“This place is… boring. Dry too.” Aaron complained and Echidna sighed at the words of their leader, having heard enough of that from Typhon for the past two days.

Really, the two were surprisingly similar Echidna found, while Typhon wasn’t as outgoing as Aaron, their thoughts on excitement and the need for interesting things were very similar.

Their senses of humour didn’t quite match though, as proven when Typhon groaned in annoyance.

“Aaron, that pun was overdone before you even did it.” Typhon referred to the bottle in Aaron’s hands, an alcohol famous for its catchphrase- dry, but you can drink it.

Of course, Aaron’s words weren’t exactly wrong either, considering that for some reason this section of Tartarus was left slightly like how Australia originally was this far inland, outback. It wasn’t exactly the same though…

Aaron had informed them upon entering the Area that it was actually similar to old Jerusalem, which said a lot about Tartarus’ designers and their views on racial stereotypes… then again; they had strange humour when it came to Chained too, like making Sphinx a Chinese guy, or having Jiang-Shi as a European guy…

Even Solomon was a girl, they loved using names that were contradictory in at least one way, and even Typhon had it, considering he was named after the King of Monsters.

Said monster was said to be huge and towering so tall its head was amongst the stars, whereas the ‘real’ Typhon had a short height of one and a half metres at the age of twenty one.

He wasn’t done growing, but still, it was proof there was humour in their naming sense, even if it was a strange sense of humour.

“Well can’t blame me for trying… this place is surprisingly boring for a place filled with people willing to bomb places in the name of God… crazy people.” Aaron downed the last bit of his alcohol before tossing the glass at a nearby wall, shattering it.

Someone would trip and fall into glass, Aaron thought, and they would likely deserve it.

“Well, you aren’t wrong… the people we did meet here just took one look at our collars and either ran or fell to their knees in worship.” Echidna added to that, as Chained in Area five had eventually taken one of two places.

Monsters created by man, going against the will of God, or they were messengers of said entity and divine prophets, depended on the person.

Both ideas were creepy and weird to their group, as a shadow covered Aaron, making him look up to see Manticore flipping off the two storey building Aaron was leaning against.

Manticore pulled off a perfect landing, flowing seamlessly into kneeling as he spoke up.

“I’ve finished looking around, and we’re too late to recruit Fenghuang, he has been killed in the past month by a wandering Chained.” Manticore explained as Aaron nodded…

Manticore was quite theatrical when he tried, though it was usually a joke about him being an ex-ninja. No, he was actually an assassin from the same group as Medusa, the Assassin’s Guild, but he had been in the form of a lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail.

Considering he was an assassin when he looked like that, it proved he was quite scary when it came to stealth actually… you try wearing a neon clown costume and then sneak up on someone, and this was a much more tame version of what Manticore went through.

“Oh… so that’s another victim… guess the Ascension Chambers are going to be busy.” Aaron reached to the side, Typhon wordlessly passing him something stronger than the drink he was using before, Typhon having his own as Echidna rolled her eyes.

Really, they were surprisingly similar, they even drank the same way… though how much of that was Typhon emulating Aaron, or Aaron humouring Typhon, was up in the air.

“Speaking of the Ascension Chambers, you mentioned that there was only three?” Typhon asked curiously, watching as from a distance away Cyclops was walking back towards them, hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, three chambers. They can each be used for either a Chained or a Lord, the only real difference is that Chained can be ‘modified’ within three, maybe four months, while Lord’s typically use a year at least.” Left unsaid amongst their group was that Aaron had only been in there for ten months, so he was missing something the other Lords would have.

“I see… so when a Chained dies, they get a notification and go kidnap some random person to turn into a Chained?” Aaron shook his head at Echidna’s question.

“No… there are conditions to becoming a Chained, much like there are conditions to becoming a Lord. The conditions change depending on how the person will be modified.” Aaron added, eyes snapping to movement out of the corner of his eyes, calming when Medusa appeared from the corner of a building.

“For instance, the conditions for me to become Odysseus were very rare, an eidetic memory for one, an IQ of over one hundred and sixty, as well as a love of adventure.” The last bit surprised everyone there as Cyclops piped in; having caught onto what the conversation was about.

“Why would a personality trait be taken into account, unless a person needs to fit their modifications personally?” Cyclops offered as Aaron nodded with a smile.

He’d been quite happy with the change in Cyclops, as Cyclops was quickly becoming a fun discussion partner, and they didn’t even have to talk about cars or advanced science…

Cyclops, Aaron belatedly realized, was a wise man underneath the old drunken exterior, and while Aaron would never be as friendly with Cyclops as he was with Typhon, Aaron could inwardly admit that he was coming to admire Cyclops and his view of the world around them.

Their discussions, far from their areas of expertise, mostly dealt with the world, both inside and outside of Tartarus, as they brought up random topics within that umbrella.

For instance, they occasionally talked about the justification of taking a life, and how Dawn’s view, that all life is sacred and shouldn’t be taken, was flawed.

Yes, life should not be taken on a whim… but if your life was under threat, and the only way to get out of it was to kill the enemy, was that not acceptable?

It was a question that many never found an answer to, and those who found their answer easily were usually the first to end up becoming serial killers, people who enjoyed the act.

Taking your time on your answer wasn’t a sign of weakness or stupidity, but a sign of wisdom and patience.

Little things like this were contributing to Aaron’s sudden admiration for Cyclops. And while it wasn’t apparent now, over time their relationship would be closer to a mentor and a student, though who taught who would change depending on the topic.

“Yes, personality traits are actually important in the criteria for selecting a person to become a Chained. For example, if you hadn’t loved cars, or if Mino hadn’t been so stubborn, you might not have been Chained.” Aaron explained, hearing a soft thump as Empusa landed from a roof, having swapped to having padded feet like a cat so as to soften the noise of her landing.

“See, while criteria for Lords are more stringent, criteria for normal Chained are looser, but the personality traits must be there. If Cyclops had no knowledge of cars, but still loved them, he could have still been chosen to be Cyclops.” It made sense to them now…

“Like Pegasus? He knew nothing about cars but he still became a Cybernetic Chained focused on hover tech.” Typhon added absently and Aaron nodded, happy with the discussion.

It was their idea of therapy for Aaron, even if it wasn’t always being done, their group strove to take interest in what Aaron said, to converse with him, and make him feel included.

Beyond the fact that Aaron was practically tortured for ten months, Aaron had also been gone for ten months… it was a common point between Aaron and Echidna, unbeknownst to the two of them.

Aaron felt that Echidna was with the group longer, and so she was actually more used to them than he was, but she was jealous for the fact that Aaron actually gathered the group, created it and so must know more about the people in said group…

It would come to a head eventually, but for now, the two were unaware of their slight jealousy of the other.

Still, it was this fact that Aaron wasn’t there for ten months that Typhon caught while thinking on the highway, and he had spoken to Aaron about it, explaining to Aaron that while Typhon didn’t understand how he felt, he was aware that they had gone on with their lives while Aaron was being tortured.

Sure, they waited for him, but things had changed slightly in their group, they were more comfortable with each other, even that slight edge around Echidna, Cerberus and Sphinx was gone, having known them for ten months, the entire group trusted each other.

When Aaron was taken, they still had these issues, then he came back and they were gone, truly showing the passage of time… so they knew they had to include him in their conversations again, and if necessary they would include little facts and anecdotes on their time without him, to let him catch up to speed.

“Yeah… okay, we were side-tracked, but we got what information we came for?” Aaron asked, and the three who weren’t there for Manticore and his report nodded.

“Yeah, Fenghuang is dead, though I don’t doubt you’d know that already, anyone I asked could tell you he died.” Aaron nodded; knowing that meant it was either an ‘open secret’ or it was simply that Fenghuang was killed openly.

“His killer was a humanoid Chained, the other Chained apparently just grabbed him and Feng died soon after.” That worried everyone, and no one in their group could find anything in their memory of a Chained who killed people by touching them.

“Well, if I could see his body I could probably do an autopsy on how he died, but without the body I can’t do that.” Aaron shrugged, and the new admittance of his medical knowledge was a point of pride for Aaron.

Aaron wasn’t one to casually mention his past, but when it was known, he wouldn’t exactly act as if it didn’t exist.

“No idea where they kept the body, but other than that, we also checked, we have no idea where Berith is, meaning we’re either stuck with trying to recruit Leraje or… Satyr…” Typhon wisely sided with Empusa on this matter, not wanting another brat.

Unfortunately, they were vetoed by Aaron muffling his laughter as he once more contemplated on how strange a guy like this had to be.

“Well… Leraje wouldn’t join us, he’s too prideful for that, sees the whole of Area five as his personal fiefdom, and no one really wants the territory so they just left him to grow a big head.” Medusa added in as Aaron frowned… arrogant? Okay, he was definitely a no then… sure, Mino had been ruler of the labyrinth, but at least he was chill.

Cyclops was practically the king of Area six, the vehicular crime sector, for his skill at both fixing cars and driving them. People who fixed cars were treated highly in that place and drivers even more so.

It still scared Aaron that he had raced Cyclops while Cyclops was drunk, and Cyclops had won the race technically… well, he won because Aaron slowed down near the finish line, but still, a loss was a loss.

“Okay… that leaves piss boy. And we can’t find him because he’s in hiding after pissing on Leraje.” Typhon sighed at that, looking at their ride.

“Well… I can understand why its bright pink now… it’s to attract attention, isn’t it?” Typhon asked as Aaron smirked and nodded, holding a fist out to fist bump Cyclops.

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“That, and because real men wear pink.” Typhon wisely chose not to comment on the fact that Aaron was not wearing pink, neither was Cyclops… Typhon figured that them having a bright pink car was worse than wearing pink.

“Okay, in all seriousness, we got a noticeable car to get our enemies to know we’re back.” Aaron explained, making Typhon nod, even if he considered attracting attention the reason why Aaron had ended up getting kidnapped.

“With this, they’ll come after us… and then we’ll spring a trap, especially for Lu Bu and Solomon. Those two are the main enemies we’re trying to bait out. Of course, if we happen to catch Leviathan, Jaeger, the Assassin’s Guild, the Warden, whoever, we’ll deal with them as they appear.” Aaron’s listing of their enemies would actually be quite intimidating to any Chained who didn’t know them…

To anyone who didn’t know them actually.

“Okay… this also leaves space for our other members to do what they need to do right?” Manticore asked as Aaron nodded, having messaged the rest of their group.

Things weren’t very emotional over text chatting, but the idea was there, they all knew Aaron was back and were thankful for it, the Triplets even vowing to refer to him once more as Big Boss.

Not that they did that for long, they mostly chatted with Typhon after all, who was their ‘awesome big brother who they annoyed’ or so they claimed to Aaron when Typhon wasn’t around to listen.

“Yeah, we’re killing three birds with one stone, attracting our enemies as bait, gathering allies, and letting the allies we already have work freely without being watched.” Aaron had the strange ability to do one simple thing, and have it solve seven different problems, and they usually only found out later.

“Well… I still prefer the GT-R or the bus.” Typhon complained, but just for the sake of complaining they all knew, he had no real feeling put into it.

“I know, I know… come on, we’re not going to find Satyr just sitting around.” Aaron… was usually a very lucky guy.

Consider, in just one day since entering Tartarus, barely an hour really, he encountered Typhon, one of the strongest Chained alive, and eventually persuaded said Chained to leave with him.

He then encountered a series of dangerous situations and Chained, and somehow came out alive with more and more comrades each time, so yeah, Aaron had some good luck…

It’s just… not all luck is good.

“Hey. Did you just say you’re looking for Satyr?” Aaron heard someone ask, turning and looking up to the building where Manticore had originally jumped from and seeing a man dressed… like Robin Hood?

It was weird, Renaissance typed attire, mostly coloured green obnoxiously enough, because seriously, there were very few patches of green around Area five, and that green colour was not camouflage here…

Not that Aaron could talk, he was still wearing a military uniform, though he had sewn his own after the issue of him only having one outfit appeared, it still looked the same.

“Uh… yes?” Aaron was a bit uncertain of the strange man, and that was when Aaron noted the electric blue eyes of the man, definitive signs the man was a Chained of the Cybernetic type.

And while Berith was also a Cybernetic Chained apparently, that guy kept to himself after he pissed off too many other Chained with his arrogant moves.

So that left only one person, considering Satyr was practically a nudist and had a goat bottom half, and the fourth Chained in Area five had died a month ago.

“Leraje, right?” Aaron asked as the man and his eyes narrowed in a glare at Aaron at his question, before the man stood. And to Aaron’s negligible surprise, the man did in fact have a bow.

A bow, twenty years away from the twenty second century, and the guy had a bow… old fashioned much?

“Indeed, though I did not permit you to refer to me so familiarly.” Leraje was… really snobbish, which was at odds with his accent placing him as someone from… South Africa? Maybe?

Aaron was only there for a bit, rather not staying around due to the fact that South Africa was wired a bit differently to the rest of the world at this point. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t good, but where the rest of the world was going towards technological advancement…

South Africa seemed perfectly fine with technology a few decades short, though the country itself seemed fine in Aaron’s view.

In their terms, Leraje would be a… what was it, Boer? Yeah, a Boer, that’s what they called people with that accent, otherwise referred to as Afrikaner.

Honestly the culture there fascinated Aaron and he enjoyed his time there… but at the time, he was still dealing with his almost psychotic behaviour, so couldn’t appreciate it then.

“Uh… Praat jy Afrikaans?” Aaron, despite his eidetic memory, struggled to piece together the strange language which was a mix of Dutch and quite a few others, and Leraje looked to Aaron with confusion.

“Uh… what?” Aaron blinked and sighed, having hoped he could practice his languages with someone else. Having an eidetic memory made it really easy to remember what words meant what in a different language, though he obviously needed to learn things like sentence structure.

“From your accent, I thought you’d be South African.” Aaron admitted, and Leraje blinked and shrugged, washing off Aaron’s confusion.

And honestly, Aaron wasn’t wrong; Leraje was indeed of South African descent… not that he knew this, considering he was born in Tartarus where everyone spoke English to some extent.

Plus, anyone who watched rugby as a sport could recognize Leraje’s body build, though considering he was on a roof and had a bow, he was probably a bit more flexible than most of those athletes.

Though this also begged the question… if Leraje was born in Tartarus, how did he get his accent?

That was a question Aaron wouldn’t consider for quite a while, and honestly didn’t matter so much, just chalking it up as a smaller weird thing that happened around him.

“No, I’m Tartarus-born. But enough of that… you’re looking for Satyr, that bastard… why?” Leraje asked and unless he had a lie-detecting ability, Aaron could lie to him, he had to realize this.

“Well our group here are looking for Biological Chained to study, whether they like it or not.” Aaron’s voice got a bit sinister towards the end in his act as Leraje blinked and nodded for a bit… then pulled off his bow and got an arrow from his waist.

“You really think I’m that gullible? Well, that, and your heartbeat fluctuated.” Aaron cursed, so the other Chained did have a lie detector?

Aaron was not aware of this at current, but Typhon and Empusa, the two strongest Biological Chained in their group at this point; listened to heart beats and figured that was a method for Biological Chained to also detect lies…

And considering they all had higher senses, it could be possible for just about every Biological Chained to learn the trick if they could focus on one sound.

But that was for another time.

“Well, you caught me. I’m planning on recruiting the goat dude to my crew, we need more Chained and beggars can’t be choosers.” Aaron stated in a matter of fact tone as Leraje blinked… then aimed.

“Now that was no lie… but I hate that bastard, and I’m not letting him leave this place alive. And considering you want to let him do so, friend of my enemy is my enemy.” A strange twist on the old saying, one Aaron notably disliked in this situation.

It took barely a second for Aaron to try and open the Jeep door for their group to take the car, unfortunately for Aaron he heard then saw an arrow hit one of the rear tires.

And said arrow sunk in, allowing Aaron to see that they weren’t exactly wooden arrows… more akin to stakes being fired out of a rifle, flechette rounds.

This was bad for three reasons. One, the tire was out; the Jeep was dead until they got a new wheel for it because Aaron had no doubt the inner part where the tyre rested on was broken through as well.

Second, the flechette rounds punched through said part, meaning that Leraje fired very powerfully, if they could punch through the rubber of the tyre and the steel centre… so getting hit would be very painful, regardless of whom you were.

And third, the wheel itself was melting around the flechette around, reminding Aaron of what those were originally used for in World War one.

Their original use was to deliver condensed poison in lethal doses. The shots themselves hadn’t needed to hit in dangerous areas, they just needed to hit the torso and the victim would die soon of poison.

And from the looks of it Leraje had some very potent one, not only was the poison apparently capable of causing gangrene but also rotting away flesh?

“Run!” Aaron hadn’t had time for more of a plan as Leraje aimed another shot at Aaron, only for said shot to run into Typhon.

Typhon had Nano-bots just like Aaron, in fact his were probably better, considering he had way more and they were more advanced than the ones Aaron had.

Typhon, the moment he had seen Leraje, had prepared his Sleeves as Aaron had begun to refer to his technique of covering his arms and legs in Nano-bots for quick deployment and armour.

As the shot approached at speeds normal humans wouldn’t be capable of seeing, Typhon had enough dynamic vision and reflexes to raise his arm, forcing his Nano-bots to take the shape of a huge oval shaped shield… and still the Nano-bots were almost pierced, judging by the arrow resting a few centimetres away from Typhon’s eye.

It only took one block for Typhon to determine that it would be possible for him to block more, but Aaron likely didn’t want them to fight too much, not to mention that Leraje was from a position of power in this fight, being a long-ranged fighter on a roof.

“Fine!” Typhon’s acceptance was what spurred everyone into movement, as Aaron was their leader, but when it came to combat, Typhon had main say, they all knew this, even if he rarely acted on that right.

They ran, Leraje hopping from roof to roof following while firing arrows, the most vulnerable in their group was unfortunately Cyclops, who was being protected by Echidna as they ran next to each other.

Leraje capitalized on Cyclops appearing weakness by launching an arrow, only for a blade of Echidna to appear and block it.

“Thanks for the save little lady!” Echidna would have bristled at the perceived insult, but Cyclops had that ‘kind grandfather’ feel to him, and she knew it was actually him being polite.

“No problem, just run!” She shouted in return as their group decided to stay away from alleys. While normally alleys would be useful for escaping, against a long ranged fighter attacking from above it was suicide, something Empusa and Typhon remembered from their first encounter.

So they just ran, and Typhon got close enough to Aaron to whisper towards each other, Aaron’s hearing having increased due to his own abilities as Odysseus.

“What’s the plan, I doubt he’s going to stop chasing us.” Typhon wasn’t exactly wrong, they were seven Chained getting chased by another one, as a rule of thumb all Chained had enough stamina to probably go two days without sleep while fighting or running.

Note, not extreme levels of combat, but Typhon was well aware that he could fight Leviathan and Jaeger, then run across an Area or two over the next day.

“Oh he won’t, but we don’t have to worry about that for too long. He’s not actually that dangerous, is he?” Aaron asked as he sidestepped a flechette round cratering into the dusty ground behind them.

“…Well, relatively, no. He’s not. Even you could beat him.” Aaron had definitely become stronger, as with his Nano-bots and physical ability he was the very least a Middle-ranked Chained, at least at the bottom half of said ranking.

And while Leraje’s poison was dangerous, and the power of those bolts scary, taking those away he was likely a Lower-ranked Chained.

“See, he’s just a frog in the well, he doesn’t realize that any of us could take him out, even Cyclops could if we got him close enough.” And wasn’t that a surprise, Cyclops could now fight reliably.

Well, considering he was always drunk and struggling with depth perception during fights, it was no wonder he was occasionally a dead weight in a fight until brute force was needed.

But now that he was sober, he had actually had a spar with Sphinx.

The result was Sphinx winning of course, but Cyclops pressured the master martial artist using boxing techniques in return, given that Cyclops had the physical ability of a really weak Lower-ranked Chained, but when it came to his robotic arms he had strength equivalent to Typhon’s, and Typhon’s base strength put him as a High-ranked Chained.

So yeah, Cyclops could actually fight now, reliably too.

“If so, then why are we running?” Empusa asked as she sidestepped to join them, having changed the inside of her ears to better hear…

Her ability to change into animals was actually a side effect of her ability to shift her mass into different forms, it most easily copied animals, but in essence she was manipulating her body into forms it required, how was confusing even to Aaron.

Of course, Empusa also had a less useful ability to release pheromones which turned normal humans around her into drooling, horny, slaves.

And considering how often Aaron and the others faced other Chained, which the pheromones did not work on, well, it had obviously almost been forgotten by everyone, including Empusa.

The last time she used the ability was about seven months ago against the Warden and after that he just got a gasmask on him and once more the power was worthless…

Ahem, ignoring that, Empusa had a question, and Aaron considered the answer.

“Remember why the Jeep is bright pink? There were a few reasons but it mostly boiled down to?” Aaron asked as Empusa caught on.

“To get attention… you’re hoping that Satyr will hear the commotion and approach us? Why would he, wasn’t he in hiding from Leraje?” Empusa asked as Leraje was heard cursing in the distance as Manticore easily pulled of some acrobatics to dodge two more bolts…

Really, the guy always landed on his feet, must have been a holdover from being part lion for a while. Either that, or the accountant turned ninja really was a ninja in training.

Maybe he was, considering they had ties to the Old Families of Area eleven, one family of which was the Yakuza.

“Well sure, he’s hiding from Leraje… but why was he hiding again? He was hiding because he literally pissed on Leraje.” Aaron reminded, and Empusa didn’t get the meaning…

Not until Leraje suddenly stumbled and missed a shot completely, wobbling a bit before a figure actually kicked him off the roof he was on.

The issue there was that the figure very clearly had hooves and not feet.

“Hello! Tell me, why were you throwing a hissy fit there Robin Hood?” The figure, most likely Satyr judging by the hooves, backward bending knees, and horns by his curly hair… honestly, the horns blended in.

Empusa just looked at the Satyr, and then looked back to Aaron who smirked while shrugging.

“Anyone who causes that much trouble would obviously be attracted to more.” Empusa couldn’t even deny it given the proof in front of their eyes, but instead of considering how hateful Aaron was with his smug knowledge and frowning, Empusa instead smiled while shaking her head.

Irritating as it was, she missed it, and judging from the small smiles on everyone’s faces, they all missed it too.

“That’s… annoying.” Well, Echidna would get used to it eventually, as Satyr had jumped over to them while Leraje was still stumbling around, holding his head as Satyr nodded to a nearby alley.

“Follow me; an enemy of Robin Hood is a friend to me.” Aaron inwardly contradicted the statement, but allowed Satyr his thoughts…

Aaron was intending to make Satyr join the Key, but at the same time… the enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy, no more, no less.

While deals could be brokered, Aaron figured it would just be another thing to explain to the guy that reminded Aaron of how the Triplets could have been had they not been scared of Typhon.

They followed him, wondering why Ro- Leraje was stumbling around as they entered the alley, going further away from where Leraje was before they found a storm drain.

“…Again?” Empusa frowned as Satyr moved the cover away and dropped down, everyone looking to one another… and then with a shrug, Aaron jumped down as if diving, one hand covering his nose.

It didn’t actually stink surprisingly, they all could tell just standing there, but the comedic effect came and passed as they all dropped in one by one, until Empusa was the last one left.

“…I hope we don’t end up blowing up these sewers too…” Empusa sighed as she dropped into the sewers, contemplating her life choices which caused her to be a super human experiment in the world’s largest and only prison following a half goat teen who liked pranking people by pissing on them, and having a crush on a shorter ‘King’ of monsters.

Eh, worth it.