“I swear, someday I will viciously maim that ass calling himself our leader.” At this point, each of them complained about Aaron, so it didn’t matter who said it, Empusa, Typhon and Mino were all thinking it…

“Well, it can’t be today, seeing as we’ll be too busy fighting this thing.” Mino added afterwards, and all three of them looked up to the three heads of the Hydra in annoyance…

Three Chained, versus a Hydra with three heads… if it weren’t for the fact that Aaron clearly hadn’t known about the existence of the Hydra beforehand the three would have thought that he recruited them with this in mind…

The Hydra, instead of attacking though, was staring at them, as the three heads hissed at each other, all three clearly confused with Mino, Empusa and Typhon, given their human forms… well, Mino still had his bull horns, but beyond that he was just a huge guy.

Well… a huge guy carrying a massive axe.

Don’t ask why he has it when it was already kind of cramped in the GT-R… Empusa and Typhon both didn’t want to remember the strange sorcery done by Aaron and Mino to somehow transport it with them…

Still, this left Empusa as the only one without a weapon, but she was accepting of that, seeing as how her form changing provided her with weaponry.

She was still thankful to Typhon and by extension, begrudgingly, Aaron, for using his Stabilization ability on her… it had done more than just give her a human appearance once more, as it had lessened the pain she felt due to the transformation…

It still hurt, but at least it didn’t feel like she was being ripped apart anymore… her only problem at this point was that she’d be naked as she changed… Aaron had made a suggestion that made too much sense though.

“Why not just add fur or scales to hide everything as you get out or into your clothes?” he had said, and Empusa had honestly felt as if she might have lost some brain-cells in the time before hearing that reply, judging by how she palmed her face after hearing that suggestion.

So with that suggestion in mind, she was for once glad that she didn’t have her human figure as her clothes were left in the GT-R.

The Hydra was still looking at each other/itself in confusion though it had noted her as she began to change slightly. It wasn’t allowing anything to go past though, even the other cars, as any racer that tried to continue got a massive swipe of a tail or a head-butt from a head before they had stopped and just given up…

Meaning only four people were left in the race, Aaron, Cyclops, then that Alex and the other guy, Ismail… okay, one could also consider the trio of Chained, or as Aaron jokingly refers to them within his own mind at least, the three stooges, as racers but given that they were now out of the car and about to fight the beast in front of them, they could be thought of as being too far behind in the race to matter anymore… just great.

“Uh, I think it is done contemplating on what to do with us… Empusa, you sure you can’t get poisoned right?” Mino asked with some trepidation as Typhon and Empusa glared at the beast that was now moving, tensing as if ready to spring.

“Yeah, because I can alter my system constantly, poison that works on me now, won’t work on me when I changed… that time Chiron tried to assassinate me was proof of that.” Empusa growled to herself, though that might be her new canine featured head doing that, as Mino nodded, glad at least one of them was completely immune from poison.

Mino and Typhon would both be affected by poison, but it wouldn’t be as effective as it would be on normal people.

Typhon wasn’t busy thinking about that, but about the chained Empusa had mentioned… Chiron… apparently an assassin based Chained?

He’d have to ask her about that when this was over… for now, beat up the giant lizard with three heads, and turn it into either a person or three people, whichever worked.

Meanwhile, with Aaron and the other three racers, as predicted, it was now only the four of them left, which meant that Aaron could now drive as he wanted… which was pretty fast, seeing as he was right on Cyclops’ bumper.

Too bad this wasn’t a movie where they could somehow talk despite the race happening… cause Aaron was kind of wishing he had spoken to Cyclops earlier right around now, as all four racers were driving close to each other…

And a corner was coming up, and that would be where things changed. Aaron didn’t quite care for how other people took corners after all, he took them his way, and from what he had seen, he took them the best out of the other racers, with Cyclops being a close second.

Now that he had seen the corner, Aaron prepared to do his strange acceleration based drift once more. It wasn’t practical, at least, in comparison to normal drifting, as it required a lower entry speed compared to normal drifting…

But it afforded Aaron much more control in his opinion, and by shifting up, he caused the car to stop sliding due to the acceleration. And considering he accelerated a bit faster than the others…

When Aaron overtook Cyclops, he wished he could see the expression on his grumpy face… it would have made his move just now feel even better. Remember, Aaron is a guy that loves annoying others after all.

So now Aaron was third, with Alex in his Hennessey Venom GT in front of him, and in first place Ismail and his McLaren P1 GTR… why were there so many ‘GT’s around? Seriously, it was one of the things that Aaron actually didn’t know.

Still, they were coming up to an annoying part of the race in Aaron’s opinion, as the race suddenly split into different paths, two to be exact. And Aaron was well aware that Alex and Ismail would go to the same path, and he was planning to take the other one…

The question was which path would Cyclops take? Depending on his choice, Aaron would have to adjust his plan for the rest of the race… luckily it was just a bit around the half-way point, so that meant that, irrespective of Cyclops’ choice, Aaron would be able to make up for it…

When they came to the split, namely a path taking a bridge, a remnant of a highway, or the winding path on the floor, Aaron already knew which way Ismail would go, taking the highway… in all honesty, the highway was the better option, unless one took into consideration that the off-ramp of the highway was quite far due to the curving nature of the highway, while the winding path was shorter, but more turns.

Considering his cornering speed, Aaron chose the winding path, ignoring the top speed of his car for a bit… and Cyclops was quick to follow the others, and Aaron smirked.

It was a good thing after all… Cyclops’ car had a top speed higher than his own. The Chiron was famous during its production days for having a limiter set in so that it didn’t go above 261 miles per hour… and one must think… would Cyclops really leave that limiter inside a car he drove?

Not likely.

Meaning that his Chiron would likely be around 280 mph or around there. And Aaron was confident in his lack of skill at that speed, as he could drive at that speed, but he couldn’t win at that speed… Cyclops, on the other hand, was a Chained.

His physical abilities, even as a Cybernetic-Chained, would be higher than normal humans, and that likely extended to eyesight, even with having only one eye.

So, even without Aaron there, Cyclops was a monster capable of handling that top speed. The other parts of the track hadn’t allowed Cyclops to reach that speed, but the highway would…

Meaning that, by the time Aaron saw them again, Cyclops could very well be in front of Alex and Ismail… and if he was, Aaron would get everything done exactly as he wanted it.

His plan had a high chance of working, seeing as he had two plans… the issue was, which plan would work out in the end?

For the record… none of those plans included losing.

Back with Typhon, they were beginning to realize why the Hydra could go uncontested in this area for quite a while… beyond the fact that no one wanted this area.

Poison, is a female dog, to put it extremely politely.

To put it in words Mino would use would change the rating of what you are reading, to lean on the fourth wall a bit.

“Why does this thing hate me?” He shouted as he jumped to the side, at a speed unbefitting his size, but still not faster than Typhon could move. If one remembers, Typhon had to dodge turret bullets to leave the Cradle after all. Mino once more dodged a massive head trying to bite him in half, seeing as one of the heads was roughly the size of his torso…

Sure, the Hydra wasn’t as tall as Mino used to be, but that was because it stuck close to the ground on all… six’s? Whatever the term was, it lowered them closer to the ground, but that didn’t mean the Hydra wasn’t big, as it was big enough for Mino to have actually used it as a mount back when he was still around four metres tall.

Though with how that thing kept aiming for Mino, he thought he wouldn’t have gotten away with using it as a horse.

“I think it’s because you are the weakest of the three of us, at least, to this thing.” Typhon deadpanned as Mino mock cried in frustration, Empusa shaking her head as she morphed her legs for a moment into a South African animal known as a springbok and jumped forward, dodging a head.

“Why, I’m the muscle, why am I the weakest?” Mino screamed in questioning as he dodged another bite, only for the next head to try and bite him forcing him to drop to the ground, whacking the offending head with the side of his axe, knowing he couldn’t use it to kill the Hydra, they wanted it/them on their side when this fight was done after all.

“Why am I the sane one? Stop asking stupid questions and fight!” Empusa complained about the lackadaisical nature of her partners, as Typhon had his hands in his pockets, chains whipping out to hit the Hydra with minimal force, not putting his all into the fight as he stared.

On the other side, Mino was constantly being targeted by a head or two at times, while Empusa and Typhon only got targeted occasionally, the tail sneaking in once in a while when it turned to better attack Mino.

“It’s not a stupid question! I’m being attacked the most! Why?” he shouted back as Empusa sighed, dodging a bit of the tail before she converted her legs into the legs of a…donkey, as much as she hated it, as she kicked the head that came a bit too close to her.

“Well it makes sense to the Hydra. Typhon dodges it really easily and doesn’t seem to be doing much-” at that, Empusa glared at Typhon who shrugged before she continued “- while I am immune to poison, which it has been breathing out for a while. Typhon also seems to be more resistant than you, who are sweating a lot.” Mino growled in annoyance.

“True that may be, but why aren’t you two helping more?” he shouted at the two of them as Typhon scoffed, once more dodging an attack by tilting to the side, a chain flying out of his bracelet and knocking the head aside, minimizing his movement.

“I am helping. You just can’t tell. Now shut up and let me think.” Typhon was very short with his words as he kept focusing, and Empusa was also a bit lost with what he was doing…

As for her, she wasn’t helping as much because the only way she could was if she was in her dragon-like form and that form only had a limited amount of time she could keep it going before she got tired and was forced back to being normal…

Aaron complained quite a bit that, while it was awesome, realistically such beings didn’t exist unless looking at dinosaurs… he was right by the way, Empusa got the form by combining multiple lizard like beings… she had no wings either…

That wasn’t his biggest complaint though… more like, ‘how do you possess the mass to even turn into that? Where does it go, because as a human you are most certainly not fat’ and she honestly had no idea…

Then he came up with the theory that she was condensing her mass subconsciously much like how Typhon just ‘knew’ how to Stabilize Bio-Chained into human forms.

Ahem, back to the main thing, she couldn’t stay a dragon for long, and apparently Typhon was busy with something, so she was actually waiting for him…

So until then, Mino would just have to deal with the fact that he was bait… unfortunately for him.

“You both suck!” Mino dodged another attack as Typhon scowled while looking at the heads… then looking to Empusa and nodding, his signal for whatever he was doing being complete.

“Oh finally, so what were you doing?” Empusa asked as Typhon grinned, flicking his wrist a bit as he spoke, having taken his right arm out of his pocket.

“I was learning. Aaron reminded me that learning what the opponent can do is important, and fighting Mino helped point that out. So I was watching and trying to figure out things.” Typhon said as he finally flicked his arm once more…

And his nanotech on his right arm morphed for a moment before it flowed into his hand, first forming a handle, before getting wider at one end… looking suspiciously like Mino’s axe… actually…

He had copied Empusa’s claws before… copying an axe wasn’t that far-fetched, as Typhon seemed to learn how to do certain things by watching his fellow Chained.

He’d never have their ‘uniqueness’ in their abilities to transform/redirect force, but he could have a bit of their skills… no one said he couldn’t copy them after all.

“Hey, don’t copy me!” Typhon didn’t care if someone said he couldn’t copy them, thank you very much Mino.

“So… you were making a plan? So what is your plan, oh glorious leader?” Empusa asked with some barely contained annoyance at how long it took Typhon to get a plan, as Typhon aimed the axe at the Hydra.

“We can’t knock that thing out, it would require knocking all three heads out at once, and while I can, and you can, Mino has been exposed to the poison in the air for a bit too long to be reliable help.” Typhon noted, Mino disagreed with his observation though, but he was feeling dizzy at this point.

“So what we have to do is either stop the poison or hold that thing down for twelve seconds… Stabilization takes that long. Though to be safe, we need to try and keep it still for about forty seconds.” Empusa wasn’t quite sure about that time limit, but she understood the idea.

“So, can we take out its poison and then hold that thing down?” She asked as Typhon smirked to her, before tapping his own neck… the reason why the Hydra wasn’t attacking was because Mino was yelling that its mother was a lizard…

Such a low-grade insult suddenly became high-grade in this situation…

“Yeah, the poison sacks should be just underneath its jaws. All Chained based on monsters have some kind of basis, like Mino and bulls.” Empusa got the idea; the poison that the Hydra was releasing would be similar to a snake and their venom sacs.

“Wouldn’t cutting those hurt it too badly?” Empusa asked, the Hydra once more paying attention to both her and Typhon as Typhon shook his head… no, this thing was a Chained. It wouldn’t die from its own poison, let alone from having a nick on its neck…

Well, it would kill a grown man if the neck was cut that deep, but on a giant three headed lizard, Typhon was ninety five per cent sure it would work…

That number was given by Aaron who said that saying one hundred per cent is unrealistic, ninety per cent wouldn’t be accepted and ninety nine is disturbing for a few when used in situations involving life or death.

Thus, ninety five the go to number for life and death chance rates. Anything lower and the plan would be dangerous, any higher and the fight was rigged.

Typhon dodged another attack, noting that he had gone off tangent in his thoughts… once more, do the usual when it comes to strange things you don’t normally do…

Blame Aaron.

Typhon was about to swing out with his Nano-Axe… his naming sense was not that great, even without Aaron recommending he name his Chain form as Vampire Killer. Anyway he swung out to attack the poison sacs when the head retracted quickly…

Typhon scowled, realizing that the Hydra was intelligent enough to understand their previous conversation and be on guard… that wouldn’t stop him though, as he had a plan.

“Empusa, in the vein of Aaron’s planning sense; I need a dragon to ride.” Typhon most pointedly did not catch Empusa blushing or Mino’s look of shock at his words, but he did catch her nod as she jumped, morphing into her dragon form, Typhon was quick to jump onto her back.

“Alright, now… fight it.” Typhon said making Empusa want to complain, but her vocal cords were not exactly human currently… so instead she roared as she snapped at one of the heads trying to bite her, pinning it to the ground, the other two were quick to try and join in… ‘Try’ being the key word there.

See, the Hydra had three heads… and it wasn’t just fighting one person, but three.

“You overgrown cyka!” Even Typhon and Echidna had to stop to stare at Mino and wonder what language that even came from… because the tone of his voice concluded it to be only one type of phrase… the very rude kind that you wouldn’t have expected to hear from a polite guy like Mino.

But the shout was enough to get the attention of one of the heads as Mino charged in, and got whacked with the tail for his troubles… the Hydra would have assumed him injured, but he barely budged before he grinned, his horns suddenly making a sound reminiscent of a buzz-saw as he charged, ignoring the problem as he head-butted the side of the beast…

Considering his horns were actually sharp Typhon only got away with grabbing them before due to his nanotech claws, and now the horns were vibrating at such a high speed it cut through just about anything, it was kind of obvious that the Hydra would yelp in pain, the closest head attempting to kill the being that dare hurt it…

Only for Mino to turn, and after narrowly dodging to the side, grabbing the neck of the head attacking him, and slam it onto the ground while smashing the side of the axe against the head repeatedly, making it get a concussion.

That left the last head for Typhon as he jumped off of Empusa, seemingly overreaching his jump before his chains formed instead of the axe, reaching out and connecting under the jaw of the last head, before he flipped, pulling the head with him as he slammed it into the floor, quick to revert his nanotech back into an axe form and hold it down…

Maybe they could get this done without cutting it… Aaron activated the stabilization by grabbing it and holding it down, his strength was just slightly less than Mino’s after all.

Aaron frowned when, as expected, it took thirty six seconds for the Stabilization to take place, and once complete, the heads each screamed separately as they began to shrink… and the body split into three, now three Chained, two boys and one girl, each looking very much like the other.

And all three began to vomit as Empusa reverted back to normal, putting on her clothes while hiding everything with fur/scales as she did so, while going to the GT-R, which had surprisingly survived, and getting some clothes for the triplets…

Thankfully Aaron had told them that the Hydra might be three Chained bonded together, as having three heads meant three brains, and it was a general rule of thumb (aka common sense) that an animal would only have one brain… so three brains, three people.

This was why Empusa had three sets of gender neutral clothing, three loose shirts, and three pairs of pants, with extra bits to be decided later on to clothe the girl, Mino getting the ‘unfortunate’ job of having to clothe the male twins.

Typhon on the other hand, just looked satisfied… internally, and he knew he shouldn’t buy into Aaron’s stupidity, but he was thinking ‘mission complete’ even as he looked to the GT-R…

How were they going to move the triplets, Mino, Empusa and himself in that four/five seat car?

Leaving Typhon to ponder how to get out of that situation, Aaron had exited the area full of turns, and smirked at realizing that he had in fact gotten where he needed to be faster than Cyclops and the others…

But he wouldn’t be at the same speed they were when they came out, unless he really used the accelerator, something which, along with his shifting, he was good at.

So when he came to the highway exit, hearing the roars of three different engines, he smirked knowing that he was just slightly slower at current, but his car accelerated quickly, so he’d be fine.

And seeing the Bugatti Chiron appear first in his rear-mirror just nailed it in that Aaron must be psychic…

He wished, but nonetheless, he was correct in his assumption of Cyclops’ skill… he was around fifty years old apparently, and was one of the first batch of children born in Tartarus… and inside the racing sector at that.

How much experience would he have at racing at this point? Enough to make him one of the best racers inside the area, and combined with his ability to manufacture, fix and modify cars, Cyclops was the most respected man in Area 6, even more respected than Pegasus whose only saving grace was his hover car… and he didn’t even race.

Aaron had spoken to Alex and Ismail earlier in the week after all, and he was quite aware that the two of them were hired by Pegasus…

He was also aware that both of them respected Cyclops too much to try and force his loss by crashing into him or anything like that. Both of them admired Cyclops, and wouldn’t try to harm him, even though they were asked to.

Ismail was a BMW fan, the only reason he even agreed to race Cyclops was because the prize was a hover-BMW M3 as well as the want to see how good Cyclops was as a racer.

As for Alex, his reason was more of the second plan, while wanting Pegasus to convert his Hennessey Venom into a hover car. With that, he’d rather have nothing to do with Pegasus, who seemed to be a slimy and vile being who thought his hover-tech would get him anything he wanted.

So Aaron was secure in the knowledge that, despite what it seemed like, Alex and Ismail would not harm Cyclops, and race fairly with him…

Cyclops didn’t know that though, so he was just racing as best as he could. Which was honestly scary, for everyone involved… as mentioned before, he had a very domineering racing style that involved pressuring his opponents into making mistakes due to his presence…

And considering the car he was driving, and his reputation, he had a fairly large presence.

Aaron had no doubt that Cyclops practically shoved Alex and Ismail to the side the moment either of them made the slightest mistake, and since then, neither of them had been able to try and overtake him again.

Honestly speaking, Aaron could, with a bit of exaggeration, compare that domineering nature to how one would imagine a powerful beast would be in its home territory…

Secure in its strength, destroying all challengers, and those who knew of its strength would either completely avoid it or at least not get too close. Much like Alex and Ismail’s response to Cyclops…

Good for Aaron he wasn’t even from Tartarus and had only been here about two months.

Whenever Cyclops attempted to pass him, Aaron would easily just nudge a little bit to the side… and that would be enough to ruin Cyclops’ passing attempt, thus pissing him off more…

But Aaron couldn’t let him pass, not for his plan to work…

The race was almost over though, and they were about three turns away from the finish line… Aaron couldn’t complete his plan until the last turn.

The first of three turns approached and, instead of using accelerator drifting as he had been doing for most of the race, Aaron actually used his brakes to start his turn.

Due to this sudden change, the three behind him were all surprised, and once more he wished he could see their faces, at his sudden change in driving style… but that would make sense…

His other driving style was easy on his brakes but caused him to have a lower overall speed as a result… in the last stage of a race; he decided that using his brakes was acceptable…

Note the insanity of Aaron’s thought. Using brakes actually let him go faster.

Were Cyclops not currently pissed at the ‘annoying cowardly runt’ he would have appreciated the idea as amazing, conserving the brakes… as mentioned though, he was angry.

Aaron took the corner at a much higher speed than he had been doing earlier, and the three behind him kept up in their own ways, the next corner coming up as Aaron took the corner in much the same way, Cyclops now having a clear chance to make it past him…

Then the third corner came, and Cyclops was on the outside while Aaron was on the inside of the corner. Cyclops paled a bit as he realized that he might actually lose the race… they could already see the finish line…

That didn’t stop him from trying to win though, as both he and Aaron moved forward at high speeds, Alex and Ismail right on their tails…

And then just before the finish line, unseen by anyone but Cyclops who had noted his enemy…

Aaron used the brakes for just an instant. That instant was enough to decide the race.

“Winner of the Grand-Prix, our home-legend, Cyclops!” the announcer screamed as everyone was shouting, some in happiness due to bets won, others in sadness and anger at bets lost, and even more just out of sheer excitement at seeing who won…

And Cyclops was feeling a bit numb though, as he pulled up to the side, Aaron’s Koenigsegg Agera SR pulling up next to him, and Cyclops just looked at him with a bit of a blank look when the both of them got out of their cars.

“…Why did you do that?” Cyclops asked, looking at Aaron as he easily waved to the crowd, some cheering for his skill, many more complaining that he lost… those people had caught his ascent to getting the Koenigsegg… a person was notable when they started off with a Golf Six and somehow ended up with one of, if not the best hyper car around as he spoke, not looking at Cyclops.

“I did that because now you owe me. And because I now hold the moral high ground, let’s make a deal.” Aaron turned to Cyclops at the moment he said the word ‘deal’ and Cyclops held back a shiver at the look in Aaron’s eyes…

Those eyes seemed to weigh his value… lucky for him that he was valuable apparently, judging by the ease in their gaze after that moment.

“A deal… and what would that be?” Cyclops asked as Aaron looked to him and sighed.

“Well, you see, my friends and I want to travel, and we have quite a bit of people to travel with… and we possibly got three more people to join us during the race. The issue being, we don’t have a mechanic to travel with us and fix or build us a car to carry us… whatever will we do?” Aaron said in a mock sad voice as Cyclops stared at Aaron with a dead eye.

“You little… are you really trying to guilt trip me?” Cyclops asked as Aaron smirked, his whole demeanour taking a one eighty turn as he nodded.

“Yes I was. Was it working?” he asked, uncaring of having been seen through as Cyclops just shook his head, recalling how Mino said that this guy was not quite right in the head…

“No it wasn’t. That being said, I know you would have won, but you let me win instead. And seeing as you’ve already given me what I want in this deal, I’m obligated to accept, isn’t that right?” Cyclops asked as Aaron widened his eyes.

“Well, I haven’t heard of someone who understood that idea except in Japan… an acquaintance of mine who helped me out with equipment used to use that to get me to do things.” Aaron added, and Cyclops nodded…

After all, Area 6 was the world of racing and cars. Just about every country had a racing scene, and Japan’s was quite famous… many of their habits and thoughts were added into Area 6 over time, including their respect for the elderly…

Which was the original reason Cyclops had gotten so pissed at Aaron in the first place, he hadn’t given any respect to Cyclops for his age or his position. Hence why Cyclops thought him a cocky brat…

“Still… I’ll help you, and travel with you… and might I add?” Cyclops said, one of his workers coming to get the Bugatti back to his workshop. The other workers had arrived in a Bugatti referred to as the Tank Bugatti… an old racing car that lived up to its name in appearance. Cyclops paused for a moment as he walked over to get his prize.

“Out of everyone in your group, I think you’re the strangest.” Cyclops said as Aaron smiled, his eyes narrowing in a predatory stare.

“Oh, I’ve heard worse…” he said easily as Cyclops paused at the look, before walking away… inwardly, he changed the last word of his previous statement to ‘scariest’.

“Aaron!” Aaron looked to the side, and held in his laughter at what he was seeing, seeing three people tied to the roof of the GT-R as it got closer, all three looking identical, wearing the Chained collars… Aaron wondered about why they matched the size of whatever wore them, but figured that they, much like Typhon’s weapons, were nanotech.

“We need you to sort out the deal!” Aaron sighed at Empusa’s words as he walked over… no rest for the wicked… good haul though… and as he walked, he smirked and mouthed to himself the words: Shem-shamayim.

In one week they had doubled the amount of Chained travelling with them, and thus, gained more survivability.

All in a week’s work for the amazing Aaron!

“I know you thought something stupid right now. With that said, come here so I can hit you for thinking whatever that was.” Aaron wondered if Typhon had possibly achieved psychic abilities before himself as he ran away from the mildly annoyed Typhon, uncaring of the three on the GT-R screaming at them to pay attention to the three Hydra heads.

Now, for the time-skip, it had been another week before the group left, with Cyclops having Aaron’s help in reverse engineering the hover-tech on the BMW before adding it to Alex’s Hennessey Venom and then giving the BMW to Ismail… in exchange for the two being the racers for Cyclops Auto-works.

He had then added the hover-tech to, of all things, a double decker bus. Aaron was surprised, and Typhon was happy to take the spot on top of the bus.

And as for the Hydra triplets, they agreed to be ‘renamed’ to Eins, Zwei and Drei, with the girl being Zwei, and the brothers being Eins and Drei. The three all looked similar, and had similar personalities in that all three were pranksters…

The most disturbing joke they mentioned? The triplets were humanitarians. Consider for a moment that as the Hydra they had eaten humans before. Now that joke is more dark humour huh?

Nonetheless, they were now ready for their next bit of adventure to begin, and were well on their way to entering Area 8 due to the nature of Tartarus, as some areas were connected directly, from Area 6 one could enter Areas 5,4, 7 and 8, but not the others for example.

Meanwhile, in the highest building in Area 6, Pegasus stood in a suit, a man with pale blonde hair and electric blue eyes, a common sign of Cybernetic Chained would be their eyes being this unique colour… for the record, Cyclops hid his one behind his eye-patch.

Pegasus was fuming at this point, knowing that Cyclops, an annoying old man had finally gotten his hands on Pegasus’ technology, and now he’d no longer possess a hold on the only hover-tech in Area 6. The only thing that stopped him from getting angry was that Cyclops was apparently leaving…

That didn’t stop him from looking through his connections for a way to get rid of him and those annoying new friends of his, especially that Aaron kid, who had tricked Pegasus into thinking that he would work for Pegasus.

Many had recommended that Pegasus speak with the Assassin’s Guild to get an assassin… the name confused Pegasus though… who would name their group that archaically?

He had followed the advice, apparently three Assassins would be sent out, in thanks for the seven hover-cars he had sent out to the Assassins… but he wasn’t happy with just that… he wanted more.

“Nice place you have here, beast.” Pegasus felt his blood chill with the voice he had heard, not having allowed anyone to enter his room. He would have originally thought it to be a member of the Assassin’s Guild, until he turned…

And when he saw the figure, sitting on his chair, he would be angry… until he noted the attire of the figure and what he was holding in his hand.

“Y-y-you… why are you here?” Pegasus shouted in fear, hoping one of his workers would come run in, despite knowing that his workers likely wouldn’t be capable of dealing with the being in front of him.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of me, if not, at least my family… you know how we keep tabs on all of you beasts… now imagine my surprise when my information network informs me that not only are there a record total of three of your kind travelling together into Area 6, but they suddenly swelled into seven travelling together? Of course I’d appear.” The figure spoke, flipping the object in his hand, causing Pegasus to pale in fear.

“N-n-now wait, maybe we could… help each other? They are a much more pressing concern than me, would you not agree?” Pegasus panicked at seeing the figure stand.

“Well obviously seven is more important than one… so yes, you have a point.” The figure held one hand to their headwear, similar to a cow-boy hat but smaller and giving the figure clear vision to whatever could be above.

“S-s-so you’ll let me live?” Pegasus was pleading at this point… only to once more pale as the figure raised its hand, the gleam of silver coming off of the object it had been flipping before.

“Of course I won’t. I hunt you beasts down after all. Why not go after prey in front of me?” Pegasus jumped forward, intent on fighting for his life, as the figure smirked, and pulled the trigger.

“Huh?” Typhon looked around in confusion atop the double-decked bus, Eins… or maybe Drei…. looking at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong, boss Typhon?” Eins asked as Typhon looked into the distance, before going back to his lying position.

“Nothing… just thought I heard something.” Typhon was sure he was imagining things… after all…

There were no guns in Tartarus other than the turrets in the Cradle, right?