And so it was, that there was a round table meeting, nine people seated around the table, all serious as they kept their expressions neutral.

“And the river.” Medusa calmly stated, placing a card on the table, and the expressions of everyone at the table remained as calm as could be, for as long as they could.

“Fold.” Satyr was the first to give up, looking at his two cards and handing them to Medusa, who kept them aside.

“Raise ten chocolates.” Ten small chocolate bars were added to the pile on the side by Manticore, who only truly bet because he didn’t quite like sweet chocolate, preferring dark chocolate instead.

“I call that raise with two bottles of milkshake.” Empusa put down the two 330ml bottles there, keeping her expression neutral as she looked to her hand.

“I call with one big packet of chips as a packet of jelly beans.” Echidna added, sliding in her bet to the growing pile of sweets and snacks.

“Why are we doing this?” Everyone ignored Cyclops and his complaints, because even as he complained he placed in two glass bottle Sprites, liking that more than coke.

“I uh… I call?” Typhon was still slightly confused on the rules of the game, but his bet of a tub of ice cream was approved.

“I’m all in.” Nemea did this with no regret, because in all honesty she had nothing left to bet, having gone big in the beginning of the game only to be smacked down by the scariest person at the table.

“I call, using a can of coke and a chocolate slab.” Aaron called, his expression couldn’t truly be said to be neutral, it was more appropriate to call it uncaring, and obviously he didn’t considering his pile matched what was currently in the centre of the table already.

“Very well, reveal.” Medusa stated, looking at the cards on the table.

An Ace of Clubs, a four of Hearts, an Ace of Diamonds, a Jack of Clubs, and a ten of Spades sat on the table as Manticore revealed his hand.

Manticore held a four of Diamonds and a four of Spades, leaving him with a Full House, fours higher than aces.

“Damn it.” Empusa frowned, revealing her ten of clubs and seven of spades, only having a two pair of tens and Aces.

Echidna looked to be annoyed as well, as she had a Queen of Hearts and a King of Diamonds in her hand, giving her a straight, but not enough to beat a Full House.

Cyclops seemed to have nothing but an Ace Pair, as he had a two of Clubs and a six of Spades… really, he probably didn’t even want to play.

Typhon, as mentioned, was still a bit lost on the rules as he revealed his hand to be extremely similar to Manticore, better in fact, as he had two Jacks in his hand, Spades and Diamonds.

“A Jack higher than aces Full House, Typhon is in the lead.” Medusa calmly stated which left Typhon confused; all he knew was that he was apparently winning at current.

“Well I’m out, poker isn’t my game anyway.” Nemea stated, tossing her cards out to reveal the four of Clubs and the ten of Hearts, having a two pair of fours and tens.

“Well, I win again.” Aaron stated calmly, revealing his two cards to be the Ace of Spades and the Ace of Hearts, giving him a four of a kind of the Aces variety.

“With that, Aaron wins the pot.” Medusa said as everyone groaned, Aaron allowing a smirk to come over his face as he raked in all his winnings.

“Okay, we’re done, can we stop playing poker, please?” Cyclops asked, confused at this strange happening.

“Okay, fine, we’ll stop… besides, it was getting boring cheating.” Aaron stated, causing minor outrage from Empusa, Nemea, Satyr and Echidna. On the other hand-

“You were cheating?” Typhon asked, surprised at having not noticed it while Manticore shrugged.

“I was cheating myself, though I was surprised Typhon kept winning by pure luck…” That last bit was surprising for Aaron too, as Typhon was honestly playing without knowing much and yet still kept in the game, equalling with Manticore.

“If no one saw him then I can’t point him out for it.” Medusa added, and everyone just groaned in annoyance… of course, the dealer was biased, they had forgotten this.

“But really, why was I roped into this? I’d rather relax, or have the little lady continue teaching me to read.” Echidna nodded with a smile as she and Cyclops stood, leaving the table.

Aaron smiled at that, glad that Cyclops had something he was interested in, and that Echidna was finding someone to talk to in the group beyond her brother, Medusa and Empusa.

Cyclops had become much more sociable since he stopped drinking, and he spoke to everyone now, acting kind of like a grandfather for the group as a whole.

Aaron felt like talking to Cyclops a bit more, considering Cyclops was Aaron’s impromptu therapist these days, but Cyclops was usually preoccupied with talking to Echidna about reading, talking to Typhon about the wonders of lazing about, and so on and so forth.

“Well he does have a point; we’re all going to share anyway.” Empusa added after Cyclops and Echidna walked away, and Aaron just shrugged in agreement, letting everyone take what they will, though he kept a few things for himself obviously.

“…hey, you know, I just realized, but aren’t we pretty well off when it comes to food in this place?” Aaron asked, Typhon nodding along as the rest of the table looked to each other, before Nemea spoke up.

“Are you two retarded?” the newest member of their group asked, folding her recently healed arms under her chest as she stared at them with confusion.

For the record, Nemea didn’t have much of a chest, though she didn’t care that much, fun-bags would get in the way of a good fight according to her.

“Uh… no, last I checked I have a needlessly high IQ, and while Typhon isn’t exactly book smart-” Typhon was agreeing begrudgingly when Medusa sighed and placed her hand over Aaron’s mouth to get him to stop talking.

“Licking my hand won’t make me stop. And no, that isn’t a challenge for you to lick me elsewhere, as much as I’d like that.” No one at the table blushed at that, unlike the common perception where that would be socially unacceptable, everyone at the table was an adult or close enough to one to not care.

For the record, Medusa, the one who spoke, was the youngest. Just a reminder, she’s still seventeen here.

“Aaron, what Nemea was trying to say was that you’re suffering from a Marie Antoinette fallacy. You don’t realize that what you’re saying is actually showing your lack of understanding about Tartarus in general.” Medusa moved her hand, Aaron’s mouth still in the ‘licking’ motion before he stopped and seriously considered her words.

“Oh… so what you’re saying is that we’re actually pretty well off in Tartarus, and that I haven’t had to struggle in this place so I’m unaware of that?” Aaron got to the core of the matter quickly as Medusa nodded.

“Indeed. Aaron, we eat well, we drink well when we want to, and we have proper clothing, shoes and more. But that’s because we’re Chained, not because there is an overabundance of these things.” Manticore added in, though he groaned slightly when everyone just paused to listen to the usually silent man… the worries of having a good voice.

“Wait, because… okay, I’m a bit lost here, but I am aware of food drops that happen every week in the different Areas. Are you saying that those aren’t enough?” Typhon asked, having never considered this before.

Both Aaron and Typhon could be excused from this lack of knowledge, as Aaron had always helped Typhon steal food before they encountered Empusa, and from there they always seemed to find food easily.

“No, they aren’t. Think about it like this, each year, over ten thousand people at least will be sent into Tartarus, at least. From the time Tartarus was open, that’s around half a million people at least, though more likely it’s over a million… but Tartarus actually holds over fifteen million people.” Medusa added, and Satyr nodded.

“Yeah man, in the early days of Tartarus, where they were moving all the old prisoners to Tartarus, Tartarus started out with around…” Satyr paused to think it over, remembering some old statistics.

“About seven hundred people per one hundred thousand were in jail, though that amount was lower in countries other than the United States back then. If we use their numbers…” Satyr waved for Aaron to think about it.

“That’s… that’s around fifty million people? But Tartarus only has around fifteen?” Aaron voiced out his confusion as Nemea scoffed, drinking some coke as she pointed out.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Did you forget where we are? We’re in the place where no crimes are illegal, and everyone is a criminal.” Aaron paled a bit at that as he realized what happened.

“Wait… so in the early days of Tartarus… there were roughly fifty million people… and it dropped so extremely?” Aaron asked as Satyr nodded.

“Yeah man, it was a crazy time, the ideas of Areas weren’t so clear cut, and there weren’t any real taboo’s around yet so everyone just did as they pleased.” Satyr snacked on some sweets, gaining a far off look…

Right, most forgot, but Satyr was actually a bit older than Cyclops of all people, despite his youthful looks and actions.

Though it was the first time they found out he was around for Tartarus’ beginning.

“So it was total anarchy for a long time huh… what about Chained?” Typhon asked, and Satyr shook his head at the question.

“The Chained were… well, we were different. Some went around being even worse than the normal people, some killed, some raped, some became make believe kings, and others… others hid.” Satyr looked away at that last bit… that was right, they had found him hidden in the empty sewers of Area five after all…

“So if anything, Chained just made the whole situation worse, and by the end of its second year, the fifty million originally tossed in this place were probably around a tenth of their original amount.” Manticore added, knowing some of the statistics as Aaron nodded.

“Right, I know about how much they had after the first five years, that was common knowledge, but I wasn’t aware of how many people they just let die in this place…” Aaron frowned.

Once more, he was being shown that the place he lived in was not remotely nice. If anything, he had arrived when Tartarus was around its calmest.

And even then beings like Toy Maker and Leviathan existed, one raped and desecrated the bodies of the dead and the other stole the blood of those he killed to kill even more.

“Well you also need to consider this, those Nano-bots that they inject into the prisoners? They don’t go to the children, unlike Chained abilities.” That bit was confusing for more than one person, but they just accepted it as something weird about Chained.

“Okay and those Nano-bots pretty much just state whether or not someone’s alive or not right… wait, are they used to monitor how many prisoners are in this place?” Aaron asked as Typhon widened his eyes.

“And if they are responsible for the air drops, wouldn’t they only account for the amount of prisoners with Nano-bots in them? What about the rest?” Typhon asked, causing Aaron to widen his eyes.

“A lot of that went over my head, but yeah, that’s what we were trying to tell you two idiots. They don’t provide enough food for fifteen million, they provide enough for about seven maybe.” Nemea added in, having moved onto chocolate shortcake sweets.

“And that doesn’t account for people who horde food like we do, or that Chained require more food than normal people to account for their enhanced metabolism and energy for their robotic parts.” Empusa added, eating some chips.

“And think about it, the prisoners in Tartarus, and the children born in this place, how many know how to grow crops, to take care of livestock, how many can sustain themselves without the management of Tartarus?” Manticore added with a frown, crossing his arms as Satyr spoke up.

“See, that’s another problem we have with destroying Tartarus, it’s that most of the people in this place, even if we break out, won’t know how to survive in a normal society. They’re bred to be dependent on food drops… and without them…” Satyr left his sentence hanging, the implications not lost to anyone in the room.

“That’s… messed up. And we’re actually contributing to this problem…” Aaron mumbled as he looked at the can of Sprite in his hand with worry.

“Ah, don’t be so worried you idiot.” Aaron looked up at Nemea, who was biting into a recently warmed pie.

“You’ve all explained what you’re planning in the last three days since our fight, and if your plan works, you’d be solving the problems of all the people in this place.” Nemea stated, making Aaron look at her with narrowed eyes.

“How do I put this… you can’t destroy Tartarus on an empty stomach, and when you do, their stomach’s won’t have to be empty anymore. So our group eating now is so they can eat later… or some shit like that.” Nemea shrugged towards the end as Aaron chuckled, Nemea’s vulgarity was a bit new to the group, but they still recalled Cyclops cursing at them every once in a while back when he was a drunkard.

“Thanks Nemea… you’re surprisingly good with motivational talks aren’t you?” Aaron asked as Nemea shrugged, about to take another bite of her food before she narrowed her eyes, putting down the pie.

“Hey, what do you mean by ‘surprising’ you little asshole! Come on this side of the table so I can shove a fork up your-” everyone easily ignored her continued cursing, knowing that her leg was still injured so she wouldn’t be getting up right away.

Aaron just chuckled at her anger, ignoring when her claws appeared as she tried to reach further, but that didn’t matter as he and Medusa stood, walking to a different room.

They ended up walking past Cyclops trying to read a children’s book while Echidna read Merchant of Venice, the couple smiling a bit at the sight.

They soon ended up on the roof of the building, looking up at the stars in the night sky… Aaron was glad they were able to; considering most modern cities were so bright one could barely see the light of the night sky.

The two only remained silent for a little bit before they looked at each other, Medusa activating her ability to read memories easily.

It was strange, how Aaron was capable of inputting such emotion into his memories, emotions enough that Medusa could occasionally get his thoughts at those moments.

And it was also strange that Aaron was so free with his memories, but that could be explained by the fact that when they first met, Medusa looked at them without his permission.

He ended up the ‘victor’ of that encounter, but at this point he figured if she saw his memories once; there was nothing he could do about it. So now it was their little thing, their way of communicating silently, he’d tell her something through intense thought based memories, and he’d check body language.

Freaked out Echidna the first time she walked in on them doing that, just staring at each other while occasionally making nods or shaking their heads, she thought they went crazy or something.

“I don’t like what I’m seeing.” Medusa stated, reaching out to grab Aaron’s arm. He didn’t try to move away as she latched on, as if scared that he wasn’t real.

“I’m pretty sure we established that I don’t like it either… it’s why I’m drinking so much.” Medusa frowned, looking at Aaron pulling out a flask as her hand slipped from its grasp on his sleeve.

“I don’t like that either. And you know what you’re doing is wrong.” Medusa added, and Aaron looked at the flask, and then back at Medusa.

“You’re right. This is wrong. I’m knowledgeable on my own circumstances, enough to know that becoming an alcoholic isn’t truly helping me.” Aaron nodded… and then sipped from the flask anyway.

“I know that, but I’d rather do it for a while anyway. I can stop if I so choose, so it isn’t a problem, right?” Aaron’s words were hollow, both of them knew it.

Aaron was practically parroting the words of a drug-user who was addicted, but didn’t want to admit it. Even if he wasn’t, the amount he drank wasn’t good, for anyone in their group.

“Aaron, please talk to me? And I mean verbally… I want you to understand what I do.” Medusa could feel his emotions at times, but he was still acting blind to his problems.

“Fine, what do you want to talk about?” Aaron was being a bit difficult, he realized that, and yet he still continued…

It was like a train crash, in a way, in that one knew it was coming, knew it would be horrible, but one wouldn’t look away.

“Aaron… you were tortured, repeatedly, for almost an entire year.” Medusa stated the fact, and Aaron just nodded, not saying anything more beyond once more drinking.

“The Ascension Chamber has anaesthetics available, it has ways of allowing you to not feel the pain… but they didn’t do that for you. They willingly tortured you, under the orders of-” Medusa was stopped by Aaron throwing the flask at her.

Obviously, it missed, but the message was sent.

“Don’t. Medusa, don’t mention that person.” Aaron glared at Medusa, and she in turn just stared back at the man she had grown to care for.

“Gilgamesh.” Aaron’s eyes widened as he grinded his teeth, anger still visible on his features, but he couldn’t hide anything from Medusa.

The fear he felt wasn’t as hidden as he thought it was.

“I said not to mention her!” Aaron shouted, and Medusa knew that if Aaron was a lesser man he would have tried to get physical.

Even slightly drunk, angry, and scared, Aaron had enough clarity to know that he didn’t want to hurt Medusa though. He had enough clarity to know that he’d probably fail even if he tried, as he was.

But he oh so wanted her to stop.

“Aaron, you’re terrified of her… and the anger you feel is because you don’t want anyone to know you’re scared… that you flinch at the mention of her name.” Medusa stated as Aaron turned away, ready to walk, only for Medusa to once more grab him.

He tried to get her to let go, but it wasn’t happening, Medusa just spun him around, and grabbed his head before pulling him towards her as she hugged him to her, forcing his head to be at the same height as her neck.

“Aaron. It’s okay… it’s okay to be scared.” Aaron stilled, but it wasn’t the reaction of someone who was feeling comfortable. It was more appropriate to call it the stillness of someone who didn’t know what to do.

“I’ve seen your memories, and I’m scared too… she, Gilgamesh, is a monster.” Once more, Aaron flinched at the mention of the name, but Medusa continued anyway.

“She hurt you. Many, many times. You saw her when you were still a child, and she looks the same as she did back then.” Aaron was still, not daring to move lest he harm Medusa in escaping.

“And since coming here to Tartarus, you’ve learnt a lot… like you now know that she’s a Lord, like you.” Aaron’s head moved slightly, a shift up and then down, acknowledging the statement.

“You also know that, like you, she was part of the creators of Tartarus. Now that you know how Chained and Lord’s age, she was probably there when it was built anyway.” Medusa added, and the only movement Aaron provided was his breathing.

“And like you, she is from the Hassan family, married into it, but still a part of your family.” Medusa added one of the surprising bits of information she learnt into her statements, as she and Aaron slowly slumped to the ground… Aaron didn’t move away.

“Gilgamesh… she’s one of the highest authorities in Tartarus, isn’t she? She’s a member of the Council of Tartarus, am I wrong?” Medusa asked, a slight movement of Aaron’s head stating that no, she wasn’t wrong.

“She… she’s scary, for a lot of different reasons huh? She’s roughly as smart as you, doesn’t care for things like morals, is narcissistic in the extreme, and she’s much more experienced than you… that’s leaving out her capabilities as a combatant.” Medusa added, and at this, Aaron’s hands seemed to blindly reach, grasping at her back, trying to squeeze her against him in worry.

“But that’s okay Aaron. Like I said, I’m scared too, but I am not worried. We have each other. We have Typhon and his sister. We have the members of the Key. You have me.” Aaron’s desperation seemed to fade slightly, as Medusa began to brush his hair with the hand not holding him.

He was scared still, holding onto her, but he was beginning to calm down after what was almost a panic attack.

“Aaron… it’s okay to be scared. We’ll protect you, just like you protect us. So long as we protect each other, we’ll be okay.” Aaron and Medusa sat like that for a while, until Medusa realized that Aaron was sleeping.

Without word and with barely any noise, Typhon walked up from the stairs down into the building, looking at Medusa with sadness in his eyes, though as usual his face remained mostly neutral.

He was very emotive if one knew what to look for… if one didn’t, he’d appear no better than a statue at times.

“I’ll drop him in his bed.” Typhon said, his Nano-bots moving slowly to pry Aaron from Medusa, keeping him floating slightly with Typhon’s effort.

As he walked away, Typhon turned to look at Medusa, a glare in his eye not meant for her, but for the subject matter in his sentence.

“We will be talking about this Gilgamesh person. And you will tell me what you know.” Typhon’s demand would have been rude to anyone else, but Medusa simply nodded, knowing that it was demand with care behind it.

She went down a half hour later, after gazing at the stars.