“Damn it! Why can’t I get drunk!” the screaming from the bar ensured that few got near the area, as anyone shouting like that in this place was probably either confident or powerful, usually the latter…

That was how things were, in Tartarus, the Prison Country.

The strong were respected, the weak were taken out back and murdered, robbed, raped, and who knows what else…

Unless someone had a death wish, or was powerful, they’d keep quiet and keep to themselves in most places. Especially here, in Area 11, the land of the Mafioso, one had to keep calm, quiet, and respect the owners of the land, lest they brutally hurt whoever disrespected them.

“Brother, you are immune to all poisons with the exception of smaller things from our fellow Chained.” The second voice was calmer, a bit staler and mellow, but it would have driven any remaining listeners to running in terror.

For there was only a single pair of twins that was also Chained, modified humans that everyone in Tartarus feared.

“Sis, alcohol should not count as a poison! I mean, Cyclops could get drunk, why can’t I?” The brother spoke, handing his glass to the bartender who simply sighed as she refilled the glass, despite knowing how pointless it would be.

“Typhon, you’re a Biological Chained and Cyclops is Cybernetic. You have an advantage over him… other Biological Chained have the same problem you know?” the bartender noted as she began to clean another glass.

“Well that sucks! I’ve been trying for the past five months to get drunk, and it still hasn’t happened! You’re lucky Medusa… you and sis… you could both get drunk… and you don’t!” The brother of the set of twins was the speaker, Typhon.

“And you probably still won’t get drunk Typhon… Echidna, stop your brother from continuing please, Empusa will be here soon and I’m sure she wouldn’t want to taste alcohol from standing near him.” Medusa, the bartender, was also a Chained, much like the twins, and her electric blue eyes hinted at her robotic enhancements.

“Medusa… you’re the one pouring. You could just stop you know?” the sister of the twin set, Echidna, looked pretty much like a female version of her brother, minus the fact that her eyes were electric blue, unlike her brother and his forest green eyes.

Their greatest common feature, beyond both being modified humans known as Chained, was that the twins both had bright white hair.

That couldn’t be seen from looking at the two right now though, as Echidna’s hair was dyed a deep black, and as for Typhon… his hair was a very vibrant, and irritating to the eyes neon green.

“I could, but remember the deal? As long as his hair is that colour, he gets free drinks and I can’t refuse.” Medusa pouted even as she poured another shot of Vodka, courtesy of the Russian Mob, and Typhon once more downed the liquid death.

“I wonder if it was worth it. I hate the colour, and I can’t get drunk apparently. The only reason I still have the colour…” Typhon’s words suddenly went quiet.

“Hey, chin up, Aaron hated it when we got sad and contemplative… hypocrite he was.” Medusa frowned even as she finished, knowing that she had caught him like that more than once.

“Well… uh… I barely met him so…” Echidna, bless her soul, was shy and awkward around most people, even her sibling and his friends… but that was because of their past.

Echidna and Typhon had been imprisoned in two places designed to test them and train them known as the Cradle, despite the fact that there were two of them.

Having been placed in said places at age five, with Echidna getting out at age eighteen and Typhon at age twenty, they were trying to catch up on fifteen years of lost time.

“Don’t worry sis, I’m sure you would have been annoyed with him.” Typhon tried to reassure Echidna, but Echidna narrowed her eyes at her brother with a sigh.

“Brother… that isn’t reassuring.” It really wasn’t, but Medusa and Aaron smiled at her reaction, knowing that Typhon’s words were in fact the truth…

Aaron Hassan, their leader, the one who made their plans and gathered the largest gathering of Chained outside of Area 12, which was their homeland.

“Oh trust me, it is… Aaron… he’s an amazing guy. Smart, tricky, and he knows so much random stuff you’d make a library out of it…” Echidna listened intently here, always willing to hear about the man who had saved her brother from his Cradle.

“His greatest skills were three. His third greatest skill was the ability to confuse and annoy anyone around him.” Echidna’s face dropped at his words, making Medusa and Typhon laugh…

Really, Aaron was amazing with his ability to say really strange and random things which made no sense to anyone except him and, later on, Medusa.

“His second greatest skill was his planning ability… you were victim to it, last I checked… well, we all were.” Typhon downed another shot, and pausing his story while Echidna nodded.

Indeed, she had only ‘met’ Aaron twice, once at an auction where she had attempted to kill him… and the second time when Aaron had killed the man who had saved her.

By all rights, Aaron and Echidna should have hated each other, but this story all changed when one mentioned that Echidna tried to kill him because of the man who saved her, Lukas Vann… who was using her for his own purposes.

She was lucky enough that he had never considered doing… other, things with her. Vann, from what she had learnt in the ten months since his death, was actually a monster, and not the kind man he made himself out to be when in her presence.

“Aaron, according to Sphinx, was practically the devil in how he could make a deal with you that seemed like selling your soul would fully be worth what he offered. And yes, from Sphinx, this was a compliment.” Typhon mentioned their comrade in arms, and Echidna recalled the Asian fondly…

Yes, Sphinx was Asian, this joke was made before.

“As for his final skill… well, it wasn’t often advertised, as this skill was overlooked due to his ability with plans and deals… but Aaron first and foremost, was a lock-picker.” Echidna blinked at this information.

She had heard this bit of information before, but never did it fail to drag this reaction from her. The man who had somehow gathered eleven Chained when he was an unenhanced human, and his best skill was something that seemed to have nothing to do with how he had achieved his goals.

“Really, don’t let how simple it sounds fool you, that skill needed to be used many times while we travelled, but at some point it became like breathing to us.” Typhon looked to Medusa, noting the small lock she wore on a bracelet, a reminder of Aaron.

“I would fight and protect our group, everyone would help, Cyclops would drink, and Aaron, Aaron would plan and break us into anywhere we needed to be.” Typhon grinned, even as Medusa stroked the lock with a small smile of her own.

“Really, at some point we just forgot how amazing it was, what he could do with a tiny piece of metal, it was almost like he’d just touch the lock and they’d open for him.” Medusa added, and Echidna drank her own beverage, Coca-Cola.

Speaking of which, the most common story she had heard about Aaron was that he had the recipe for the drink… and for some reason it annoyed everyone but her when this was mentioned.

“He always said it was a family thing, and that they had an understanding with locks.” Typhon said, looking to Medusa for confirmation.

Echidna was lucky enough to be with the two of them to hear this… She and her brother had been inseparable since they had reunited, but the two of them made sure to travel around to the members of her brother’s group to visit all of them.

Of the ten, not counting her brother, Medusa and Empusa knew Aaron best, Empusa because she was the first Chained to join her brother and Aaron, and Medusa because of some ability of hers, and because she and Aaron were dating.

Medusa didn’t deny this, but stated that it wasn’t that simple. Empusa argued against that statement, saying that the two acted like a married couple even at their worst.

So she was currently with two of the people who knew the ‘legendary’ Aaron Hassan best in the prison… though everyone hinted that Medusa knew Aaron even more than Typhon, they weren’t open with the reason for that thought.

“Still… it’s been about ten months since he was taken…” Typhon scowled at his own words, and Echidna patted his shoulder, knowing his anger…

Soon after Typhon and Echidna had been reunited, with assistance from Aaron, Aaron had been captured by the apparent Warden of Tartarus and two Chained that were somehow both Biological and Cybernetic…

They called themselves Lords and their names were Lu Bu and Solomon. They were the only Chained, or Ascended as they called it, that Echidna knew of that did not possess a name from a mythological monster… really, Typhon, named after the Greek King of Monsters, Echidna named after the Queen of Monsters, or Medusa named after the famous snake themed monster.

They had hunted down Aaron to make him a Chained, much like Typhon and his friends, and while Typhon would have fought against this, they had been attacked shortly after some rough fights, meaning most of them were injured.

So all they could do at the time, even Echidna, was watch as Aaron was taken away, leaving behind three requests for Medusa, who was the only one who got the messages.

One, split up, make sure you survive, and grow. While it was three requests in one, it could be summed up using the middle request, survive. And Aaron was right to ask them that, especially when the Warden and the Lords began to visit Tartarus more often…

Stories of the mechanical monstrosity and its ‘guard dogs’ were spread across Tartarus at this point, Solomon and Lu Bu rarely acted without assistance from the Warden.

While on that mind track, the Warden’s name, John, was really common and kind of boring compared to what they were used to, so they kept referring to him as Warden.

As Typhon put it, he had met about forty one John’s other than the Warden within the months since then, and having to specify would be annoying.

Medusa was quick to include some obscure joke about forty two being the answer to everything, but both Typhon and Echidna did not understand it.

Ahem, back to the messages:

Two, Odysseus meant one who is hated, one who mourns, and one who is lost. This was not Aaron’s name.

The meaning behind that message was that Aaron was to be turned into a ‘Lord’ like Lu Bu and Solomon, with his ‘name’ becoming Odysseus… they were thankful for him figuring that out early, as finding him would have been annoying.

And for the final message:

Three, Aaron would be back, for it is he who opens the gates to heaven.

Echidna was understandably lost when that message was given, but everyone else seemed calmer upon hearing those words. It was Aaron’s creed, the words he lived by, if translated.

Khul ja Shem-shamayim. Be opened, doors to heaven.

It was the motto of his family, and he lived by it, and his words had never proven wrong, even if he wasn’t always talking about heaven… usually it just meant victory.

“Well yes… ten months… he will be free eventually. We have our job for when that happens… we just need to be patient.” Medusa answered, as she downed her own glass of Whiskey, a drinking habit she had gained from Aaron apparently.

Really… that pairing was just confusing with how well Medusa knew Aaron… almost as if she knew him better than he knew himself.

“I’m tired of being patient. They tried to attack the auction house, and Sphinx had to go into hiding… luckily he got that bastard Lu Bu, but Sphinx isn’t a combat type Chained.” Typhon noted, and Echidna agreed, their group was being hunted…

It was something Echidna was sad to say she was more used to than the rest of the group, considering they had been hunted since she joined them.

Lu Bu, Solomon, and the Warden were hunting them down for their relation to Aaron, for what reason was the question.

“Well yes… we’ve… we’ve had problems. We need to fix them… but let’s be honest, this group only stuck together because of you and Aaron, and without him, we rely on you.” Medusa stated, and Typhon glared at her while scrunching up his nose.

Really, Echidna and Typhon were both twenty one, yet both of them looked no older than fifteen… so despite him being pretty dangerous, he couldn’t pull off the threatening look… it’s why Echidna wore that cloak back when she worked for Vann.

Really, take away the cloak and she was midget with swords and poison, not that she often used the latter.

“Let me guess your next words. So because you’re the leader, you need to survive and not endanger yourself. I’ve heard this spiel from everyone else in the Key.” Ah, their ‘name’. Quite unofficial, and they really didn’t want one, but eventually the triplets complained that calling themselves ‘our group’ all the time was getting old.

They just decided on a quick to say word which matched Aaron, and they came up with Key. So that simple word was what they were known as.

Key… Echidna had heard rumours of her own group, and it was funny.

The largest group of Chained outside of Area 12, Key consisted of about ten Chained, twelve if you reduced the Hydra to its base components known as the Triplets.

Everyone had their own theories, most stating that Typhon, the white haired child-like Chained, was a warlord hoping to take over the Areas… so of course, the green haired Typhon got by.

It wasn’t just for a joke that he had his haired dyed after all; it’s why Echidna’s own hair was black currently, with white tips. It looked more like a fashion thing than her natural hair colour, and it worked for her…

Now if only her brother would stop chasing away any potential guys she would be interested in… she was twenty one, not seven.

“And that’s because it’s the truth, much like one plus one equals two gets repeated. We need both you and Aaron to function. We’re missing one of you, so the other needs to be safe until you’re both together again.” Typhon’s face at her suddenly sappy tone indicated that she had worded it like that just to get a rise out of Typhon.

“Medusa… have I mentioned that I hate that you act like that idiot?” Typhon asked and Echidna once more wished that she fit a bit more easily into the Key, so that she could join the conversation.

“Yes, yes you have. No, I do not care.” Medusa answered in the most bland tone possible, only highlighting the fact that she was part robot… well, so was Echidna, but still.

“Well, at least it was said… where the heck is Empusa…” Typhon asked in a growl as his nose twitched and Echidna rolled her eyes.

She had enhanced senses, much like her brother, but his sense of smell was much better than hers… in return; her sense of vision was much higher, so it all traded out.

“Oh, there she is… should be here in a minute or two… hey Medusa?” Typhon asked calmly, even as Echidna noted the squeal of tyres and the roar of an engine.

“Yes Typhon?” Medusa said with all the patience of a saint… basically, she said it quietly, calmly, and without really caring what he was talking about.

“…Why did we leave the GT-R with Empusa?” Typhon asked, kind of confused, and this was said as the roar finally stopped in front of the bar, the engine switching off.

“Well she’s our driver most of the time you know? She needed practice.” Medusa stated, and the door was pushed open, revealing the subject of their conversation.

“I resent that statement, as true as it is.” Empusa said with a smile even as she sat down next to Typhon… then frowned at smelling the alcohol all over him.

“Really… you can’t even get drunk. Do you drink to torture my nose? Do you?” the ‘driver’ of the Key asked as Typhon shrugged, even as Empusa just decided to ignore him.

Funny enough, everyone in the Key knew Empusa actually liked Typhon romantically. Everyone except Typhon… though Echidna knew he was slowly catching on to what was happening.

Really, there was a limit to being dense, and Typhon wasn’t an idiot… it was just that Empusa was surprisingly good at hiding her infatuation from the target of her affections actually.

“Hey, I’m depressed. Depressed people do drugs or drink. Drugs are messed up, and drinking is an easily solved want.” Typhon gestured to the wall of drinks behind Medusa, all donated by the Mafia Heads due to the Key and their deal with Area 11.

“The problem here is that you drink more than Cyclops did, and he was a full-fledged alcoholic… and even worse, you can’t even get drunk so it’s pointless!” Empusa raised her hands in the air in exasperation as Typhon just grabbed the bottle from Medusa, deciding to rather drink from the bottle.

“And so is a circle, yet we use those for wheels.” Typhon spat back and Empusa just sighed, unwilling to deal with his lame comebacks.

“Whatever, whatever, you can stay depressed while I share the big news with Echidna and Medusa.” Empusa said with a grin as Typhon’s eyes widened in ‘fear’.

“Wait, wait, don’t leave me out of this, everyone else already kicks me out of their places!” Sadly enough, Typhon was not exaggerating… the only members of the Key that accepted him in their areas were the Triplets and Medusa.

The rest knew that Typhon was supposed to do as little work as possible when it came to setting things up for Aaron’s return, because Typhon was good at fighting… and that was it.

Typhon was an acceptable leader in a fight, but out of one, he wasn’t the best. He wasn’t bad either, but it was better to just have everyone do their own thing, and keep him from them.

“Fine, I’m generous enough to allow you to stay in my presence.” Echidna and Medusa smothered their giggles behind their hands as they watched the interaction.

Typhon had come a long way from being the serious near emotionless version of Typhon that first exited his Cradle. He emoted more now, properly instead of just through vocal inflection, and he joked around a bit more.

Echidna was glad for that, and she was even gladder that she was actually able to see the near transformation overtime in front of her eyes.

“I accept your generosity… okay, I’m done, what’s the news.” Alright… so it was a work in progress, but at least it was clear that he could joke around and relax.

“Fine, back to work I guess… the biggest news would be Toy Maker.” Empusa stated with a frown, Echidna and Medusa clenching their fists even as Typhon frowned along with Empusa.

Toy Maker was a… to put it kindly, he was a psychopath. He had been around since the opening of Tartarus, the ‘ruler’ of Area 4, even if he didn’t give a damn about the world around him…

No, all that mattered to Toy Maker were his dolls… the problem being that the dolls themselves were corpses. There were horror stories told to children in Tartarus about being good, or Toy Maker would turn them into a doll.

And the dolls were usually women, due in part to the place he lived in, partly because Toy Maker was alleged to like dolls more than a person should… and considering they were dead people made to move again, necrophilia too.

Disgusting being, all women in Tartarus hated him equally.

“He’s dead.” Empusa’s words weren’t quite registered, their simplicity making them seem boring, until the meaning hit the three others.

“Wait, Toy Maker… is dead? Who the heck killed him?” Echidna’s question wasn’t without meaning, Toy Maker was a legendary psychotic Cybernetic Chained who had long gone insane, but no one wanted to deal with him, even if they could.

And Chained, as far as they knew, were functionally immortal… oh sure, they’d age, but it would be really slowly. Like Cyclops who looked like he was in his mid-thirties only looked like that because he grew a beard. Without the beard, he looked about twenty five.

Aaron had been quick to say they’d die eventually, no matter what they thought, but that the process was likely really slow. Like Chained living two hundred to four hundred years sounded plausible.

So Toy Maker clearly wouldn’t have died of old age, or natural causes, so he had to have been murdered, cold logic for the win.

“That’s just it, it was some new guy, a new Chained… but here’s the thing… his name, his name was what caught my attention.” Empusa stated, and the three were curious… some Chained killed Toy Maker, and he was interesting?

“What did Aaron say they were going to do to him? Turn him into a Chained… and what did he say his name was going to be?” Empusa’s words implied something, inciting hope in Typhon and Medusa, the latter of which answered.

“Odysseus… he was going to be named after the hero of Homer’s Iliad.” Medusa hoped, and hoped that Empusa would say those words, those words that had Typhon practically shaking in his seat.

“I knew it… the new Chained that killed Toy Maker. His name was Odysseus.” That settled it, as Typhon’s face slowly morphed from his usual harsh neutrality to one bordering on happiness… then vanished as quickly as he realized what was happening on his face…

Really, he acted so emotionless… lies, all of them.

“Odysseus… only Lords are named after heroes from what we found… and Aaron was hunted due to the fact that he was the perfect candidate for it. Yes. Odysseus… is Aaron.” Typhon’s grin was unwilling, but nonetheless a glad one.

“You know what this means right?” Medusa added, a smile of her own on her face, even as her eyes seemed to water… no one would call her out on it though.

“It means… that we can finally step forward with our plans… it means, we can get our leader back.” Typhon stated, even as he stood, leaving the bottle behind.

Echidna had no doubt he wouldn’t bother with drinking for quite a long time after this.

“Yeah… this news was too important for me to not tell you in person. I’ve messaged the others that our plans should start moving forward soon, but I haven’t said anything about why.” Empusa was quick to add, and Empusa’s words wore heeded.

She was more than just the ‘driver’ of the Key, considering she was amongst their strongest combatants as well as their information dealer… due to her previous occupation within Tartarus.

Putting it bluntly, she was the ruler of prostitutes; despite not being one… oh that was her ‘crime’ for which she was placed in Tartarus, as well as murder, but Empusa’s story wasn’t that simple… especially when one considered she was still a virgin.

A problem everyone knew she was likely going to go to Typhon to solve.

“Good, rather we get him back and then say something. The alternative would cause too much excitement, and we can’t afford to drag attention to the Key right now.” Typhon’s words were heeded, the three women around him suspiciously serious all of a sudden as Empusa nodded, removing a phone.

“Understood, I’ll remind everyone about lying low, though I doubt that’s possible for Sphinx or the Triplets.” Empusa added, sending the messages out, with Typhon looking to Medusa and Echidna.

“Come on, we’re getting our leader back.” Typhon turned to the door, walking out towards their ride, the GT-R which had been their transport in their early days of wandering around Tartarus.

“This… well, I’m sure the bar can close for a while.” Medusa said with a smile, even as she hopped over the counter with all the grace of an assassin… because she was one.

Bad jokes are bad huh?

“Yeah, I’m sure all five or so of your customers will understand.” Echidna joked as Medusa laughed a bit in return, knowing it for the truth it was… after all, Chained were scary, few would want to deal with them, let alone enter a bar run by one.

“Still… ten months of waiting huh… you’re all excited about this huh?” Echidna asked, and Medusa patted the shoulder of the younger looking girl with a sigh.

“Don’t worry Echidna. You’re part of our group now, but we understand that you don’t feel the same as we do… you were part of it for barely an hour before Aaron was taken, so you don’t know why we miss our leader so much.” Medusa said calmly, and Echidna smiled in return as they entered the car…

Another bit of annoyance was that Echidna was actually four years older than Medusa and yet Medusa gave her such good advice… how annoying.

“So, Odysseus was in Area four, Toy Maker’s area?” Typhon asked from his seat in the back of the car, Echidna sitting next to him while Medusa sat in front with Empusa.

“Yes, he went in and killed Toy Maker himself, then he told anyone that was around that his name was Odysseus.” Empusa stated, even as she started the car.

“…It’s his plan. He’s broadcasting his presence so that we know where he is… so we can find him.” Typhon noted, and Medusa nodded, looking over the back of the seat to talk.

“Yes, that seems like something Aaron would do… the issue is…” Medusa frowned, and Empusa and Typhon both nodded, once more sharing a silent conversation Echidna was lost to…

Chimera, now going by Manticore, knew how she felt and assured her that she didn’t need to understand and that she would with time, considering he went through the same.

It felt nice knowing she wasn’t the only one who went through it… Typhon just shrugged and called it mob mentality.

Echidna wondered where her brother learnt about things like that, but apparently Aaron knew way too much for someone his age.

“Aaron was a normal human when he was taken… but now he’s a Chained like us. More than that, he’s a combination of Biological and Cybernetic, something only Lords are.” Typhon noted, and Echidna realized the issue.

“You think he needs our abilities?” Echidna asked, and Typhon nodded, wondering about it himself.

The abilities of Typhon and Echidna were Stabilization and Synchronization; the abilities were there to ‘fix’ other Chained, Stabilization for Biological Chained, and Synchronization for Cybernetic Chained.

Biological Chained usually looked like actual monsters or Bio-Organic Weapons… and for some reason it felt like a copyright was nearly infringed… anyway, Typhon could Stabilize their genes, making them look human again, with just about all the benefits they had as a monster, even improvements.

The triplets, for example, were not much good at fighting, but their poisons were lethal to normal humans, and they even affected Typhon at this point. Back when they were one being, the Hydra, their poison could barely do anything to Typhon beyond making his nose itch.

As for Cybernetic, or Mechanical Chained, they had to deal with mental instability due to being incapable of properly accessing the information they had.

Cybernetic Chained needed automated or computerized help to even exist, as the human brain was designed to deal with certain functions the Cybernetic Chained worked with.

So all Cybernetic Chained had a connection to some kind of computer or database, but it was usually frayed at first, sending corrupted information, or not at all, leading to mental issues and instability.

Echidna’s ability was Synchronization, repairing this connection between the Cybernetic Chained, and their automated assistance, solving any mental issues.

For a Lord… would they need these abilities? They couldn’t be sure until they met up with Aaron, but once they did they would need to check.

“He might… not only that, but… Aaron can kill people, I know that, we all know that… but he killed a Chained? I have to wonder how strong he is at current.” Medusa added and Echidna realized the issue…

Aaron had always been an observer, passive and assisting in the background when it came to fights… now, now he could join them on the battlefield.

Typhon looked way to happy with the idea as they drove off for Area 4.

Well… at least the King of Monsters was happy.