Five year old Octavian knew how to swim. So he had no problem not drowning in the roman baths. In fact he quite enjoyed Roman baths. He was only five and the world hadn't completely corrupted him yet, so their were a lot of things he enjoyed. Things like running around Camp Jupiter like the hyperactive kid he'd been at five years old. He liked playing frisbee with other characters or playing by himself all alone in his room with his stuffed animal Augustus. He even liked Augur training. The poor kid didn't know any better. He'd been a hopelessly optimistic five year old, not scarred like the older campers, like how he'd be when he was one of the older campers. Like he would be just a little later that afternoon. Octavian didn't know things. He was clever but not smart. He didn't pay attention. He didn't see the signs. He didn't take the hints. He had absolutely no clue that people didn't like him. And they had no good reason for not liking him. It was only his first year there. He was trying his hardest to fit in. He was nice to people and whenever he made a mistake he tried to clean up the mess to the best of his limited abilities. But even for a demigod, well a legacy, he was different, he knew he was different but he didn't know that that made people not like him. He wanted to be liked. He thought he was liked. But that was the day Octavian found out that Different drove a wedge between him and the other campers. That was the day Octavian learned people didn't like him. That was the day Octavian started growing bitter and corrupt. That day ruined a happy, optimistic, friendly five year old little boy named Octavian Alexander.
It was a simple well thought out prank. The children of Mercury would have done it even to their best of friends, which Octavian was not. They didn't foresee it breaking the little boy, just making him upset for a little while. A few hours maybe. Not fourteen years. They didn't see that fourteen years later a crazed and bitter Octavian would lead Camp Jupiter into war trying to be the camp's hero, trying to be liked trying to prove a point. They didn't think the little optimistic five year old would be capable of that one day. And they didn't think their little prank would be the start of something so tragic, something that would result in the little boy they were about to prank ending his own life with the pull of a lever. What they didn't know, what even Octavian himself didn't know, was that Octavian had been abandoned at Camp Jupiter just a year ago. One burn tattoo bar on his pale arm. He'd been abandoned because of his power, because he was different, the same reason people hated him now. But Octavian didn't know this. He was halfway over the edge already because of the pain of abandonment he carried inside, but he just didn't know. And neither did the campers. It was just a prank. A humorous little prank. It wouldn't affect him too much. A simple prank. They would steal his clothes while he was in the baths. And they pulled it off perfectly.
Octavian searched desperately for his clothes. He wrapped himself in the towel they'd graciously left for him, purple, reminding him of the togas the older campers sometimes wore to meetings, which would one day be a pivotal part of his day to day wardrobe. He was shocked at the cruelty of their prank, standing on a crumbling bridge between being sad and being furious. But he hadn't gone over the edge yet. That moment happened the second he stepped outside. The second he heard the laughter. Not one person tried to help him. Not one person felt bad for him. They all just laughed as he tugged the towel around him even closer and dashed for his room. He slammed the door. The bridge had collapsed. Tears sprung to his eyes and hate burned in his soul. He'd given up on the ledge, falling willingly into the abyss of insanity bellow. The abyss formed him. Made him hate. Made him desperate. He still wanted to be liked but knew not how to trust. The abyss looked it away, no, the children of Mercury had taken it away along with shorts, a children's small SPQR t-shirt, a pair of nikes, socks, and a pair of dinosaur underwear. The underwear Octavian didn't miss, in part he got over the prank quickly. But the ability to trust? He missed that everyday. He was always guarded after that. Unable to make friends because he couldn't fully trust them. He was convinced all people hated him and that the only way to make them not hate him was to be the camp hero. And with the delusions of being the camp's hero and the nightmares of that laughter, the laughter of his peers his fellow campers as he ran wrapped only in a towel through camp, with those two things he grew from a bitter child to a bitter teenager. And Gaea planted seeds in Octavian's brain. Convincing him he was doing the right thing. Protecting the camp from scandalous Greeks. Gaea planted her hate filled seeds in the twisted soil of Octavian's corrupted brain. And they grew. And they grew and they grew until they'd completely taken him over. Until Octavian was just a bitter zombie in Gaea's army of bitter zombies, all once demigods or legacy who had had potential to be good to be great to be wonderful, but had all faced the cold cruel reality that people don't like different.
For Octavian, that had been the first time someone had said, lets prank Octavian. He was never the same after that.