AN: You see future english teacher of mine, this is what happens when you make me read the Iliad over the summer: my imagination runs off the beaten track and I start to wonder what good ol’ Hades is doing during times like that while everyone else gets to mess with mortals.

To everyone else reading this, I hope it’s funny. Since many of you probably haven’t read the Iliad or the Odyssey, I tried to put some random humor in, so this wouldn’t be completely stupid. It also helps to know a bit about greek gods in general. Also, the some stuff about the gods probably isn’t completely accurate, so please feel free to contradict me. Well, enjoy.

(version 1.2: made a few edits)

Prologue: Drawing the Short Straw: I Got a Rock

Hades’ story starts before this era, before his little brother Zeus imprisoned his father in an endless black abyss. It was an eviler time. It was a simpler time.

From the start of his endless, agonizing life, Hades loved his father, despite the fact he eats babies… but heck, what’s a little indulgence amongst family? It was with this mindset that Hades approached his father one day…

“Hey, dad. I just wanted to say that I lo—”

At that moment, the jaws of Time descended on him, quite literally. And this was the spark that ignited an eternity of hatred in our young god. Being inside of your own father can be a mind altering, sticky experience, and was so for the tender Hades. But all was about to change, for better or worse, no one can really say.

It was during a discussion with his older sister, Demeter. She was talking about flowers or something, and being a shallow minded and anger filled little boy, he didn’t give two grapes. Suddenly, the stomach of Kronos rumbled and lurched upward, and the five brothers and sisters tumbled out of their squishy environment. Another god stood before them, looking arrogant and extremely annoying.

“I am Zeus, your newborn brother!” cried Zeus, Hades’ newborn brother.

“Why we are all born fully grown, I will never know,” wondered Poseidon, apparently the only one willing to point out the obvious.

“It’s because we’re gods, we just kick that much ass!” proclaimed Zeus in his deep, godly voice. “Now, let us wage a ten year war against our father because he sucks!”

“Why ten years?” asked Hades.

“Oh, I don’t know, ten seemed like a good number.” With that, the gods prepared to perform some divine ass kicking.

“Wait!” cried a cyclops that sounded a bit like Jon Stewart for some strange reason. “You three should take these!” He held out three items of great power, a thunderbolt, a trident and a plain, seemingly useless helmet.

“Dibs on the thunderbolt!” called out Zeus

“Trident’s mine!” said Poseidon within a fraction of a second after Zeus.

It took a moment for Hades to realize what just happened…

Wait, he’s still thinking…

OK, now. “Hey, wait a—” but it was too late. His brothers charged Kronos and the other titans, thus the fighting began.

Feeling sad and cheated, Hades put on the helm… only to vanish! “Oh my brother! With this invisible hat, I’ll sabotage the titans, and become a super special awesome hero! Then all the pathetic little mortals will worship me!” Hades yelled for all to hear, giving away his position. “Ow!” he screamed as a divine blast from some random titan struck him in the stomach.

Of course now knowing of Hades plan, the titans made extra special sure that he couldn’t get into their camp and do... things. Ten years later, they completely forgot about it, and the gods emerged victorious with the help of Hades.

“Yes, the war was won all thanks to me!” declared Zeus after he finished sealing away the last of the titans. Hades held up a finger and opened his mouth to protest, but was drown out by his younger brother’s mini-speech. “And now I, Zeus, super special awesome hero, will be the super special awesome ruler of the new age of gods!”

The goddess Hera approached the self-proclaimed leader. Let’s not go into what was said, just remember: in the world of gods, everyone is family and everyone needs a lover…

“Hold on there,” said Hades, bringing us back to the matter at hand. “I was the one who broke all the titans’ weapons! You all won thanks to me!”

“Yeah, but since you shouted out everything, we had to wait ten years to finish them!”

“But you said before—” but once again, Hades was ignored.

“And now we will need to figure out who gets what domain.”

“I call sky!” yelled Hades, predicting how his brothers would go about this.

“Now, now, little brother,” said Poseidon. “Let’s be fair and draw lots.”

“Great idea, Poseidon!” cried Zeus in his godly voice. “Here, we’ll use Hades’ crappy old helmet.”

So the three brothers wrote their names on a piece of paper that randomly appeared beside each of them. Don’t ask me what they wrote it with, they just did, so there.

“Alright,” said Zeus. “This first one will be for the sky domain,” Hades would have prayed, but being a god, there was no one to pray to… “Oh and what do you know, it’s me!” Hades groaned in complaint.

“Ok and the next one will be for the sea… It’s Poseidon!”

Poseidon hissed, “Yes!”

“Well, land’s not so bad,” thought Hades.

“Sorry, Hades. It looks like you get the Underworld. Too bad, now you can never come to our super special awesome palace atop Mount Olympus,” said Zeus with mock pity.

“What! What about land? Who gets that?”

“You can’t have land, you greedy devil! There’s too much stuff on it! We will divide the powers of the land amongst other gods. Let’s see, Poseidon, you can have earthquakes…”

“Hey, shouldn’t I get earthquakes since I’m under the ground?”

“No, of course not! You can have minerals, though...” Hades hung his head, disappointed.

--

“And so it was that Hades, giver of great paychecks, came to live down here—”

“Charon, what are you doing?” inquired Hades when he saw the boatman chatting with some Greek guys.

“Oh, hello Hades. Fancy seeing you down here.”

“Were you reciting my life story to another group of dead guys?”

“Why yes, I believe I was.”

“Well, stop doing that. I pay you to row, not discuss my problems with people who are going to be around here for a while…”

“Oh, but that’s what she said!”

“What?”

“Persephone. She said the same thing to me the other day.”

“Oh…”

Give it a moment…

“Charon, you dirty bag of bones!”

Charon simply laughed as he rowed faster down the river Styx.

Not too hilarious, but it should pick up next chapter! Unfortunately, that won’t be up for a few days because I’m going on a last minute vacation.

Reviews would be greatly appreciated. All you have to do is click on the little “go” in the box down there and type what you thought of my story :P