"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
– Niccolò Machiavelli
The first time I felt power, it was electric. Pure, intoxicating. A rush unlike anything else.
I remember the boy clearly. Smaller than me, trembling, fists barely raised. He thought he could intimidate me, thought he could teach me a lesson. I didn't flinch. I had been waiting for this moment without even knowing it.
The first punch I threw didn't just land—it took. I felt the surge of control as he stumbled backward, eyes wide, fear spilling from him like water from a broken jar. Every heartbeat screamed that this… this feeling… was mine. Addictive. Irreplaceable.
But power, I quickly learned, is a cruel teacher. The boy fought back, faster, harder. I was reckless in my thrill, confident in my strength, and one misstep cost me. Pain exploded across my right eye as his fist connected. Blood. My vision blurred. My skin burned where the bone beneath had fractured.
I touched my face and felt the jagged line forming—my first scar. My first defeat. And for the first time, I understood fear. Not the fear of being powerless, but the fear of losing what you already hold.
I learned something that day: power is not given. It is taken. And to keep it… one must have more than strength. One must have knowledge, cunning… and money.
I didn't just want to fight. I wanted control. I wanted loyalty. I wanted an empire. The street taught me the first law of dominance: people bend for advantage, not kindness.
By the time I left that alley, I had a plan. Books on psychology, manipulation, strategy—they became my weapons. Coins I scavenged and earned fueled my first investments, small loans to desperate kids in exchange for loyalty. Every note I handed out, every debt collected, every ally earned, was another piece of the world bending to me.
And now, standing in front of the towering gates of my new high school, I felt it—the first taste of something larger, something inevitable. A new era was about to begin.
Cerberus would rise. And I would make sure the world knew my name.
I adjusted my bag over my shoulder, the scar across my right eye burning faintly as a reminder of failure—and a promise to never let it happen again.
The doors opened.
And I stepped in.