Typhon was worried… not that he’d let anyone know, but he was worried.

What was he worried about exactly?

Well, he was worried about the possibility that he was in over his head when he claimed ‘I can handle any Chained’ and so he was in quite a lot of trouble right now.

“Stand still little monster, so I can run you over!” Unfortunately for Typhon, there was a three metre tall man-bull Chained carrying a massive axe, clearly denoting his ‘name’ as Minotaur… and said Chained had Typhon straight in front of him, in a narrow space, and preparing to charge at Typhon.

Now, let’s do the standard ‘how did we go from point A to B’ story, as this all started the day before this moment.

The day before, Typhon had been doing his main ‘job’ of guarding Aaron, the ‘fearless’ leader who was also powerless to most dangerous things within the prison.

With Typhon and Aaron, was their new comrade, Empusa, who happened to have an intelligence network spanning most of Tartarus with the exception of certain areas, but nonetheless, the information was valuable.

The fact that she could shape-shift into a massive dragon for about ten minutes was also helpful, Typhon could admit.

After having her travelling with them for two weeks, Typhon could admit that he was wrong about her… maybe not entirely, seeing as she occasionally used her pheromone output to turn a person into putty for information, though he noted she didn’t do anything more than make them dumb.

But no one other than trained spies can pretend 24/7 to be nice with someone they dislike, so Typhon figured she was being honest. The only thing he had to look out for really was that she didn’t betray them to other Chained.

According to Empusa, there were should be roughly 150 or so Chained, maybe more, maybe less, but they had roughly three major categories, from Empusa noted, not counting the separation of Bio-Chained and Cybernetic-Chained… Aaron couldn’t take ‘Mechanical-Chained’ anymore and tried shortening it to Cyber-Chained… it stuck. The divisions between Chained were based on their names.

Typhon, Greek King of Monsters. Empusa was a Greek monster which could shape-shift and seduces others. Notice the term ‘Greek’ popping up a lot there? That would be one category. Another would be the Djinn, who are all named after the ‘demons’ within Solomon’s Key, and finally the Chinese Spirits and demons.

There are a rare few that do not fall into those groups, such as the Toy-Maker, an insane Cyber-Chained who set up territory within Area 4, who can create automatons/robots.

No one messes with the Toy-Maker by the way. The few times someone tried, he turned their corpses into more dolls. The people living within Area 4 tended to send the corpses of the dead to him to appease him, sometimes sending a live sacrifice if necessary.

Of course, these groups of Chained weren’t the say all be all, as he, as Typhon, could befriend Baal, a Chained of the Djinn group that controlled bio-kinetic electricity.

That being said, Typhon was of the opinion that they didn’t need to worry about anyone other than the other Chained, and nothing else could possibly threaten them… Empusa had looked at him oddly at that, saying that, if they kept gathering Chained, he would find out whether or not his thoughts were true. Typhon was confused about what she meant, but accepted it.

So yes, Typhon had accepted Empusa as a true comrade, at least, when Chained other than Typhon were removed from the equation…

Typhon was confident that should she betray them to other Chained, she’d be killed along with them, despite Aaron’s dislike of the idea.

Aaron was becoming more and more leader-like in the eyes of both Empusa and Typhon though, but it was slow going for them to notice his traits. His ability to lay out a plan of action, his understanding of their personalities and skills, what they would and would not do, and his own moral compass made him a good leader…

Typhon appreciated that fact, as he was the King of Monsters, but few knew of his existence, meaning he couldn’t be the leader of the Greek Chained at this point.

“Okay, so we’re almost at Area 6, right? So Empusa, who’s the Chained we’re going to have to break through to get there?” Aaron asked Empusa, knowing she had the most information in their group currently, despite Typhon’s wishes to the contrary, as an uncertain element should not be the one holding the information.

“Minotaur is the Chained who owns this area. He runs a large gang called the horns; they all wear some bull paraphernalia, be they a cap with horns, or a bull themed jacket of some kind. Well, that’s his theme, seeing as he’s a giant bull man.” Empusa explained, and Aaron frowned at her words.

“…Minotaur, you say?” Aaron asked again, mentally reviewing what he knew of the Greek monsters and their myths, since he had to study them now, seeing as they usually had the information necessary to fighting said Chained, luckily he had a photographic memory.

“Yes, the Minotaur… he’s a troublesome opponent.” Empusa noted as they looked at the area deemed to be his domain.

“Troublesome is putting it lightly, especially if he’s in there… after all… the Minotaur is the guardian of the Labyrinth.” Aaron noted with a frown, staring at the huge maze of dilapidated buildings and high walls, preventing one from jumping over, even Typhon would have trouble without his nanotech chains to help him over them.

“…Is he surprisingly well learned, to know about the legend of the Minotaur, or is there something else going on there?” Aaron asked, and he was honestly curious as Empusa played with a bit of her long hair.

“Well, we Chained seem to, for some reason, hold traits of the things we are named after, for instance, I honestly wasn’t interested in running what amounts to a brothel, but Empusa is a Greek monster known for seduction and shape-shifting… before I became the way I am now, I would never have considered such a thing.” Empusa was honest… and Aaron had noted a problem there, though Typhon wasn’t up to speed with his concern…

How did the Chained become the way they are? They were all apparently human, and had done some sort of crime before entering this place, some of them even moved to the Area which suited them, much like Minotaur and Empusa… yet, Typhon was possibly born the way he was, while Empusa was an unknown.

And yet, none of them considered to stop and think ‘why am I the way I am?’ it made no sense to Aaron, who by nature, was a curious person, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his high IQ.

For the record, last time he tried he scored roughly 190, but sometimes he scored 175, those tests weren’t exactly, well, exact. But from this, he estimated his IQ to roughly be 180 plus.

But that’s not really important for now… it isn’t, despite what others would think. Aaron typically didn’t act on his IQ beyond using it to remember things and learn new things… and read people, but he disliked doing that in the first place, not that he could ‘turn off’ his ability to understand those around him and use their wants and desires against them, or to his benefit.

That being said, Typhon and Empusa both seemed to ignore or not notice the problems with their thoughts, and Aaron looked to the labyrinth in worry.

“No way are we going in there without a plan. Last time that happened, I poked Typhon in the shoulder inappropriately, he hit a dragon in the face with a chain and Empusa joined us… on second thought, let’s just waltz in there.” Aaron said, even as Typhon and Empusa both glared at the ‘retarded’ leader they followed.

“Please let me hit you for reminding me of that.” Typhon added, and Aaron held up his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“Whoa, easy there king, I was kidding… that being said, I’m not entering that place right away. I got to think first.” Aaron said, staring at the walls and buildings… then snapping his fingers.

“Empusa, can you fly, or somehow toss me up to see a good visual of this place?” Aaron asked as Empusa frowned and tilted her head.

“…Possible, but do I really have to transform… its embarrassing and changing back is annoying… and changing is kind of painful, it comes with the whole transforming skin thing.” Empusa reminded Aaron as Aaron shrugged, shaking his head.

“Just say no if you don’t want to, it’s not like you have to. I mentioned before, I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do beyond travelling with us and helping us, each of us, escape… eventually.” Aaron reminded her and she looked sheepish for a moment in having expected Aaron to try and force her… because he wouldn’t do that, despite what she had accidentally found out about a few weeks ago…

A few more weeks without being reminded of Aaron’s strange dual nature, and Empusa might have even forgotten about it, considering he was the ‘retard’ almost 24/7.

The ‘mastermind’ part of Aaron stayed far away from people he knew for a reason only he knew.

“Uh… yeah, I don’t want to.” Empusa admitted and Aaron shrugged, knowing he didn’t have the physical ability to force Empusa, nor the need to…

Deep within his mind he fought back the reasoning that a helper that didn’t help was worthless, because Empusa wasn’t a ‘helper’ she was a comrade.

“Fine then, Typhon, try to get as high as you can to get some idea of the maze, then pull me along and toss me as high as you can reasonably do so without me getting injured… preferably, catch me please.” Aaron added, and Typhon shrugged, chains latching out to grab Aaron, and they chaffed a small amount but Typhon was never carrying Aaron with his arms or shoulder again, and climbing a nearby building…

Then jumping higher than the walls surrounding the labyrinth as Aaron stared in focus, before they landed, Aaron shaking a bit at the sudden force of the landing, before he looked to the GT-R and getting a bit of paper and a pencil from it, seeing as all kinds of things ended up in this prison everything except TV, guns, and anything from beyond 2020, and focusing on what he recalled…

Then he drew a near complete form of the labyrinth based on the small air view, compensating for human error of vision, known as the parallax error, something few knew about nor cared for the name… it’s basically trivia at this point, before Aaron copied the map once more.

“Alright, I did not know your memory was that good… why did you draw the map twice?” Typhon asked and Aaron smirked, handing one of the pages to Typhon. Typhon, focused on the details, did not notice Empusa widening her eyes, as he glanced back up to Aaron.

“Why, because we’re splitting up, since dealing with the Minotaur seems a bit too dangerous for me, and you have the best chance of surviving against him.” Aaron noted as Typhon growled at his ‘leader’.

“Oh, splitting up, then who is Empusa going with?” Typhon asked as Aaron easily chuckled.

“Why me of course, I can’t defend little ole me, so someone else has to. And you’ll be busy getting acquainted with the Minotaur.” Aaron claimed easily as Empusa shook her head.

“No, even if Typhon did manage to meet the Minotaur, which he can, the Minotaur is nigh invincible within the labyrinth. Much like us, he has some strange bio-engineered ability, his one, I think, involves him running in a straight line at someone. And considering he’s roughly three and a half metres tall…” they looked to the five metre tall walls and Typhon looked back to them.

“…I vote we go around.” Hey, even if he was seriously confident, that didn’t mean he had no sense of humour.

“I reject your vote because Empusa will agree, once I explain my plan to her. You don’t get to hear it since you voted against me.” Typhon stared at the man-child with worry.

“Wait, she gets to hear the plan and I don’t?” Typhon seemed really annoyed at that, and Aaron patted the shoulder of the shorter member of the group, with an awkward smile.

“Typhon, what did I say? Trust me. I have a plan. Now look at the map I just gave you.” Typhon looked to the map, noting a certain path outlined.

“What’s that?” Typhon asked, pointing to a circular area, and Aaron smirked as he pointed to that same circular area, which had walls arrayed over it, but it seemed unimportant.

“That will be where you get a chance to fight the Minotaur. Here’s what I want you to do…” and so their plan had begun, and the two groups, Typhon in one, and Aaron and Empusa in the other, split up, and considering the size of the labyrinth and the annoying fact that they encountered the place as the sun was setting, it had been a day since that moment…

The time spent was quite annoying in the opinion of Typhon though… the maze was monotonous beyond the rare trap and small groups of thugs trying to fight him… and fail, of course.

The fact that they all wore bull-horn hats, jackets with bulls on the back or some variant of the two, was annoying.

And it was also in the early hours of this new day, that Typhon turned a corner and ran into the Minotaur…

Typhon could honestly say that seeing a dragon didn’t scare him, so a gigantic man-bull carrying an axe that looked to be bigger than himself, well, that didn’t scare him so much as make him pause and stare.

“Oh, there you are… you must be the runt that entered my labyrinth… oh, and you’re… a humanoid Chained? I’m guessing Mechanical?” the huge bull-man easily claimed, and Typhon had his chains out, hovering around him protectively.

“Bio-Chained actually, but that’s not important. I’m here to take you down.” Typhon spoke easily, as the Minotaur, with his bull horns, which for some reason were four instead of two, lowered, and Minotaur began to laugh.

“That’s funny pipsqueak. I’m invincible within my labyrinth, and guess where you’re standing? Inside it… so I suggest you turn and run, because I’m going to kill you for trespassing.” The giant bull spoke with calm confidence, lowered his stance, and charged, making Typhon widen his eyes at the most certainly not slow charge of his enemy.

For something roughly three and a half to four metres tall, Minotaur was much faster than you’d think.

Typhon dove to the side, lashing out with his chains and he paled when his chains barely did anything beyond make Minotaur snort in annoyance as he barrelled past, forcing his feet into the ground, tearing up dirt so that he could stop and turn.

Typhon was a bit surprised… mostly because it was the first time he didn’t hurt something he tossed his chains at, despite using his full force in the attack.

“What, did you think that would hurt me? As long as I’m in motion, I don’t get hurt.” Minotaur smirked as he claimed this, even as Typhon widened his eyes in horror… as long as he’s moving? In a labyrinth where stopping something of his size was next to impossible, it wouldn’t work out for Typhon, trying to fight the massive Chained, by Typhon’s standards… for now, so Typhon remembered the advice given by Aaron.

Which was essentially, run like hell if you can’t win in a fight with these conditions, and make sure you run towards this place.

Typhon agreed now, running seemed to be a good plan, at least, for now… Typhon also wondered why he had to run from every Chained he had met, even when he spoke a big game he had to run before he could actually do anything about what he said.

“Well, how about you stay away from me, and I’ll just pass through then.” Typhon said easily, running down the path he was given from Aaron’s memories…

How the heck Aaron used a glance to memorize the layout of a massive maze was unknown to Typhon, but he was thankful for it right now as he ran, remembering the path.

“Run, little runt, run and I’ll kill you, and I’ll enjoy it.” Typhon could ignore the words of the brute, but ignoring the sound of stomps behind him was certainly impossible.

“Sorry, I have an appointment to meet; I don’t think I can slot dying into my schedule.” Typhon belatedly realized that he shouldn’t be friends with Aaron… he was a bad influence.

“I think I’m important enough to ruin your schedule for.” Minotaur said blandly, even as he crashed into a wall during a turn, chasing after Typhon still.

Typhon also realized that him running around was kind of silly when he could merely slingshot himself around places, but then he noted the walls that Minotaur had crashed into hadn’t even budged from something almost as big as they were running full force into them, so he doubted a bit of nanotech flung at the wall would pierce into it to let him sling-shot around…

The floor, maybe… but that was kind of pointless. But he needed something, and his nanotech was, for once, worthless in this situation beyond using it to-

“Sit still!” Minotaur swung his massive axe as Typhon grabbed the axe with a chain, pulling it and overextending the massive slash, causing said attack to miss him by quite a bit.

That was about all he could do with his nanotech, and it was a new experience for him… then again, his past month had been full of new experiences given that he’d been trapped within a building for most of his life with no human interaction… no wonder he felt most comfortable dealing with Aaron, considering he was the first person he had met…

That being said, Typhon would gladly never touch Aaron ever, after the last time he had to maintain contact with the annoying lock-picking adventurer.

Typhon also wondered why such an archaic term would fit the modern person who loved flying cars, though Aaron claimed ‘they don’t fly, they hover’… the things people come up with, he even got Empusa to agree!

Typhon was too busy to actually focus on that strange line of thought, and even if he wasn’t busy he doubted that he would want to continue thinking along those lines, so he dodged another axe swing, this time getting a bit too close to Minotaur so Typhon improvised by jumping on the wide blade of said axe… then jumping and landing on the shoulders of the Minotaur, grabbing his horns.

“Mother- get off me you little runt!” Minotaur scowled, swinging with his free hand to hopefully take the annoyance on his head away, only for Typhon to jump back, landing behind Minotaur… who then tried to turn, only for Typhon to dash forward and slide between his legs and running on, making the Minotaur turn to continue the chase…

Though how they made clothes for a massive bull-man was unknown to Typhon, considering he had pants, and even if he didn’t have a shirt, he guessed that was because the horns ruined the idea of T-shirts… maybe they had a seamstress or something?

“I…will…kill…you!” Minotaur roared in rage as he charged once more… and Typhon reviewed his mental map, noting that he was approaching the correct area for whatever plan Aaron had to occur…

He was surprised when smaller things like pitfalls, shooting arrows from holes in the wall shooting out an arrow or two, and a few other things tried to interrupt his running for his life, but Minotaur just charged through without worry due to his size and ‘invulnerability’ while Typhon was too skilled to even really worry about those… he wondered what kind of retarded people Minotaur had working for him when he found a pitfall that led into a small vat of… water. Complete with rubber ducks.

Everything involved with Typhon’s life since meeting Aaron seems to have been strange…

Things were not meant to last though, as Typhon finally approached the centre of the circle that was mentioned by Aaron… and it was a dead end, with Minotaur standing on the other side of the path, caging Typhon in.

“Stand still little monster, so I can run you over!” Minotaur growled, ready to take his time to attack Typhon this time, instead of charging at him and allowing him to dodge or anything like that.

And this is how we got here. Thank you for following this flashback, now watch how Typhon dies!

Typhon wished that he wasn’t such a pessimist when it didn’t involve straight up combat…

“I refuse… I have things to do with my life.” Typhon admitted, and despite internally getting aggravated over possibly dying to a cow-man, he said this with surprisingly no hint of sarcasm or joking in his voice.

“Oh, and what is that? What would have you enter my territory alone, expecting to get away with no problems? Don’t you know that when Chained encounter each other, we tend to fight?” Minotaur asked with a hint of mirth in his voice, glad that the hunt was over.

“I have some people who I need to live for, and I have someone I need to find. I won’t be stopped here.” Typhon glared at the bull-faced giant murderer and the bull surprisingly stopped smiling.

“I see… well, despite how I look, I’m not an idiot. I can comprehend what you want… that doesn’t mean I can just let you go through. I have a reputation to uphold.”

Minotaur looked at Typhon contemplatively. “Before I squash you though… what’s your name?” Minotaur asked, surprisingly calm as he stepped forward, and Typhon got into his fighting stance, chains flaring around him as he heard a tiny boom in the distance, confusing both Chained, but it wasn’t distracting enough for Typhon to not speak.

“Typhon, King of Monsters.” Typhon replied easily, making Minotaur blink and start laughing before he calmed down just as quickly, pulling an emotional one eighty as he spoke.

“Very well, ‘king’. I am Minotaur, the Guardian of the Labyrinth. Know that chasing you was actually kind of interesting, beyond your sarcastic quips.” Minotaur added, as Typhon growled, ready to shoot forward and fight the seemingly invincible Chained…

Then a large explosion went off, and Typhon felt the ground crumble beneath him as both he and Minotaur fell, all while the laughing of Aaron could be heard.