Elysian Academy- Meager Might

Bryce could not help it, anger overflowed within and he felt his blood almost literally boil. The room trembled as his rage turned into power, active and strong. His parents, even his really quiet Faux Father, looked at him with shock, fear and confusion. Xander on the other hand looked concerned, no fear in his face.

"Mom, you need to stop! You've been treating Xander like trash for years, gods you even made us lie when I nearly killed him! Why is he never good enough for you?"

His mother recoiled, then stood tall, sneer on her face. "He is nothing. You are everything."

Bryce wasn't dumb though, he went through his mental files and things started to click together. "What did Zeus offer you? I mean really, you never mothered me, I always thought I felt more like an investment, when I figured out what that word meant." His eyes went wide. "He said you lost your humanity, but I wonder if you ever had any. The way you treat my brother, my twin, you'd think he was a monster, evil or vile or cruel. He's not, he's smarter than all of us, and honestly better than you."

Xander snorted, a smile on his face. "Your Dad words, you are right he must have offered her something to make you."

Turning to his mortal Faux Father, Arnold, Bryce sneered. "What about you? You've barely been involved in either of our lives, just stay there like a bump on a log, never really saying anything or doing anything. What were you given?"

Arnold sighed. "Lord Zeus wanted a child, your mother wanted power, as did I. The power to live comfortably. Why do you think we have no jobs but still have enough to take care of you both? You call yourself an investment, you are just that. To me, your mother... that is all. I am sorry to say it, but that is the utter truth. Xander was just a mistake, in a way."

'That's all I am, an investment... and tool to get better in life?' His world swirled, anger and pain and a loss a mile wide enveloped him. He felt the room swirl as wind picked up, his parents' screams of terror blurring away as his inner storm became outward. He could not focus though, his mind tearing apart at the loss of the one constant he had ever had. Who he was, his value, all of it... gone.

And then a hand grabbed his, and he could not help but look up to see the raw, sincere sadness of Xander's tiny face looking at him. "You are better than they are, neither of us were brought into this in a good way. Where we go now, that is up to us."

And then, for the first time ever, Xander hugged him, and the storm forming around Bryce's body dissipated. The room settled, leaving Bryce to fall out of his panic attack and back into comfort. Turning his eyes, he saw his parents curled up together, eyes wide with terror.

"You are nothing to me, starting today... you are on your own."

The words echoed around them before his mother shrieked. "We gave you everything and you-"

"Refuse to let you use me and abuse my brother. We don't need you, now GO!" He bellowed, his parents both being knocked back by a harsh gale as they tried to stand.

Xander helped Bryce to his feet. "He's right, you are nothing, to either of us. We have places to be and lives to live."

And with that, both boys marched out of the room and toward the door at the end of the hall, finally ready to start over and actually have a life they wanted and chose to live.

"You ready." Bryce whispered as they opened to door.

His tiny brother nodded, a smirk on his scarred face. "Honestly? I have been dying for this."