New Olympians

King of the Underworld

Harrison was unimpressed
With what? Pretty much everything.
It wasn't that he was particular or was hard to impress, he just didn't have the emotional energy to care enough. His dark hair even tried to droop into his face, like a dying plant. He wasn't depressed, it wasn't that bad, though most people wouldn't be surprised if he was. His dad was gone. Just gone. That's all he knew, and that's all he wanted to know. But he wasn't sad. Annoyed, yes. Tired, always. Sad, no. He couldn't care enough to be sad. He did like things. He liked dogs, books, mythology, the colors black and gray, movies, video games, relatively normal stuff. He tried not to be too rude, especially to his mother, she deserved better than that. But to people at school, he was a varying amount of rude to all his classmates. Some people called him an emo or a goth, but they were dead wrong. He didn't have the energy for things like that. Mostly, he just wanted to finish school and work on being a history teacher. A dark, slightly creepy history teacher, that sounded fun.
Today he was in his gray sweatshirt, black pants and dark brown combat boots. His favorite were the boots. If anything happened to them, he would stab the closest person. A little extreme, but he wasn't extreme about much else, so he let himself have that one. He was walking to his school, through the backstreets of course. Sure, the buildings were slightly decrepit and all the plants were brown and dying, but he liked the aesthetic, and he got to see his neighbor. She had Rottweiler puppies.
He walked up to the aged wooden fence. As usual, she was outside.
"Hey Mrs. Dismen." He called.
She turned to look at him. She had wavy, graying black hair, large glasses and a black robe kind of thing.
"Oh, hello Harrison! Good morning!"
"'Morning. How are the puppies?"
She smiled.
"Oh they're doing great, have a look."
She pointed over and he looked. Six black and brown Rottweiler puppies were curled up against their mother, sleeping. Harrison didn't say 'aww', but he did make a noise in the back of his throat.
"You know, once they're ready to leave their mother you should take one." Mrs. Dismen told him. "A boy needs a dog, especially one who's fifteen."
"Tempting," Harrison said. "I'll have to talk to my mom about it."
"You do that." She said.
"Welp, gotta go." He told her.
He left the fence and continued his way to school. He walked along the dry and cracked pavement. Small, barely noticeable gusts of wind kicked up bits of dust. He was coming upon the last couple of buildings he would pass before the home stretch to his high school. Then he noticed that the dust eddies were getting stronger and more direct. Soon, lines of dust were streaming past his feet and going around the corner in front of him. He frowned, then quickly followed the dust. Around the corner was a dark stairwell that Harrison definitely knew had not been there yesterday. He was about to walk away and ignore it, when a blue light shone from the darkness. He felt a pull towards the light. He was suspicious, but curious. He walked down the shadowed stairs. When he got to the bottom, he saw what was making the blue light. It was a golden Ancient Greek helmet, but instead of a feathered plume on top, it was covered in iron spikes. It was covered with glowing blue lines and runes and was sitting on an old table. Then it rose from the table and spoke.
"Harrison Clay." Said the voice. "You have been chosen to bear the mantle of the king of the Underworld. Take the Helm, and become the new Lord Hades."
Harrison knew what it meant. Hades, Helm of Darkness. The symbol of power for the Greek god of the Underworld. If he were to believe the Helm, that meant that in some way or another, Hades had been real. But clearly not a real god, or there wouldn't be a need for a new Hades. He thought for a moment. Hades was always said to hate ruling the Underworld. Was that really something he wanted the responsibility of? He also knew that keeping the dead in the Underworld was very important. If the Underworld, whatever it might be, needed someone to watch over it, possibly to protect the people in the living world, if there was a difference... He couldn't just do nothing.
"Take the mantle, Unseen One." The Helm said, rising from the table.
He grabbed the helmet, deactivating the lights. He hesitated. What if the helmet was lying to him and it was just going to brainwash him or something? But how was he to prove it any different? It was an inanimate object that knew his name, and it was telling him that he was supposed to be the new Hades, and he understood why, just looking at him made it too easy. He decided to trust the helm and see what happened.
He put the helmet on his head. Darkness surrounded his eyes for a moment, then cleared. He looked around the room. It looked like it was dimly lit now, but when he looked down at his hands, there were strange shadows around them that made them blend into his surroundings. He turned and strode up the stairs. He looked back and only saw the blank wall of a building.
"Well that's hardly a surprise."
Then a voice spoke in his mind.
"Your realm trembles, Lord Hades."