For as long as Dante could remember, there had been something underneath his skin: a crawling sensation that had first started in the pit of his stomach as a child and extended out to all of his limbs, an anger so deep and powerful that he knew nothing else but the bitter taste that coated his tongue with each breath he inhaled. They called it anger issues, they had always said he needed help, with the constant fights he found himself getting into in every new town his family moved to. Expulsion was hardly a threat, suspensions the norm for the boy. After all, he was invincible. His father was a commander within the military, his child may have been misbehaved, but no one dared to even so much as breath a wrong word to him about his son and risk it all. Regardless of his higher position within the ranks, he had never truly learned how to take care of his son aside from getting him out of trouble and reprimanding him before sending him on his way.
It was after a particular incident with another kid his age on the playground that finally opened his fatherâs eyes to how Dante really was. It had been a mere shove, his face filled with senseless rage at a small joke that the other boy had cracked. It was nothing like the fights he had been involved in before, this had been an accident. The boy had tripped backwards on some irregular concrete and proceeded to hit his head against the brick wall behind him, knocking him unconscious and in need of several stitches. It should have been something that made him feel guilty and full of shame, but all he could see was the red of the blood against the wall and the acrid scent of blood. Next thing he knew, Dante was being put into anger management courses and given the opportunity to take his aggression out on a punching bag.
Boxing was a passion, but fighting was in his blood.
He had one learned from his father that discretion was everything, it was always just a matter of perception. Though, Dante didnât care much about the opinion of others. Derek Fontaine was a man of honor, his son was not. Still, Dante had never been deemed a fool, foolish things were in his nature but he was meticulous all the same. He pretended that his anger dissipated every time he left the gym, boxing gloves in tow and a proud smile on his face. In the dead of night, he snuck away from his home and let the streets take him to the places that he only heard whispers about. The yearning for something more constantly kept him on the outer rings of street fighting, studying the movements of those who deemed themselves the best of the best. High school was dull and bleak, he hardly had the attention span to learn something as irrelevant as history and how to draw a butterfly. Instead, he cut classes to watch the most prized fighters of the streets, his father deeming his absent behavior far better than the violence he once involved himself in pubically.
So he learned, he studied, he became something of a whisper within the midst of a huge crowd. It wasnât until someone approached him about his analytical behavior did he admit that he wanted to fight⊠And so he did. Studying their actions had been one thing, having the power beneath the punch was another. Dante didnât have the practice, didnât have the technique that others did and he quickly lost in spite of his ego. The Fontaine boy was no quitter however, he threw himself more and more into practicing, a habit that his father took notice of. And when Derek Fontaine retired, they packed up and moved to Las Vegas: the boxing capital of the United States. There, he gained coaches who watched his feet dance as he practiced on the punching bag. They trained him long and hard, molding his body into a weapon that unwittingly prepared him for the future. He was entered into an amateur league, quickly working his way up after he turned 18.
The money meant nothing to him, he had quickly turned his passion into something that made him successful. Press conferences, endorsements, advertisements made him a rich man, but nothing could compare to the adrenaline that rushed through him when he stood face-to-face with his challenger. Where others felt a need to panic and a nervousness settling in the back of their throats, Dante only felt the calm before a storm. It was beautiful and he could almost taste bliss, a nirvana that he had never reached before.
As quickly as he had gained it all, the untimely end of his career had been like a rug pulled from underneath him. Perhaps he should have thought about his actions before he had gotten into a fight, but he had spent the majority of his life doing and not thinking. Alcohol had clouded his judgement that night and the last thing he could remember was being pulled off of a man at the edge of the bar, an empty whiskey bottle shattered underneath his fingertips. To this day, Dante still cannot remember what it was that he had said, all he could see was his career getting taken away from him and being stripped of everything he had. His father was no longer there to dig him out of the abyss he had fallen into.
For a long time, Dante had felt lost and Las Vegas felt even more foreign with its twinkling lights and bustling streets filled with gamblers and swindlers alike. There was nothing left for him there, so he packed up all his belongings and moved to the city that never slept. The man did what he had done before, following the shady streets of Brooklyn to a place where everyone talked about but no one dared to enter. Where he had lost countless fights before, he dominated now with a few adjustments to his steps. Where he could not punch before, he did so with enough force to knock out a man twice the size of him. He played dirty, having never been allowed to before and made a name for himself in the streets.
If you lived in New York, it was difficult not to hear about the elusive Olympians. Dante had no intentions of joining a gang, much less one that struck so much fear into the hearts of many. However, his reputation preceded him and he was enticed by his curious nature. And once he had been given a taste of the good life, he wanted more. It was the day he had been given a gun by Zeus that he found that fighting had never truly been enough. The anger had always disappeared in a fight, but it always came back full force. It was on his first hit that he discovered that there was something else far more thrilling than cutting and bruising up someoneâs face with his bare hands, it was seeing the splatter of red on a backdrop and knowing that he had done something important.
He felt powerful, on top of the world. Gone was Dante Fontaine, replaced with Ares: a man born, bred, and made for war. He was ever grateful to Zeus for the opportunity that he had been offered, never stepping at toe out of line for the man that given him his true calling and a purpose. He had been a warrior with no cause, travelling in a senseless direction. Now, he was found. He was home.
Born to a single father and the only child, Dante had never understood his fatherâs distaste for him. They had never been close, never spoken about their feelings towards one another, and hardly maintained the facade of having a good relationship in public. The only time Dante has ever remembered his father resembling anything more than someone he lived with was when Derek had taught him how to shoot, a natural talent that they both possessed. He can still remember the look of utter disappointment when his boxing career ended, something that drove him to finally move away from his fatherâs prying eyes.
There was something to be said about the cleanliness of a man, perception was everything. It was something that his father had once preached about and something he had taken to heart. Ares is no slob, everything in his life impeccable and carefully placed in a clean cut manner.
Despite all that he does to ensure that his professional life is the best that it can be, Dante is does not particularly think with his head when it comes to his personal life. With an ego the size of Texas, itâs hard for him to believe that not everyone wants him or wants to be him and heâs perfectly fine enabling his own behavior.
Others: ISTJ - ISTJs don't make many assumptions, preferring instead to analyze their surroundings, check their facts and arrive at practical courses of action. ISTJ personalities are no-nonsense, and when they've made a decision, they will relay the facts necessary to achieve their goal, expecting others to grasp the situation immediately and take action. ISTJs have little tolerance for indecisiveness, but lose patience even more quickly if their chosen course is challenged with impractical theories, especially if they ignore key details â if challenges becomes time-consuming debates, ISTJs can become noticeably angry as deadlines tick nearer.
