You're family, aren't you?

Fate-chosen finale

The war had been coming for over three millennia, but it still managed to catch most of the Olympians unprepared. Ares, Athena and Poseidon notwithstanding, the gods of the Fifth Age had become complacent, content with casually governing over their domains and coming down to Earth to sire children they needed to remain powerful.

In other words, Hades thought acerbically as he read over the reports Athena and Nico sent him, they became lazy, fat little shits.

He wasn’t even going to feel bad for putting the situation that way. He remembered the sheer chaos of the first Titanomachy, the uncertainty if they would even survive to see the next Helios’ chariot rise from the east. The three brothers had not only been generals then – they openly fought at the front lines, protecting their allies and neutrals with their bodies and weapons, not just words and powers. They had the scars that refused to disappear to prove it.

A bolt of pain shot through his left shoulder, and Hades barely managed to retain his grasp on the sword his wife created. The change of expression, unfortunately, did not escape Thanatos’ experienced eyes.

“My Lord?” the god of Death inquired, eyes pointedly locked on the offending shoulder. He had been there, and knew exactly where that particular scar came from. Hades grimaced and shook his head, not willing to discuss the injury. Thanatos, however, was not about to let it go.

“My Lord…” he trailed off. “You really should let me look at it.”

“It’s old injury, Thanatos,” Hades glared at his subordinate. “Leave it.”

“An old injury that never fully healed, thanks to your sire,” Thanatos countered, crossing his arms, black wings quivering in reflection of their owner’s displeasure. “You should at least let Lady Hestia try to purge the sands out again.”

“No,” Hades instantly refused. He did not have the time, and his sister to conserve all the energy she could get to protect their seat of power and her own domain. The Olympians were a messy family, but they were still a family, largely thanks to the oldest Olympian. Hades would not be the one to cause any undue stress to his sister. “I will not risk it. I’ve managed to endure Gigantomachy with that wound, I’ll endure now.”

“Even if you come face-to-face with your sire?”

Damn Thanatos for knowing what buttons to press, Hades thought ruefully as the strategist in him agreed with the elder immortal. He was not about to give Kronos any advantages in the battle – the Titan lived by the creed ‘give me a millimeter, and I’ll take a mile’. Burying his head into his hands, Hades noisily exhaled before composing himself.

“Call Bianca,” he told Thanatos. “Thank you for helping me keep the balance of the underworld and Pit.”

The winged immortal smirked, checked the I-Phone for any priority souls, and departed with a shallow dip of his head. Lord of the Underworld leaned back into his throne, mentally extending his awareness over his realm to check on everyone, stopping for a second longer to reassure himself of Maria’s and Hazel’s welfare.

He may be the ruler of the dead, but he had no illusions what would happen to those he loved if he lost.

It was a damn good thing he hated losing.

~

The mission had been a disaster from the start to the finish, and the fact the forces of Olympus managed to cut off one of the main supply lines from Mount Othrys to the Eastern Seaboard could not console Hades.

Bianca, his beautiful, cheerful little girl, was dead.

“Don’t you dare!” Sephie had shouted at him when he tried to dismiss her from the throne room after she delivered the news. “Don’t you dare shut me out, Uncle!”

The Lord of the Dead had broken there and then. Sobbing in the middle of his throne room, in front of dozens of his subjects, his only living child and his favorite niece, Hades Aidoneus never more wished he was as mortal as his lovers and children were. He sorely wished he was, so he could join them one day in the Underworld, or better yet, die out of grief and join them quickly.

“Father?” Nico whispered, his eyes blotchy and body shaking from the effort of keeping himself upright. “Father?!”

“Uncle, uncle!” Sephie ran up to him, grunting as she caught the sobbing god and broke his fall. “Uncle…”

Hades continued sobbing, tears falling down his cheeks like waterfalls, but managed to find a shred of coherency to stutter out: “'Phone… get me 'Phone…”

“Neeks, get your stepmom here! I don’t care if Demeter objects, get her down here ASAP!” Sephie barked out, somehow managing to stand up and support the God of Dead. “I’ll take him to the living room!”

Only minutes later, Hades felt the soft leather beneath him as Sephie pushed him down onto the couch in the living room and unapologetically sat next to him, placing her head into his lap. The sight brought another batch of tears to his eyes. Bianca never had such dark hair – the Underworld family liked to joke it was trademark to those residing under the sea– but with her eyes closed and hair strewn in a halo, Hades could almost see Bianca sleeping in his lap.

Giving in to his urges, he stroked the black locks, plastering his dead daughter’s face over his niece’s in his mind’s eye, and tried to pretend this day did not happen. Tried to pretend this mission was a complete success, and Bianca came home so tired, she simply collapsed in her father’s arms.

With those images, Hades floated off into Morpheus’ realm, exhaustion closing his midnight-colored eyes before his wife arrived.

~

The truth hit him hard the next day. The impulsive actions had made complete sense at that moment; in retrospect… he may have gone a bit overboard. Just a smidgen. Not too much. Just a bit.

“Just a bit?! Just a bit, Hades?!” Persephone shrieked a week later, after Hades tried to apologize to her and Demeter for his behavior. “You locked me, Mother, Sephie and Niccolo in here, and didn’t allow us to go up! You are so, so lucky Sephie had her hellhound take her out, otherwise we would have lost more than a dozen of children protecting Olympus, you stupid son of Rhea!”

Hades cringed under the merciless verbal assault but made absolutely zero effort to defend himself. He had made a mistake, and he was not afraid to own up to it. The only thing he could do without were Demeter’s pointed smirks and cross looks. His wife? Sure, let her light into him. He was not perfect, and criticism of each other’s flaws was what brought them closer to each other when he first kidnapped her. His sister-s***h-mother-in-law? Not a chance in Tartarus.

“I understand, ‘Phone,” Hades murmured, still on his knee in front of the two goddesses. “I’m so, so sorry. I did not mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it, hm?” Persephone was not letting up; four days being cooped up in Underworld’s mansion left her in a truly terrible mood. “You just wanted to lock us all up for what, our safety?”

“Yes.” He would not apologize for the intentions he had behind the rash order of locking down the Underworld. He had just lost a child to this Creator-forsaken war: no matter what his fellow Olympians thought about him, he valued his family above all. He could’ve just left them high and dry – the Underworld operated on a different set of rules than both Olympus and Othrys, and he and Iapetus could’ve hammered out the truce eventually, maybe even shared the rulership over the dreary kingdom.

However, the Underworld deities also highly valued their family connections. Thanatos and his siblings, Morpheus and Hypnos, still often visited their mother in the House on Night, despite the dangers such trip posed even to the elder deities. Iapetus sided with his brother during both Titanomachies, even though he could see they may likely lose. Hades was made out of the same mold as the previous rulers.

“What a brilliant idea, brother,” Demeter commented dryly, twirling a piece of vine between her fingers, making it grow without any additional nourishment from the earth. “Close us all down here. If the Olympus falls, you fall as well, as does this place.”

“That’s where you are wrong, my dear sister,” Hades countered. “Underworld have stood long before me, and it will continue to exist long after me. I may lose my connection to the Olympus and their sources of power, but I never relied on the power of sacrifice. Why do you think I never felt the need to sire many children, unlike my brothers?”

Demeter had no reply.

“Besides, that was hardly the subject of our discussion,” the Lord of the Underworld sighed, turning to his now silent wife. “Am I forgiven for my absolutely appalling behavior, my dear Persephone?”

The spring goddess stayed silent for a long few minutes, deliberating with herself while Hades knelt, patiently awaiting her verdict.

“Yes, you are,” she finally spoke, relaxing into the armchair she had taken before Hades came into the living room to apologize. “However, if you do it ever again…” Hades winced and nodded. He had heard she had gotten close to Athena recently, and if one thing his immortal niece had in abundance, it was ideas how to subtly torture men she was cross with. Her ambiguous relationship with Poseidon was the perfect example.

“Never again,” Hades vowed. “I value my skin and sanity a bit too much.”

Persephone smirked and motioned for the god to stand up, which he obeyed. “Good. Now, Athena sent me a missive two days ago. She is waiting for you in the study.”

Hades nodded and flashed away, reappearing at the door of his study. As Persephone had told him, goddess of Wisdom was already in the room, looking around and inspecting the board Sephie strong-armed him into installing.

It will make tracking our enemy’s movements easier, was Sephie’s argument, backed up by Nico and B- her pouts and puppy eyes.

“Nice board, Uncle,” Athena commented, analyzing the colorful pins strewn across the map of USA.

“It was Jackson’s idea,” Hades shrugged, walking up to Athena’s side and taking out one of the silver pins near Atlanta. “It does make a nice visual aid. No need to memorize everything.”

“And it reveals the patterns we would otherwise miss,” Athena murmured with a nod. “For a child of Barnacle Beard, she sure has a good head for strategy.”

“Poseidon was our chief strategist in the first War,” Hades said a little tartly. Athena had been the head strategist in the Gigantomachy, but it had been a minor skirmish compared to Titanomachy, and Poseidon’s ideas had been invaluable. “A bit unconventional one, but he always managed to win us the important fights.”

“Did he?” Athena hummed, reaching for the black pin placed on Mount St. Helens and placing at the Washington-Montana boarder.

“Yes.” A bolt of fear coursed though Hades’ veins, turning ichor in his veins into ice for a second. “Are you sure about this, niece?”

“Hermes and Jackson informed us of this,” Athena nodded. “And Hephaestus confirmed.”

Hades cursed. Typhoon awakening was not unexpected; this close to the deadline the Great Prophecy had set, though? This had his sire’s sticky, golden fingerprints all over it. Only he would be audacious enough to fully awaken the Wrath of Titans before he even landed on the Eastern Seaboard.

“This is not good,” he snarled. “He’s splitting us up.”

“Indeed,” Athena nodded. The ploy was dead obvious. “And Father is falling for it – although I have to say, we do not have a lot of choice.”

“Of course not,” Hades muttered. “If Typhoon reaches Empire State building, there will be no point in fighting for Olympus. King of Othrys has us right where he wants us – between rock and hard place.”

“Exactly.” Athena fixed the elder Olympian with a passionate, yet focused grey gaze. “But he forgot one key variable, Uncle – you.”

Hades blinked. Him?

“We suspect there is a spy in the Greek camp,” Athena explained, “so Ares and I kept your involvement in the war under the wraps. Your children only work with Jackson, and they are never at the camp, so the spy has the impression -”

“That the Underworld is staying out of this,” Hades finished the sentence, the fire igniting in his chest. “He won’t see us coming.”

Athena’s smirk was borderline feral.

~

Oh, the expression on his sire’s face when Hades split the ground right next to the entrance to Empire State Building and rode out on his chariot, Demeter and Persephone by his side and Nico leading the undead army ahead, was priceless.

“Hello, father,” Hades couldn’t resist sassing the bastard. “You’re looking young.” Hades owed him a whole lot more than just sass, though. He owed him all of Mother’s tears, Hestia’s and Hera’s nightmares, Demeter’s and Zeus’ tears, and his and Poseidon’s sleepless nights, when the six siblings were either crying, tossing around in their sleep or plainly afraid to fall to sleep. He also owed him Bianca’s life, Nico’s dead eyes and Sephie’s crushed heart.

Hades was not stupid, nor ignorant. He knew Sephie had fallen in love with Kronos’ host, the Castellan traitor, and he knew how it would end. Lucas Castellan was already dying: the only question was when the process would end, and what would the boy do.

“Hello, son. I suppose you and ladies will not be joining me?” It was more than a little strange to see Kronos’ cold golden orbs inside the features Hades had learned to associate with Hermes, but he did his best to ignore it as his eyes slid over to Sephie Jackson. The daughter of Poseidon sported no bruises or cuts due to a dip in Styx, but Hades spotted the relief and exhaustion in the lines of her face.

Instead of replying, Hades took out his new weapon, enjoying the momentary shock that flitted over his sire’s face, and pointed the sword in Kronos’ direction. The skeletons chittered at the unspoken command and obeyed, rushing the motley crew of monsters, minor gods and demigods behind the Titan Lord. Plants went berserk on Demeter and Persephone’s command, and with sword still raised, Hades urged his horses at Kronos. He would finish this here, one way or another.

Unfortunately, the bastard was not playing according to the script, and collapsed the barrier that prevented the reinforcements and mortals from coming near the battlefield. Hades snarled when he spotted Sephie still inside the barrier, mere feet away from her grandfather.

Destroy him, for Bianca! He commanded her mentally, and Sephie set her jaw and nodded. That taken care of, Hades drove into the fight, searching for the nearest idiotic demigod or immortal who would challenge him.

He needed to get the aggression out of his system, and beating up lesser bastards would have to suffice until he got his hands on the main bastard running this shitshow.

~

Hades would dearly love to say he and the gods managed to stop the Titan army. That their loyal children had saved their seat of power. That, however, was simply not the true. In the end, the biggest traitor of them all had saved them, killing himself with a dagger their heroine had trusted him with.

Luke Castellan killed himself with a weapon Sephie Jackson handed to him to stop Kronos, and Hades wanted to scream.

His niece had not deserved this. None of the children currently sitting in the throne room, still grimy, dusty and covered in blood, deserved any of this. They went through things most of adult mortals never had: betrayal, doubt in their beliefs and parents, war. Somehow, they managed to survive the whole ordeal more or less intact, at least physically. Hades had no illusions about their mental states, and was dead set on dragging Nico down into Underworld for careful monitoring. Maybe he’ll convince Sephie to take Zeus’ brat, Thalia, and Athena’s girl Annabeth down, too. He’ll have a chat with Artemis after this.

But first, to figure out what happened. The last three hours was a mess in Hades’ mind: fighting against Titans and monsters, Typhoon approaching before Poseidon suddenly erupted out of the Hudson with his army, rush to the throne room after the barrier fell to find Sephie crying over the lifeless body of Castellan only to be dragged away into Hermes’ arms… he needed to know what happened.

Thankfully, Zeus felt the same way, and decided to explain it all for everyone. How Poseidon came to the rescue in the nick of time (here, his little brother winked at Sephie, who blushed spectacularly and hid her face in Hermes’ chest) to get rid of Typhoon, and how Nico and Hades were the main ones responsible for surprise attack on the Titan army (he preened here a little). How Luke chose to honor his promise to both Sephie and Annabeth by taking the dagger and stabbing himself into his mortal spot to scatter Kronos, thus fulfilling the Great Prophecy.

A half-blood of eldest gods

Shall reach sixteen against all odds;

And see the world in endless sleep,

A hero’s soul, cursed soul shall reap;

A single choice shall end his days,

Olympus to preserve or raze.

Sephie, the half-blood, and Luke, the hero. The Fates had been against them from the beginning, no matter what. Luke would’ve died either way – the only question was, would Sephie trust him enough to make the right choice.

Apparently, she did trust him, and it shattered her completely.

None of the other gods could see it, but Poseidon’s eyes were glinting with unshed tears, and Hermes’ jaw was tightly set. The Sea Lord could not bear to see his child hurt so badly, and Hades knew Hermes and Sephie found their peace and started a strange friendship after the Battle of Labyrinth.

A crash of thunder drew Hades from his musings back to the happenings in the throne room. The award ceremony was nearly done, with only Sephie’s gift left. Hades knew what would be offered for the Heroine of Olympus and the General of the Greek Army – the gift of immortality. For once, he had nothing against it: in fact, he would enjoy the presence of the new goddess. It had been a long time since the pantheon gained a new immortal, and Sephie looked like the right person to break the tradition...

Unless she decided to pull a Perseus.

Which she did.

“I refuse.”

The thunderstruck expressions on the faces of his fellow gods had Hades chuckle darkly. He did not discount the possibility she would refuse, and thus was the only one who didn’t gape like a fish.

“You… refuse?” Zeus was the first one to regain his senses, sending a nasty look at his older brother. Why didn’t you tell me anything?

Hades only smirked. It was only a possibility, after all.

“Yes,” the impudent girl wound her arms around herself, “but I will not waste my gift, so I will ask something else of you all.”

Hades only shook his head as she pinned them all with their promise on the Styx. Did they honestly expect her to just accept immortality and leave everything she stood for?

Idiots. A bunch of idiots.

~

“You certainly know how to surprise us, dear niece,” Hades said as an opening when he approached the girl afterwards.

“Don’t tell me I managed to surprise you that much,” Sephie fired back, leaning back on the balcony railing of the ballroom. “I heard you laugh at their fish-out-of-water expression.”

“I had considered the possibility,” Hades admitted, leaning next to her and taking a sip of nectar from the chalice before handing it to Sephie. “Want a little?”

Sephie c****d her head, weighting her choices, before shrugging and taking a small sip. She instantly relaxed, shoulders going down and eyelids falling half-mast.

“Like I said, I did consider it, but I still don’t know why you did it.”

Sephie blinked for a second, thinking about the question.

“What do you mean, why? I thought it was perfectly obvious.”

“I know you don’t want to leave your family behind.” Hades elaborated, remembering the way she spoke of her mortal family and demigod friends. “But you could watch over them as an immortal.”

“Watching without interacting would’ve killed me, sooner or later,” Sephie stated matter-of-factly. “I’m not the one for the sidelines, Uncle. I like being in the thick of things way too much.”

“And Hermes?” Hades needled, trying to call her out on her bullshit.

“What about Lord Hermes?” She was not giving in that easily, so Hades went for the jugular.

“You like him, in a non-platonic way.” She did not refute the statement, so Hades plowed on. “Why didn’t you accept the immortality for him?”

Sephie bit her lip and sighed. “I-I couldn’t. I made Luke a promise -”

“Stop trying to wriggle out of it,” Hades cut her off. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to be like Hera, okay?” Sephie hissed. “You gods are flighty, Hermes included. Hell, even you, who can be considered faithful, had cheated a few times. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

Hades couldn’t believe his ears. “So you’d rather hurt Hermes with your death, then share Hermes with someone else?! I didn’t think you that selfish, Persephone.”

“I wasn’t selfish,” Sephie snarled and turned on the heel. “I was trying to spare myself the pain of fading when that happened! My flaw is loyalty, Uncle Hades. What happens to loyalty when it breaks?”

With those words, she left the god to ruminate on the balcony and rejoined the festivies, accepting the offer for a dance from the Messenger God with a soft, besotted smile.

What happens to loyalty when it breaks?

Hades had no answer, and frankly?

It scared him.