“Man, it’s good to see you all again.” Aaron’s words were said with a small smile and a cup of tea in his hands as he looked on at the other members of the Key that he had not seen in over a year.

“It’s good to see you too, Devil.” Sphinx said easily as he sipped at his own drink, a strawberry sunrise with a swirly straw for some reason.

“I still think it’s weird to call someone that.” Satyr said from his position a few metres away… then again; he was also mostly incapacitated from his month of debauchery in Area nine.

See; let’s recap a bit, because there was quite a bit going on in the background without Aaron being there to see it.

For one, when he sent off the rest of their group, he had given them different jobs, for Satyr in particular, he was just to party as hard as possible with as many people as he could in Area nine to show where their group was and distract the normal people.

Manticore was to follow him and make sure that he didn’t get hurt or die during his mission, while at the same time gathering information about the rest of Tartarus as Area nine had the most information in Tartarus on the rest of the place.

As for Typhon and Empusa, those two were to, overtime, plant explosives all over the building where he estimated the Assassins Guild to be operating out of, and Aaron’s guess was right.

“How the hell could you have known that I’d be attacking you though?” Solomon asked once she heard this, and Aaron just shrugged in response.

“I honestly expected Charon to attack us and the explosives to be a distraction to escape… a building falling on you would kill most Chained, but that’s only if the Chained isn’t escaping.” That was the other thing, explaining to Solomon that the ‘Ascended’ referred to each other as Chained.

It said a lot about Tartarus and how they treated their super soldiers if they considered themselves to be ‘Chained’.

“Wait, so the explosives being used against me… that was just happenstance?” Solomon asked from her position a few metres away while drinking some coffee.

Alcohol was the enemy.

“Yes. If you had waited outside to attack me it would have actually been harder to capture you. Don’t you know that saying? You have not trapped me with you; you have trapped yourself with me.” It sounded redundant, and idiotic, but its meaning was clear with context.

Aaron liked saying nonsensical things that made sense to only a select few at the time.

“Well… that’s irritating.” Solomon said sipping as she looked out to the rest of the Key.

Typhon was busy sparring with Minotaur, Nemean Lion and Cerberus at the same time, somehow surviving in the fight while on the other side Echidna was fighting Medusa and Empusa, and Manticore was sparring against the triplets.

Satyr loved those three. They were hilarious, and instantly looked to him as a fellow prankster, a troublemaker.

The four of them were nigh inseparable at times, though notably Zwei was not attracted to Satyr in a romantic sense at least… in fact, she had hinted that she was a batter for the other team.

She blamed her brothers, as apparently spending a few years fused together got her to start thinking of women as beautiful and attractive.

She just shrugged and accepted that it happened, pointless to complain at this point.

No one felt the need to discriminate against her for it, they were in Tartarus, and while they had luckily stayed away from some of the more disturbing acts and places of the prison, it was still a place of disgusting behaviour.

There were millions of things more disturbing than liking the same sex, and getting grossed out or angry over it was stupid when something else could come along and try and kill you.

That didn’t even include the fact that there was another person in their group that was homosexual, but no one really let that bother them.

“Quick question… we’re heading to Area twelve?” Aaron looked over to Cyclops and nodded, making the man huff even as he patted the side of his double decker bus… everyone missed the hover-tech vehicle, it nigh iconic to the Key.

“I don’t like that place. It’s messed up.” Cyclops stated as he left, going to work on the bus as Solomon looked to Aaron for an explanation.

“Area twelve is the Chained sector as far as we’re concerned. And the Chained… well, Satyr or Charon could explain it better than I could.” Aaron complained as Charon walked over, dusting off his suit, despite the fact that there was no dirt, nor blood despite how badly he had beaten the people who got too near the bus.

“I heard everything. When the first Chained began to appear, humans didn’t know what to make of them, they referred to us as monsters and freaks… and well, that was a mistake.” He said simply and Solomon got the idea.

A kitten should not bully the sleeping tiger.

“The first few Chained fought back, Satyr and I included though I do not recall seeing him at the time.” Charon raised an eyebrow in Satyr’s direction making the man that looked like a teen scoff.

“I’m not a fighter man; I’m more of a love and peace guy.” As he raised his hands in a standard peace sign, Aaron immediately appeared at his side as their arms slung over each other.

“Love and peace! Love and peace!” the two repeated in an obnoxious voice, making everyone wait until they were done… clearly they were making a reference to something, and while normally only Medusa caught them, Satyr was old enough to get some of them… or make some, as seen here.

“Oh man, I can’t believe you never told me you watched that show!” Aaron cheered and Satyr held his hands out like a pistol.

“Of course I did, the humanoid typhoon is my inspiration man! Though I’ve never found a red coat like his…” Satyr seemed depressed, at this and Charon turned to Solomon, trying to ignore what just happened, knowing of the eccentric behaviour of the two.

“Anyway, the Chained fought back and well, losing would have been shameful, the only human capable of fighting back at the time was the first Hunter, and he led a crusade against us for killing humans after they attacked us first.” Charon sighed, looking way too tired before he looked out into the distance to the walls of Tartarus, visible from almost anywhere in the place.

“At some point, we had managed to control all the humans in Area twelve at least, some moving out of the area to attack others, while most stayed there. The result in the end was that Area twelve became ruled by Chained and Chained alone.” Charon looked to Solomon, judging her expression with his own blank stare.

“And as for the normal humans, they are essentially cattle and slaves in Area twelve, the Chained who commit to cannibalism eat them, the others use them as slaves.” Everyone but those sparring was pausing to listen now, and even they were slowing down enough to focus on the conversation as they fought.

“It’s difficult to notice, given that Chained are above humans in this entire place, but each Area is horrible… every single one. Some like Area one, are just better at hiding it.” Of course no one heard anything truly bad of Area twelve until now…

No human was allowed to leave and most Chained either never returned or spoke of it as paradise.

“And you? You led assassins across Tartarus for almost fifty years, what does that make you?” Solomon asked, just wanting to push the buttons of the normally stoic man as Charon just blinked at her question.

“I think it makes me honest. I’m a horrible person going by morals, but I don’t care. I am who I am, and at least I’m honest to anyone when it comes to that. Many in this place can’t even be honest about themselves.” Charon admitted, and Aaron looked away at that sentence.

Cyclops placed a hand on their leader’s shoulder, knowing that Aaron needed some time alone after hearing what he just heard.

He needed the time because it struck a chord with him. That line got to him somehow, and he needed to think it over, so Cyclops brought him along under the excuse of needing an extra pair of hands for the bus.

Charon watched them walk away with a singular raised eyebrow.

Unfortunate as it was, the Key possessed two members who did not want to be with them, or to be more accurate, they were only temporary members, namely Solomon and Charon.

Charon was only with them because doing so would give him the greatest chance of becoming free. He’d take orders but he was in the fight for him and him alone.

As for Solomon, she was with because she both owed Aaron for getting Typhon and Echidna to ‘fix’ her, and because Aaron dragged her into the trouble he was a part of.

If she didn’t help him, she’d die, simple as that.

It was… bad, kind of. The rest of the Key weren’t blind to those two and how they interacted with the rest of them, and it grated on their nerves quite a bit, hence why most of them were sparring right now.

It couldn’t be helped though, the Key needed all the assistance they could get when it came to their mission, and Charon’s network of assassin’s were extremely helpful, not to mention that Solomon was actually necessary for their escape to be possible.

It was an hour later that they left their resting place near the edge of Area eleven to head for Area twelve, everyone fitting into the bus while Empusa drove it…

She really did end up becoming their driver it seems, despite Aaron being better at it than her.

“So is there anything we need to look out for while we’re in Area twelve?” Aaron asked Medusa who considered the question for a moment.

“Well, the United Chained obviously, they have the largest collection of Chained out of the whole of Tartarus, as well as the two largest Chained in existence.” Aaron knew who she was talking about and just nodded in agreement.

“Behemoth and Jormungand. Those two are pretty equal in size to Leviathan right? Speaking of which, how the hell did their bodies mutate to such a size?” Aaron asked aloud as Solomon climbed up to the second floor of the bus.

“Oh that has to do with how they Ascended. Given the errors you informed me of; their bodies were altered so that they grew from eating up until a certain point. The ‘growth’ would occur starting from outside their skin, creating a massive shell around the human body.” That got a wide eyed look from Aaron.

“So they’re Ti-” before he could finish his statement he got slapped by Medusa on the back of his head, preventing him from making such a blatant reference…

Huh… the main character of that series had the surname Jaeger… no wonder Aaron knew what it meant.

“Hey, stop interrupting my references. Copyright or not, at least I wasn’t using the name of the series!” he complained as Medusa just looked into the distance, not wanting to deal with Aaron while he was acting so silly… unless she joined him in it, but she didn’t feel for that right now.

“Whatever your conversation was about, basically their bodies are shells that send sensory information to their bodies which act as the cores of beings bigger than a standard human being.” That explained a lot, such as when Minotaur was Stabilized by Typhon and his larger ‘man-bull’ form was left behind.

The horns were used to make Mino’s new axes by the way, he used two tomahawks.

“That explains a bit I guess… so we just need to watch out for Jormungand and Behemoth while also remembering that the most Chained in Tartarus live here.” He nodded, seemingly satisfied with his statements as they entered Area twelve.

It was around this time that they began to notice what Charon meant when he said that Area twelve was not for humans…

Normal people were walking around, but they all carried something or other, basically gofers for the Chained as they ran around, the Chained much more visible than in other areas as they were waited upon by the normal humans…

It was… horrible, to Aaron, who clenched his fists upon seeing the things they were doing around the Area.

Some of the Key just looked and continued on, others disliked what was happening, but no one honestly enjoyed the treatment of normal humans here…

It was another thing that Aaron would destroy along with Tartarus in his opinion.

Obviously their bus attracted attention, but given the amount of Chained could be seen atop it, none of the others seemed interested in bothering them, likely knowing how temperamental most Chained were from their own personalities.

It was not to be until they got to where they wanted to be though, as a Chained finally appeared to try and stop their bus.

“Stop right there! My name is Amon, and you all look a bit new here!” Aaron blinked as he looked at the beast in front of them, before looking at the other people in the bus.

“Hey… it isn’t possible to Ascend an animal right?” Aaron ignored the alliteration in his sentence as Solomon shook her head.

“No, that’s just how Amon comes out… really, that should have hinted that something was wrong with the Ascension process.” Solomon admitted as they looked at the animal/Chained.

Amon appeared as a wolf with a serpent tail in Solomon’s Lesser Key, or the Ars Goetia. That was pretty much how the being in front of them appeared, except its tail was covered with what looked to be sharp scales instead of fur.

“Hey, don’t ignore me!” The wolf screamed as Nemea jumped off of the bus, walking up to the dog while cracking her fists.

“Well… it’s been a while since I’ve been in Area twelve, and just because of that some people think they can push me around? Now that’s just not right…” Nemea said as she gave an eerie smile to the wolf… that recognized her apparently.

“Ah, miss Nemean Lion! I’m so sorry, I was not aware you were travelling with them, forgive me.” the wolf instantly dropped to the floor, making most watching wonder how Nemea knew the wolf.

“Ah, Amon, I’ll forgive you, sure, but only if you get us to where we want to go. See, we got to talk to a few people.” She said as the wolf stood and nodded much like a human would.

Granted, he had a human mind, but Amon still registered as an animal to them.

“Sure, right away… or so I’d like to say, but I wasn’t being very honest just now.” Amon admitted, his previously wide eyes narrowing slightly as Aaron stared, wondering why the wolf appearance, but human vocal cords.

“Oh, so you aren’t going to take us to who we want to see?” Nemea asked, cracking her fists again, getting a shake of the head from the ‘subservient’ wolf Chained.

“I’m afraid not miss Nemean Lion. I’m not alone, and well…” Amon’s statement got a few more Chained to appear, a total of ten counting the wolf as they gathered around the bus.

“You see, we’re kind of being forced here. It’s nothing personal, it’s just… between the person who gave us orders to fetch you, and you, I’m afraid he’s scarier.” Amon’s words got the other Chained to inch forward, most were Cybernetic…

Actually… there was a Faction of Chained that possessed mostly Cybernetic Chained, and Aaron recalled this as he turned and looked to the other Lord on the bus.

“Solomon, could you try using Imperial Privilege on them? Since they’re all part of the Ars Goetia, they should listen to you at least?” Aaron’s question got Solomon to sigh and then stand, walking closer to the edge of the bus, allowing Amon and the others to see her.

“Kneel.” Solomon’s words cut through whatever else the Chained were attempting to do, and they felt their bodies moving against their consent as their heads were all pressed into the ground a moment after her words.

“Wow that is scary… I can do that? I don’t think I’d feel comfortable doing that.” Aaron spoke from behind Solomon as he looked at the sight, any observers now scrambling away from the ‘mind-control’ Chained that was Solomon.

“At least I didn’t take away their personalities or change them. How did you know they were all part of the Lesser Key?” Solomon asked as she looked at back at Aaron who shrugged.

“In all honesty I didn’t. But so far every Ars Goetia Chained I’ve encountered or heard of was a Cybernetic Chained, with that Amon and those two being outliers.” Aaron said and indeed…

There were two other Biological Chained there, but out of ten only three were Biological, the rest were all Cybernetic, and Aaron heard enough about them to figure this out.

The Chinese Chained were the opposite, focusing more on Biological Chained than Cybernetic, and the Greek Chained had some form of balance.

“Who… who are you?” Amon managed to growl out as Solomon and five others stepped off of the bus.

Namely the five were Minotaur, Cerberus and the triplets, who all had not seen Aaron for over a year, and also hadn’t encountered many Chained in that time.

Sure, the triplets weren’t exactly combatants, but they fought when necessary and if they felt like it.

“I am Solomon, Lord of the Ars Goetia, which you happen to be a part of. Tell me who sent you to attack us?” Solomon asked, making Amon grunt out in pain as he attempted to resist her will…

That was something impossible when they were programmed to be obedient to the one who was Solomon.

“No one… asked you to be attacked.” Amon admitted, making Solomon raise an eyebrow, turning at the sound of an impact, seeing Aaron crouching after jumping off of the bus.

“You asked the wrong question, didn’t he say it himself, that he was ordered by someone to take us to him?” Aaron asked as Solomon nodded.

Evasive answering, so if one didn’t ask the exact question, one could lie about the answer.

“Who ordered you to fetch us?” Solomon asked, annoyed with being near Aaron…

The other people in his group were alright, she found she liked talking to Echidna and Mino, at least when Nemea wasn’t flirting with the man…

Sad as it was, Mino seemed to not get what Nemea was interested in, or if he did he was pretending to not know.

But Aaron was someone Solomon was sure she would never trust nor agree with ever.

“It was…. It was Lord Baal.” That got wide eyes from the majority of the group, with the exception of Solomon who was not aware of the nature of Baal.

“Ah… Baal… a Cybernetic Ascended with the ability to use electricity as a weapon, he’s an Original much like Charon and Satyr. Why has he asked for you to bring us to him?” Solomon asked, giving Aaron a look saying that he would explain the significance of Baal later on.

“He… he wants to meet Odysseus. He… he wants to know what Odysseus is planning.” Aaron frowned at the mention of his ‘Lord’ name but nodded, knowing that Charon had a similar reason for calling him out before.

It was understandable really, the powers of the prison were already established, and now he appeared, a new player of the game, and they wanted to know what he was doing.

Was he an enemy, was he a friend, was he neutral, could he be taken advantage of, was it disadvantageous to know him, it was similar to political jousting and Aaron knew of the idea, if only from reading and studying history.

“Very well. Odysseus, are you willing to meet Baal? I’ll admit I’m curious as to how the Principle King of Hell is doing.” Solomon asked, and Aaron sighed, knowing that regardless of his answer, Solomon would go look for Baal in the hopes of consolidating her forces.

He didn’t blame her, she was still practically a hostage seeing as she was surrounded by Greek Chained who she could not control, all of whom followed Aaron’s orders, willingly (most of the group) or not (Charon) they were not trustworthy to Solomon.

She wanted people who wouldn’t pick Aaron over her, and he didn’t blame her, instead opting to go with her suggestion.

He could toss a thousand olive branches, and she would burn them all for firewood, but at least he was trying to make up for giving her a target on her back.

“Sure, I was always planning on meeting him eventually, though I suppose this just pushes it forward on my schedule.” Aaron replied as Aaron walked up to the bus, motioning to Empusa.

“Empusa, I want you with us, and Typhon, you’ll be our representative, go meet Behemoth and Jormungand. And please, everyone watch out for him.” Typhon scowled…

Everyone agreed, Typhon was quiet until necessary, and when he spoke he rarely cared for the opinions of others, very few got him to care, including his sister, Aaron, and Empusa.

…Medusa too, by association to Aaron at times.

With that, the bus left, leaving Aaron with five of the Key, following Solomon and her newfound eleven Chained followers.

To be precise, they were: Amon, Samigina, Barbatos, Gusion, Sitri, Botis, Purson, Ipos, Neberius, and Gaap.

Aaron wisely kept away from the last one, fearing that the slightly muscled Cybernetic Chained could possibly toss cannonballs. Maybe he was even narcoleptic?

Uncaring for whatever he was doing staying away from one particular Chained, Solomon commanded they be taken to Baal.

Meanwhile with Typhon and the others, Cyclops elected to drive, going for where he knew Behemoth and Jormungand to be resting…

Melbourne Cricket Grounds was really the only place they felt comfortable in, having destroyed a section of it to allow them a ‘door’ out of the place.

Melbourne was the major place to be in Area twelve because Area twelve’s rulers lived there.

At one point, Leviathan would have been allowed to rule alongside them, but he also would have refused out of principle.

Leviathan worked for himself, and unless they were paying him, he wouldn’t work for others.

Luckily the Key entered Area twelve from the ‘border’ closest to Melbourne, so they were already inside the left overs of the place when Aaron and the others got called to visit Baal.

They managed to go unimpeded to the Stadium because of multiple reasons, one being that they had hover tech, another being that all of the passengers were notably Chained, and for the final reason…

They were heading to the stadium. If the people in the floating bus were here to cause trouble they’d probably die before doing anything if their destination was the stadium… and no one caused trouble to those visiting the leaders of the United Chained.

“So any warnings quickly before we meet these guys?” Echidna asked, getting Typhon’s attention as he listened in, a bit too prideful to ask himself, but not prideful enough to ignore the advice.

“The two are the largest Chained in existence, and probably Originals like Charon and Satyr here. Unlike most other Chained, they don’t seem to have an ability… most likely, their size is considered an ability on its own.” Manticore admitted, having been information gathering the entire time they were in Area nine.

“Okay, so how big are we talking here? I could lay on Leviathan’s head comfortably before, so are they bigger than he was?” Typhon asked, and no one dared to point out that he was short so that wasn’t saying as much as he thought it did.

“Well Leviathan, on all fours was how big?” the number was metaphorical, given that Leviathan looked like he had lobster claws for forearms and possibly three pairs of alligator legs.

“Well I believe he was about one and a half Mino’s, counting from when he was still huge, so about ten, twelve metres?” Using another being as a measurement was strange, Charon decided.

The weirdness of the entire group seemed pronounced compared to other Chained, and Charon blamed the influence of Odysseus for that.

“Right and he had a length of about six times that. He was huge. Now Behemoth and Jormungand, they’re bigger.” Manticore said making Typhon just stare at him for a moment.

“Behemoth is the bulkier one of the two, he stands on four legs at a height of about twenty or so metres, but he doesn’t have the length Leviathan had, being about sixty metres long.” That sounded terrifying.

“Jormungand is the largest one, but that’s because he’s snake shaped. For him, standing is the same as lying down, and well, he lays at about sixteen metres high, with a length of about one hundred and forty metres?” Again, that sounded terrifying.

Both of them were roughly as large as three storey buildings depending on where you were in the world, and Jormungand had a length of a tenth of a kilometre.

It would take the average person about two or so minutes of walking to get from Jormungand’s tail to his head. That doesn’t sound like a lot, until you realize that’s a living thing we’re talking about, and not a building or road.

“Question, do they eat enough to make up that mass?” Medusa asked, having left Aaron alone with the others so as to be his eyes and ears with Typhon’s group… and because Aaron would want this question answered before they met up again.

“No they don’t, but it seems that their body functions are abnormally efficient. They eat more than normal humans, every Chained does, but they eat the same amount say… three Chained would, despite being large enough to fit more than a dozen inside them.” So their bodies were efficient…

Perhaps the entire body was fat storage for their human cores, and eating was to replenish the fat lost over a period of time? It sounded strange, but then again, this was Tartarus, strange shit was normal…

And there we go, oxymoronic sentence of the day folks.

They pulled up next to the stadium, where Typhon and the others stared at the massive gap into the centre, and they aimed for that place.

Walking for a few minutes, they entered the stadium, and that’s not to say they hadn’t seen the Chained who lived there.

The stadium, possessing an oval shaped field of roughly one hundred and seventy metres by one forty five… it was the only place these two monsters could relax without crashing into buildings or humans.

The first being, Behemoth, possessed scales covering his body, as he stood on all fours, though judging from the structure of his back legs he would be capable of standing up straight as well.

Behemoth was muscled, powerful, the being exuded strength and possessed animalistic eyes that narrowed at the sight of the members of the Key, the horn erupting from his forehead drawing attention while his lips parted, revealing massive fangs.

Jormungand was clearly the other, serpentine and large, he had frills on the side of his head similar to a Gila monster lizard, and its body possessed no limbs, his tail raised behind him as he stared at them, his jaws separating as its massive tongue flickered out, and it just caused more fear.

The human mind was not meant to encounter beasts that large. Even the Blue Whale, the largest naturally occurring creature in the world, was maybe about half the size of Leviathan.

And these beasts were larger than even him.

“We have visitors…” Behemoth’s words echoed across the stadium, and they had no doubt that if they got closer, it would sound unintelligible, so loud one couldn’t comprehend the idea of that being ‘speaking’.

“Indeed we do… sssupossse they want to talk?” Jormungand spoke with a slur due to the rolling of his tongue.

It wasn’t fair to be fast and that huge, but they might have been capable of it.

“Greetings, Jormungand and Behemoth! We are envoys of Odysseus! We have come to talk!” Typhon’s normally soft but powerful voice changed volumes, reaching across to the massive beasts as they continued to walk closer, until they were just about in reach of the beasts.

Now they just had to talk…