Miles Summers worked as a cashier at CVS pharmacy in Seattle. He was decent at his job; not good, not bad, just decent. He hated it though. The only reason he didn’t leave was because he knew he would never get a job anywhere else. One day, Miles became depressed and thus began to see a therapist. It only got worse from there. He soon began cutting, and after his second suicide attempt, his therapist decided it was time he see the best there was: a specialist in anger and depression named Lydia. After six weeks of therapy, he was no longer suicidal, and on his way back to becoming a functioning adult. But he had been fired from his job because he had been diagnosed with Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) and they thought he was a risk. His therapist wanted him to keep seeing her, but he decided it was time he try to make it on his own on the streets, as he couldn’t afford to continue to pay her. She offered to help him for free. It was then that he realized how much she cared for him. He leaned in to kiss her, and one thing led to another, and when “it” was over, Lydia looked ashamed and guilty. He told her it was ok, and she simply responded by yelling at him to leave and never come looking for her again. In the next two months, Miles had managed to lose his job, his house, and his sanity, and was placed in a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill a man who offered him money when they saw him sleeping on the street. Little did Miles know it was Lydia who set up his admission to the hospital. Three months later while in the hospital, Miles had a vision of Lydia, explaining that she was the goddess Lyssa in disguise. She told him that he had gotten her pregnant, and she was not allowed to keep the child, but that he wasn’t fit to raise him either. Lyssa told Miles she had named the child Courtland, and that the state would have him placed in the foster system. She explained that if he was ever well enough, she would see to it he was released from the psychiatric facility.
As a child, Courtland was placed in the house of a couple in their mid forties. Courtland stayed there with them and their two biological children for the first five years of his life before he began exhibiting symptoms of IED. He started throwing tantrums, getting into fight with his foster siblings, and even tried to break the television remote when they punished him for not eating his dinner. Courtland was then moved to the home of a widow in her thirties where there were three other foster children as well as her one adopted child. There, he was abused by one of his foster siblings named Carla, who was seventeen and would beat him up on a regular basis. He stayed in the home for the next eight years of his life. When his foster mother would ask why he was hurt, he would say that he fell and that he was quite clumsy. He suppressed all his anger, as he was always the one getting beat up, and while in this home he lost the part of him that made him feel safe. But one of his other foster siblings, Ben (who was the foster mother’s adopted child), he actually became very close with. Ben was fourteen when Courtland turned six and one day he came home with a Marvel X-Men comic. Ben saw the black eye Carla had given to Courtland the day before, as it was still visible, and gave the comic to Courtland as a gift, and saw it his duty to stand up to Carla for Ben. Ben and Carla ended up fighting, which inevitably ended with Carla in an ambulance. Courtland read the comic from cover to cover countless times, so Ben took it upon himself to buy Courtland the next one in the series. Ever since, Courtland has been obsessed with Marvel and collecting comics. After Carla was sent to the hospital, Ben encouraged Courtland to testify to what happened, and he did so. Combined with Ben’s word, and the injuries over the past year, Carla was tried as an adult, convicted, and placed in jail.
In the years after this event, Courtland’s self-esteem plummeted, and he began to cut himself as a ten years old. As usual, Ben was the first to notice, and saw to it that Courtland stop. Ben took Courtland to a therapist, who only provoked Courtland’s suppressed anger. He yelled at the therapist, when they asked Ben to leave. The therapist ended up letting Ben stay in the room, and when Ben later explained to Courtland he shouldn’t raise his voice like that, he responded by saying “The Banshee would disagree.” Ben then took Courtland to the one place he knew Courtland would want to go: the comic store.
Meanwhile, Lyssa was looking down from above and couldn’t bear watching her son turn into his father, who was still in a psychiatric facility, where he was only getting worse. Lyssa knew she could not interfere with her child’s life at all, and after recently risking to visit another one of her children while they were on a quest, she wasn’t about to risk getting caught and punished by Zeus again. So Lyssa asked a favor of her mother, Nyx, knowing that Zeus was slightly intimidated by her mother. Lyssa begged her mother to help her grandchild. Nyx agreed, but told Lyssa it would cost her son. Lyssa told her to do whatever she had to to keep her son from going insane. She visited her grandson in a vision, saying who she was and explaining his ancestry and godly heritage. She told him to find a woman a named Layla, who worked at the comic store and would be waiting for him. Nyx then placed a psychic barrier in his mind, separating the angry, psychotic part of his personality from the calm, ration, and sane part, giving Courtland a duel personality. The psychic barrier proved effective in keeping the maddening personality out during the day, however every night, Courtland’s second personality would need a chance to be free in order to prevent too much anger from building up in Courtland to the point where it would break the psychic barrier. Nyx believed that if she kept his personality split all of the time, his insanity would seep into the deepest part of his subconscious, resulting in incurable hallucinations, paranoia, and a worse case of IED than he has already. She made it so every night, the barrier would break until morning. Therefore, every night from then on, Courtland had to be asleep by the time the moon was in the sky, or his alternate personality would break freed while he was awake, making him much more volatile, dangerous, reckless, and powerful than during the day. (This is because all of his psychotic rage is essentially being let free at once uncontrollably, so he essentially has no self-control or conscience, and feels the need to use his powers for as much as possible while in this mentality. The barrier can also be broken if Courtland’s body believes it is in a life or death situation.)
Courtland received the vision from Nyx while he was in the comic book store, reading a Fantastic Four comic. Meanwhile, Lyssa visited Ben in a separate vision, explaining what Nyx was doing, and it’s potential side effects. Lyssa then asked Ben to look after Courtland till it was time for him to go to camp. Ben agreed, and was given a list of instructions that Ben was to follow to keep Courtland stable as well as a weapon that he was to deliver to Courtland.
The next day, Ben explained to Courtland that he was a satyr and that it was his job to protect Courtland no matter what. This would soon prove to be no easy task for Ben. A week after the psychic barrier’s were applied, Courtland didn’t go to bed on time. He was up “late,” studying for his math test the next day. At 7:29 PM, the sun began to set. By 7:45, the barrier had been broken. Not knowing he had already “changed”, Ben told Courtland he should get ready for bed so “it” didn’t emerge. Courtland responded in a rage, saying he didn’t want to go to bed and throwing a tantrum, and eventually unleashed a beam of intense rage from his hands, killing Ben. Courtland then passed out till morning. After the event, Courtland became depressed, realizing not only that he would never in his right of mind see the stars again, and would have be asleep by 7:15 every night, but that he had killed his one and only friend, and the one person in his life he ever knew to care about him.
Soon Courtland became depressed, asleep at 6:00 every night, cutting himself, and under-eating. As Lyssa watched her son deteriorate from above, she couldn’t help but do something, but she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to send him to Camp Half Blood, but didn’t want to risk the safety of the other people there, knowing he would have to live in a cabin with her other children, also prone to violence and anger. As the goddess of madness, Lyssa realized that getting rid of the barrier could drive her son completely insane, but keeping him sane would keep him in a depression. She once again sought out her mother for help. Nyx believed that Courtland could be saved only if he wanted to save himself. She decided it was in his best interest to let him figure things out for himself for once. But she would guide him in the right direction, by influencing the next foster home he was placed in.
Around a year later, Courtland’s foster mother’s license to foster expired, and she didn’t get it renewed. Courtland was moved to the home of a demigod man from India names Aaya, who was the son of Harmonia. When Courtland arrived, Aaya was sitting in his living room meditating. Courtland looked at the man and asked him what he was doing. Aaya explained to him about meditation, how it is used in his culture, and how it can calm the body and mind. The eleven year old was intrigued, and asked to try it. After a week, Aaya began to teach Courtland to meditate as a way to control his anger and sadness, and to let go of his negative emotions. Courtland became very close with Aaya over the next few weeks. When Aaya learned of Courtland’s love for superhero comics, he bought Courtland a Hulk comic, and explained how Courtland and Hulk were much alike in their struggle to contain and control the violent and deadly anger inside themselves. Aaya continued to teach Courtland to meditate, and after a few months, Courtland could meditate for hours on end, and had stopped cutting himself.
Over the next two years, while living with Aaya, Courtland’s emotional state began to stabilize. Not only was he learning to meditate and control his anger, but Aaya also began to teach Courtland martial arts and how to fight. However, the extent of Aaya’s knowledge was limited to Indian weapons and other weapons from Asia, so that is what Courtland was trained in. It was then that one day while meditating in a park one day, Courtland and Aaya were attacked by two Myrmekes. Aaya, a trained demigod, was able to take both beasts out using a Celestial Bronze bow and arrow. with ease. However, as a self-defense mechanism, Nyx had made it so the sight of the monsters would break the psychic barriers in Courtland’s head, because as a child of Lyssa his powers are fueled by rage, and could be helpful in a life or death situation. Even though Courtland didn’t show any rage, the psychic barrier had been broken. That night, Aaya had made dinner, but forgot to heat up the food for Courtland, who responded by yelling at Aaya. Having known about the barrier, Aaya immediately recognized what was wrong, and used his powers to temporarily calm Courtland’s mind. He then prayed to his mother to give him the strength and power to restore the psychic barriers in Courtland’s mind himself. Harmonia sensed the desperation in her son to protect his foster child, and being the goddess of peace, believed it part of her duty to keep insanity from roaming the streets, however she feared of breaking the no direct contact rule with her child. Harmonia contacted Nyx, figuring it was her mess to have to clean up. Nyx restored the psychic barrier while Aaya kept Courtland’s mind at ease in the meantime.
However, due to the fact that Nyx was communication with Aaya, and Nyx was thankful that Aaya was keeping her grandchild safe, Aaya was able to request change to a few characteristics about the psychic wall. Aaya had seen how hard it was for Courtland to always fall asleep at sunset while everyone else his age was still up. Instead of sleep, Aaya had Nyx have the new barrier rely on a certain amount (approximately 3-4 hours a day) of successful meditation in order to stay active, where the meditation would essentially wash out any anger or insanity that would have presented itself that day. Nyx also made it so the barrier would break in any combat setting or life or death situation, and automatically block out the IED personality when the threat was clear.
It was at this point, that Aaya and Nyx both believed it was time Courtland be sent to Camp Half Blood, where monsters would not be able to reach him in order to make sure the barrier stay intact as much as possible. They left the next day and reached Camp Half Blood in three days time. When they arrived at camp, it became apparent the director was reluctant to allow him into camp. Courtland doesn’t know why the camp accepted him considering that he had killed Ben, however he assumes Nyx had saved him once again and had the director make an exception. Before Aaya dropped Courtland off, he gave Courtland a pair of Celestial Bronze katars, which transform into rings when they aren’t being used. He explained to Courtland that the weapons were given to him as a gift from his mother, and had always wanted to pass them on to his child, but he never had one. Aaya told Courtland that he considered Courtland family and that Courtland was welcome to visit Aaya anytime.
