In a calm peaceful street, inside a calm, peaceful Area, there was a man.

This man was getting thrown out of a window, because this was not a peaceful Area. No, it was Area eight, the land of fisticuffs.

“Thanks for the house!” the man who was recently defenestrated groaned, eventually finding the strength to stand up and limp away, afraid of his life after having been attacked by the scary teen with white hair.

Fun fact, to be defenestrated is to be thrown out a window, a fact courtesy of Aaron knowing random nonsensical things like how to play the happy birthday song on a phone keypad… he really did know a lot of odd things.

“Ah, you’ve got to love that about Tartarus, if you need something, take it.” Typhon sighed in relief as he plopped down on the couch, after making sure nothing was wrong with it.

The last place they had stayed at had blood soaked into some of the foam, and the place before that had questionable liquids pooled around the corner of that couch.

So finding a good one was something the King of Monster’s lived for, and as soon as he lay down on the couch he spoke his opinion.

“I give this a four out of ten. Not good for sleeping on.” But a couch was a couch, and he liked them, so he’d use it anyway… he was tired after all.

“Glad to see our resident lazy King is settled in, is there anything we need to know about his area, beyond the fact that fighting is surprisingly common here… then again, anger issues is almost an entry requirement for this Area…” Aaron voiced out as Empusa pulled out her notes.

“Huh… let’s see… Chained aren’t as common as you think Aaron, but there does seem to be a Greek Chained nearby, and I think you’ll like this one.” Aaron raised an eyebrow in question.

“The Nemean Lion, a Cybernetic Chained with augmented skin, think of him as an anti-Mino.” Aaron grinned at the idea of having a Chained with such ability on their side, once more thankful for the diversity of the Greek legends.

“So unlike Mino, he isn’t affected by slashing attacks, but use some blunt force and he’ll be weak?” Echidna asked from her spot on a nearby chair as she popped open a book.

Aaron had learnt a core aspect of life over his time in Tartarus. Everyone has something weird, something strange that defines them. With ‘normal’ people it was usually subtle, but with others it wasn’t.

Like Cyclops and his obsession with cars and stereotypes, Aaron and his love of annoying people, or even Typhon and his love of sleeping.

It was that love of sleeping that had led to Typhon’s hair now being orange by the way. It was pink, but Typhon had demanded it changed back.

Oh it changed alright, into a different colour. Typhon vowed to master a way of sleeping with his eyes open, without feeling like his eyes would be dry after.

But everyone had something that defined them, and with Echidna, it was both her drive to ‘fit in’ to wherever she was, and a love of literature, to Aaron’s surprise.

Apparently the Cradle taught quite a bit, including mathematics and reading, and she quite enjoyed the reading bit.

“Yeah, it’s exactly like that.” Empusa said as Aaron tapped Echidna’s shoulder to ask her what she was reading.

After reaffirming that Lord of the Flies was a strange, twisted book, Aaron looked outside and considered Area eight.

Area eight was nicely maintained in comparison to some of the other Areas, but like all of them, it had something strange about it, namely the fight rings.

No matter where you were in this place, you were probably within view of at least one of the things, and they weren’t always full, but they’d never be empty.

Fighting, in Area eight, was a method of ‘dealing’ which the previous Aaron would have failed in… in this case he found he could deal with it, now that he was a Lord.

“Ah, the ability to ‘talk with fists’… was never really good at that.” Aaron said aloud as he looked across the street to see someone getting their teeth knocked out by a good knee to the face.

Aaron wasn’t sure what they were arguing about, but the winner of the fight was the winner of the argument, that was just how it was here.

And no one minded, as evidenced when the winner helped the loser up, patted his back, and they both went on their way.

Fighting was a part of life here in Area eight; they wouldn’t hold it against the other fighters. It was like history, Aaron thought.

It was written by the winners.

“Well, you’d be good at it now, wouldn’t you? After all, you’re finally trying to learn how to fight.” Medusa spoke out from behind Aaron as he turned to look upon his girlfriend.

They didn’t quite act like it all the time, but it could be seen if one knew where to look… all one had to do was look out for how comfortable they were in the other’s presence, the lack of tension.

“You’re right… though I still suck in a purely technical view.” Aaron wasn’t wrong, when it came to pure combat the only one ‘weaker’ than him was Cyclops, and that was because Aaron fought with his Aspis and Xiphos now.

To train, he had begun to fight Typhon who could control his Nano-tech more freely, so they both used the same fighting style.

Typhon was unused to fighting with a shield and sword, but his pure instinct and physical ability allowed him to overpower Aaron with pitiful ease each time, while Aaron instead refined his technique.

Then when it came to unarmed combat, Aaron sparred with Typhon, Cyclops and Manticore, Typhon to teach Aaron how to fight a vastly superior opponent, Cyclops for technique, and Manticore for outside the box thinking.

Typhon’s fighting style was majorly Chinese Kenpo, he actually used the same style as Sphinx, however Sphinx also incorporated Karate and Brazilian kicks into his fighting style, changing it slightly.

As for Cyclops, he fought using simple boxing and the occasional grappling technique… when it came to pure punches, he was better than Typhon even, so Aaron learnt those from him.

And Manticore was an assassin; it showed in his fighting style which aimed for the weak-points of the human body, teaching Aaron how to fight while defending such points.

He still sucked though, even after a whole month of training.

It had been a whole month since he had escaped the Ascension Chamber… time moved weirdly.

“Maybe you do, but fights aren’t always so clear cut.” Medusa glanced towards Typhon’s position on the couch, showing a clear example of someone who, by all rights, should win every fight he gets into with the exception of the rare Top-ranked Chained.

And yet he lost to Jaeger, twice. Nothing against Typhon, Jaeger was dangerous, but from a purely statistical view point, Typhon should have won every single fight he’d ever had against Jaeger.

“Again, you’re right… so, Empusa, do you have any idea where the Nemean Lion is?” Aaron asked, freezing Empusa in her position from behind the backrest of the couch as she was about to poke Typhon in the face with a pencil.

At this point, everyone just tried to ignore it when someone else did something strange. Life was simpler that way.

“Right, sorry. From what I know, the Lion should be at the biggest fight ring in this Area, he runs it.” Aaron palmed his face at this acknowledgement… of course the one Chained he was hoping to persuade to join their cause was in charge of the fight rings of the place.

It was like Cyclops all over again, come into an Area, find out a Chained runs it, and then he persuades them to join.

And probably, just like Cyclops, he’d have to compete in what the Lion was good at… oh joy, he was going to have to fight.

“Well… if Hercules could do it…” Aaron sighed as he moved to the door, Medusa wordlessly following him as he exited the building.

Inside the building, Typhon’s eyes opened slowly, looking to the pencil poking his cheek, and then Empusa’s face.

“You want to follow him?” Empusa asked as Typhon just stared at her for a moment.

“Sure. Let’s go.” Typhon answered easily as they got ready to follow their leader, leaving behind Echidna, Satyr and Cyclops to watch the house. Manticore was busy getting information like the ninja he was joking around as.

See, everyone has something weird.

As they left five minutes after Aaron and Medusa, Cyclops sat at his position at the table in the ‘kitchen’ with a cup of coffee in his hand, taking a slow sip.

“I’ll just sit here then… wonder when they’ll get back…” Cyclops said with a sigh as he took another sip of his coffee… ah, being ignored… how sad…

“I wonder that myself.” Echidna spoke up from her position at a different table, as Cyclops looked over to his company for the day.

“Say, could you read out loud for me, if it isn’t an issue?” Cyclops asked, having never read books before… he had only known how to read things relating to cars, like parts and other bits of info, so obviously he had never read that book.

“Sure, it isn’t a problem… though shouldn’t I start from the beginning?” She asked as Cyclops shrugged.

“Whatever you want little lady, I’m the one imposing after all.” Echidna just smiled as Cyclops leaned back in his chair and she nodded, beginning her reading from the first chapter.

Meanwhile, with Aaron and Medusa…

“So… do you think Typhon’s following us?” Medusa asked as she walked next to Aaron, holding his hand in calm reassurance while Aaron thought about it… for about two seconds.

“He’s definitely following us, probably with Empusa. I get into too much trouble for him to just let me wander around.” Aaron was of no doubt that his second in command was currently following them, and he didn’t mind…

It said something that being stalked was acceptable for him because it was safer than not being stalked.

“That’s fine; we both knew he would have reacted like that anyway.” Medusa said, uncaring of their followers. Besides, she figured Empusa would appreciate something resembling alone time with her potential paramour.

“Yeah, Typhon acts relaxed but he’s one of those people who worry over everything.” Aaron sighed as he shook his head at his best friend’s antics.

“Yeah, whereas you hide it better.” Aaron wisely kept quiet as Medusa just smirked at Aaron’s silence.

From a few buildings away, Typhon yawned while Empusa followed behind him, both jumping over to the roofs of whatever building was closest just so they could follow Aaron.

“Seriously, what if nothing happens though?” Empusa asked and Typhon just gave her a deadpan stare at her words… yeah… it’s Aaron.

No way would it be so easy.

They were only proven right when Typhon frowned in confusion, wondering why he was getting an annoying feeling of being watched.

He trusted his instincts though, so when they told him to take Empusa and duck behind an air vent, he didn’t say anything and just grabbed her as he jumped to the side.

A dull noise rung out and anyone who heard it in Tartarus would be confused…

Not Typhon though, he’d recognize the sound of gunfire anytime, even if it was silenced.

“Oh damn… I missed…” Typhon’s eyes widened at the words, recognizing the voice easily.

“Warden?” Typhon asked as he tried to focus his hearing, now noticing the heartbeat from two buildings away… though Typhon guessed that he wasn’t meant to hear the utterance of said person.

“Why am I doing this? Join Tartarus security they told me, live an easy life they told me, you’ll probably just sit around they said… liars, the lot of them.” Typhon, for the first time, felt awkward about listening into someone’s mumblings to themselves.

The sheer negativity in his voice just told Typhon this was someone who probably felt like his life was pointless to the point of wanting to just exist and do nothing else.

“Warden! Trying to kill me for your bosses again?” Typhon asked in a shout, not daring to stick his head out and get shot, and instead got a mumble in response.

“At least you call me by my title, how nice, the only bit of respect I get in this place and it’s from an enemy…” Typhon heard this, and thus decided to no longer talk to the Warden… almost everything he said was spoken with a tinge of depression.

Typhon was unable to look over to the warden, but Empusa, despite being a bit flustered at being pressed against Typhon, managed to close her eyes and morph the inside of her ears so as to better hear. Along with this, she made a small clicking noise with her tongue, holding a moment before nodding.

“He’s outside the building he was just in, he was shooting from inside. He jumped onto a nearby building; he’s approaching at an angle.” Empusa warned, and Typhon nodded, accepting her information as is.

Knowing that the Warden was a ‘normal’ human meant very little to Typhon in this situation, as the Warden wasn’t using something as simple as Jaeger’s flintlocks, instead he was using modern armour piercing technology, Typhon couldn’t shrug that off, even using his Sleeves to block.

Typhon was only thankful that the Warden was notably not as skilled as Jaeger. The Warden was a good marksman and assassin, but he didn’t have Jaeger’s ability to compensate for his weaker base human abilities.

“Oh… I’m not here to kill you actually… the boss wants you alive. I’m here to either capture or kill your boss, whichever works… I’m leaning towards kill.” The Warden’s depressed monotone didn’t change even as he admitted to wanting to kill Aaron, as Typhon scowled.

“Empusa, get to Medusa and Aaron, tell them to hurry with whatever they are doing.” Typhon asked Empusa who nodded, focusing on her Mass Manipulation to turn herself into a snake.

Now of course, she still had the same weight, due the strange ability to condense her mass, something Aaron still didn’t understand, even accounting for pluripotent cells, but as a snake she was obviously much harder to hit.

And it was the same concept as that hero that could go from tiny to giant sized and spoke to ants, even tiny he possessed the same mass so he punched hard, the same concept with Empusa.

Empusa was still hidden behind the air vent, so the Warden didn’t see her slithering to the edge of the roof to drop off of it luckily, and Typhon nodded.

He’d have to either distract, or kill the Warden. Normally he’d try to prescribe to Aaron’s ‘no killing’ method but with the Warden that wasn’t happening.

He had a weapon that could actually kill Typhon, and had no qualms about doing so, Typhon couldn’t hold back against someone capable of killing him.

“Sorry to ask this, but can’t you just step aside… I’m missing my favourite TV shows… and my nap time… if I had any…” Typhon considered telling the Warden that every time he opened his mouth it was as if Typhon was receiving mental splash damage.

“No can do Warden, you know that isn’t how this works!” Typhon shouted out, knowing that the Warden was limited much in the way most humans were, he would barely be able to hear anything if Typhon spoke at his volume.

“Yeah… I should have been a farmer like my father wanted…” the line was strange and Aaron would have called out the Warden on his reference had he been here, but he wasn’t.

Instead, he was a few blocks away walking with Medusa towards the biggest arena in the area, with Empusa following behind them to warn them.

“Warden, you shouldn’t attack me… you know I can kill you with one good hit.” Typhon warned aloud, hearing the footsteps of the warden as he moved closer.

“Yeah, that you can… if you hit.” the Warden replied as Typhon heard something… a clink? Then he heard the bounce of metal on the floor and widened his eyes before he shut them and covered his ears.

Even with his ears covered, Typhon still felt a bit stunned as the concussion grenade went off near him, his heightened senses made it even worse for him.

His head throbbed as he attempted to make sense of what just happened, but even through his sudden deafness and pain in his skull, he smelt his enemy.

Cheap cologne from right above him, a bit behind, the Warden was on the air vent, likely about to shoot Typhon. Typhon didn’t hesitate to roll forward as the first shots fired, making sure to condense his Sleeves while covering his head.

Two shots hit Typhon, one in the upper left arm, the second in his back as he rolled, causing him to wince in pain, but he didn’t dare stop, knowing that unlike Jaeger, the Warden could fire more than one shot in a row, as evidenced by his two new wounds.

As his roll ended in him crouching, instead of continuing his roll Typhon dived forward, recalling that the edge of the roof should be close enough to basically dive off of the roof.

Even Typhon could be injured if he landed wrong, but luckily he didn’t need to land.

Typhon still couldn’t hear, but his eyes were fine by now as he punched towards a different building, a chain shooting from his Sleeve as he willed the Nano-tech to contract, pulling himself towards the other building.

“What are you, spider-” The Warden’s phrase was cut off as he realized that Typhon had anchored himself onto the side of that building, turning and lashing out with his other arm.

The Warden knew how Typhon fought, and so instantly ducked, just barely saving himself from getting his neck broken by a Nano-tech chain to the temple.

“I thought I shot that arm…” the Warden mumbled, not that Typhon could hear him quite yet… the Warden was just one of those people that liked speaking aloud.

Not that anyone knew, but it was a habit born of the Warden’s thin presence, as he was sometimes left out of events, he just voiced out his opinions to himself instead of talking to someone about it.

Really, the Warden was a sad guy.

“Ah… maybe it was those black sleeves of his… if they’re Nano, he might have shrugged it off.” The Warden realized as he aimed, firing off more shots, only for Typhon to shoot off to another building.

“…This is going to be annoying.” The Warden once more sighed, his happiness long gone so even that saying of sighs being ‘happiness leaving you’ didn’t apply.

The Warden was not an amazing man. By all rights, the only exceptional part about him was how depressing he was. Other than that, he was just so boring that he faded out.

So to fight with the heavy-weights of Tartarus, the Warden had to do what humans always did when faced with things beyond their control.

Either kill it with technology, or stay away. He opted for the first this time around.

The Warden shrugged as he jumped from the building to the closest one, his landing making little to no noise, but to Typhon he might as well have slammed pots onto the ground as he landed.

From there, the Warden decided he’d rather remove Typhon from the equation first, because if Typhon was left alone then Aaron definitely wasn’t dying.

Honestly, the Warden felt as if the boss-lady and all her scientists were idiots, giving Aaron more power and skill and then asking for him to be killed…

It was stupid, and the only reasons the Warden didn’t call them out on it was because they paid him, they could probably kill him, and because he was aware of the reason.

Dumb reason, but he accepted it despite how strange it was.

The Warden was stopped from continuing his train of thought by something flying at the side of his face as he fell back on his rear, having the space to now see that it was one of Typhon’s chains.

“Well, you want this to be our little arena?” it was a bit odd, but Typhon nodded at the Warden, the building they stood on was wide, wide and it had a few hiding holes for Typhon…

It was a perfect place to fight for Typhon, not so much the Warden.

“Now why would I fight you on your terms?” the Warden asked, knowing how the game was played as he instead tried to escape, causing Typhon’s eyes to widen.

Rule… uh… we’re not sure on the numbering system, but one of the rules of warfare was not to fight an enemy when they had more strategic advantages than you.

One of those advantages was terrain. If you had never walked in a rain forest your entire life, you’d likely die quickly if you got attacked by someone born and raised in the place, they’d move better, they’d understand their surroundings and would feel comfortable about it.

So the obvious choices were two, either have some method of changing the terrain, or escape.

The Warden wasn’t some super human capable of changing the terrain at his whim, so the Warden deciding on escaping was obvious.

Typhon realized this in hindsight as he chased after the Warden, not wanting the man to escape him as the man jumped to a nearby roof.

Typhon was also made aware of his limitations when the Warden blind-fired behind him and just barely missed Typhon’s skull, only missing because Typhon saw the movement just barely.

Typhon was in a tough situation here… even using his Sleeves to block, he had a bruise underneath where he got hit, so he’d still get hurt if he got shot.

So Typhon couldn’t get too close to the Warden lest he get shot, but he couldn’t let the Warden get too far, otherwise the Warden would escape and go after Aaron.

The solution, it seemed, was to do as Aaron said.

“If you can’t do complex, just do simple, less effort that way.” Sure, this was said while Typhon was rage-quitting Tetris of all things, but the principle applied here too.

Typhon couldn’t attack from far away, not as far as a gun could. He couldn’t get up close, otherwise he’d get hurt. But that was fine.

The first weapon Typhon ever created with his Nano-bots was his Chains after all.

“Oh, crap.” The Warden looked behind him only to see Typhon pulling off something similar to a batters swing, knowing that he had to immediately duck, but unable to stop running, the Warden pulled off a slide along the roof as the chain of Nano-bots flew over his head.

The reason for his swearing was not actually the chain, so much as the fact that he was at the edge of the building when he began his slide, thus causing him to slide off the side of the building, hitting the opposite building’s wall as he quickly bounced off the wall.

Instead of wall jumping up somewhere, the Warden was jumping down, something much more manageable with his only slightly above average physique.

“Damn it, lost the height advantage… this is not my day.” The Warden sighed as he stood from his crouch, ready to run… only to feel something wet impact his head.

“Huh…” the Warden paused in surprise, knowing that it wasn’t raining, obviously, and so the fluid ran down his head as he obviously backed away from where it was landing.

The liquid followed. The Warden was now very confused and slightly disturbed as he raised his hand to block the stream, looking at the source.

And subsequently cursing the loudest Typhon had ever heard from the usually quiet man.

“Who the fuck pisses on people!” Typhon didn’t blame the Warden for his anger, Typhon would also be angry if he got pissed on by someone.

Recognize the description?

“People who want the grass to grow.” Satyr casually replied as he finished, zipping up his pants as he grinned at the man who had been trying to harm Typhon.

The Warden, like any sane person in such a situation, tried to kill the person who just pissed on him.

Yeah, try and say you wouldn’t want to grievously harm someone who literally peed on your head. Try and say it and realize what a liar you are.

Satyr snapped his fingers as he leaned back, the bullet missing just slightly as the Warden clenched his head.

“Whoa, no can do mister Warden man, I’m afraid I’m going to have to subscribe a hangover to you for trying to shoot up boss Typhon.” Satyr joked, though his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Said eyes widened as Typhon shot out a strand of his Nano-bots to shove Satyr away from the edge of the building roof, a bullet passing through where his shoulder was a moment ago.

“The feeling of being drunk… is something I’m used to… hangovers too… when you’re as depressed as I am, you need something, you asshole.” The Warden wobbled slightly, reloading his weapon, making sure to keep the mag lest someone pick it up and reverse engineer a bullet feed system.

“Wait… you can aim clearly, while drunk or with a killer head ache?” Typhon’s voice was incredulous even as the Warden shouted out in anger.

“Of course I can! Oh sure, they have random proficiency tests every week for guards and even the Warden has to go through them, and it just so happens that every time the test happens, it would be the exact day after I drown my sorrows about how depressing my life is! So of course I can shoot while drunk! If I couldn’t I wouldn’t have a job!” Once more, with feeling…

The Warden is a sad guy.

“Man, I feel for you… nah, not really. I constantly feel a bit fuzzy, so I can’t remember how ‘not drunk’ feels.” Satyr admitted, actually disliking his powers at that point, but knowing he couldn’t do anything about it, he just accepted it.

Really, if having Typhon use Stabilization on him couldn’t fix it, then he’d probably never fix it.

“Oh, so you understand… I don’t care, you pissed on me!” The warden growled as he removed a grenade, and with obscure knowledge of bouncing grenades, tossed.

The grenade, aimed at the building Typhon sat on, bounced off the wall and miraculously landed just a bit away from Satyr, who had heard the pin being removed.

Like anyone who recognized that sound, Satyr bolted. Satyr wasn’t someone born in Tartarus after all, even if he was an ambiguous age older than even Minotaur.

Don’t hate man, if you’re young at heart, you can be any age you want. Besides, if you were constantly at that state of nearly drunk, would you care how old you are?

The grenade went off, taking out a section of the roof, allowing some shrapnel to hit Satyr as the Warden cursed the fact that he hadn’t brought any of his more special grenades, and instead just brought older fragmentation ones.

Typhon managed to shield himself easily, just stretching his arms forward and willing his Nano-bots into shape, cursing his own inexperience with the weapons.

Despite their flexibility in use, Typhon wasn’t an expert with his Nano-bots… it required a large amount of brain power to think of how he wanted them to move, and then he had to maintain the image or else they would naturally form back into their cuff and anklet forms.

He really wondered how his father used them, or if his father was even good at using them… who knows how he used them.

“You know what, screw this, I’m going home, I’m not dealing with any assassinations with piss in my hair, and I’m not fighting past someone with bright orange hair.” The Warden voiced out as Typhon raised an eyebrow, internally trying to hide his rage at his new hair colour, shouting out in question.

“You’re leaving? What if we don’t let you?” Typhon asked as the Warden shouted, heading away from the ‘coliseum’ that Aaron was heading towards.

“You won’t attack me, not when me leaving is exactly what you want.” The Warden had a point, making Typhon scowl as they followed until the Warden got into a stashed away car, said car being a simple Toyota.

“Huh… guess he really is leaving… hey Satyr, next time he comes around, piss on him.” Satyr just grinned, and Typhon decided that even with his disgusting behaviour, at least it got them out of trouble this time.

“Really though… Aaron better hurry, I’m already tired of this place…” Typhon voiced out his annoyance as he looked to the direction Aaron had walked in.

“Aaron, aren’t you supposed to be hurrying?” Medusa asked Aaron who was calmly walking with Medusa, leaving behind Empusa who had broken into a house to look for clothes… what, she had turned into a snake, reminder, her clothes didn’t follow her.

It was why she so rarely fully changed into an animal these days, as while that was the easiest forms for her to take, it also dealt the most damage to her wardrobe… ah, the faults of being able to transform in real life as opposed to media.

“Medusa, why would I hurry? The only ways I can think of to stop the Warden from attacking his target is for him to be disadvantaged heavily, like running out of ammunition, being too close to a target capable of killing him.” Medusa nodded in agreement.

After all, she had almost been a victim of said assassination skills before.

“I can’t really think of something other than that, though if there was something, it would probably be outlandish knowing our luck.”

If only Aaron knew how true that was… and he would, later when he heard the story, Aaron would burst out in laughter, dubbing Satyr’s piss as a secret weapon.

But that’s for later.

Meanwhile, back at the house they had commandeered, Cyclops was finding himself freaked out by the thought processes of the children in the book he was listening to, especially considering they just killed one of their own.

Echidna, however just read on as if nothing had changed about her book… it would be this that would hint to Cyclops that Echidna in fact had a morbid sense of humour, but he was too busy wondering about another thing…

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Echidna said as Cyclops shrugged, going back to his position of lying on the couch.