New York, United States - September 1987
Matthew Harkness was seventeen years old, 1.85 meters tall, and officially the weirdest student at Midtown High School.
Not because he was antisocial or violent. No. He was strange because he was too good at everything, too calm, and there was something about his blue eyes that made people uncomfortable if they looked at him for too long. As if they were seeing something they shouldn't see. Something ancient. Something dangerous.
"That kid is weird, I'm telling you," the other students murmured in the hallways.
"Matthew Harkness is a genius, but he gives me the creeps," the teachers said in the teachers' lounge.
"Matthew is the perfect son, although sometimes I wonder what he's really thinking," Richard and Elizabeth wondered in the privacy of their home.
"You guys have no fucking idea," Matthew thought as he walked through the school hallways, backpack on his shoulder, headphones in his ears listening to Soda Stereo (he had found an import store that carried Latin music and almost cried with emotion).
Fifteen years. Fifteen years had passed since he awoke as a baby in this universe. Fifteen years of secret training, obsessive study, and the careful construction of a double life that would have made any superhero proud.
By day: Matthew Harkness, model student, captain of the school football team (because he wouldn't play American football even if he were dead, that sport was an insult to real football), honor student with a perfect average, and exemplary son.
At night: The future Emperor of the Underworld, practicing powers that would make Stephen Strange shit his pants, and planning the greatest conquest this universe would ever see.
And the best part: nobody suspected a thing.
Matthew arrived home around 4 PM. It was a large house in an affluent neighborhood in Manhattan. His father had advanced in his career as a physicist and now worked for Stark Industries (yes, that Stark Industries), and his mother was a tenured professor at Columbia. Money was no object.
"Hi, Mom!" he shouted as he entered, leaving his backpack in the hallway.
"Hi, sweetie! How was school?" Elizabeth replied from the kitchen.
"Same as always. Boring."
He went straight up to his room. Well, "room" was an understatement. It was practically a whole apartment: bedroom, private bathroom, and a study that he had turned into his personal inner sanctum.
He locked the door, activated the small silence field he had learned to create with his powers (dark underworld magic, very useful for privacy), and finally dropped the mask.
His eyes, normally light blue, glowed with a violet light. The shadows in the room shifted, coming to life, reaching out to him like pets greeting their owner.
"Hey, girls," Matthew murmured, smiling as the shadows curled around his arms. "Did you miss me?"
The shadows pulsed with something that felt like affection. After fifteen years, he had learned that his powers were almost sentient. The shadows, the darkness, the energy of the underworld... they had personalities. And they adored him.
He slumped onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. Posters adorned his bedroom walls, painting the perfect picture of a typical teenager: rock bands, sports teams, a famous actress or two. But Matthew knew that anyone who looked closely would notice something odd about the Iron Maiden poster. The shadows in the image moved very subtly. Very, very subtly.
"Okay," he said to himself, switching to Spanish in his mind as he always did when he was alone. "Today's recap. What did we learn today in the wonderful world of Marvel 1987?"
He closed his eyes, reviewing.
In the outside world, things were getting interesting. Tony Stark was seventeen, just like him, probably studying at some elite university, being the genius son of a bitch he was. Peter Parker didn't exist yet (he wouldn't be born until 1991 if his calculations were correct). The Avengers hadn't been formed. SHIELD operated in the shadows. The X-Men existed, but they were top secret.
And he, Matthew Harkness, was preparing for his debut.
"But not yet," he murmured. "Patience. Patience is the key."
She stood up, walked to her closet, and pressed a hidden panel in the wall. The wall slid open, revealing a secret room the size of a bathroom.
Inside, illuminated by a dim, violet light, was his work from the last ten years.
An armor.
It wasn't Hades' full armor yet. That required a level of power he hadn't yet attained. But it was something. A prototype version, made of solidified shadows, dark metal he had learned to manifest from the underworld, and his own blood as a catalyst.
She was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. Black as the darkest night, with dark violet details that glowed faintly. The mask had subtle horns, like a crown. Her chest was marked with symbols she had copied from her memories of Saint Seiya, the symbol of Hades.
"Someday," she whispered, caressing the cold metal, "you will be whole. And on that day, the universe will tremble."
The armor pulsed under his touch, as if responding to his words.
Matthew smiled and closed the panel. Time for the boring but necessary part: homework.
Three hours later - 7 PM
Matthew was at his desk, finishing an essay on World War II (ironic, considering he knew things about Hydra that would make his professors shit themselves), when he felt something.
A pull. In his chest. Familiar but different.
The shadows in his room stirred, restless.
"What...?" he murmured, putting down the pen.
The pull intensified. It wasn't pain. It was... a call. A request. A plea.
Matthew closed his eyes and immersed himself in its power, following the pull to its source.
And he found it.
Someone was dying. A man, not far from here, in an alley about four blocks from his house. Robbery gone wrong. Bullet in the chest. Bleeding out.
And his soul... his soul was calling to the Underworld. Calling to him.
Matthew opened his eyes, his heart beating fast.
"He's calling me. His soul is calling me."
This was one of the skills he had developed over the years. As Lord of the Underworld, he could sense the dying, those whose souls were about to depart. He usually ignored these sensations; they happened all the time, people were constantly dying. But this time was different.
This time, the soul was calling him specifically. As if it knew who he was.
"Shit."
Matthew looked out the window. It was night. His parents were downstairs watching television.
"I could ignore it. I should ignore it. It's not my problem."
But the pull persisted. Insistent. Desperate.
"The hell with it."
He stood up, walked to his secret closet, and took out the armor.
He didn't wear the full armor; that would have been too obvious. But he wore a compressed version: a black mask that covered the upper half of his face, a dark jacket that was actually solidified shadows in disguise, and gloves with engraved symbols that amplified his power.
She looked at herself in the mirror. With the mask on, she was unrecognizable. She could be anyone.
"First time I've gone out like this. First official mission of the future Emperor of the Underworld."
He opened the window, looked down (third floor, no way he was jumping without powers), and smiled.
"Let's see if these fifteen years of training were worth it."
He extended his hand. The shadows responded, creating a kind of dark, semi-solid path that descended from his window to the street.
Matthew stepped onto the path of shadows. It felt strange, like walking on jelly, but he endured it.
"Okay. This is real. This is happening."
He walked down the shadowy path to the street, the shadows dissolving behind him. When his feet touched the pavement, he almost wanted to shout with excitement.
"It worked, goddammit! It worked!"
But he had no time to celebrate. The pulling sensation in his chest was weakening. The man was dying.
Matthew ran toward the alley, moving faster than any normal human could. His powers propelled him, making him stronger, faster, more of everything.
Four blocks. Two minutes. World record destroyed.
He reached the alley and saw him.
A man, around forty years old, Latino in appearance, lying in a pool of his own blood. A gunshot wound to the chest. Shallow breathing. Seconds of life.
Next to him, three gang members were laughing and checking his wallet.
Matthew felt something dark awaken in his chest. Anger. Pure, cold anger.
"You..." he murmured, his voice coming out deeper, more resonant, with the power of the underworld.
The three gang members froze. They turned around slowly.
And they shouted.
Because what they saw wasn't a seventeen-year-old teenager. What they saw was something more. Something primal. Something that every fiber of their survival instincts told them to run.
Matthew was shrouded in shadows. His eyes glowed bright violet. And behind him, cast by the shadows, was an enormous figure. A silhouette of ancient and terrifying armor.
The presence of Hades.
"Run," Matthew said, and his voice sounded like a thousand voices speaking as one. "Run and never come back. Or your souls will be mine."
The gang members didn't need to be told twice. They took off running as if the devil himself were chasing them.
Technically, they weren't that far from the truth.
Matthew approached the dying man, the shadows receding. He knelt beside him.
The man looked at him, his eyes barely focused.
"You..." she murmured weakly. "You... are..."
"Shh," Matthew placed a hand on the man's chest, over the wound. "Don't speak."
I could feel the man's life slipping away. His soul, preparing to depart. In minutes, perhaps seconds, he would be dead.
Matthew had studied this. He had practiced. He theoretically knew how to do it.
"I've never done it with a real person," he thought, sweating. "But if I don't try, this guy will die."
He closed his eyes and channeled his power. Not the shadows. Not the darkness. But the other side of his power: control over life and death.
The energy of the underworld flowed through him, into the man. He could feel the damage. The hole in the lung. The ruptured arteries. The blood where it shouldn't be.
"Come on, come on, COME ON," Matthew gritted his teeth, concentrating more than he had ever concentrated before.
The wound began to close. Slowly. Very slowly. It wasn't a perfect healing, more like... pausing the dying process. Stabilizing it.
After what seemed like an eternity but was probably two minutes, Matthew opened his eyes.
The man was breathing. Shallowly, but he was breathing. The bleeding had stopped. He wasn't cured, not close, but he was no longer actively dying.
"Shit," Matthew gasped, falling back into a seated position against the alley wall. "Shit, shit, shit. It worked. It really worked."
The man opened his eyes, looking at him.
"Thank you..." he murmured. "Who... who are you?"
Matthew stood up, his legs trembling with exhaustion. Using that level of power had left him shattered.
"Someone was passing by," she replied, her voice returning to normal. "Hang on. I'll call an ambulance."
But before she could move, the man grabbed her wrist with surprising strength.
"You are... the Lord..." he murmured, his eyes gleaming with something that seemed like recognition. "The Lord of the Dead... you have returned..."
Matthew felt a chill.
"As...?"
"My grandmother... was a witch... in Mexico... she taught me... she taught me to recognize... the ancient gods..."
The man smiled weakly.
"Thank you... my Lord... for your mercy..."
And then she fainted.
Matthew stood there, processing that, until he heard sirens in the distance.
"Shit. I have to go."
He left the man (breathing, stable, but needing medical attention), and disappeared into the shadows just as the red and blue lights illuminated the alley.
Back in your room - 9 PM
Matthew was lying on his bed, still trembling from exhaustion and adrenaline.
"I just used my powers in public. I just saved a life. And someone recognized me for who I am."
It was terrifying and exciting at the same time.
"This changes everything. It's no longer just theory and practice. It's real. I am real. My powers are real."
She looked at her hands. They were still trembling slightly.
"Fifteen years preparing myself. And only now am I beginning to understand the magnitude of what I am."
She closed her eyes, smiling.
"This is just the beginning, Marvel. You don't know what's coming yet."
END OF CHAPTER