Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Disney, Descendants, or Ginny's AU. I'm just playing in it. Any new OCs are mine.
I couldn't resist and decided to mess around a bit. Sorry if it's a bit of an info dump in some parts.
Writing classic grouchy Hades dialogue was great though!
AmethystDragon14: For Mal, yes! Hadie will get his turn in a couple chapters.
Danifan3000: I'm glad Ginny decided to include her! She'll get referenced to now and again, but I don't plan for her to be particularly close to Hadie. I was originally going to go down a bit more down the gypsy route, but decided to take it out.
OceanBlueSeaEyes: You're in luck! I think there's… this plus maybe two more chapters for the Isle.
Ginnyrules27: He deserves so many hugs! Too bad we know Mal's going to be a little distracted when he arrives.
The first few days had been fine. But Mal had never been gone longer than a few days before.
After suffering another couple of days, Hadie found himself standing in front of one of her many murals. He was cutting it close, being this near to enemy territory. Estelle sat dutifully next to him, growling at any passerby as Hadie sorrowfully stared up at the tag of Jafar.
Yesterday he had hung out most of the day at giant form of Cerberus. While designed by Mal, he knew that one was made by Uma. He'd tried to dig through his sister's room for any sketchbooks, anything to remind him of her, but it seemed Uma had packed the more detailed ones for Mal to take to Auradon.
'And Mal's secret clubhouse is just that. Secret.'
With a brief pat on one of Estelle's heads, the pair trailed back through the town and towards the docks.
"Hadie?"
The godling in question turned, finding the wiry form of his cousin.
"Oh, hey Virg."
"I take it by the fact Estelle is trailing after you, it's true that Mal is in Auradon?"
Hadie could only nod. The last couple of days his voice seemed to get choked up and crack every time he tried to talk about Mal. The last time his dad had broken down, howling with laughter while Estelle was whimpering on the floor at how high Hadie's voice had gone.
'Way to be supportive, dad,' Hadie thought.
"H-have you eaten? I was g-going to meet up with Uma and Harry at y-your dad's restaurant," Virgil spoke, breaking Hadie from his brooding.
"Hm? Oh, I had a bite this morning, not much. We're back to hard rationing till mom gets back."
Virgil nodded, well aware of the situation. Much of what Persephone brought over only lasted about 4 months, even with Hades' attempt to ration long term. Only the few bulk things, such as cornstarch or rice, really lasted the year of both her stay and full departure. There wasn't much one could do with those. Though coating the fish with cornstarch was just as filling as grilled bits on a small bed of rice.
No one cared to be picky. Not that they could afford to. Just something to rid the gnawing feeling of hunger.
"S-so, d-did you want to come with?"
"Might as well, I've got nothing else to do. All my homework this week is already done."
"N-not much to do w-without Mal around, huh?" Virgil turned, leading the way back to town.
"No, not really," he mumbled.
'I know Mal's not that fond of the mind link, considering she accidentally broadcasts even the littlest of her emotions, but she could at least use it or send a letter one of these days.'
Hadie ignored the fact that it hadn't even been a week. She likely was just settling in. But if he had to leave for who knows how long while still having family and friends stuck on the Isle, he'd find a way to at least send those letters.
Hadie trailed after Virgil, Estelle close to his side.
He was thankful that the older boy was in front of him. It kept the half-imp from seeing Hadie wave at the roof line where he saw Yzla sitting with Quinn and a disguised Sura.
'Wouldn't have even noticed if her hair hadn't fallen out from under her head cover,' Hadie wondered. 'And that looks like Reg, weirdly enough.'
The odd-eyed boy had shown to be useful in getting information from the Hyenas. Instead of waiting for the crew's scout patrols to the hyenas, or for the Matriarch to come to the docks herself, Hadie could hear through Dizzy's gossip line.
In the meantime, somehow, Reginald von Rotten had found kindred comforts in the Cackle. Likely due to his weasel watchers never shutting up from laughter. Though Regi had no trade with them, so Shenzi was more 'loyal' in a way to Mal. It was who Ed barely left the kid alone if the son of Judge Doom entered the Isle wastes.
Hadie tried not to look back as felt the red and gold eyes of Regi watching him. They'd only ever interacted a few times. Each time had been a lot of fun, but the one-month grounding that followed every time wasn't that worth it.
'Memo to me, send Reg a gift so he doesn't think I'm sidelining him. I just don't want to be locked in the Underworld for ages again.'
"Afternoon, little Lord, Virgil," Harry greeted as Hadie and Virgil entered Hades' restaurant.
"Hadie, Virg," smiled Uma. "And yes, you too, Estelle."
The pair of pirates were perched upon their usual spot. Uma had already started digging into her usual honey slathered chicken. Harry, however, was technically working and preferred not to eat on the job. Even if Hades would eventually force the boy to take a seat now and again anyways to break and eat.
"Hey cuz," Hadie smiled back, before directing a glary at Harry. "Hook."
Harry simply snickered as he got up to give Virgil his seat.
"What can I get you two?"
"Just fries for me," Hadie bit back a thanks. Uma and Harry shared a look.
"I-I'll have the k-kalamata tuna."
As Harry left to let Hades know, Uma turned to Hadie with a glare.
"You need to be eating more," she growled. "I don't know if it's just because you miss Mal or what, but seriously, Hads. Eat."
"We're on rations, Uma, I'm not going to take from other kids if I can help it. Besides, even if I haven't ascended yet, I'm full god. I can live with less just like my parents."
A loud thud sounded as a pile of fries covered in chunks of chicken and what was probably cheese sauce from a jar appeared. The God of the Dead towered above their table.
"Wait, this isn't—"
"Pretty sure I'm allowed to be openly bias," Hades sternly said as he poked his son in the chest. "And as a godling, you have tons of growth stages to go through and I'd rather not risk finding out if being under fed and magically suppressed is going to keep you from your full potential. Now as Uma said, eat."
In contrast, Harry carefully placed a plate of tuna and pita bread in front of Virgil.
"I trust I don't need to tell you to eat, Virgil," Hades smirked.
"N-no, L-lord H-Hades."
"You heard the old man," snickered Uma as she happily chewed on her food.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, mean old man, right here," Hades continued to poke Hadie.
"Daaaaad!"
"Hey, I'm not stopping until you start eating."
"Alright! Alright already," Hadie picked up a fry and began to eat.
"Atta boy," Hades grinned, stopping his relentless pokes and instead ruffled his son's hair. "I'll be back in the kitchen if any of you tots need me!"
"Tots?! Come on, Uncle Hades, Virg is officially an adult, and Harry and I are almost 18 ourselves now," argued Uma. "And why is your dad allowed to mess with your hair, but every time I do it, I get my hands slapped?"
"Only mom and dad are allowed to touch my hair. Simple as that. I don't even like it when Mal does it."
"And I'm old and ancient as you constantly like to remind me!" Hades called back. "Compared to my centuries, all of you might as well be newborns."
Hadie was bored.
When Hadie was bored, he usually ended up doing something stupid or breaking one of his parents carefully set list of rules.
Today, he broke one of the most major rules.
He snuck into the Underworld.
Estelle was with Uma at the clubhouse. CJ had come by that morning with news. Apparently, Harry had done something seriously stupid last night. Something he was too embarrassed to come back to the Underworld for the night and instead stayed at the Rotten Four's hideout.
As Hadie followed the steps downward, the wooden boards slowly made way for packed earth and stone. Electric bulbs and lanterns faded into torches as the walls turned into jagged black rock.
'Woah,' Hadie stopped, a hand running across the dark walls. They appeared as if they might be wet as light reflected off the angular surfaces. They were cool to the touch.
Quietly, he continued down the steps towards a pale light coalescing at the bottom. It occasionally flickered different colors, from yellow-golds, to red to blues.
Peeking around the corner, he stared in awe at the number of gems decorating the walls. As his adjusted to the large amount of light he began to make out heaps of scrolls and books strewn about. Occasionally, an odd wisp would fly into the room from some assorted gem colors, swirl around a dark mass and then fly into a different set of gems.
Shaking his head, Hadie squinted through the light, trying to make out more details. It took him a moment to realize the dark mass towards the center of the room was his dad, muttering over a book as he penned things faster than Hadie had ever seen.
"Asphodel…hm, Asphodel…pfft, also Asphodel…nice, nice, Elysium, Asphodel, yeesh, set that one aside to Tartarus I'll review for punishment later… Asphodel, Asphodel…"
Each slip of paper that was marked flew off the book into several separate stacks. Panic could be seen frequently scurrying back and forth between the stacks and color-coded filing cabinets. Pain was the closest to the entrance where he seemed to be shuffling through long letters. The purple imp had his own assortment of stacks that he organized the letters into, some getting responses, some set into bins.
"PAIN!"
Hadie jumped and pressed his back against the wall, resisting the temptation to peek around the corner.
"Yes, Your Lugubriousness!"
"Where are you at with those personal judgements? Ten at a time, ya know? Ten at a time…TEN MINUTES AGO!" The God's hair flared red. "Oy vey, we are on a schedule here, I don't need this backlog. We've been over this, every half an hour, you give me a set of judgements that need to be seen to in person. CAPICHE?"
"Capisco!" Pain saluted. "But, uh…"
"WHAT?" Hades sneered. "This may be the Underworld, but killing time ain't on my to-do list!"
"YES, SIR SORRY SIR, j-just, we got some additional missives from the others…Questions from Hypnos, Hera's peeved at Zeus and asked about helping teach her husband a lesson…"
"Back burner that one, for now just tell him to say unless I get off this damn Isle, Hera can't ask him to do shit, and I don't plan to get involved with another of their tiffs."
"O…kay, this one's from Aiakos, one of the furies ate the paperwork of this year's section for Asphodel nu to omicron and is requesting copies…"
"Memo pod that one, we'll send that before the day is out."
"Another complaint from Kokytus—"
"NOPE, nope, nope, nada, ZILCH, nix that one. I ain't dealing with Menthe's daddy dearest in the slightest. Forward that one to Persephone, I ain't touching that shit."
"Aaaand, lastly, a request from Nyx for a night or two off and having Erebos replace her. Partly because it's been about a hundred years since her last break, and to mess with Auradon and Zeus for screwing up our Biz. She wants to take away the stars for a bit."
"Hmm, mhmm, tempting, has flare, would be hard to ignore…wait…nanananana, I promised the missus I'd behave. I won't approve, but considering Nyx and her hubster are higher deities, they can do whatever off record. No eternal stuff though, don't want it to be too suspicious."
Hadie covered his mouth to smother his giggles. He couldn't resist his curiosity any longer and peeked back around the corner.
Pain was transcribing everything as the conversation went off before dumping into a case labeled 'OUT'. Picking up another stack with a tiny leather bag, he raced back over to Hades. Panic narrowly dodged out of his brother's way as he meandered and attended to the various shining gems. Scrolls and papers magically sprung forth as Panic tapped the gem attached to the cord around his neck to each one.
"Overview for Group 346, sir!" Pain presented.
Snatching the bag from Pain, Hades dumped the contents onto his crowded desk. With a snap of his fingers, souls sprung forth.
"Line up on the designated spots people, markers 1 through 10, I don't care who's where, just follow protocol…" The King of the Dead idly flipped through the accompanied papers, giving a cursory look at each soul's file.
"Lesseee…Markulian Dalicroix…Marky! Can I call you Marky? What am I sayin', of course I can. Step forward, ya stiff."
Looking back up, the God realized his newest subjects, while lined up, were not paying him any attention.
"Oi," he snapped, getting the group to look nervously at him. "Yeesh, normally Hermes and Thanatos hand out the brochures. Me, God king, you lot, dead subjects to said God king, got it? Attention on me when I'm talking."
Hades' brow knitted together as the souls shifted awkwardly, glancing towards…
'Oh boy,' Hadie stepped backwards, carefully shifting his weight to quietly make a swift exit.
Only to trip.
His father's shadow engulfed the godling's form.
"H-hi, dad," Hadie gave a weak grin. Hades' face was unreadable.
A hot second later, Hadie found himself sitting in a chair facing a corner.
"I'll deal with you after this group. You keep your nose in there."
"Yes, dad, sorry, dad," Hadie mumbled.
"Hey! Ignore my delinquent son will ya, we're on a time crunch now…"
It was hard for Hadie to keep his nose in the corner. So many things were happening around him. So many new things.
But every time he began to turn his head, his dad's hand whipped out and rotated his head back to staring into the dark, dullness of timeout. Until at last, the tenth soul was sentenced.
"Plea ignored, Tartarus for you, sicko." A short scream later, Hadie could hear the whooshing sound of the dead being sucked into another gem. Red light momentarily took over the room.
That was the only thing he was really able to understand while stuck in the corner.
Various intensities of light meant a certain degree of wrong doing or good doing. Reds were Tartarus, blues to greys were sent into the Fields of Asphodel, and green was Elysium. Hadie still wasn't sure about the yellows, which was the only other prominent color he could make out. Sometimes flashes of other hues occurred, but without additional signs, he wasn't sure what they were for either.
Behind him, his dad sighed. A quick wrench, Hadie's chair was spun so he faced the less than pleased God.
Hades eyed his son, channeling much of his willpower to not settle into a rather strong glare.
Ever since Hades had discovered Hadie, he had taken to watching his language and not reading any of files for the Tartarus-bound aloud. He almost had, at first. Method called for reading sentences to the accused, so to speak, no matter what a soul had done. A cursory summary of whatever life impacts a soul might've had, if any.
Entwining his fingers, Hades rested his chin upon his hands. Pain and Panic nervously, but quietly, kept organizing papers and gems on the opposite side of the room.
"So," intoned the God.
Hadie tensed. He'd never willingly broken any of the major rules that had been set. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out what the punishment would be.
"No one told me it was take your kid to work day."
Hadie looked up…and immediately regretted it.
"If you're going to break my rules, there will be consequences. You already know that, brat of mine."
Hades' smirk widened, the magic of the Underworld returning their natural sharklike appearance.
"If you enter the Underworld, you're here to work."
Hadie heaved a basket of books and awkwardly carried it into a room filled with even more bookshelves and filing cabinets.
"Here we've got files dating for the last twenty years!" Pain cheerfully exclaimed as he too lugged a basket of books.
"What about anything older?" Hadie sighed in relief as he dropped his basket onto a table.
"In Underworld Primogenitor, as we call it in official documentation. If we need any of the older files, we send requests through one of the gems and someone, usually one of Nyx's many assorted spawn, will beam what we need back," Pain waddled next to Hadie as led the godling down another hall.
"If it's a soul needed to be spoken to, we've got these doors in the back. One for each subsection of the old realm. Lord Hades or Lady Persephone will summon the specific soul through. With the Barrier and the limited Isle space compared to Primogenitor, we can't exactly have millions of souls milling about!"
Eventually Pain led Hadie to an open cavern, haphazardly shaped into a square. Apart from their entrance, a trio of ornate doors stretched from floor to ceiling.
"This one is Lady Mal's favorite," Pain pointed their right.
Hadie stared up at the giant golden door. Metal and gems twisted around it, forming vines that emitted a soft green light.
"Wait, Mal's been down here?" Hadie asked as he took in the other two doors. To the left was a door of slate, etched with a gate made of raw iron, actual flames wove across it forming into a hydra. But there was no light really being reflected. It was as if the door sucked it all away.
"Lady Mal let her curiosity get the best of her one day too," Pain grinned.
'I'll have to remember to ask her sometime,' Hadie thought with a smile. "I take it's a safe bet that this one is Asphodel?"
"Sure is!"
The final door emitted a soft blue light. It was simple, compared to the other two. Could be considered boring, even. Only small white flowers decorated the bottom.
"How was dad able to manage all of this? With the Barrier?"
"The only grace your Uncle Bolt Brain gave us. I don't know all the details, but the Boss was able to organize some things before we were forced here. Still took a ton of magic out of him, since he couldn't regenerate at normal speeds with the Barrier."
"Heh, Bolt Brain, I like that. His brain might as well be fried." The imp and godling shared a laugh.
"Can I be honest with you, Hadie?" Pain asked as he led them back up towards Hades' office.
Hadie turned to Pain in surprise. He'd never been called anything without an elevated title by either of the imps. He found…he didn't mind it. Idiots they might be, but they were nice and always tried their hardest.
"I…I would prefer it, of course."
"Before…I'll admit, Lord Hades reasons for attempting the coup were…mostly petty. I know a few of them were good, but some of the things we tried showed there is no better ruler for the Underworld than your father…But now, after everything here, especially with your sister getting off the Isle, I'm worried…"
"You think Mal would get my father off the Isle too, and he'd try to take Olympus over again?"
"N-no, not at all. He's certainly changed with Lady Persephone and you and your sister…It's…the other Chthonic beings I'm worried about."
"Explain?"
"Zeus may rule the three Hellenes Realms, but he doesn't control them. When he moved the Underworld to the Isle, he only moved PART of it. I don't know if the Boss has covered this with you yet, but even the realms have rules."
"You mean how Heaven represents the spiritual force of the Gods? Earth and Ocean are the physical plane, and the Underworld is a combination of both?"
"Exactly! And when Zeus forced the Underworld to move to the Isle, he only brought part of it. It's…difficult to explain how it works, but…
"Zeus cut off the main entrance, at Styx, so she, amongst others, are trapped. He says it was to keep the dead from escaping. Or maybe it was to keep Lord Hades supporters from escaping. And since the area under the Barrier is limited, only a small portion of the spiritual aspects actually moved here. All of these caves are completely natural to the Isle. But…Mnemosyne, Cerberus, the Fury sisters, my mom… Any God who wasn't in control of something that made them essentially omnipresent, like Nyx or Thanatos? Are now permanently trapped. Gods who moved between, like Styx, Hermes and Iris, who work in souls and oaths can't go back and forth at all."
Hadie carefully took in all that Pain said. His dad frequently complained about 'drawing the shortest straw', but never elaborated. Even Mal said she was never explained anything before their dad's coup on Olympus. Clearly, there was more information being withheld. Hades and Persephone were quite careful to limit what they said, despite knowing their kids could since Underworld magic to a degree. That Pain was sharing this much intrigued Hadie.
Mulling things over, Hadie backtracked to one part that caught him off guard.
"Y-your mom?"
'Huh, don't know why I never considered Pain and Panic having parents. They had to come from somewhere.'
"Mummy Echidna of course!"
"…Mummy…wait…the Mother of All Monsters?" Hadie froze. "Does…that mean Cerberus is your brother? And Estelle!"
"Not sure about Estelle, he might be a descendant of Cerberus from one of the times he escaped. If we ever get off, I can ask Mummy."
"Oy vey," Hades moaned as the two entered. "Ain't that a big 'IF'. And can we not talk about your mummy dearest? She's great, really, but acts as if she's my mother and is incredibly overbearing."
"Aww, come on, Boss!" Panic giggled. "That just means she likes ya! The other option is her trying to eat ya."
Hades rolled his eyes.
"Hey dad?" Hadie looked up at the God with wide eyes. "Am I still in trouble?"
His father gave him a knowing look.
"Your face is too much like your mother's. I know false innocence when I see it."
"Aw, dad!"
"You're not grounded, but I will be telling your mom. I meant what I said. You enter the Underworld to work."
Hadie pouted, but didn't argue. He did like getting to learn today, even if it was work.
"Panic, Pain, you can go home now."
"See you Big Boss, mini-Boss!" The brothers sprinted up the stairs and out of the Underworld.
"Hadie?" Hades said as he stood and stretched.
"Yea, Dad?"
"How 'bout we wind the day down with a guitar lesson?"
"Yes please!"