced, as such, Perseus chose to be a pacifist.

  Perseus saw a teacher spot them from a window early in the scuffle, so he tried his best to wait it out till he would be rescued. No matter how hard the older kids beat him, no matter how much it hurt, Perseus continued to get back up. After what felt like forever he finally spotted the teacher in the hallway through the door window. “(Soon)” He thought. “(Soon I'll be saved and free of these bullies. I just have to hold out a bit longer.)”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Time passed, more than long enough for that teacher to have arrived. Perseus looked up through the window to see that this teacher, a different one than his own, was hiding behind the corner of the window and had been peeking out. She wasn't coming to save him, no one was coming to save him. The only person who could save him at this moment was himself. He had no other choice but to fight back.

  Perseus moved surprisingly quickly, punching the first two bullies in the face before they could even react. Not hard enough to do real damage but hard enough to surprise them and throw them off balance. The third kid went to punch Perseus, but as he went back for the punch Perseus took the time while the bully was telegraphing his attack to kick him in the shins and punch him in the face too.

  Seeing only red, Perseus clenched his fist and got ready to throw a full force punch right at this person's face when suddenly the door swung open. The teacher who was hiding behind the door burst out yelling and grabbed Perseus by the back of the collar. Shouting and screaming at him while dragging him by the scruff of his shirt to a room run by a teacher who worked with special needs kids and kids with anger or social issues. He had a padded room he sometimes offered for use in venting frustration.

  The teacher tossed him in and locked it from the outside sealing Perseus in the padded room like a criminal. Perseus curled into a ball and started crying, only able to catch muffled words through the door. The ones caught clearly though were “just like his brothers” and “expelled”. Perseus was a smart kid and could fill in the blanks. It didn't matter how hard he tried to be a good kid, to be the son he thought his father wanted. He would always be in his brother's shadow, and he would always be guilty by association.

  After a while the female teacher left and the man who ran the room opened the door. Having been labeled as learning disabled due to what would eventually be known as ADD and possibly even Asperger's, this teacher had known and worked closely with Perseus for the entire year alongside his guidance counselor. As such he knew what Perseus was like and helped defend him against this teacher who only seemed to want an excuse to expel him because of brothers.

  Thankfully that was the last teacher caused tragedy he experienced that year, and although students constantly teased him for the incident with his first grade teacher that only aggravated his condition causing it to be harder to hold the bathroom, eventually he worked through it and the memories of his shame faded in the eyes of the other students. At least for a time. When Perseus reached fourth grade he found that his first grade teacher had moved grades. The first thing she did was out Perseus for his first grade shame, conveniently leaving out the fact that she had started it.

  Due to the situation that started before his birth, Perseus felt like he was an unwanted child at a young age. Constantly seeing his father yelling at his older brother Chrysaor about how he would prefer the brother act Perseus built himself to be everything his father wanted his older brother to be so that he could be the son his father wanted and have his dad be proud of him. This choice to be the model son, made even before the tyrant dream, was only reinforced afterwards out of fear of that nightmare.

  The feelings that formed from the second event with the bullies only reinforced his feelings about living in his brother's shadow. But through everything, Victor and Alexandria were there with him through thick and thin. This straightened his bond with them, seeing Victor as more of a brother than his own blood and his feelings towards Alexandria became clearly romantic. His experiences left him with low self esteem, and his fear of losing her due to his feelings left him to keep quiet about them for years.

  Eventually he graduated from elementary school and moved to highschool with the first grade shame once again fading. Although no one remembered why he was unpopular and constantly bullied, he continued to be picked on for various things. This included his extreme poverty even by the standards of New Haden where ninety percent of families were on some sort of assistance program. He was the only kid whose family was so poor he received free breakfast in addition to free lunch when normally people with free lunch were only given reduced breakfast.

  For some reason despite both his parents having jobs, they struggled to make ends meet with their older kids moving out on their own almost as soon as they hit eighteen with jobs already acquired to try and get out of the shadow of poverty. Despite this Victor was still by his side. Alexandria however, has become the most popular girl in school and didn't talk to Perseus much anymore. She would still tell he she'd always be there for him outside of school but asked that he keep his distance during school in order to preserve her reputation.

  Perseus respected this as his feelings for her made him blind to the truth. The truth that she had left him behind and abandoned him for popularity. So blind that when he made another female friend who went by the nickname “Kite” who was obviously into him he was too wrapped up in Alexandria to see it. One day he finally worked up the courage to leave a note in her locker, emboldened by Victor who egged him on. Only for her to send one of her new friends to tell him off by proxy and proceed to pretend like she didn't know him or that was only friends with him in grade school because she felt bad for him.

  Crushed by this betrayal Perseus found it hard to open up to new people for the rest of the year and the next year moved to a different district that had its own junior high school. This was followed by a string of girls asking him out then making fun of him for thinking he had a chance either right away or waiting a few days and letting him think they were dating. By the time he reached highschool he had pushed away any advances thinking they were just more games and only opened up to Clark who also has issues making friends and Ginger who spent a year of slowly working her way into his life.

  After that the two became close like siblings similar to the bond shared with Victor. Even after graduation the three stayed in touch and kept close with Clark drifting away a bit due to his job. Though Perseus did his best to stay in touch with him as well because he has joined in on that job. It was easier to check in more regularly with his other friends. Perseus would one day vent his frustration to his father. “I tried my best to be the son you wanted Chrys to be, to be the son you wanted.bbut I could never be the son you wanted, because you never wanted me, and I'm not Chrys.”

  This argument lead to Perseus creating distance between himself and the rest of his family, only really regular keeping tabs on his sister and her kids as the eldest brother moved out of town for work and was only available for holidays. Despite being the younger brother, Perseus often became responsible for Chrysaor and bailed him out on multiple occasions but told her he was done cleaning up after his messes when he told off their father for his favoritism. Perseus formed a family of choice over a family of blood, and never regretted his decision. Only recently having his brother Chrysaor reach out to him.

  These memories all rush through Perseus’ head as he's faced with the final conflict he expects to have before leaving the new world that opened up to him. Since it was clear to him that him and Neptuna could never reach perfect Unison there was no point in trying. The two were partners only till the current crisis was over. Or at least that was the agreement. Maybe when this was over Perseus would reach out to his family and mend things, maybe that's why the past was one his mind.