Author's Note: This story takes the idea of the city of Kichyros comes from 'The Cradle of Olympus' by Rohan Rodrigues – all rights go to him for the city. This first chapter won't actually contain Percy (and will therefore be shorter than most other chapters) and will act more as a prelude to the main story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus or any of the characters in it.
Chapter 1
Prologue
Hades POV
I was casually walking along the moonlit, snow-covered streets of Sparta in Winter, with no real purpose in mind, when I suddenly came across a man and a woman, with both of them seeming to be around thirty years of age, with a small baby girl in the woman's arms whispering to each other rapidly in Ancient Greek in a shadow at the side of the street, but I could see them very clearly – after all, shadows was one of my domains. The woman was fairly tall, with long, wavy blond hair and calculating grey eyes, the baby in her arms clearly having inherited the eyes from her, but the man was massive, standing at a height over 6"7, covered in muscles and had flaming ginger hair like the young girl, as well as a moustache, small goatee, thick, bushy eyebrows, and eyes with blood-red irises that seemed concerned at the moment. I decided to shadow travel next to them and hide myself using my helm of darkness to see if I could help this worried young couple.
"Andromeda, we have to leave Sparta now! My idiot of a younger brother has already told the guards about us in his jealousy. They will kill you and our daughter simply because you are Athenian, and turn me into a slave!" the man whispered to the woman in Ancient Greek.
"I know that Theseus, but there is no point panicking. All that will do is cloud our minds and prevent us from thinking rationally. We need to find a way to get out of Sparta quickly and preferably safely now." The woman, now known as Andromeda, replied, leading me to believe that she must be a daughter of Athena.
I took that as my cue to step in and asked, "Perhaps I could be of assistance to you three?"
Of course, with them not being able to see me and all, the man, known as Theseus, immediately drew a massive double-bladed battle-axe from his back, with one blade made of steel and the other of celestial bronze and held it with one hand (I'm guessing this man must be a son of Ares) while bringing Andromeda close to him.
"Who's there?" he called out threateningly, swinging his axe through the air around him.
"Ah, forgive me, I must have forgotten to stop using the power of my helm." I said, realising my mistake.
As soon as I turned my helm off, the woman gasped and whispered in awe, "Lord Hades."
Both parents, immediately went to their knees to bow, with the woman holding out her baby in front of her, although her arms were wrapped tightly around the baby so that she didn't fall.
"You may rise." I said, and after they did so, I said, "Well, I have a proposition for you two. I will shadow travel you to my city, Kichyros, and provide you with a house and a large farm with a well there, if you let me and my wife Persephone adopt your daughter. And before you say anything, you will still be able to raise and see your daughter and will still be considered her parents, it's just that me and Persephone will also raise her and give her our powers so that she can defend herself and we will just be another pair of parents for her."
The two demigods looked shocked, before their faces filled with gratitude and they said, "We would be honoured to accept your offer and let you and your wife help raise our daughter my lord. Thank you so much for your kindness."
"No problem!" I said with a smile, pleased at the prospect of being able to raise another child after Melinoe (my first child with Persephone) due to the joy she brought Persephone and I, even if she did cause a few problems in the Underworld.
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Chapter 1
Hades POV
The last twenty years had been hectic to say the least, but had also been filled with a happiness, joy, and a sense of achievement. June, as Theseus and Andromeda Jacksonopolous had named their daughter, had caused many problems in the Underworld, like accidentally releasing prisoners from the fields of punishment when she was six, but she always ended up fixing them, as well as fixing other problems with the Underworld such as offering ghosts positions in the army of Hades, which more than made up for her mistakes. She had completed dangerous quests like finding a root of Tartarean Oak and finding a nugget of Tartarean Platinum at the entrance to Tartarus for Hecate's potions for making the best armour in the world, and cleaning the River Styx of its pollution by finding the point at which the five rivers of the underworld start (as all five rivers have the same source, known as the Heart) and then pouring a potion made by Hecate into a branch off the Heart that was the River Styx, which resulted in June gaining the blessing of Hecate and Styx, which gave June power over magic and the ability to easily learn magic, advanced power over the mist, invulnerability with her mortal point being her heart, the ability to control the waters of the River Styx, and the ability to punish those who broke oaths on the River Styx. She also gained a scythe made of Olympian Silver that helped her plant manipulation from Demeter after she found a solution to the problem of Hades and Demeter both wanting to spend time with Persephone, which involved letting Demeter visit the Underworld when Persephone was there and letting Hades visit the surface world when Persephone was there. She was trained in her powers by Theseus and Andromeda, Persephone, Hecate, Styx and I, as well as Ares and Athena (both of whom had actually raised their children against the ancient laws but without Zeus's knowledge so they were on good terms with Theseus and Andromeda), as well as some of the famous ghosts in Elysium who specialised in battle and ghosts who specialised in other areas of life like music, art or history. The best part was that June didn't actually have a fatal flaw, so she never abused her power or let her powers get to her head, but instead she kept training and practicing with her powers until she mastered them. However, now was the day where the once tiny June properly became an adult, her twentieth birthday, where Hades and her parents were going to finally let her out of their care and let her see a world outside Kichyros and the Underworld. As June walked up to Theseus, Andromeda, Persephone and I to say her final goodbyes, we all wrapped her up in a family hug.
"We'll all miss you June." Andromeda said in tears.
"Go show the world that it can't control you, daughter!" Theseus said with pride for his daughter, though he also had tears pouring from his eyes.
"IM us every day young lady!" Persephone said, trying to sound strict but failing miserably as she fought to keep herself from bursting into tears.
"Use your powers well, and be sure to come back to Kichyros between your journeys. Use Hecate's powers to prevent monsters from being able to smell your godly scent. We love you June." I said, my voice wavering at the end despite my best efforts for it not to.
After a final hug and an 'I love you all too' from June, she walked out of the gates of Kichyros, heading out on her journey to Athens where she planned to study at Athens University, using the mist to prevent people from realising her relation to her mother, who was the top student there.
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3rd Person POV
It had now been eight years since June Olympianos had arrived in Athens and now, at the age of just twenty-eight, she was one of the city's most influential and wealthy people and by far the most powerful woman in Athens. She was the leading professor in Athens University and actually owned the university, as well as a lot of farms, a section of the harbour, the entire entertainment district and the Athens Amphitheatre. All of the Athenian common-folk loved her because of how kindly she treated her workers and her efforts to give the public a political voice, and she was a good friend of Princess Sofya of Athens and was on friendly terms with the Royal family. Every year, in March, she walked the one-month journey to Kichyros, and after she arrive there in June, she stayed there for a month before she left Kichyros at the beginning of July and arrived back in Athens in August.
She was now walking along the beaches of Athens, when suddenly a half-man half-fish jumped out of the water and landed on the beach where, to June's shock, it transformed into an amazingly good-looking man wearing a sea-green chiton with golden sandals on his feet. Wary that this man might be a monster, June drew her celestial bronze dagger that was coated in ice from the River Lethe, 'Fantasma' (meaning 'ghost'), with her left hand while leaving her right hand empty so that she could draw her stygian iron sword that was coated in stygian ice, 'Skia' (meaning 'shadow'), if need be, and followed the man as he went into the harbour district. As the man turned a corner, June rushed forward, desperate not to lose the man in case he was a monster that would feast on innocent civilians, but as she turned the corner, she found herself in a deserted alley with a wall in front of her, a dangerous place that she wouldn't be able to retreat from if it came to a fight. Suddenly, as if hearing June's thoughts, a Laistrygonian giant armed with a Tartarean Oak club with Tartarean Platinum studs and five large Cyclopes armed with celestial bronze staffs turned the corner and rushed at June as soon as they saw her alone at the end of the alley. June's mind immediately started thinking of a battle plan while simultaneously staying aware of her surroundings and dodging the celestial bronze arrows that flew from the ten dracaenae that had appeared at the top of a nearby rooftop. She knew that this would be a hard battle, so she casted a magical barrier around the area she was that expelled all normal mortals from the area and prevented normal mortals from entering the area in so that no one that wasn't part of the battle got hurt. She then decided that she would only win this if she used all of the powers she could, so she simultaneously summoned thirty elite undead warriors, with ten skeleton swordsmen, ten zombie cavalrymen, and ten ghost archers, as well as summoning ten massive plants from the ground, and ordered all of the undead warriors to attack the monsters while commanding the plants to do the same. Just before June passed out from exhaustion, she managed to have a bite of ambrosia, which tasted like one of Persephone's chocolate-flavoured nut bars, immediately replenishing her strength and allowing her to charge into the battle, using her mastery of shadow manipulation to its fullest extent by shadow-travelling behind the dracaenae archers to quickly dispatch of them, killing each dracaena so silently that none of them realised what was happening, before shadow-travelling past the dying cyclopes to the Laistrygonian's neck where she promptly stabbed the giant, before fainting as the giant turned to dust. The last thing she saw before passing out was the face of the man who she went to this alley for, whom she had seen help kill the Cyclopes in her peripheral vision, before passing out.
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3rd Person POV
The first thing June did after regaining consciousness and finding herself on what looked like a hospital bed in a room that was painted sea green was reach for her sword before she found that it wasn't there. Then, she started to think rationally, so she scanned her surroundings before she found the mystery man sitting on a chair next to the bed she was on.
She immediately tried to bolt upright to question the man but she found that she was tied to the bed with celestial bronze chains. However, that did not stop her from firing a set of rapid-fire questions to the man: "Where am I? Who are you? Why am I in chains? Why did you help me? Are you a monster?" before she realised that she probably sounded a bit mad and so she took a deep breath as the man replied:
"Well, you're in the medical bay at the Royal Palace of Atlantis, I am called Triton, god of underwater messages, you're in chains because you were having some violent dreams from the looks of it as you almost fell off the bed which would have worsened your injuries, I helped you because I'm not heartless and don't leave people to die in a deserted alley, and no, I'm not a monster."
Seeing that she couldn't do a full bow, June went to bow her head before Triton said, "Also, please don't bow to me, you are worthy of my respect after defeating as many monsters as you did on your own, adoptive daughter of Hades and Persephone."
June suddenly realised that she could have been out for over a day and her family might be worried sick as she hadn't IM-ed them so she asked Triton, "How long exactly was I out for, and does my family know about this?"
"You were out for 3 days, but don't worry – the first thing I did after making sure you were okay was IM Hades and Persephone, along with your other parents." Triton replied. "They actually visited you a lot over the past few days as I was helping you heal using part of my water powers. I can go get them for you now if you would like?"
"Yes please – and thank you so much for all your help!" June said.
"No problem!" Triton replied with a lop-sided grin that made June blush and caused her heart to flutter.
Unbeknownst to the pair, though, Hades had been watching this exchange from a window, getting concerned at how trusting June was of Triton and how close the two had become in such a short period of time, fearing what it may mean for his child.
Author's Note: Well, that's the end of the first chapter of 'The Kichyrosian'!
I know it was a bit short, but I promise you that the next few chapters will be longer!
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