“So, Siren, what’s she like?” Cyclops asked to the float bus at large as they entered Area seven…
The murder sector, Area seven was, in general, a bit more dangerous than the rest of Tartarus, if only because dying was a bit easier in this place.
Well, dying was possible anywhere, it’s just that Area seven was filled predominantly with people who have already taken a life, so they were, in general, much less hesitant to kill someone than others would be.
“She’s really sweet, cute and dangerous.” Dryad said with a smile and that told Cyclops basically nothing.
“Siren is the youngest of the junior Pantheon. We all dote on her and well, she is adorable, and that’s even with me being the one to say it.” Harpy pointed out with awkward look as if admitting some great wrong.
“If Harpy the badass is saying she’s adorable you got to understand that it’s true. But, as Dryad said, Siren is also pretty dangerous too.” Shi of the Chimera triplets spoke up with an expression that matched Harpy’s awkward look.
“Siren’s ability is basically adjusting her voice. Sounds simple, but she can control pitch, decibels, tone, a whole array of things… with Odysseus’ help, Siren went from a low-rank Chained to the point where even Harpy doesn’t really want to fight Siren outright.” Manticore added in, and Cyclops shivered a bit at that idea.
The youngest of the junior Pantheon, Siren, was dangerous enough that even Harpy, the strongest of their current number, did not want to fight Siren.
“That’s ignoring that it’s difficult to want to kill a little girl. Only the sick fucks in Area four would consider it, even people in this Area don’t really think ‘kill her’ when they look at Siren.” Go added in, and Cyclops nodded, understanding, it was like being told that that cute kitten was also a nuclear warhead, it was weird.
Cyclops noted for a moment that Roku, arguably the loudest of the Chimera, was actually being quiet for some reason, and looked at him.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no-” Roku was currently huddled up into a ball on one of the seats and rocking back and forth while shivering in fear, looking extremely traumatized over something.
“…So what’s wrong with him?” Cyclops asked, pointing at Roku while looking at the other junior Pantheon members, and now everyone was wearing that awkward look with the exception of Manticore and obviously Roku.
“Roku had a… bad experience, involving Siren… she walked in on one of his orgies and well, after taking a few weeks to recover, Roku can’t even get it up if Siren is in the same Area.” Dryad said finally, poking Roku in the head and watching as he let out a small squeak before huddling against the side of the bus, still rolling himself into a ball as if to hide himself.
“Okay… bad experience, got that, but then how old is Siren and how did she hurt Roku that much?” Cyclops asked, still very confused on the existence known as Siren.
“Siren is about seven. We’re not sure exactly given she doesn’t know when her own birthday is but we know she’s around seven. As for how she hurt Roku, Siren can control sound. Sounds are waves of pressure which are then translated by your ears.” Harpy said, and then gestured to her ears.
“A loud enough sound can cause physical pain, and if it changes air pressure it could even cause your lungs to collapse or your heart to burst. Siren can do all of that because of her sound control. So basically… she screamed at Roku and when he flew into a wall most of his bones cracked.” Harpy explained and Cyclops blinked at this.
“…Sound can kill?” Cyclops asked, just to be certain, because this didn’t sound plausible.
“Yep. Granted, Siren can’t do something like make your head explode, that would need like some ludicrous decibels to happen, not to mention it would need to take place in some enclosed place.” Harpy started, and Cyclops took the pause as a moment to wonder why Harpy knew so much about sound in general.
“Siren’s abilities range from causing momentary blindness, bursting your ear drums, rattling your bones inside your body and causing instant heart attacks, as well as that sonic wave that she hit Roku with, but that sonic wave would only work inside a building like they were back then. She also might be able to keep you from breathing." Harpy continued, and Cyclops realized that yes, Siren was scary…
“Wait, didn’t you say that you fly by controlling air pressure and flow around you? So if Siren can interfere with those things… she can keep you from flying, can’t she?” Harpy nodded with a frown, and Cyclops understood why Harpy wouldn’t fight Siren.
In a straight out fight leaving out their abilities Harpy would win obviously… with abilities though, Siren perfectly cancelled out Harpy’s abilities while Harpy could do almost nothing about Siren’s powers.
“That, Siren can do. Luckily for me her powers don’t really affect me beyond making it difficult to fly. We both control air pressure to some extent, so if she does something, I can neutralize it, and vice-versa. She also can’t burst my lungs or heart, but she can hit me with that sonic wave of hers.” Harpy admitted with a shrug, not quite liking her weakness but accepting it.
Besides, Siren was on their side, as dangerous as Siren was, they wouldn’t need to worry about fighting her.
“Hey everyone, we’re here.” Manticore pointed out, the bus lowering itself to rest on the ground instead of floating as the doors opened.
With the exception of Dryad and Roku, the rest of the Chained left the bus, Dryad remaining because she wanted to stay with her computers while working on her Treant-bot schematics, and Roku was too scared to leave the bus.
“I’ll make sure the lizard stays safe!” Dryad said with a laugh and wave as the rest of their group moved down the street, following Manticore.
“Alright, so, let’s please, please get this done without any craziness?” Cyclops snickered along with Shi and Harpy at that complaint, as so far they hadn’t gone anywhere without some strange incident occurring, if one included that Harpy’s strange situation happened before Manticore, Cyclops and Dryad got to her in Area two.
“…Siren should be hosting a concert nearby in some open area, just look for people moving in one particular direction.” Manticore heard the snickering and just sighed in acceptance that something weird was probably going to happen to them…
“A concert? Oh, that makes sense.” Cyclops answered his own question even as he wondered about the feasibility of hosting a concert inside a prison.
With Siren’s ability to control sound, there was no feasible way she could sing horribly. In fact, thanks to that ability she was probably the best singer ever.
“It is good practice on using her ability, plus Odysseus likes asking us to find non-combat applications for our abilities.” Go mentioned while looking up from his book as he read while walking, somehow sidestepping obstructions and keeping pace with the group while doing so.
“Uh, why? Wouldn’t it be better if we focused on our fighting skills and things related to that?” Cyclops was still lost on what was going on with the Key and how they planned on escaping, but he at least knew that it wouldn’t happen peacefully.
Fighting was a necessity and being incapable of fighting would be a bad thing, even to Cyclops who didn’t quite enjoy the activity, he showed that he could fight, much better now that he was a Chained too.
“You’re right, lots of us argued against it saying it would be better if we just kept training and making ourselves better fighters.” Shi pointed out, pointing a beer at Cyclops, then having to pull her hand away when Cyclops almost grabbed the beer out of her hands.
Cyclops still had his own beer of course, but if he could get more then that would be good.
“Even we of the ‘older’ generation of Pantheon members pointed out that there’s little reason to look for other applications for our powers.” Manticore added in with an odd smile and chuckle, likely remembering the exact conversation.
“Odysseus just told us we were all being stupid and wouldn’t talk to any member of the Pantheon for a while except for Medusa, Typhon and Echidna. Said that he wanted us to think for ourselves why he wanted us to try things outside of fighting.” Cyclops thought for a while, the other five members of their current group letting him think about it in silence.
Things learnt yourself were more ingrained than things learnt from others after all, and this was the same way that Odysseus taught the Pantheon members what he was thinking.
As their group of six moved through the Area, getting glanced at before their collars were noticed and then being avoided, all over Tartarus such was the norm when it came to the Chained…
But soon they started moving a bit closer to the great walls of Tartarus, noticing more people now, and even then some of the people would notice the group of Chained and simply keep moving in one direction, expectation in their eyes.
“Well, I suppose we know where Siren is holding her concert now, let’s follow.” Manticore said with an odd frown, already getting the feeling that something was not quite right…
“Oh yeah, you all said that Siren is around seven years old right? So does she wander around Tartarus alone? Isn’t that unsafe, even for someone who can kill people?” Manticore’s eyes moved to glance at Cyclops as they walked.
“Siren is autonomous for the most part, but she does have a designated helper that travels around with her, cooks for her, reminds her that they need a roof over their heads, that kind of thing. Her helper isn’t a Chained though, he’s just an announcer.” That last bit drew a narrowed stare from Cyclops in confusion… it was then that they heard the ‘concert’.
“Hello, citizens of Area seven! I hope you’re having a Max time!” Manticore balked as he realized exactly who was speaking, slapping his palm onto his face with an audible smacking sound, keeping his palm pressed there so he wouldn’t have to look.
“Uh, Manticore, what’s wrong? And why are Shi and Harpy laughing? Why is Go doing the same thing as you?” Cyclops suddenly developed motor-mouth syndrome as his mind came up with so much confusion over why the people he was walking with suddenly reacted like this.
“Today you’re all in for a special treat, this is a Max guarantee! You’ve all come here for one thing, and one thing only, am I right?” There were loud screams of agreement being heard even without the assistance of speakers while Manticore looked to Cyclops.
“The guy speaking is Siren’s guardian. He is usually an announcer for the Coliseum in Area eight so he kind of ‘markets’ Siren’s singing ability when she wants to host a concert. His name is also Max.” Cyclops listened patiently, and when Manticore finally finished speaking Cyclops had an awkward frown on his face.
“…So basically he just randomly inserted his own name a lot of times in his speech?” Cyclops asked, getting nods all around even as Shi and Harpy laughed at the puns.
Cyclops didn’t know whether he should be annoyed or laugh like Shi and Harpy, so instead he just adopted a confused look as they got closer to the ‘concert’.
Arriving at the back of the crowd, Cyclops and the other Chained looked up to the stage, which was really just a block of concrete that may have been the foundation of a house at one point, to see a large African man in a suit speaking into a microphone, the crowd cheering and starting to chant.
“Siren! Siren! Siren!” they went, the announcer on the stage smiling and nodding even as he turned the microphone around, walking back and handing it to a little girl.
The little girl, most definitely Siren, had the electric blue eyes of a Cybernetic Chained, long blonde hair tied into strange twin-tails, and wearing what looked like some odd dress.
“Fucking magical girl idols…” Go whispered from the side, though Cyclops had no idea what the Goat Chimera was going on about.
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“Hi! I hope we’re all having a great time here!” Siren shouted, her voice was perfectly matched with appearance, which immediately clued Cyclops into how strange it was… her voice just echoed ‘cutesy little girl’ so much so that it felt clearly artificial.
And yet, despite how fake it was, everyone roared, there were even a few who needlessly had glow sticks, headbands and jackets with ‘I heart Siren!’ on the back.
She had a fanclub. In fucking prison.
“Now today, I’m going to be going for a whole hour! Everyone knows the rules, what happens when anyone comes to shut down the show?” Siren asked, leaning to the crowd with a hand cupped over her ear to hear them better.
“Kill them dead!” Cyclops paled as he realized what the crowd just roared back to Siren, the little girl on the stage doing an over the top giggle as she nodded.
“Yep! No one interrupts a concert except boss Odysseus! So let’s start the concert!” Siren said with a beaming smile to the roars of her fans and Cyclops turned to the other Chained with fear in his eyes.
“Yeah… standard Siren concert. We better wait until she’s done, she has had her fans attack other Pantheon members before.” Cyclops couldn’t keep quiet, pointing at the little girl who began singing about how ‘Teenagers scare the living shit out of me’ in blatant shock.
“How the heck is she ‘cute’ and why is she allowed to do this?” Cyclops’ shout was valid in his opinion, a little girl singing such a violent song and asking her fans to kill people who interrupt her shows, how was she left alone this long?
“Odysseus found it mildly funny, saying that the gap between her words and her appearance might get her some uncanny valley fans. As for why Odysseus lets her get away with it, it’s because this is Siren’s job in the Pantheon, she’s technically recruiting help for later on.” Manticore sighed, shrugging while Siren sang some heavy punk rock on the stage.
Really, Siren’s appearance didn’t match her words or the genre of her music… then again, the music actually sounded damn good in Cyclops opinion, even as someone who didn’t like rock or punk that much, it was good.
“So all the fans… they basically work for Siren just because of her music?” Cyclops had to shout a bit over the volume of the music, the instrumental playing through the speakers with Siren including her vocals over the instruments.
“Well yeah, music is powerful, it moves people.” Harpy said, looking to the stage after speaking and raising a hand in the standard devil horns hand sign while head banging.
Siren continued singing, dancing about the stage and stomping her feet, jumping about from time to time and even reaching out to the crowd which had people fainting from time to time from sheer excitement.
Noting that even Manticore and Go were into the music albeit a tad reluctantly, Cyclops finally just shrugged, downed a beer and then started focusing on the music like everyone else.
It was ‘half-way’ through the concert that someone screamed in pain, warning the Chained that something was going on, Harpy immediately shooting out her wings and jumping up to get a better vantage point before she cursed.
“Siren! It’s the mercenaries!” Harpy shouted towards Siren as the music cut and Siren paused in her singing to look at Harpy with wide eyes before narrowing them at where the scream was heard from.
“Everyone heard my big sis Harpy right? Mercenaries are trying to ruin our fun! Kill, kill, kill them all!” Siren shouted, the crowd roaring as they looked for odd ones out among their number.
“Such an evil little girl! Maybe you need a permanent time out.” A voice rang out, the crowd looking very reluctant all of a sudden as a man walked on top of a parked car, standing over everyone with the exception of Siren and Harpy.
With his short stubble, roguish smirk and biker jacket with jeans and studded boots, the guy looked like one of those tough guys… honestly, Cyclops felt a bit jealous over the look.
“Shit, what the fuck is Leviathan doing here?” Shi cursed under her breath, but not softly enough to be left unheard by Cyclops as he looked to the man, noting that yes, his left hand looked almost plastic like, despite how ‘fluidly’ it moved.
Yes, this man was Leviathan, ruler of the mercenaries of Tartarus and an enemy of the Key, one of the most dangerous beings in Tartarus capable of fighting Typhon and the Hunter at the same time.
“Everyone, it looks like Leviathan himself wants to fight! Leave him alone, go after everyone else!” Siren directed her mass of fans and the fans roared as they ran forward, flowing around Leviathan rather than get near enough for the blood-controller to attack them.
“Crazy little bitch, sending them to their deaths like that.” Leviathan said, his smirk still proudly shown as he reached to his side, holding up a canister with a notable button on it.
Pressing the button and wincing slightly, Leviathan threw it upwards, Harpy using her enhanced vision to note the bloody needle poking out of the centre of the depressed button before the canister burst open into a shower of crimson.
“Get away from the blood!” Harpy shouted, some managed to get out of the way, but there were people who still got splashed by the blood of Leviathan, immediately starting to scream and claw at where the blood touched their skin as they fell to the ground.
“Please… how can you get away from what’s inside you?” Leviathan’s roguish smirk changed to a more sinister tone as he raised his hands, the screaming suddenly stopping, the people hit by Leviathan’s blood standing up in erratic movements, leaving Siren to click her tongue.
“Everyone, we can’t stop Leviathan! Beat up his mercenaries while you escape, keep away from Leviathan!” Siren called out, and while the fans felt some distaste for needing to give up their concert, they agreed that it was a necessity.
Leviathan could attack anyone from the inside if his blood got inside them, and then ‘infect’ them with his blood to make them little more than puppets to his will.
In a sense, Leviathan was more of a puppeteer than Toy Maker ever was.
The crowd moved at Siren’s will, branching outwards as people tackled sword/bat holding mercenaries to the ground, their fellow fans trampling on the skulls of the mercenaries to kill them before continuing on with their escapes, Leviathan watching this happen with a scowl of annoyance.
“The fuck? Did she house-train her rabid fans?” Leviathan looked around, noticing a small patch of people who weren’t running, his eyes widening as he met the gaze of Manticore.
“Manticore, you fucker! I still owe you and Charon for blocking me back then!” Leviathan roared, his zombies running in a stumbling manner towards Manticore while Manticore frowned.
“Go, Shi, take Cyclops, escape with Harpy and Siren. I’ll hold off Leviathan for a bit.” Cyclops didn’t quite like the idea of leaving Manticore behind, but he didn’t argue, following behind the two thirds of the Chimera while Harpy flew over to Siren, picking up the younger Chained before taking off again.
Leviathan didn’t even mind, tossing another canister up into the air where it burst into a shower of blood, the blood flowing back to Leviathan where he held out his hand, the blood covering it almost like a gauntlet.
“Manticore, get over here!” Leviathan called out, stretching out his hand as a spike of blood shot towards Manticore, the ex-assassin diving out of the way, watching the spike as it stabbed through one of the ‘zombies’ Leviathan had.
As the spike retracted, Manticore watched as the zombie shrivelled up slightly, thinning out noticeably, letting Manticore know that Leviathan just added the blood of that victim to his stores.
“Isn’t that reference a bit dumb to use here?” Manticore asked, having been trained in ‘reference-fu’ by being around Odysseus for the last two and a half years, he knew exactly where Leviathan stole that trick from.
“Eh, I recently got into the series, so shut up.” Leviathan’s very childish defence as to why he used that attack aside, their fight wasn’t as childish, Leviathan swinging his blood-gauntlet and extending it as he did so, creating a giant blade to try and slice through Manticore.
‘Try’ being the operative word because Manticore jumped backwards into a reverse roll, the blade instead chopping through quite a few of the ‘zombies’ as their blood was added onto the blade, increasing its length even more before it was once more retracted into the gauntlet form.
It was a good thing Manticore jumped back, the sudden shower of blood from the bisected bodies would have hit Manticore and that would have been dangerous to be in the middle of.
Leviathan only needed one hit to win most fights after all.
Manticore rushed forward only after the blood on the ground flowed to join Leviathan’s gauntlet, now knowing that there was no trap waiting for him, Leviathan moving forward, blood flowing to create a sword that he used to attack Manticore.
Manticore smirked, removing a blade of his own from his suit jacket, parrying the hardened blood and surprising Leviathan while Manticore used the surprise to launch a kick into Manticore’s stomach, causing the stronger Chained to stumble backwards in pain.
“Since when… do you use weapons?” Leviathan asked with annoyance colouring his tone, Manticore playfully swinging the blade that looked to be either a large knife or a short sword.
“Quite a while actually. Lu Bu is a good trainer.” Manticore said easily, but then Manticore widened his eyes and leapt away from where he had been standing just moments before, a thin blade of blood shooting out to where he had been standing.
“Damn, was hoping you fell for it.” Leviathan straightened his posture as he spoke, lifting his shirt and revealing a set of abs.
“Is there a reason you’re becoming female oriented fan-service?” Manticore asked with disgust, drawing a roll of the eyes from Leviathan.
“All of you Greek Chained are starting to sound just like your boss. I’m trying to explain my power, but if you don’t want the hint…” Leviathan trailed off, letting his shirt fall and Manticore rolling his eyes.
“No need to explain. There was no blood there… except for internally.” Manticore added and Leviathan swapped from his pouting frown to a smirk.
“Yep, ding, we have a winner! Copied that trick from Typhon and his weird armour. Plus I can do it even easier than that prick, I mean, his Nano-bots aren’t designed to dig into his skin like that, but blood is meant to be inside.” Leviathan said, and Manticore found himself frowning…
Odysseus had actually mentioned this ability to be something Leviathan would theoretically be capable of, so every Chained was to fight Leviathan with the belief that he could do it in the first place…
Odysseus was abnormal like that. Then again, he was also the one who started Empusa on her training path, and she went from low-ranked to a high/top-ranked Chained in power.
Still… knowing that Leviathan ‘could’ harden his blood beneath his skin was one thing, seeing him actually do it was a whole other situation.
“I doubt you can do so freely though.” Manticore said with a pointed stare, Leviathan’s smirk barely twitching, but it was enough for Manticore to know he was probably right.
Leviathan was halting his body’s natural state of being, that had to be painful, and no doubt Leviathan couldn’t even do it for long.
Compared to Odysseus’ theoretical ‘strongest Leviathan’ scenario, this was still alright.
The only beings capable of killing Leviathan when he was like that would be beings like Baal, Echidna, and maybe Typhon.
Luckily for Manticore, he had good spatial awareness and noted that the area was cleared of living life bar Leviathan and Manticore himself.
Even if Manticore wanted to, he knew that killing Leviathan was impossible for him. Unless Manticore assassinated Leviathan by taking out his skull in one go, and even then it might not work going by Odysseus’ reports.
So what was an assassin to do when forced out in to the open, and his target was aware of his presence?
“Fuck you, bye.” Manticore blurted out all of a sudden, his words making Leviathan draw a blank in confusion before realizing that Manticore was taking off at high speeds.
“Hey! Get back here you bastard!” Leviathan cursed, looking around and realizing that the car he used to get here was actually tipped over, probably by that horde of fans during their escape…
“Fuck.” Leviathan looked at the car and knew it was totalled, heck, he was standing on a totalled car back when the fight started, there wasn’t a good car nearby except for one that looked like it went through world war two personally.
“…Nope, I’m going home. The boss will just have to accept that I couldn’t capture them.” Leviathan said to himself, still wanting to kill Manticore but realizing it was pointless to chase the other Chained down like this.
Understandably, Manticore and his group of the junior Pantheon members took their float-bus and left Area seven as soon as they could, with the new addition of the pint-sized rock idol.
“Ah, the pervert is here…” Siren gave a dull stare to Roku while the Lizard Chimera hissed in fear, escaping to the second floor of the float bus rather than look at Siren.
“So that’s why she hurt him so much? She thought he was a pervert?” Cyclops asked Shi, unable to ask Harpy this as Harpy was sitting with Siren on her lap as they discussed Siren’s concert.
“Roku is a pervert, but yeah, Siren got told by quite a few people to attack any man or woman that approached her while naked, and Roku happened to be naked at the time…” Shi said with a shrug, and Cyclops had to wonder, who would tell such a powerful child such a thing?
Sneezing loudly in his room in Olympus, Aaron Hassan rubbed at his nose for a moment before relaxing once more.
“Aaron! Aaron! Get out of there, you got visitors!” Aaron heard Medusa shouting and wondered what was going on, looking at his phone to see if he had any memos for the day…
Nothing, so he had no idea who the ‘visitors’ were, so he just shrugged and walked out of his room and moved towards the foyer.
Seeing who it was, Aaron gained a smile, throwing out his arms theatrically.
“Ah, my fellow Lords, good to see you two are doing alright, though you’re a bit early, I mean, the party isn’t for another two weeks or so.” Aaron said, smiling even as Lu Bu and Solomon shared a look, sighing before turning to face him with frowns.
“Odysseus, shut up for a moment to let us speak. We need you to be upfront with us.” Lu Bu started, and Aaron let his very fake smile fall from his face, staring at the two with a very serious expression, his previous joviality vanishing like an illusion.
“I’m listening.” Solomon and Lu Bu once more both wondered if Aaron had split personalities or something, but moved past the thought as Solomon coughed politely.
“We need to know the plan for Breakout Day.” Aaron raised an eyebrow, realizing that he hadn’t spoken to the two about this.
“Ah. I take it’s the date and times that concern you?” Aaron asked with a raised brow, getting nods from the two Lords.
Even if they disliked him, Solomon and Lu Bu had to acknowledge that Odysseus, Aaron Hassan, was competent to a scary degree… but even that competence couldn’t keep the two from worrying.
“Odysseus, Breakout Day is barely two months away and you’re still researching, still saying nothing to us. As leaders in the Key, we need to know what the plan is, exactly.” Solomon said, glaring at Aaron with mild loathing in her eyes.
“…Fair enough, this affects your lives too after all. To explain how we are to escape, first I need to tell you all about the creation of Tartarus, the Zeta Generators, and the Atmospheric Control Unit.” Aaron looked to Medusa, sharing a look before she nodded, and Aaron held out a hand.
“Also, I need to speak of Area thirteen and why it exists.” That last line drew wide eyed stares from the two Lords, both of them not having even known about an ‘Area thirteen’.
“But, but there’s only twelve Areas… where is Area thirteen then, and why does it exist?” Solomon asked, definitely surprised that there would be something unknown about the prison she had worked so long for.
“Ah… it’s technically not Area thirteen, but the man who lived there frequently referred to it as such.” Odysseus said, scrolling through his phone before showing a picture to the two Lords.
Looking at the picture, Solomon and Lu Bu both paled slightly.
“Area thirteen. The home of the man known as Marko Krauss, and later became the home of the first generation Typhon and Echidna. In other words, Area thirteen, otherwise known to Doctor Marko Krauss as the ‘heart of Tartarus’.” And so Aaron held the attention of the two Lords.
As time went on, the two Lords would only find more surprises, and yet at the same time, they would find more surety in Aaron’s plan.
After all, Solomon and Lu Bu heavily disliked Aaron...
But if the plan wasn’t really his, well they had nothing to complain about, did they?