The Untold Past [featuring Hades, Pain, and Panic]

[panic]

Pain and Panic were sitting on a bench, bored, just kinda looking around. They had no idea where Hades was. Panic looked over at Pain, then at the sky, then back to Pain. Pain, sky, Pain, sky, Pain, sky. Pain saw him doing that, and turned around. "What's wrong?" he said to Panic. Panic shrugged. Sky, Pain, sky, Pain. "I was just wonderin'....about....before." "Before?" "Yeah....ya know.....before." Pain blinked. "Before what??" Panic stopped looking between him and the sky, and faced Pain. "Before we met Hades......." he said. Pain scrunched up his face. "Hm....well...I...I don't.....remember....I...hmm!" he said, thinking hard. Panic sat back, hard. "See? I can't remember before either!" Pain realized something then. "Panic.....I don;t think there WAS a before!" Panic stared at Pain. "Ya think?"

"He's right, ya know." said Hades appearing behind the bench. Pain and Panic both jumped. "Hades!" they yelped. Hades rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, save it.....BUT...I did happen to hear...you two...wonderin' bout yer past..." Panic shrunk back a little and nodded. "Would ya believe I happen to know a lot about that?" Pain stared up at him. "You DO?!?" he exclaimed, looking excitedly at Panic, who nodded rapidly. "I DO....." said Hades, swirling around so he was in front of them. "See, now, this happened when I was, hmm, lessee, ya know, just starting at the job, few months whatev. An' it was the time I was startin' to hate it down there. So, this was waaay back then, I only got Charon, ya know the boat rower/driver whatever, I didn't even know the fates! Yet.....Ok, so anyway....so I'm in my throne room....relaxin' thinkin', Hmm.....maybe I should try to overthrow Olympus! and then Charon comes in, no, he RUNS in, and he goes, Hades Hades! Ya gotta see this! Someone left this in my boat when I was on break! I almost stepped on him! And I'm like, Lemme see that, and he hands a lil' basket to me, and I look in, and whaddya know, there's Panic."

Panic beamed, and turned to Pain, "I became a minion before you did!" Hades sighed, "Actually....ya didn't." "Huh?" "What about me, Hades?" said Pain, hopefully. "Found you an hour later, same way." "Ooo...." said Pain. "See, what happened was, we weren't sure what ta do with you two......so, we just dumped ya in a spare room, locked the doors, closed the windows. Ya guys spent almost a year in there....and I guess that's when you became 'best friends'.....We were just gonna keep ya in there, but it got too much. Ya know, with the crying, and the feeding....and don't get me started on diapers..." He shuddered. Pain and Panic looked up at him incredously. "YOU changed our diapers?!?!" they said together. Hades gave them a Look. "Ha ha....yeah, as IF. I got Charon to do it." "Oh...." "So then we took you two out, and we kinda held a two-person meeting 'bout what to do with you. Charon wanted to throw you in the Styx, and hey, I was all for it, but the Fates appeared then, said all this nonsense 'bout how you two would be 'a great help' to me in the future. Then they disappeared, POP, all gone, and Charon still wants to dump you two in the Styx, and I stopped him. I said that I was gonna keep you two.....maybe the fates were right. I said to him, Ya know.....I think they have potential...." Hades looked down at them with disgust. "Evidently....I was wrong....." Pain and Panic smiled at him. "Aw, boss, that's so sweet! I didn't think you were capable of such love and compassss........." Panic's voice trailed off as he saw Hades staring down dangerously at him. "Finish that sentence, and I tear you a new belly button!" snarled Hades. Panic gulped. "Um.....um..never mind...."

THE END
(for now.....more coming up?)

Like it? Please please PLEASE post!

[Pain and Panic]

(hey, felt like updating here. im continuing as pain, cuz i wanna. ya know, this isnt much of a past.....more of a past/presnt combo. ah, well.)

Pain and Panic sat in silence as Hades told them about how he had found them. It was certainly interesting to think that Hades.......Hades, of all people, could act so......so.....caring.....it was scary. When Hades vanished suddenly, the imps looked at each other, then hopped off the bench and began to walk, trying to comprehend this new flow of info. "So....we've always been best friends..." said Panic, breaking the silence. "Yeah.....the dynamic duo, forever and ever and ever and ever........" chimed Pain.

"You're more then just friends," said a voice from nowhere. As they turned, a whooshing noise came, and the three fates appeared behind them. Past, Present and Future, formally known as Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. It was Clotho who had the eye. "Wh-what....do you mean...?" stammered Panic. The Fates had always freaked him out. "Hades has been feeding you lies again......" said Lachesis, taking the eye and scowling. "Lies?" repeated Pain. "That story he told you......how he found you....is false." said Atropos. "He....made it up?" exclaimed Panic in shock. Hades was a sleazy guy, that was true, but the three had known each other for thousands of years......he just couldn't believe he would make up something as important as that. Pain was in similar shock. Hades had always been something of a role-model to them.....but..."He made it up?!?" said Panic again. "ALL of it?!" "Every bit of it is false." agreed Lachesis. "But...but....then...what really happened?" said Pain. "Wait a second....." said Panic suddenly. "How would you know? What if you're lying to us too?" All three sighed. "We're the Fates! We know everything!" said Clotho impatiently. "We don't have ta lie...." "Oh...." said Panic.

Pain and Panic sat on the ground while the Fates stood before them, ready to tell them the truth. "Charon wasn't the one who found you," began Atropos.

"It was Hades himself. He found you upon his throne, with a bound scroll next to the basket you were both placed in. Your parents were unable to care for thier children, and were giving them away. They had found Hades to be a suitable guardian. He scoffed at this, and was about to rid of you forever with one of his balls of flame, but something stopped him. Not a monster, or a mortal, or a god/goddess......something...inside him. Instead, he took you two under his wing, and granted you immortality. Not only did he need hired help, he needed the company. Persephone wasn't even born yet. And Cerberus didn't come along until you two begged for him."

Atropos paused, and Lachesis took the eye. It was her turn to speak.

"He may be rough on you at some times......but the truth is, he's very fond of you. Very."

Pain looked to Panic. "Is she talking about the Hades we work for? Or is there some other, less violent, caring, Hades in Greece?"

Lachesis ignored them, and handed the eye to Clotho.

"Hades was supposed to tell you this. He never did. And he will be reprimanded for it, don't get me wrong.....Pain, Panic......"

They waited, eagerly, though they weren't sure if it was good or bad news.

"You two are brothers."








"Brothers! Wow, Panic, can you believe it?" exclaimed Pain after the Fates had left. "I know! I SOO didn't see that coming!" replied Panic, happily. "I mean, I know we were close an' all that....but brothers! We're blood relatives!...Or...whatever....it is imps ahve for blood." said Pain, managing to confuse himself greatly. "That means my sisters and my brothers are OUR sisters and brothers!" said Panic, suddenly. Pain looked at him. "You have sisters and brothers? Uh, I mean......WE have sisters and brothers?" "Misery, Dread, Manipulate, and Deviate." said Panic. "I have brothers." said Pain after a few seconds. "Really?" said Panic. "Yeah.... Ache, Distress, and Anguish." "Then...." Panic did some quick calcualting in his head, "...We're a family of nine!" "WOW!" said Pain, genuinely excited, "What are your sisters and brothers like?" "Well.....my brothers are....like...me....." said Panic slowly. "Great....another two neroutic imps...." Pain muttered. Panic pretended not to her him. "And my sisters....are....not....too....." His expression morphed into one of horror and agony. "Uh.....see for your self......" he whispered fearfully.

There was a series of small pops, like someone snapping bubble wrap, behind them. And seven little clouds of thick smoke formed. A dark green one, a black one, a yellow one, a white one, a red one, a gray one, and a light blue one. Quickly the masses of smoke reformed into figures; three of them looking like Pain, and the other four like Panic. Only in different colors. "Pain....meet Misery and Dread....." He gestured towards the white and yellow ones. Then Panic winced. "And...my sisters.... Manipulate.... and Deviate," The black and red ones waved, evil smiles spreading across thier identical faces. "Panic, this is Ache-" Ache, the gray one gave a little nod of hello, "-Distress--" The light blue imp waved his tail, "-And Anguish." The dark green one waggled his wings.

When the flash of blue fire appeared, the nine imps huddled together. Hades's smoky tendrils hit a moment later. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped short when he saw Pain, Panic, Misery, Dread, Manipulate, Deviate, Ache, Distress, and Anguish standing there.

"OH-MY-GODS, THEY'RE MULTIPLYING!!" yelled Hades, with a horrified expression. "They're our brothers and sisters," said Panic. "So...the Fates spilled, huh?" said Hades, calming down, but looking at them disgustedly. "Yup! We're a family of nine!" said Pain proudly. 'And that's not even counting the cousins, and aunts, and uncles...." put in Dread. Hades winced. "Ya mean there's more of ya!?! Oh.....why me?!?!?" he moaned.

The nine imps just looked at each other.

(Most likely to be continued)

[panic]

(ok, from [sorta] panics point of view, continuing)


Panic stared at his sisters, petrified and unable to move. Pain gave him a what-are-you-so-freaked-out-about-they-look-ok Look.Oh, sure. They were sweet. And kind. And nice. And caring, and considerate, and what not. Manipulate and Deviate were just ANGELS......and stepping on a cactus while bare-foot was a great idea.

Of course Pain thought they were harmless. Had he been there when, on his 4th birthday, Manipulate and Deviate had bribed the Chimaera to find and attack him? When they had laughed when he escaped the beast, mauled half-to-death? Nooo.......Pain hadn't been there when, a week after he had turned 7, the twins had slowly pulled out all of his fangs with a pair of giant tweezers, then threw them at him. When they had pelted him with bricks because they were bored. When Manipulate had held him down, and Deviate had cut his tail into teeney pieces with safety scissors. When they had sprayed him with ketchup, and lazily dangled him off a cliff, only to laugh and take picutres when the harpies came. When they had neatly severed his wings, and then glued them together so it took hours to reattach them.

Panic shuddered at the memory, and the red and black impettes sensed his fear and winked slowly, making him twitch uncontrollably. Panic swallowed. His brothers weren't too bad, no not at all. Misery and Dread were pretty cool, as imps go. But it was Manipulate and Deviate, his dreaded older sisters, that really made him squirm. They were the only beings he feared more then Hades. "Go away..." he said, trying to sound confident, but failing miserably. "Us?" purred Manipulate with false innocence. "Why us?" added Deviate, just as sweet. They walked in unison over to Panic, and yanked his wings and tail at the same time. They ahd purposely placed themselves at an angle where Hades couldn't see. Panic yelped, and bolted away, while the twins laughed hysterically. Hades rolled his eyes, but it was obvious that he approved greatly.