Chapter 1: After the Fact

Hi, my name is Elias Cadley; I'm seventeen years old, six feet and one inch tall, one hundred and seventy three pounds, with black hair and green eyes (a weird combo I know). I'm also a professional mixed martial artist with emphasis on karate, judo, and tae kwan do. I think that's just about everything you need to know about me, oh wait one more thing; I'm a son of Hades, Greek god of the Underworld.

To make this easier to understand, a lot of you reading this also read Percy Jackson and the Olympians as well as the follow up series Heroes of Olympus. I have one thing to say about those books, they are all true; everything written in those books is one hundred percent fact. What I'm writing here though happens to be quite a while after those events. To put it in perspective Percy and Annabeth as well as their various companions are all in their forties now, they have kids, I know because I'm best friends with their daughter, but we'll get to that later. For now I should probably do what every other writer ever has done, and that is start at the beginning.

My blaring alarm clock was the first thing that greeted me in the morning, and as soon as I was awake I was excited for three reasons, It was the first day of summer break first of all, Second it was my birthday (which only comes second because this is the first day I haven't had to go to school in months), and third today the day I turn seventeen I finally get to go to Camp Half-Blood. I got ready for the day and rushed downstairs, now I know what you're thinking, how could a demigod (a child of Hades no less) survive so long on his own, the thing is I'm not alone. You see my Dad (adoptive dad technically) is also a demigod, a child of Ares, he's the one who's protected me and trained me as I grew. The reason I didn't go to camp before now is that we've never had the money to send me, Dad works in construction and we live in downtown Salt Lake, Utah. So pretty far from camp, a couple weeks ago though he got a promotion so I can finally go though. Oh one more thing I was excited for, supposedly my older brother Nico was going to show up.

So anyways I made my way downstairs and to my surprise he was already their talking with Dad. "Hey Nico!" I exclaimed.

"Hey Eli.' Came his response. 'Happy birthday man, here's your present."

He tossed me a wrapped bundle and the noise it made upon landing in my lap, and the bruise it left from landing their clued me into the fact that it was made of metal. I ripped open the packaging to find a pair of gauntlets as black as night on top of a weird wire mesh made of the same material. I was way excited but first things first.

"What's it made of?"

"Stygian iron, same stuff as my sword, appropriate for a son of Hades, and I knew that you love martial arts, and are completely hopeless with a blade."

"Sweet, so what's the mesh for."

"Oh those go over your shoes; I figured that way you could use your kicks to. Go ahead try 'em on."

I did as he said easing my hands into the metal gloves, and slipping the mesh pieces over my feet. Nothing happened to the mesh, but to my amazement once I had both gauntlets on snugly they morphed into a pair of rings. All I had to do to change them back and forth was think about it, that would come in handy.

After that we sat and talked for a while until it was time to go and catch my plane. As I left with Dad, Nico called out one last time before disappearing into the shadows nearby.

"Say hi to Percy and Annabeth for me I think they'll be their dropping off their daughter Laura. I believe it's her first time too."

I nodded and then we took off for the airport. Sadly I had to break in my new gauntlets before we even got there.

We were about ten minutes from the airport when a bunch of monsters ran out onto the road in front of us shouting

"KILL THE SON OF HADES, KILL THE SON OF ARES!"

Dad reacted immediately years of training just kicking in. He swerved off the road into a near field to take the fight away from any mortals smashing into one of the monsters in the way instantly vaporizing it. As soon as we stopped he hopped out of the car grabbing his massive two handed sword from the back seat.

"Well don't just sit there Eli, you have weapons now, use them!"

I jumped out of the car and willed my rings into gauntlets as the monsters surrounded us. I'd been taught and quizzed practically my whole life on the various monsters that would try to kill me, and these ones were pretty easy to recognize. Gegenees or earth-born, six armed brutes made of dirt. Suddenly they rushed in trying to kill us off fast. The first one came at me while a bunch of others converged on Dad. The thing had hardened spikes of dirt like daggers in each of its hands. I dodged quickly to the left kicking it in the side as I passed, making it stagger back a little as the stygian iron did its job draining just a little bit of its life force. Thinking I was safe for the moment I turned to see how Dad was doing, Big mistake, as I turned back around I got back handed in the face, hard. The hit knocked me back into the car and I had to roll away to avoid getting my face smashed in again. I got up as fast as I could being on the ground would only get me killed. As I stood I saw three earth-born converging on me, so I did the only sensible thing, I charged the three murderous monsters. I ducked under the swing of the first and jabbed it several times in the stomach then dropped down to the ground and swept its legs out from underneath it as I rose I stomped the things head flat reducing the monster to dust. As I stood there I heard the second one come up behind me. Jumping straight up in the air I landed on its shoulders in a sitting position, locking my knees I threw myself backwards pulling the earth-born with me as I hit the ground I let go and rolled away launching it into the third monster that was still hanging back impaling both of them on each others dirt daggers.

After disposing of them I turned again to Dad this time actually safe to do so. As I turned I saw that he had killed the other probably seven earth-born on his own and had only a few scratches to my broken nose.

"Not bad Eli, now let's see if we can still make that plane."

Surprisingly, I still made my flight. Now flying for children of Poseidon is a big no no, for children of Hades it's not much better. I mean I wasn't in danger of being blown out of the sky but needless to say every bit of turbulence had me freaking out. When I finally landed in long island I was convinced that the people who had to sit next to me thought that I was phobic of flying (which I guess I am). Getting off the plane I saw Argus the camp body guard waiting for me. Also getting picked up by Argus was I think the Prettiest girl I'd ever seen. Which in and of itself was terrifying but then I saw her parents who just so happened to be a couple of demigods who had saved the world, twice, Percy and Annabeth Jackson.