Supernatural - Underworld

by AdventuringCactus

Chapter 1: History

(A/N) Disclaimer - I do not own Supernatural or any characters/creatures that may end up in the story.

I hated them.

For all my years alive, spent with that swine of humans that I was supposed to call "family", I hated them. Mothers are supposed to take care of scraped knees, tell you not to be afraid of the dark. Fathers are supposed to teach you how to ride a bike, or throw a football, or bring you to "Take Your Kid To Work Day". And siblings are supposed to stand up for you, watch out for you. Not this family.

No, with the Tellerman family it was hunting. Not the fun kind of hunting, with bears and deer. I'm talking about demon hunting. There was only training: how to fire a weapon, or use blunt weapons, how to figure out what was what - Dad made us keep journals on different creatures that particular day's lesson was about. I hated that life. I didn't want to put my life on the line with every passing day. I wanted to lead a normal life - or at least as normal as the average shut-in gamer. So, as soon as I was of age, I left.

My days were filled with Halo, Call of Duty, online shit. I was going for Boston Major League Gaming champion. I had the title for two years before some couch potato extremist sawed me in half in a Gears of War tournament. But anyways, my life was adjusted to sitting in the dark, memorizing the controller, eyes glued to the screen. So imagine my surprise when a couple of Suffolk County police officers showed up at my apartment door (I thought someone was approaching when my duplex neighbor loudly whispered "Quick, guys, hide the pot! Cops!").

They knocked on my door, to my surprise, so I stood up and answered it as quick as I could. One of the officers painfully wretched at the sweaty sock smell of my apartment.

"Can I help you, officers," I asked.

The one who didn't look like he was about to vomit up his anus responded. "That depends," he said, his voice rather deep for a relatively scrawny white guy. "Are you Aaron Tellerman?" I gave him a confused look.

"Yeah, that's me. What do you guys need?"

The non-sick officer (the other one had already started vomiting in my garden) pulled up two pictures, mug shots of my parents. I just facepalmed.

"Need me to post bail?" The officer nodded. "How much?"

"$5,000 each." My eyelids threatened to tear themselves off.

I nodded and told him I'd be at the station in an hour. He told his partner they were leaving and he seemed to bolt to the car, gasping for breath. I just shook my head.

"I cannot believe your stupid asses got sent to jail! A damn museum? What the hell were you two thinking!?" I gave them my most concerned, annoyed, and angry look I could muster. Dad laughed, and Mom just smiled.

"Not what THE hell, Aaron...what IN hell." I stopped and slowly turned around.

"No...no, no, no, no! You're not just gonna drag me into another hunt just like that. I just bailed you out, you at least owe me a LACK of a hunt!"

They simply pulled out a newspaper, or rather a stack of them, that dated back to when the museum was about disappearances from people who had attended the museum that earlier day. The one that caught my eye was my brother, Stanley. I looked up at Mom and pointed at the article, speechless. She nodded.

"He was coming in from Charlotte, just touring," Dad said. His voice sounded solemn. "We went with him to the museum, offered to pay admission, which he accepted of course." My brother had always been rather cheap, so that didn't surprise me.

Mom took Dad's spot in the conversation. "We passed by a mummy exhibit, and it seemed to intrigue him. He could hardly take his eyes off it. He went back later that night to investigate it, but he never came back." It clicked right away.

"Don't tell me," I said, sounding dumbfounded. "Theres a damn mummy walking around that place?" My parents both nodded. I breathed a heavy sigh. "I'll get you in there. We'll find out where Stanley is. Then you'll leave me be." I prayed to God that I didn't get a thrill from this hunt.

The stroke of midnight. We had been staking out the museum all night to wait for security to leave, and we had been sitting there since dusk. They just had to leave at midnight. I was about nine cups of coffee in, and I had progressively began taking my coffee black through the night. Luckily there was a Dunkin' Donuts right across the street (they have fantastic jelly donut Munchkins, by the way).

As soon as the cars disappeared from sight, we all downed our last coffees and rushed to the building. To my own personal amusement, my head involuntarily started playing the Mission Impossible theme. I stopped short, taking note of a realization.

"Shit, Mom, we forgot the guns." Mom sighed and ran back to the car. We heard the opening and closing of the trunk, and in a minute we saw Mom running back with our weapons. "Did you bring the incendiary rounds," I asked. She nodded.

"Woah, woah, woah, what!? Incendiary rounds," Dad interrupted. "What the hell, are we gonna set the damn place ablaze!?" I forgot Dad never went with me and Mom to deal with a few zombies back when.

"No, Dad. There's a few ways to get rid of the undead, and fire is one of them. So is shooting them in the head. We're using both of those."

"Oh."

In about a minute or so, I had picked the lock on the museum doors (I had a lock picking kit in my bag I carried with me) and we quickly found ourselves on the inside of the building. We all equipped ourselves with our weapons.

"Where's the exhibit," I asked. Dad, assumed in a battle stance, put a finger to his lip, then pointed with the same finger. He started walking. Mom followed him, and I was close behind.

We reached the Egyptian exhibit in a few short minutes, and wouldn't you know it, the case concealing the biggest mummy in the room was opened and empty. I muttered some choice words to myself, earning a scolding look from Mom. I apologized with a wave of my hand.

I started scanning the room and saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned just in time to see a tall, bandaged figure shoot me an evil glance and disappear behind a column. I stood there, paralyzed by what I just saw. That thing was larger than even its display case suggested! I motioned to my parents that I had seen something.

And my dad made the mistake of cocking his gun.

The mummy, which had somehow gotten on the ceiling, dropped right in front of Dad. Not taking any chances of anyone getting hurt, I quickly took aim and shot the mummy. The bullet planted itself in its arm and ignited, but only the arm caught fire. The creature let out a blood curdling, demonic scream and hid itself on the ceiling. My dad was against an exhibit case, panting heavily.

"What the hell, Aaron," my dad said in a loud whisper. "I thought you said the whole thing would go up in smoke!"

"I thought it would," I not-whispered back. "This must be a Pharaoh or something. I read up on Pharaoh Mummies. They psychically regenerate limbs."

"So how in God's name do we kill it?"

"A clean go at the brain stem."

This time we were all readied and tried our best not to make any mistakes. We stood there, silently waiting for its next attack. I kept my eyes on the ceiling while Mom and Dad kept watch around me. I made them take melee weapons, since I had the sudden feeling that their clumsiness would get one of us shot. We stood there for about 10 minutes.

I looked over at Dad. "Maybe we should check around the rest of the museum?"

I spoke too soon.

The beast had been waiting for me to take my eyes off the ceiling. It landed directly in front of me with such force that it knocked my parents away from us, but it made sure I didn't move. So much for melee weapons.

It drew back its arm and bashed my chest with its wrist, throwing me into the column it had disappeared behind earlier, which thoroughly smashed to bits. I felt a couple ribs crack and let out a loud yell.

As I struggled to get up, my parents were already in full gear and swinging at the monstrous abomination with all they had. It took a swing at dad, who ducked and lobbed off its right arm with a silver bladed machete. It took the time to jump backwards and regenerate, which gave Mom time to position herself under it to bludgeon off its legs. It landed on its hands and promptly threw Mom into a wall.

See, there's the thing about my parents. They're horrible at breaking into places, and if they're working alone or with each other, they almost always fail. I'm honestly surprised they're still alive, given the number of (failed) solo hunts they go on. It seems that whenever they're in the presence of someone other than themselves, they get this sort of adrenaline rush, albeit still not the sharpest tools in the shed. They can fight like all hell, though.

Swift dodging occurred, both from my parents and the Pharaoh, and I was still laying on the shattered remains of the column. The show was getting boring.

"Come on, let's see some real action!" The sound escaped my lips faster than I could think rationally about what would happen when they did.

The Pharaoh turned its head toward me. It started to run at me.

Despite the pain I was in, my mind was screaming death at me to get up, so I did just that. Adrenaline and fear will do that to a guy. I grabbed my rifle and rolled out of its way to stand myself up faster. It tripped on the rubble of its destruction and landed on its front side, getting impaled in the chest by a sharp shard of concrete. Unfortunately that wasn't a killing blow. That was still left to the brain stem.

I stood up and yelled as the sharp pain of my chest reached my nervous system. I ignored it as best I could and drew my gun, trying to get a steady aim at the wretched thing.

"Mom, Dad," I yelled. "Keep it distracted and keep it still!" Immediately, my parents started holding it in one place, attacking and dodging like they were supposed to. They were taught well...sort of. It still wasn't enough. I couldn't get a clean shot to the head without getting within meleeing distance. And I sure as hell couldn't hope to spray and pray. Praying didn't help this become a cruel prank anyways.

"Fuck it, I'm going in," I yelled to no one in particular. I started rushing towards the Pharaoh, intending to end the damned thing as soon as possible. More adrenaline. I rushed it took hold of its bandaged forearm. It swung up to shake me off, and I let go with just the right timing to land on its shoulders (my agility is quite top-notch). I dug out my combat knife and drove it into the creature's skull, pulled it out, replaced it with my gun barrel, and pulled the trigger.

The necromantic entity lay dead as a pile of ash, and, to my surprise, started to glow a sickly purple. I looked at Mom and Dad, but they looked just as confused as I was.

"Know anything about this, Aaron?" My dad sounded more curious than he looked.

"Nothing like it was mentioned in the book I read, so no…"

The ash pile started to lift itself up and float towards the other end of the exhibit room. I stood there in awe of what I was watching. There was just enough for it to land right by large ebony chest. There was a sudden, temporarily blinding flash of light, birthing a key at the end of the ash trail.

I slowly walked over to the chest and picked up the key. There was a keyhole in the chest, so I tried it. I turned the key and heard the clink of the tumblers. I took ahold of the chest's lid and lifted, cringing at the smell of death that reeked inside it. There was a ladder that lead down to a large set of catacombs.

As I touched the floor at the bottom of the ladder, there were torches that seemed to light themselves. Possibly some kind of enchanting magic. They showed what appeared to be a path.

"Mom, Dad, I think Stanley might be this way."

"What makes you say that," my mother retorted.

"Well," I began. "When Pharaohs die, they lead you to your closest desire, and in this case-"

"I was being sarcastic." Now I felt stupid.

We followed the trail for a good while. My legs began to get tired from walking. We passed the bodies of what had seemed like past victims of the above monstrosity. They were all still fully clothed. The damn thing killed for pleasure, then buried his victims in an underground tomb.

We reached the end of the path, where a familiar dark haired figure lay, on top of what looked like ancient egyptian blankets.

"Stanley!" My dad ran up to my brother and started checking his pulse. "He's alive. Julie, he's alive," my dad announced, earning a sigh of extreme relief from my mom. She ran over to him and pulled a bottle of water from the bag she had taken with her and started to pur it on his face. He woke up sputtering, choking on the water.

"Ack ptfrttdft! What the hell, Mom!" He looked over to Dad. "Oh. Hey, Nathan."

"Still not used to me enough to call me 'Dad', huh?" Oh, yeah, important detail: Stanley is my half brother.

"Eh, I'll get around to it." They shared a laugh. There was suddenly a loud, deep voice with an accent that echoed around the catacombs.

"Your treasure has been retrieved." That earned a smirk from Stanley. "Go back to the mortal plane from whence you came, and never return to this place." We were all engulfed in the same sickly purple glow that had surrounded the Pharaoh's ashes.

"Oh, God, not this bullshit again," Stanley complained. We were teleported (also a new one for me) to a corner about two blocks away from the museum.

We had been hiding out at a nearby hotel for about a week, taking turns every two days for food runs. Once Sunday had reached us, Dad came in with the daily paper. He plopped it onto the table, along with our food. I was the first to read the paper.

"Someone found the catacombs beneath the museum," I said excitedly. "All the missing person reports were closed. The bodies all had wallets and IDs."

"That's real good to hear," Dad said. "Now we can leave this cramped hotel." He let out a shudder. "Me and your mother will go back to doing our thing, and you can go back to yours."

I was still in the hotel room around an hour after everyone went their separate ways. I slumped in my chair, looking over the news report again and again. I didn't plan on going back to doing my thing. That damn couch potato extremist was just gonna keep taking my place anyways. No, I planned on hunting again. I was gonna find a team of skilled hunters, save lives, just like the old days. Just...without my family, on occasion.

Damn it. I told myself not to get a thrill.