Solomon… felt like shit.

It wasn’t often she would say something as crass as that, though if she did it was usually Lu Bu’s fault… so she blamed this feeling on Lu Bu too, wondering if he spiked one of her drinks again.

“Well, seems you’re finally up.” Solomon froze in her groaning when she heard that voice… especially she began to realize that it was the last voice she heard before she lost consciousness.

“Odysseus… given that I’m still alive, I’m assuming I was captured?” Solomon asked, finally opening her eyes and seeing the cracked ceiling above her.

She was currently strapped to a bed by chains, not Typhon’s, but normal ones… she could break those…

But she doubted she could do so and escape the current selection of Ascended surrounding her sleeping position…

Charon, the Nemean Lion, Cyclops, Echidna, Medusa, Typhon, Empusa, and Odysseus, with…

“Is that Satyr?” Solomon asked with wide eyes as the horned man paused in his downing of a bottle of beer to look over, before putting the bottle down and waving.

“Yeah I’m Satyr… why?” he asked as he continued what he was doing before attention was drawn to him…

Solomon had to wonder if Odysseus even knew that the Tartarus management had been looking for the man since Tartarus was first created…

He probably didn’t know, which was a surprise… he didn’t know that Satyr was given more ‘ability’ than he should have… his Ascended genetic code was updated, but it never got a chance to be used because Satyr hadn’t died.

Like Charon, Leviathan, Jormungand, Behemoth or Baal, Satyr was an Original Ascended, though judging from how the man was acting he didn’t know what that entailed or just didn’t care…

Granted, Satyr should be the weakest of the Original Ascended, but the title wasn’t a light one.

“Hey, Solomon, stop looking over at Satyr for a bit.” Aaron said, causing Solomon to look over at him as he sat on a couch nearby.

She felt strangely irritated given his manner of sitting with his hands in his pockets and his legs kicked out in front of him and wearing his ‘casual’ outfit, he didn’t look concerned with the situation at all.

“Odysseus…” Solomon glared at the man who just smirked in response to her glare.

“Solomon. So far I have had little reason to doubt your intelligence, so you probably already know that you are being held captive for a specific reason.” Aaron said, making Solomon scoff and look to the ceiling.

“No doubt you plan on holding me hostage for Lu Bu to come retrieve me, though I’d save your breath on that plan.” Solomon said as she was grabbed by the forehead.

“That isn’t the plan.” It was the first time Solomon heard Typhon speak normally, as the last time she had seen him he had been shouting for Lu Bu to fight him…

He had a quiet voice, but it was one that drew attention to it regardless of volume… quiet, but powerful.

“Typhon is a bit annoyed at current, sorry about that Solomon… but he isn’t wrong, you have a misconception on what I have planned for you.” Aaron said as he raised both legs before bringing them down, allowing him to kick off of the couch.

“Solomon, tell me, what do you know about the term necromancy?” Aaron asked as he walked over, staring down at Solomon as her skull was held by Typhon’s vice-grip.

Had it been a normal human in his grasp, Typhon probably could have popped their skull like a grape or something, but luckily Solomon was a Lord, and thus would only feel a lot of pain and never die from that small amount of pressure.

“Necromancy, the fictional idea of raising the dead, a practitioner of such is known as a necromancer. I’m afraid that even for modern technology necromancy is impossible, and the closest you’d get is being able to control a dead body.” Solomon stated as Aaron removed his hand, snapping his fingers.

Echidna walked over, and while Solomon couldn’t see it due to the angle, everyone else saw her rolling her eyes at Aaron’s theatrics.

“Oh I know, I’ve seen that in person due to Toy Maker actually, before I killed him… I am not sure what you know about my personality Solomon, so care to enlighten me on what… Gilgamesh, told you?” Solomon’s eyes widened slightly.

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” Solomon said making Aaron pause, before he looked to the other Chained in the room with wide eyes.

“Everyone… I think that’s the first time someone didn’t just automatically answer my demands since I’ve entered this prison... or at least someone important.” Aaron said as Typhon glared at him.

“Hey.” Typhon’s one word said a lot at the moment, given that he almost killed Aaron the first time they met, and the only reason Aaron hadn’t died was because Typhon couldn’t use his full force while chained to a wall.

“No that’s different, all of you tried to kill me, directly or indirectly, but in conversation I do not recall ever being told a straight no.” Everyone paused…

And even Charon who just joined realized that Aaron was right, even Satyr who seemed to disagree with joining at first was more of an ‘I will join under conditions’ rather than a ‘no’.

“A group of yes-men following a person hyped up on delusions of grandeur, how quaint.” Solomon’s tone quickly indicated her sarcasm as Aaron turned back to her.

“Alright, you made your point, how about I just guess what she told you, you don’t have to tell me if I’m right or if I’m wrong, think of it as me speaking to myself aloud.” Aaron nodded with a smile while ignoring Solomon’s glare.

“She told you my real name, Aaron Hassan, she told you that my I.Q is between one sixty and one eighty, and she told you that I am trying to destroy Tartarus.” Solomon just listened patiently as Aaron began to smirk.

“Well, those were the simpler accusations… now for the more messed up ones, I think I got a fifty-fifty chance of you having heard this so it doesn’t matter to me.” Aaron said, raising his hands as he shrugged.

“Alright then… Gilgamesh told you that she raised me for a month after my parents died? Did she tell you that Tartarus is actually a super-soldier program under funding from China, the NAC and Australia? Did she tell you that the Hassan family actually was meant to hold shares in Tartarus?” Solomon did not react to any of the sentences to most…

But Aaron smiled as he looked closer to her.

“Hey Solomon, did you ever study cold reading?” Solomon froze for a moment there, and Aaron leaned back while chuckling.

“There are little tells that people show to give off how they feel, what they think… I was pretty good at cold reading before I became Odysseus. Then you gave me these nifty eyes that see way more than I’m used to.” Aaron said as he looked closer at her.

“It was very minute, but your pupils pulsed a bit at certain sentences I spoke. Wider pupils signify affection, but shaky or narrowed ones represent different things… in your case, you reacted to the final sentence I told you as well as the first.” Aaron said with a smirk making Solomon frown…

In the background, whispering to each other, Cyclops was asking Medusa if that was how Aaron found out she was interested…

He did use cold reading to find that out apparently. Aaron wasn’t receptive to positive emotions aimed at him unless exposed to them for a while.

“So from your reaction, I’ll just assume that Gilgamesh never told you those things… as for my final question… did you know that Gilgamesh inputs errors into the Ascended and Lords on purpose?” that got Solomon wide eyed as she shook to try and lunge at him, only to be stopped by Typhon’s hand still on her head, Echidna pushing down Solomon’s raised shoulder.

“That’s a lie!” She shouted as Aaron raised an eyebrow at her surprising reaction.

“Huh… she might be inputting loyalty to her too… whatever, let me explain. The two people holding you down are Typhon and Echidna, twins, King and Queen of Monsters according to Greek mythology.” Aaron said as Solomon glanced to the two.

“We know of them, Stabilizer and Synchronizer for Ascended, but they were not meant to be roaming around Tartarus.” Solomon said, causing the two to press just a bit harder in threat of what she just said.

“Calm down you two, Tartarus management is faulty. And Solomon, Lords are meant to be the combination of both biological and cybernetic enhancements, correct?” Aaron asked as Solomon looked to him.

“Odysseus, that’s something you especially should know, given that you are a Lord. It’s rare to find someone compatible with both cybernetic enhancements as well as biological, as they typically interfere with each other.” Solomon said as Aaron’s eyes brightened, leaning uncomfortably close to her face.

Medusa in the background just giggled at his interested appearance, linking it to a child who just got told how Coca-Cola was made.

…Wow, it’s been a while since that joke made an appearance.

“I knew it; the enhancements interfere with each other? Is it because when you use biological enhancements the body changes too much for the original cybernetic parts to be added in, or for the cybernetic parts the mind might be too warped to take the strain of adding a biological adjustment…” Aaron spoke quickly and Solomon’s eyes widened as Typhon’s other hand snaked out to push Aaron’s face away from Solomon.

“Oh, sorry, got excited to figure out more… before we get back to business, that’s probably why Lords aren’t as strong as most Ascended right? I can think of it as weight I guess… one can either maximize one type of enhancement, or minimize both and use them at the same time to get a Lord.” Aaron’s hypothesis was actually correct.

It was the reason why Lords were physically Low or Mid-ranked without fail, despite the fact that they were supposed to be stronger than the Ascended…

It’s kind of like the relationship between that football-shaped ‘rulers of all creation’ in relation to all other beings inside that anime about aliens from a vegetable planet.

That football was technically weak and incapable of fighting, but could wipe out universes.

In this analogy, Lords were the football ruler compared to the others, they weren’t exactly physically stronger, but they wouldn’t lose.

“Ahem, I got off track. Anyway, Lords have a delicate balance of both biological and cybernetic enhancements… but… why is it that the finished product is unstable?” Solomon’s face blanked.

“I mean, they can advance the human body to something beyond its base form, and they’ve been doing it for over fifty years. And yet there are issues with it? Issues that require help from another advanced human by their own design? That makes no sense.” Aaron said as Solomon’s eyes began to flicker as if reading information.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“It doesn’t, for the sake of efficiency and expediency it would be better to cut out the middle man, making a two stage process of production and refinement into a one stage process of dual production and refinement, and it should be possible given that Typhon and Echidna exist, so why have they not advanced to that stage yet, why are Ascended still flawed at current…” Solomon’s motor mouth had Aaron blink for a moment before he turned back to look at Medusa.

“Do we sound like that when we get into science?” he asked as Medusa nodded while hiding her smile behind her hand.

“…Okay, what you just said interested me, but that is no proof that I am flawed.” Solomon stated, drawing Aaron’s attention back to her as he pointed at himself.

“I am proof that you are flawed. The Ascension process is unique to each person, but other than inputting the person’s specifications the process is mostly automatic. So don’t go arguing that I was flawed on purpose.” Solomon’s mouth shut before she could voice her argument.

“I was mentally unwell and prone to muscle spasms while I went after Toy Maker, then I waited a week while suffering from blanks in my memory and I actually lost feeling in my legs at one point while waiting.” Clearly no one else knew that bit except for Medusa, but it was long past at this point…

Stupid Aaron, hiding how hurt he got…

“Then Echidna and Typhon used their abilities on me, and I’m back, right as rain… though I still couldn’t remember my name until they told me.” Aaron added as Medusa frowned, knowing where he was going with this.

“Quite frankly, mentally I still refer and think of myself as Odysseus, but I also know that Aaron Hassan is who I am as well, so it’s still alright there.” Aaron said as Medusa looked to the ceiling.

“…If one Lord is flawed and required the help of these two, then probably all of them would, is that your argument?” Solomon asked as Aaron nodded with a frown.

“From what I understand, Gilgamesh was the first Lord… then you, then Lu Bu, and then Beowulf. And I’m sorry but the Lords have just gotten more unstable since Gilgamesh was made perfectly.” Aaron stated as Solomon thought about it…

She could recall Lu Bu complaining about her blanking out a few times, and there were days where she felt pains but she just assumed they would go away, and they did, so she ignored them…

With Lu Bu, he wore his armour because his entire body felt like his nerves were on fire at times, and the armour was supposed to be connected to his mind, meaning it would move him like a puppet if he felt that pain while in a fight.

And Beowulf’s problems are so many it would be easier to count what was right with the child king.

Odysseus escaped before his Ascension was complete, but clearly it was already flawed if he was experiencing issues then already.

“Okay, you’ve made your point. So you want Typhon and Echidna to attempt their abilities on me?” Solomon asked as Aaron nodded with a smirk.

“Yep. Oh, and to call-back to the beginning of this conversation, necromancy… I like to think of it in video game terms though. For every enemy I slay, a comrade takes their place.” Solomon glared at his insinuation as Aaron raised his hand with his thumb and middle finger pressed together.

Nemea immediately complained about theatrics, only for Charon to once more insult her intelligence.

“Solomon… if converting enemies into allies is like raising the dead, I am the world’s greatest necromancer.” Aaron’s pride leaked into his statement as he snapped his fingers, and immediately Solomon began to scream and thrash as Aaron’s smirk widened.

“By the way, it hurts.” No one even bothered to remind him that he was supposed to say that before it happened, knowing he probably held off on purpose.

It took about a good minute of Solomon screaming till she was hoarse before the she stopped and just huffed on the bed breathing heavily in pain as her eyes squeezed shut.

“You know, I thought that took longer when it was done with me…” Aaron said as Typhon removed his hands from the Lord on the bed.

“You’re imagining things.” No one was sure if that was sarcasm or not… Aaron voted sarcasm.

“He isn’t being sarcastic Aaron, it really does go by that fast… you were just in so much pain it probably felt longer.” Echidna offered and Aaron narrowed his eyes and pointed at Typhon.

“I believe her… but I also think you’re sarcastic enough to be saying that it did take longer.” Typhon kept quiet instead of replying…

He felt if he opened his mouth now he’d just say something sarcastic once more.

It was moments later that Solomon opened her eyes, still breathing heavily with beads of sweat on her forehead as she looked around to find Aaron sipping on some tea handed to him by Medusa.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Aaron asked as he raised his cup to her in acknowledgement as Medusa turned back to the ceiling.

“Like a pain I never knew I had is now gone.” Solomon said quietly as Aaron nodded in agreement to her thought on the pain.

“Yeah… Now listen, Solomon, as I mentioned before the procedure, I’m a necromancer, I like turning enemies into allies. Now why don’t you join my team, and I can explain everything that’s going down.” Aaron’s words got him a glance from Solomon, who looked back to the ceiling.

“I don’t need to join you, you did that procedure without my consent, and so I don’t owe you for it. I am willing to hear you out though.” She admitted and Aaron nodded.

It was the best he was going to get from Solomon at current.

“Okay then, I can work with that. So first things first, Gilgamesh… she’s a member of the Council of Tartarus, a collection of six people who are descended from those who designed Tartarus, do you know this?” Aaron asked, getting a slow nod from Solomon.

“I was not told, but it became kind of obvious over time.” She stated, and Aaron nodded, accepting the input as a sort of olive branch.

“Well, the Council is meant to control what happens in Tartarus to an extent, but mostly focusing on Ascended and Lords. It took a while for me to get this information while I was escaping, which is why I ended up escaping into Area four instead of Area twelve.” Aaron’s words caused some understanding to ripple through his friends who were surrounding the bed.

“See, the Council is something I knew about, but I didn’t know what they did until I hacked into the mainframe. You might want to sort that out by the way; any Ascended focused on intellectual pursuits could hack into those, let alone me after becoming a Lord.” Solomon noted Medusa’s rolling of the eyes and figured that Aaron had a habit of bragging about his intelligence.

A small mind, in Solomon’s opinion… the problem was that Aaron had intellect to back up his bark so to speak.

“You see, the Council is originally supposed to consist of six individuals, but at current only has four. One is the president of the North American Coalition.” That got very little surprise from the group, as Aaron had explained some of this before.

“Another is the Prime Minister of the Australian States. And a third is the Chinese paramount leader, a weird thing where the most politically powerful person in China doesn’t really have a position; it’s a word of mouth thing.” Aaron’s complaints were well founded, even if the position seemed to work in China.

“Those are the three countries involved in the building of Tartarus… but what about the other three seats, how do they have any weight to throw around, you might ask?” Solomon could see now why Medusa rolled her eyes…

Aaron was irritating when he got on a roll and knew things others did not.

“The other three seats of Tartarus were the designers of Tartarus, the minds so to speak. The three countries provided the workforce and such, but the true genius was with the other three seats of Tartarus.” Aaron, from remembering the political world before entering Tartarus, figured that it was the same even now.

“One of the seats belonged to a scientist known as Marko Krauss, a Russian Biological Engineer focusing on human advancement, essentially, this is the man who came up with the idea of the Ascended and Lords… or to be more precise, the idea of enhancing humans.” Solomon was just listening, as promised, so Aaron figured he continued.

“Now it’s the other two seats where this story gets a bit weird… see, there existed a family known mostly amongst the illegal side of the world, and yet, they seemed invested in Tartarus as well.” Aaron’s words got a slow widening of eyes from the majority of the people in the room, but Solomon had yet to understand his point.

“See, this family had a strange habit… while they were technically of the same family, they could also be considered two separate families coming from the same root. These two sides kept competing, one side protecting, and the other side attacking.” Aaron then placed a hand over his heart and his smile promised that he was about to drop a mental bomb.

“This family was the Hassan family, the same family that actually designed the entirety of the Tartarus security system and walls.” Now that got a widening of the eyes from Solomon as she stared at Aaron.

“That’s right Solomon I am of the same Hassan family, to be precise, I’m from the ‘attacking’ side of the family which mostly consisted of assassins and thieves. As for the other side… that’s where Gilgamesh comes in.” His blunt statement put a halt to all thoughts for a moment.

“She was originally an outsider, brought into the family through both marriage and her capability, but she is the last member of the protecting side of the Hassan family, by technicality she is Gilgamesh Hassan.” Aaron explained as he went to the couch and moved it closer…

Using his above human strength for such a simple reason…

“So there are six seats, and yet only four are being used… this is strange, isn’t it? I mean, I should have a seat and yet I was thrown in here… and as for the sixth, why was there no replacement for doctor Krauss?” Aaron asked, trying to get Solomon to think of the solution for a moment.

If she got to the solution alone, she’d believe it more.

“…Gilgamesh… she orchestrated the end of the doctor’s seat, and tossed you in here to prevent you from doing anything…” Solomon said as Aaron nodded.

“Yep, that’s exactly what happened. While I could only get a short clip of information, I did see a video where the doctor tried to adjust the Ascension process to allow any human to become an Ascended, albeit one with no ability… only to be stopped by Gilgamesh.” Aaron frowned, even as he tried to sip his tea once more only to find no more, waiting for a refill, he continued his tale.

“Gilgamesh argued that humanity was not ready for the level of the Ascended, not ready to have every single human become their own superhuman. They argued, back and forth, and the clip soon ended. This was a month before the doctor ‘disappeared’.” Aaron explained as Solomon got a bit pale at the thought…

She had done bad things, as an enforcer for Gilgamesh she had kidnapped people to be turned into Ascended before, heck; she was the one who kidnapped Lu Bu back when he was some thug trying to get to Area eleven to work for Sphinx… irony there eh?

But… this just seemed a bit bigger than ‘go get this person to make them powerful’.

“The Doctor did end up succeeding by the way. He managed to create two variations of the procedure which would allow anyone to become an Ascended, biologically or via cybernetics. In addition, this method turned out to be even better than he intended.” Aaron chuckled, looking to Typhon and Echidna.

“The biological one would gain enhanced strength for reduced muscle mass, as well as the ability to perfect the genetic sequence of others, essentially creating a being that can turn anyone into a superhuman with a touch.” Typhon clenched his fist at this description.

“The cybernetic one could give anyone with any cybernetic implants the ability to connect to any electronic device with signals via brainwaves, becoming a walking super-computer.” Echidna crossed her arms as she frowned.

“The perfected variants of the Biological Ascender and the Cybernetic Ascender, code-names Typhon and Echidna… and once more, Gilgamesh strikes again.” Solomon’s eyes had narrowed at the explanation, realizing that it didn’t quite fit the two.

“Gilgamesh, despite her intelligence, is not a good geneticist let alone someone capable of creating masterpieces on the level of doctor Krauss. Seeing what the doctor created though, she refused to allow such a power to exist, and then proceeded to ruin the process… well, not exactly.” Aaron scratched behind his ear as he was handed another cup.

“Gilgamesh couldn’t destroy the Typhon and Echidna generation steps, as it wasn’t too different from other Ascension methods, but she could take away some of it, resulting in our current Typhon and Echidna, capable of helping Ascended, but no one else.” That explained a lot actually…

Typhon’s Stabilization ability should theoretically allow him to manipulate a person’s DNA into something near perfect for what a human can achieve, and considering the abilities of Chained, he would be able to even enhance it.

Likewise with Echidna, Cybernetic Chained were not the only beings in the world with implants, there was talk of a chip to be implanted at the base of the skull to create an augmented reality heads up display, an AR-HUD which would double as a phone, sight assist and more.

The blind could see with cybernetic eyes, the deaf could hear and the mute could speak, and Echidna would be capable of enhancing them even further, turning the disabled of the world into the greatest minds in existence…

And yet both of their abilities were crippled before even getting them…

Solomon looked at Aaron’s expression and back to the ceiling in thought.

“Okay, you told me all this to destroy my view of Gilgamesh… I never liked her to be honest, and I always knew there was something wrong with her, but you haven’t given me any reason to join you.” Solomon stated as Aaron leaned closer, taking a loud and annoying sip of his tea before he spoke.

“Solomon… I am going to escape this prison. To do so required the assistance of more than one Lord. I fully intend to get Lu Bu on my side as well. Plus I’m asking you to join me because Gilgamesh will likely assume you’re compromised for coming into contact with me for this long.” Aaron smirked as Solomon’s face contorted into a look of horror mixed with anger.

“That’s why you told me all those things! Now that I know them, I can't go back, Gilgamesh would have me killed!” Solomon shouted as Aaron leaned back, and sipped on his tea.

“That’s exactly why. It’s an asshole move, no doubt, but I’m sorry to say that I don’t have a way to easily get you to work for me… however, working with me is something different.” Aaron smirked as Solomon broke out of her chains, reaching out to choke Aaron, instead she found herself being held in place by Typhon once more.

“See, basically, I’m in a heaping pile of shit, and I need help getting out. But obviously you wouldn’t want to help someone covered in shit…” Aaron leaned forward, a vicious grin on his face as Solomon ground her teeth in anger.

“So what I did was pull you into the shit pile with me. Now you need to help me, or else you’ll be stuck there forever along with me.” Solomon cursed as she relaxed, being forced back into the bed, though she now sat up, looking into Aaron’s eyes.

“Pulling me under the bus in the hopes that we’d survive together is idiocy. Know that I hate you for that, and will likely never trust you… but I do have to work with you now. So what is your plan, oh great leader?” Solomon’s sarcasm was delivered dry and with a tinge of anger…

Aaron licked his lips, for her dislike tasted divine.

“Khul ja Shem-shamayim Solomon, everything will be explained soon… before that though, I think you need to be reintroduced to some of my comrades.” Aaron said, snapping his fingers as a door opened into the warehouse the found themselves in…

And in walked the rest of the members of the Key, previously scattered, for the first time in over a year, they were together in the same building, ready for orders from their ‘Lord’.