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His demigod kids, those two were globetrotters, they were. South Africa, this time. New Rome University, where they were both juniors, was in session, but they were good kids and deserved to take some time off. Hazel probably wanted to give her horse a workout.
But now… huh. They'd been there a good several days, and were doing … well, what were they doing with their powers? Hades didn't understand. “Well, go and find out!” Persephone told him. So he did.
Nico was in a field station, doing something with an animated ape skeleton on a computer. And Hazel was in a limestone cave nearby, using her powers in a puzzling way. She was reshaping and widening a narrow passage, but she was working incredibly slowly.
“What are you doing?” Pluto asked his daughter.
She flashed him in the eyes with her headlamp as she snapped only her head to face him, her body braced in the crevice. Her eyes widened, and she smiled. She politely adjusted her lamp to shine away from his face.
“Oh! Father, hello! I'm widening this passage so larger people will be able to fit through it. Professor Berger will be thrilled to get down there and see the remaining fossils in situ.”
“What? Fossils?” Although they were contained in his realm, fossils confused Pluto. He didn't understand pre-history very well. That stuff was from, like, Gaea's time.
Nico carefully climbed into the cave, drawn by his father's presence. “Lord Pluto,” he greeted him, kneeling gingerly in the uneven terrain.
“Nico,” Pluto answered, smiling, “You can call me 'father' even when I'm Pluto.”
“All right,” agreed Nico, rising and picking his way closer.
“What are you two doing?” Pluto asked again.
“Paleoanthropology,” Nico said, as Hazel answered, “Science!”
“The 'study of old humans?' Why?”
“Well, it's fascinating!” enthused Hazel. “This is the site of a big recent find. Dozens of fossil hominins are here, a newly discovered species! They've got a mix of traits, some more similar to Australopithicus, and some more like Homo. They're an early Homo species, it turns out. Homo naledi."
Pluto flickered and turned into Hades, his head starting to ache. “Wait,” he told Hazel. “Please speak either Greek or Latin, not both. I'm unpleasantly reminded of that recent thing with the identity crisis.”
“I'm sorry, father,” replied Hazel, betraying not a hint of amusement. “Scientific terminology is a hopeless mashup of the two languages - and others! 'Naledi' is a Sotho word.”
Hades didn't reply.
“Um,” said Nico, “Would you like to see them? We have two pretty good specimens here at the moment.” Nico inclined his head toward the cave entrance.
“Yes, let's show him!” said Hazel, nimbly scrambling out of her crevice, then accepting Hades' helping hand as they picked their way out of the cave.
Fossils behaved differently from Nico's usual skeleton warriors. He used his powers to give the H. naledi a kind of life, but then they kind of did their own thing. They weren't obedient like bones. He had learned enough of scientific values to know that he couldn't know for sure that the fossil skeletons' behaviors were characteristic of H. naledi. And Hazel was the only other scientist he could even share his observations with. It was still incredibly exciting to watch. He was working on (conservatively) correcting the computer model of H. naledi based on his observations of the fossils' movements and postures. He watched them as they went about their phantom millions-of-years-old business. When they strayed too far afield, he tried exerting his will to force them to stay in his vicinity, but he could only succeed in getting them to stop their progress. To get them back to the fossil cabinets he would have to carry all their pieces back, or switch over to using his earth powers (much less developed than Hazel's) to act on them as stones.
He explained these phenomena to his dumbfounded father as the three of them watched the ancient stone skeletons' antics. Their mortal scientific colleagues avoided the area, as Hazel used her sophisticated Mist skills to direct them to work spaces deep within the cave system, or to their quarters.
“I have to bring Persephone to see these,” Hades announced. As a god, he could (and did) of course do almost whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. But in spite of his power, he was often a decent person. So he asked his children when he should plan his visit, to minimize disruption of the scientists' work. Hazel's eyes sparkled with happiness, and Nico actually hugged him goodbye.
Science (of all things). Huh.