Chimera gave a quiet sigh as he viewed the sight of Typhon beating up idiots who tried to mess with their group, along with the other Chained pitching in once in a while out of boredom…

Chimera was familiar with this sight by now, considering he’d been seeing it for the past month, a month since he and Medusa had joined Aaron and his motley crew of Chained… they really needed a group name or something.

Chimera was… confused and feeling quite lost within the group, due to not understanding much about Aaron and Typhon… but he didn’t want to come off as attention grabbing by asking personal questions…

It was to the currently confused Chimera that Medusa walked up to and plopped down next to, making Chimera look over to her with a raised eyebrow.

Medusa had gotten rid of her assassin uniform, though she now wore in military camouflage pants, a tank top and an open jacket, as well as boots.

As for Chimera, he had walked around practically naked before, so obviously his clothing was new, though he cycled between sets he found himself really fond of suits…

The issue there was that, to fight at his full strength, Chimera needed to damage a suit, and he couldn’t have that every time. So they had to alter it in some manner.

The changes made included slits in the back of the shirt and jacket so that leathery bat wings could appear, and the jacket and pants were slightly loosened to allow for a massive scorpion tail to appear…

And he could burp fireballs, so he was just smaller and more human shaped compared to previously.

After reminding himself of their changes, Chimera looked forward once again, looking to Aaron who was holding an old map of Australia, the original Australia, not the split up Three States of Australia which existed in China, America and Britain.

“Well Chimera, I didn’t take you for one to look at me like that, but sorry, I’m not interested.” Medusa joked lightly and Chimera blinked at the change in his own teammate… another jarring experience since joining this group.

“Medusa… can you help me understand the people we follow? Help me to understand how they could have changed you like this?” Chimera asked, in need of some information, and kind of unsure of his place in the group as Medusa sighed, her calm and slightly playful demeanour vanishing like a mirage in the desert.

“Well, you are aware that I take in the memories of people I look in the eye… it used to do that for everyone, but now I can pick and choose who to do that to, you get that?” Chimera understood her ability so he nodded.

“Well, I took in Aaron’s memories… they were… emotional, filling… and oh so familiar…” Medusa looked to Aaron, and Chimera noted the softening of her gaze, even if she herself didn’t notice it.

“He’s really similar to me… his memories were powerful enough to override my own personality, and it left me the way I am now… we had hoped for it to go away over time, but…” Medusa gestured to herself with a sigh and a sad look.

“The old me would have never worn this… too embarrassing, even if I wore a skin tight suit, it was professional. After getting Aaron’s memories, I find this comfortable and fine, he has memories of seeing many women from a bystanders view, and his memories assure that I do look nice…” She looked up in thought, looking back to Chimera afterwards.

“I’m a Chained, we don’t get told things like that unless the speaker wants to die… and even though he didn’t outright state it, Aaron thinks me beautiful… I like it.” Chimera recognized what Medusa was feeling for what it was and frowned.

“You love him?” He asked incredulously, with reason of course…

They lived in Tartarus, the world’s largest prison, almost a world unto itself when it had its own rules of nature and survival, laws unwritten by the people who inhabited it.

Romance, while possible in Tartarus, was more for the ‘civilized’ people of the calmer Areas, and very rare when out of one hundred people, half would be criminals tossed in and the other half would be people born and raised in such a place.

“I didn’t say it… I think.” Medusa herself looked uncertain at his question as she sighed, looking to him with a smaller smile.

“Well, I should… I do love him… romantically, I’m not sure. As a friend, even there I’m uncertain… but I do love him… because he can’t even love himself, and someone has to.” Medusa stated and Chimera again found himself wondering.

“He… he doesn’t love himself?” Chimera asked, and Medusa looked to Chimera, knowing that Aaron didn’t hide the fact, but her telling someone would be a breach of trust…

If it weren’t Chimera she was telling that is. He had been feeling isolated within their group, as the triplets didn’t want to prank him saying he was too old and nice…

Cyclops was a grumpy drunk so he didn’t count apparently. Speaking of Cyclops, he didn’t really care much for Chimera, and Chimera could barely talk about anything with the man due to being incapable of using a car for the longest time.

Then as for Mino, he was the only one other than Typhon and Aaron that Chimera spoke to, both seeming to be the respectable ones in the group so they got along alright, but Mino didn't bring up things sensitive to their group as a whole or their leaders.

“Aaron… he can’t. He did, at one point… then he did something bad and struggled for a long time… he still loved himself then, but then he met someone special… someone I can’t replace.” Medusa looked up with a sigh and Chimera blinked at the accusation…

Aaron had someone special; someone Medusa couldn’t replace… a lover? Aaron?

“He was happy, during that time. For the first time he had been so happy… then his past caught up to him and she was gone. His past led to their separation… of course he blames himself, even if he couldn’t have known…” Medusa looked back to Chimera with a resolute look in her electric blue eyes.

“He hates himself Chimera. It’s not as simple as being incapable of loving himself; he truly doesn’t care about his own well-being, despite what he might say… and that… that makes me care because I was much the same.” Chimera found himself understanding her words, capable of understanding Aaron slightly more as it were, and it made him feel more accepted…

“As for Typhon… well, he was isolated until Aaron broke him out of a place known as The Cradle.” Chimera frowned at the term… Cradle? Something to hold a child in…

“Typhon was about five or four when he was placed in there… he barely remembers his parents, but he can clearly remember having had a twin sister, named Echidna, who is essentially a female, Cybernetic Chained version of himself.” Chimera chuckled a bit at her wording, noting that she was particularly quick to pick the word Cyber over Mechanical.

“Well, Typhon agreed to travel with Aaron to find Echidna, and she was the one who fixed my problem with memory bleeding.” Chimera had heard her speak of said problem before, so he understood her meaning as he looked to the young Chained in charge of their group…

Though the youngest of their group was now Medusa herself, but she was only a few months younger than their normal human leader, Aaron… as far as one could call him normal.

Chimera was from the outside, as people in Tartarus referred to the rest of the world, so he knew that having an IQ of roughly one seventy to one eighty five was not normal in the slightest, that was a once in a life time genius.

No one else really understood that, not even Minotaur, Empusa and Medusa understood that, having not learnt about I.Q in any form beyond knowing what it meant.

Inwardly, Chimera hated how he had gone from being an accountant to being an assassin, but he figured his newer job kept him alive longer with the reputation it got him.

“So that was why they reacted as they did when you mentioned that you had met his sister… he searches for her, and Aaron assists him, at the same time, Typhon protects Aaron and assists him in his goals… they are symbiotic to each other.” Medusa raised an eyebrow before understanding the term…

She still had Aaron’s memories after all, and he was very well learned despite having not been in schooling for almost a decade. Learning things online was a possibility after all.

“Yeah they support each other… without Typhon, Aaron would have likely only succeeded in recruiting me and possibly Cyclops, and he got me to follow him by accident.” Medusa admitted with an awkward smile at remembering how she came to trust in Aaron.

“As for Typhon, he’d still be stuck getting shot by turrets inside the Cradle. On a side note, I need to ask Aaron if he has any idea how Typhon’s body works, his skin isn’t tough so how does it survive bullet damage?” Chimera chalked that up to another strange factor about the ‘new’ Medusa, she sometimes talked to herself…

Aaron had the belief that it was a sign of heightened intellect, because only the truly smart sought excellent advice from themselves.

Chimera hated the fact that he wasn’t quite sure if Aaron was joking then or not.

“Well… I guess they’re acceptable as bosses… better than Charon and Geist after all.” Medusa agreed with Chimera’s statement, Geist was horrible to work with considering how petty and childish he was…

Well… he was only nine apparently, but still. A child will not lead them in this case. As for Charon, he was eccentric, crazy scary and a manipulator of many people, but eccentric, who else would let a child become a trained assassin and his heir?

“Right… I’m going to go mess with Aaron. Hope I’ve answered your question though.” Medusa flipped away, another new aspect of her, claiming that Aaron wished he could do that, and somehow she felt that want too… and considering she had the physical ability to do such nonsense, she of course went for it.

“Oh, you have.” Even if Medusa was now on the street as opposed to the broken down highway ramp he was resting on, he had no doubt she heard him.

Medusa smiled a bit at having helped a member of their group get over a problem they were facing, especially Chimera who she had worked with for a long time.

She went to the bus and got to the upper section, finding Aaron working on the map of ‘Australia’ as she noted many marking on the map, along with a huge amount of toys.

Aaron was biting his lip a bit as he placed the toys, from a game called Monopoly, on certain areas. She noted that there was one placed in an area marked as Area 4, and nine on the border of area 8, meaning that these markers were for Chained…

A questionable amount was placed on Area 12, though two were separate from the rest, designating Behemoth and Jormungand… the beast of the earth and the ocean swallowing dragon.

“So, you’re trying to check where all the Chained or, or are you planning our route?” Medusa asked as Aaron refused to jump in surprise/fear at her sudden appearance.

“A bit of both… Area eight is the Assault Sector, but it’s kind of small in relation to most due to the swampy area near us. We’re basically cutting through said swamp to reach Area nine, and from there skipping past Area ten and going to Area eleven, where we should find Typhon’s sister.”

Medusa approved of the route; it took the least detours to head to Area eleven, the Mafioso sector, which was currently under the thumb of Lukas Vann…

Lukas Vann was a really despicable man who had somehow managed to get a Chained or two to work for him, and only Cybernetic Chained…

Medusa had tried to explain what she knew about Lukas Vann, but she honestly knew little, few liked working with him.

When one looked at it from one way, Lukas Vann was similar to Aaron in that he surrounded himself with Chained rather than other normal humans…

Aaron also vowed to one day get a concrete term for normal humans in relation to Chained, he’d use ‘Normies’ but that sounded degrading for all involved.

But yes, Lukas Vann… he had three Chained who worked for him that were known of. One of which was a Cybernetic Chained called Jiang-Shi… a Chinese one, despite being an Englishman in appearance.

Aaron had to wonder if the people making the Chained had a sense of humour… remembering Mino having a head full of hair but essentially being a giant bald bull creature, yeah, he believed they did have humour under their insanity.

As for the other two Cybernetic Chained, one was known as Ronové, something Aaron actually didn’t know from mythology, and the other unknown.

Once Aaron heard that he had complained out loud for a while stating that someone getting a Chained from the three largest groups was silly, and that going by standard books and television series, the unknown was likely Echidna.

Empusa and most of the other Chained looked at him as if he was stupid… Typhon and Medusa nodded in agreement, knowing that Aaron’s casual words were occasionally a foreshadowing…

He had questioned about guns being in Tartarus and roughly two months after that they encountered the Hunter, it wasn’t farfetched after that.

On the other hand, he had promised himself to dye Typhon’s hair green, but that hadn’t happened… yet…

“So, we’re up against three Chained, all of which likely know how to fight together, and some guy who’s practically an evil version of me, obviously less handsome too.” Medusa just gave a wry smile at his words but nodded.

“…This place does strange things to people, I swear… Come on everybody, we’re moving out!” Aaron called, not needing to shout too loud when calling out to beings with enhanced hearing, though none to the extent of Typhon and, when she used certain animal’s ears, Empusa.

The group was soon moving once more, and Medusa found herself glad to be in a hover-bus rather than a normal bus, seeing as they had just entered a swampy area.

“Going down the bayou, going down the bayou!” Medusa blinked looking towards Aaron as he sang from atop the bus while Empusa drove said vehicle…

Medusa had to wonder how he knew that reference when it was over fifty years old and no one but the two of them would get it.

He glanced at her, realized that she also caught it, and he began again, despite knowing little to no words of the song beyond that little bit.

It harkened back to the fact that he claimed this place made people strange… she found it to be hypocritical when he was by far the strangest one out of their entire group, even with him being the ‘normal’ human.

“Still… I have to wonder, why wasn’t this swamp cleaned out? There aren’t a lot of animals in Tartarus, and the ones that are here are things like cows, chickens, necessary animals. Alligators and Crocodiles are around, but rare… but this swamp could have been turned into liveable land…” Aaron noted with confusion, looking around… then Typhon snapped out of his sleeping position.

“Typhon, what is it?” Aaron asked, noting the expression of seriousness on his face, as Typhon looked to the water with a frown.

“…I smell blood… a huge amount of it.” He explained, and Aaron frowned… something wasn’t right about this swamp if the water had a lot of blood in it…

“It’s not noticeable because of the swamp mud and such, but this entire place stinks of blood… and it’s starting to get worse.” Typhon noted, and Aaron looked towards the others.

Mino was frowning, wrinkling his nose in confusion, Empusa looked as if she was paling and the triplets were looking around as if something was about to attack them… and Chimera was widening his eyes as he looked to Aaron.

Aaron remembered the old saying, it’s not paranoia if they’re out to get you… and if what they were all feeling was the same thing, that this swamp was dangerous… there must be a reason why it was empty.

“Aaron, we need to leave, now.” Chimera climbed up to the second floor of the bus and Aaron frowned as he thought… Chimera seemed more scared than anyone else here.

“Chimera, what did this… what caused this whole place to stink of blood?” Typhon asked and Chimera turned to Medusa before he seemed to realize something.

“Right, Medusa wasn’t around then, but the Assassin’s Guild made a deal with the Mercenaries, the leader of both groups met and agreed to assist each other or leave each other alone depending on the situation.” Chimera explained and Medusa blinked at his words.

“But everyone says that no one has ever seen the Mercenary Leader before…” Medusa noted and Aaron agreed with the sentiment, having heard that story before.

“Only Chained have met him, and only Charon, Jormungand, Behemoth… and myself. I happened to be Charon’s escort when Charon and the Mercenary Leader met… they met in this swamp.” Aaron widened his eyes at that and he didn’t need to even say anything before Empusa shouted out a ‘What?’ as she stopped the bus.

“So wait… this swamp is the Mercenary Leader’s territory? Why… you didn’t recognize it, did you?” Aaron asked as Chimera nodded with a frown.

“Indeed, I only recognized it when I began to smell the blood… the Mercenary Leader enjoys it, but it acts as a warning to anything capable of smelling it, which is usually Chained… as for normal humans, they-” Chimera was cut off as the waters of the swamp began to churn, rocking as if… no, because something was under the water… something big.

They didn’t have to wait long before it appeared from the water, and Aaron could honestly say he was terrified… he had thought the Hydra was huge, he thought the Minotaur was huge…

Nope, this was bigger… at a height of roughly ten or so metres, with the rest of its body still under the water, this beast was huge… and ugly.

It seemed to be part crocodile, part octopus, part lobster… lots of water creatures, and its main head was crocodile like, while its two front appendages were lobster claws, tentacles of an octopus floating out of the water.

It was… enormous, and terrifying… and it seemed to be grinning at them.

“Oh… some idiots wandered into my swamp, I reckon you all got a death wish.” The beast had a rumbling voice that sounded huge, and predatory, but an accent as if a thug found in any bar.

“…Leviathan.” Chimera whispered in fear, incapable of saying much more, and while Typhon was glaring at the beast, he agreed with Chimera’s tone… speaking loudly would get them killed, it was that feeling.

“I recognize you… Chimera… you look different, but the smell of the blood inside you is the same.” Chimera, in spite of his skin colour, seemed to pale, if that was possible, at the admittance of the being known as Leviathan being capable of recognizing him despite the change in form.

“Uh… Leviathan, sir? We… we don’t want any trouble, we were just heading to a different area and didn’t know this was your swamp…” Aaron spoke, not wanting to try acting like an idiot like he’d normally do, and the beast looked towards Aaron with curiosity.

“They all smell of Chained… that strange smell in their blood that separates them all… but you, you’re a human… you say you were just passing through?” Aaron nodded, hoping that no fight would occur… he really, really hoped no fight would occur.

“Yeah, I’m not letting you all go. I like my privacy, so I’m sure you understand… but before I kill you all, I got to ask… Chimera, why are all of you human-looking?” Chimera froze at being addressed but unfortunately his eyes flickered to Typhon and Leviathan caught it…

Luckily, Aaron caught the look Leviathan gave Typhon and was quick to make a plan.

“Typhon, move!” Typhon didn’t even question the order as he jumped off of the bus, hooking his chain into a nearby tree and retracting it so as to shoot towards it as Leviathan followed, no longer caring for the others…

He’d kill them after messing with the white haired one, he could wait… after all, Leviathan had been in Tartarus since the beginning… he could wait.

“Interesting… you look familiar…” Leviathan noted the white haired one growling as what looked like black sand covered his hands and feet, becoming something like claws.

Typhon didn’t grace Leviathan with a response beyond jumping forward and trying to cut through a tentacle or something. The keyword in that sentence was ‘trying’ because all of a sudden the water in the swamp rose up and Typhon’s eyes widened as he swung back using his chains.

“I almost got you there… but don’t think about running… this entire swamp contains blood, and I can control it… this is my territory, and you all aren’t leaving.”

Leviathan’s slightly jovial words changed tune as he glared at the bus, noting that the group was still there… then Aaron shouted to Typhon.

“Typhon! Is splitting up okay?” he shouted and Typhon widened his eyes, understanding what Aaron meant…

Typhon knew the plan, get to Area 11, take down Lukas Vann and get his sister, but running into Leviathan messed with that plan.

More than that, Leviathan could control blood, most likely not when it was inside of someone, as that seemed impossible, but through some set of conditions he could control blood, and seeing as it was mixed into the entire swamp, it was his battleground.

Typhon was the only one, other than Empusa and Chimera, who could fight Leviathan without touching the water, and even then, Empusa couldn’t fly for long and Chimera did more of a hovering motion.

This… was bad, Typhon was quite literally the only one capable of fighting Leviathan in this place without dying horrifically.

Typhon recognized that, and shouted back a response, having understood what Aaron meant in record time.

“We’ll meet up later! You better have my sister by then!” Typhon shouted in a manner uncharacteristic of him, and Aaron shouted in return with a sad grin.

“And you better survive!” The bus began to move, and Leviathan moved as if trying to follow and destroy the bus before it could leave.

“Who said you all could go? This swamp will be your grave!” Leviathan shouted… but Leviathan was interrupted by a sharp cracking noise sounding off as Leviathan’s eye twitched, a small hole appearing next to it with a small amount of blood leaking out.

Everyone followed the sound to see… well, the Chained weren’t sure if they should be thankful or afraid… as for Aaron-

“Jaeger! What are you doing here?” Aaron shouted in surprise as Empusa drove/floated the bus away as Jaeger glared at Aaron and his crew.

“Hunting, what else… well, I was hunting you and your friends…” Jaeger looked towards Leviathan his glare intensifying as he held some kind of grappling hook in one hand, and his pistol in the other.

“But I have something more important to hunt now… it’s personal.” Jaeger said with a grunt as Aaron noted the look Jaeger gave Leviathan… then shouted to Typhon, knowing Typhon would still hear him.

“Typhon! Help out Jaeger!” Typhon widened his eyes and frowned, most definitely not wanting to help the man who defeated him, and Jaeger snapped back at Aaron’s words.

“You misunderstand Aaron… I’m going to kill both of them, then I’m coming for your group… and then, you better explain what you’re doing.” Jaeger said, and Aaron frowned but sighed, leaving behind a… really, really scary three way brawl which was about to commence.

“Is it really okay, leaving Typhon like that?” Chimera asked, guilty that his glance was what notified Leviathan of Typhon, but Aaron could tell and patted the taller man’s shoulder.

“He’ll survive; Typhon is the King of Monsters. Just because he is fighting the beast of the sea said to only be killable by God doesn’t mean he’ll lose… it just means he’ll have to do some crazy awesome things to win.” Aaron’s words were a bit jumbled and confusing, but their group got the idea.

“Still, this severely diminishes our power as a group…” Chimera added, and Medusa nodded, looking at the triplets who were looking back towards the fight which was definitely going to be terrifying, and Mino who was frowning…

As for Cyclops… sorry to say, but he was passed out the whole time. Apparently Chained can get drunk enough to do so.

“Yeah, Typhon is the strongest, but that doesn’t mean you all aren’t strong too.” Aaron said and Medusa looked thoughtful at his words before nodding. She understood what he meant at this point.

Back with Typhon, Leviathan and Jaeger, each of them were taking note of the other two, but Leviathan in particular wasn’t too worried… he was in his home turf, the chances of him losing in a fight here were nigh non-existent.

So with the arrogance that comes from holding the upper hand in a confrontation, Leviathan looked to Jaeger with a very toothy grin.

“Another Hunter… you come to avenge the other one?” Leviathan asked and Jaeger shouted in anger before Leviathan could continue his taunts.

“Leviathan, I will kill you, for my father!” Jaeger’s shout made Typhon widen his eyes, realizing why Jaeger was so interested in killing Leviathan.

“Well, that’s nice for you… maybe I can be the first Chained to kill two Hunters? It’s quite annoying sharing the same amount of Hunter kills as Baal after all.” Typhon didn’t recognize the name beyond knowing it was a Djinn classed Chained, and Jaeger looked… well, he already looked ready to maim someone, the glare just got a bit worse.

“And you, white one… your name is Typhon… why do you have that name, when you’re clearly not him? That bastard died about fifteen years ago didn’t he?”

Typhon was really getting annoyed at this point, because seriously, did this Leviathan guy know everyone’s dad or something, was there some ‘dad’ club no one knew about?

“Well, it doesn’t matter… that bastard was annoying, acting so smug whenever he’d enter my swamp… after you make me look human again, I think I’ll make your death slow so you can join your dad.” Now it was Typhon’s turn to get pissed…

“Great, you’re both mad. Now let’s start this.” Water shot towards both Jaeger and Typhon and both escaped to nearby trees, both frowning as their previous footholds looked damaged from the water.

Luckily for them, Leviathan didn’t seem to want to break the trees, for reasons unknown to them, so they could still use them…

But still… this fight wasn’t going to be a good one, especially not when Leviathan held the advantage like this…

Typhon looked to Jaeger, and despite the two of them being enemies even now, Typhon called out to him.

“Jaeger, how about we change the place!” Typhon had to hope that Jaeger would agree and catch on, and despite disliking Typhon, Jaeger clicked his tongue and nodded.

“Fine, neither of us can fight him properly with him surrounded by a weapon only he can use.” Jaeger was annoyed, but he was a Hunter, Hunter’s fought using tactics, technology and trickery, and yes it was alliterative on purpose.

And one of the first rules of being a Hunter, was to never attack the prey on their turf… finding his father’s killer had angered him, but Jaeger calmed down after that first attack and knew Typhon was right.

“Alright then… truce until we get him out of this place?” Typhon asked, and Jaeger nodded with determination on his face as he fired off another shot at Leviathan, who tried to block it with water but said water was obviously slower than a bullet.

Jaeger and Typhon had to work together to bring Leviathan off of his high-horse, but the two understood what would happen afterwards…

After they got Leviathan away from his water, they’d be attacking each other as well… they were enemies after all…

It was just another day in Tartarus, the place where your ally could kill you the next day… how wonderful.