Chapter Text
Alex felt the dirt stuck in his hair as he stalked the forest grounds, his hand gripping the slingBlade he had stolen from one of the Proctors weeks ago, he felt Marco and Francesco somewhere behind him, the three of them were trying to sack House Minerva. They had been surveilling the castle for weeks now, trying to pinpoint the weakest hours, who fell asleep during night watches and who had the worst aim with the gifted bows and arrows.
The last few months went by so fast that it all blurred, he barely remembered the Red mines, he barely remembered his brother, he barely remembered the pain of his carving. That would be for the better, the faded memories of being in and out of sedation, the mind numbing pain his body had gone through. He had been manually reborn in a matter of months. The Sons of Ares had insisted on the process being fast, the Institute happened every year, but it seems that Alex was a rather last minute plan that no one had expected to come out as perfect as he did.
At only 17, and he was a striking Gold, his hair was shorter than his peers who enrolled with him, but it was arguably even more golden, his eyes sparkled but not with life, they sparkled with determination. Determination that high society Golds hadn’t seen since Marc au Andromedus. The two were brothers after all.
He had been surviving in the Institute for months now, he had thought his birthday must’ve already passed. He missed Marc.
When they were in the mines, Marc would always steal bread from the Red Clan that had mined the most Helium-3 and was granted the Laurel which gave them extra food. Marc would always make sure Alex had something extra to eat on his birthday, bearing the consequences and punishments. But in the Institute there was no extra bread to steal, there were barely any animals to hunt. Alex was familiar with the empty aching in his stomach, even now.
The Institute was a place children were sent to die. More specifically it was a place where the Golden children of the elite would be sent to learn strategy, survival, and leadership to prepare them for high society. Many graduates would become politicians, some may become Archgovernors, some may become Generals of massive fleets to conquer more planets and fight rebellion, and each planet had its own.
Alex was stuck on his home planet, Mars. Fitting.
The children would get sorted into houses based on personality and natural skills where they would peer with likeminded students and then be let loose like animals in a large landscape with different terrain, forest, rivers, mountains, and bare grass land. Whichever students had the most outstanding performance and would be rewarded with a crescent shaped scar under their right eye which does nothing but showcase status, if you were a Peerless Scarred it would mean you had entry to the most prestigious positions in high society. If a Gold doesn’t receive a scar, they still graduate, yet are shunned in society and deemed to be disloyal pixies.
You had to kill another student before the real game even started. The Passage. Alex couldn’t remember the boy’s face, only the feeling of a dying pulse under his palms as he strangled the boy, he saw the image at night, he didn’t sleep much anymore.
Alex shuffled through the bushes, trying to stay as low as he could to the ground, Marco and Francesco popping up on either side of him as they stared at Minvera’s castle.
“Dunno why they get donations from the Proctors.” Marco au Barca grumbles, his voice hoarse as he shook the loose leaves from his curly head of hair.
“Because no one likes Mars.” Francesco au Bellona huffed, a sickle hanging from his belt, something he had stolen from House Diana when they had raided their fortress weeks ago and had taken most of the students as prisoners, Alex refused to call them slaves. Not when he was a real slave months ago, not a Gold playing make pretend.
Francesco wasn’t wrong, either. No one liked House Mars, they were a violent and aggressive bunch, the house always fractioned and turned against each other in the first month, their Proctor had told them. No one ever expects Mars to do well, they self imploded far too quickly. Not this year, Alex made sure of that. Within the last months he had seen the house fracture between Alex and another housemate, Jorge au Augustus.
Jorge had turned half of the house against each other, against Alex. Somewhere around the two month mark, Jorge and his disciples had turned on the other half of the house after weeks of thinly veiled threats that built up and overflowed. Alex was smart enough to know the attack was coming, they were prepared - his proclaimed group of misfits fled from the Mars Castle, settled in the Highlands. They found refuge in one of the abandoned towers away from the main castle. It was bare, cold, empty, but they were alive. And Alex had a plan.
“Whose fault is that?” Alex nudged Frencesco’s knee with his own, glancing past him to the trees, he knew the House Proctors were watching; good, that's what Alex wanted.
“This year? Yours.” Marco snickered, his voice was still raspy from the last weeks.
He wanted the Proctors to realise they had lost control of Mars. He wanted each and every one of them to know it was them three, not Jorge, who was flaunting his illusion of power, not taking houses.
Marco grinned, sticking his hands into the mud under their feet, taking a handful of it before mooshing it onto his face, hyperfocused on spreading it around haphazardly. Earning a questioning look from Francesco, making Marco laugh, a sore-sounding chuckle.
“The wolves like it.” He offered without much explanation.
“Is that what you’ve been doing this whole time?!” Francesco whisper-yelled, which would explain a lot. For weeks Marco had been disappearing, for days at a time and no one could figure out what he was doing, but there was a sudden uptick in howling especially near Deimos Tower - where the leftover house Mars members were camping out.
It also explains the sudden surplus of wolf carcases they’ve been eating for dinner with what little grain they could harvest.
Alex stared for a moment before copying him. Earning a bewildered look from Francesco.
“They won’t know which house we’re from, they can’t hunt us.” Alex explained smudging the dirt onto his cheeks and over his nose.
Maximum damage, minimum fallout.
Marco took another handful of mud, lunging at the Bellona, and smearing it across his face, which Francesco didn't necessarily fight him off. Muffling his mild protests with Marcos muddied hands. He only takes a step back to admire his work when Francesco’s face is no longer recognisable.
Alex narrows his eyes, staring at the castle walls, now realising it would have been easier if they had stolen their horses. Oh, it would have been so much easier. At this point, the three had been dillydallying in the bushes long enough that the sun started to set, everything was going according to plan.
“Alright, rings off,” Alex turns away from the castle, tugging the House Mars ring off, each student had one, and the other two boys followed suit, “We destroy everything we can, and we find their standard.” Alex declared, stretching his neck out.
The standard was something every house had, it was the house sigil and each house had one. The more house standards a house could steal, the more power they had because it meant every student in that respective house was slaves to the house that possessed the standard. It was a confusing game of capture the flag.
The plan was simple: sneak into their walls, blend in long enough to create enough chaos to buy them time to take the standard. Rampage it all.
The three boys did their best to slink into the grass, blending in well enough under the moonlight, no watchers could spot them. Francesco almost slipped on the dew beginning to collect onto the grass, Marco tries his best not to laugh. He was buzzing with excitement, he always liked causing chaos.
The trio slunk onto the wall, there was a door somewhere they had seen a few members come in and out of in the past week. Bad members, the boys had joked, had no sense of loyalty. The three could easily blend in with the House Minerva members, they were all thin and grimey, and there were enough members for no one to pay no mind to them.
They simply walked in through the back door.
Alex was right, he had realised early on that after nightfall they didn’t light large fires to alert where their castle was, which would completely work against the house at this moment. The darkness camouflaged the boys well enough, they managed to slink around into the near barren hallway. They slipped past three girls, one was holding a pitcher of milk, snickering together but completely ignoring the boys. Alex glances at Francesco, then at Marco, then Marco glances at Francesco. A grin plastered on all three faces.
Go time.
The three fist bump before scrambling in three different directions, Francesco sprints down the hallway, Alex goes up the stairs, and Marco runs into the courtyard. The intention was to spark panic. And that's what they specialised in.
Alex barges into the empty warroom, for a second he looks unimpressed, it was a considerable amount cleaner than the war room at Castle Mars. Then he sprung back into action, his hands immediately ripping the poorly drawn maps off the table, he barely read the score tally they had before ripping it up. He glances around the room. His eyes go wide before destroying everything. The banners ripped down, the lamps thrown across the room, throwing vases of hand picked flowers across the room and right at the statue of Minerva at the other side of the room.
For the first time since the night before his brother's death - he laughs. He genuinely laughs, he laughs in the face of Minerva and he knows their Proctors are watching him and his best friends utterly deface their beloved castle. Where they believe is the only place they can be safe is the place where they’re most vulnerable.
Alex knows he struck fear in not only the students, but the Proctor as well. This was an act of spitting in her face, he wanted to bait her. If he had done enough to anger her then she would interfere, even if it was against the rules, most high society Gold parents would pay off the Proctors, and they were not above interfering for a pretty penny. Alex figured that the best and easiest way to gain power was to go straight to the source and conquer it. He wasn’t collecting houses for the standards like what Marco and Francesco thought - he was hunting the Proctors.
He glared at the Minerva statue before knocking it over, watching the stone shatter on the floor. He snarls before spitting on it for good measure. There were hidden cameras everywhere, and he didn’t know if any other students had caught onto that, either way, he knew Minerva was watching.
That’s when he hears the screams.
“Enemies! Enemies!” A male runs past the open door, not paying any mind to Alex rummaging around in the war room.
“They’re in the courtyard! They’re everywhere!" Alex roars, bursting back into the hallway once he couldn’t find the house standard, causing even more confusion amongst the Minerva students who were all now running around like headless chickens.
Between the screaming and the fire in the courtyard, no one knew what was going on.
“There’s too many, they’re everywhere!” Alex yells at anyone who passed them coming up the stairs as he bounded down them, careful not to trip over his own feet. That’s when he hears Francesco yelling.
“Mars! House Mars is here! Mars has come!” Francesco’s voice boomed through the hallway, adding onto the panic.
“Mars! Mars is here!” The Minerva students parrot with a vigor and level of panic that tells Alex everything had gone exactly to plan.
Alex found Francesco, who had the standard in his hands with a wicked grin plastered onto his face,
“Where’s Marco?” Alex asked, somewhat out of breath, before hearing howling.
“Move your arses then!” Marco yelled, making both boys turn in unison just to see Marco sprinting towards them full speed with a girl over his shoulder, “She’s a gorydamn cook!” Marco laughs as he sprints past the two, realising the girl was knocked out. Smart, she would know how to properly make food, they could eat more than just meat and berries.
Alex and Francesco didn’t have to be asked twice before running behind Marco, the three genuinely laughing, and Alex forgetting who he truly was. For a moment, he was a Gold and these were his brothers. Alex copies Marco, he howls, his hair was caked in dirt, and with his face covered in mud, he looked like a terror. Francesco joins in on the howling, then Marco. Like their own pack of wolves, where just for now, trust was unbroken.
The three of them look like Rage Gods, sprinting across the open courtyard that was quickly being engulfed in flames. They don’t attract much attention, the house thinks that House Mars has come in full force, they’re too busy scrambling to find the enemies in the towers, not sprinting across the courtyard like madmen.
They find the stable after minutes, there’s six horses, and they take all of them.
Marco gives the cook to Francesco, winking at him before they rush through the backgate, unguarded, of course. By the time they’re through the gates with the horses, the cook, and most importantly the house standard, Marco had once again disappeared, the two boys didn’t question it.
“He’ll be back.” Alex says to Francesco who nods, glancing back to the fortress drenched in fire, staring at it in silence for a moment.
A whistle snaps them out of their trance to find Marco reappearing with a wolf cloak, the skull perched on his head, casting an ominous shadow onto his muddied face with a sinister grin on his face.
Marco howls, echoing through the trees, flowing down the empty grasslands and no doubt, bounces onto the walls of the burning castle.
Francesco howls.
Alex howls.