“Okay, I’m a bit lost on how this place works, where are we going now?” Cyclops asked as he stepped into the questionable vehicle…

A van, spray painted eye burning lime green, with bits of orange around… it honestly looked like someone vomited on it and that was the colour scheme.

Asking about the colour just got the response of ‘it’s tradition’ or something like that from Manticore. Cyclops didn’t really want to know where a tradition of horribly coloured cars came from, but Dryad was willing to answer before he had even asked the question.

“The van’s vomit colour is ‘cause boss Odysseus likes messing with people, he had a big manly car painted pink and a floating bus that’s currently a really eye-catching orange, I love it!” Dryad said from the space in the back of the van, where Cyclops was surprised to find a whole lot of wiring attached and a few screens.

“Ah, Dryad is a kind of savant with technology, it kind of has to do with her ability as a Chained.” Cyclops nodded a bit, having heard about these abilities the day before.

Cyclops could access his own ability easily by thinking about it, but it was essentially the creation of any vehicle, even beyond what would normally be understandable…

At least, if what Cyclops was reading off of the blueprints in his head was correct, and given that the previous Cyclops actually did quite a bit of these weird things…

“Uh, still curious on where are we going?” Cyclops reminded as he sat down next to Manticore after a moment, taking careful care to ignore Dryad’s very erotic state of dress.

She wore short clothes…

“Right, right, we’re heading towards Area Eleven, which is next to this one, the Pantheon is based there, though we’re also quite accepted in a few other Areas. Odysseus wants to meet you after all.” Cyclops still wasn’t sure how to take the information given to him.

The apparent ‘Legend of Odysseus’ was something most in Tartarus would know by now if one were to believe Manticore and Dryad.

Cyclops couldn’t say he believed in them just yet, but he was aware that the story probably wasn’t entirely embellished, and even if it were, Cyclops couldn’t be sure what was so amazing about the achievements.

If you were told someone landed on the moon, but didn’t know what the moon was, well, obviously the achievement wouldn’t mean that much to you as you would be ignorant on its importance.

To summarize the important bits:

Odysseus entered Tartarus due to being framed for murder, and was almost killed/forcibly recruited into a gang on his first day in Tartarus… sounds kind of similar to Cyclops except that Cyclops only recalled being brought to Tartarus for hotwiring a… few cars.

While escaping said gang Odysseus stumbled across Typhon, King of Monsters, and made a deal with the Chained that Odysseus would free him in exchange for Typhon protecting Odysseus.

Shortly after this they were attacked by Empusa, a Chained who commanded all courtesans in the surrounding Areas. Cyclops was warned quite sternly that the term was not whore, or prostitute, but courtesan.

After fending off and recruiting Empusa through a show of force, the trio of normal human and two Chained made their way through Minotaur’s home-made labyrinth, fighting this Chained as well and recruiting the Minotaur into their group.

Then they challenged the original Cyclops to a race, hoping that he would join them if Odysseus won.

During the race, the racers were attacked by the Hydra, which was then fought by Typhon, Empusa and Minotaur.

The result of the race was that Cyclops and the Hydra triplets were now working with Odysseus.

Barely a week after this race the growing Pantheon had their first encounter with the Hunter, a human capable of killing Chained, making him among the most feared beings in Tartarus.

Narrowly escaping, and leaving the Hunter alive for some reason, Odysseus led his crew into a trap laid by the Assassin’s Guild, and Odysseus was then kidnapped by Manticore, Medusa and a Chained named Geist.

Typhon, enraged by the kidnapping of his friend, led an attack to rescue Odysseus, battling Geist and convincing Manticore to switch sides… all while Odysseus persuaded Medusa to join.

Cyclops had paused the story there to express his disbelief on how any one person could be so persuasive, only to be told in no uncertain terms that ‘many compare Odysseus to the devil in that both know what you want and will cut you a deal’.

Following the disastrous kidnapping of Odysseus, the group managed to accidentally encounter Leviathan, head of the Mercenaries in Tartarus, and the Hunter simultaneously, forcing the Pantheon to leave behind Typhon to battle both.

While Typhon and the Hunter were chased by the Biblical monster, Odysseus had been invited to an auction hosted by Sphinx, ruler of the White Collar Crimes Area.

Apparently the residents there were snobbish compulsive liars and just about everyone hated that place except the people who lived there, and a day in that place was pretty similar to a standard dramatic sitcom involving lies, adultery and occasional murder.

It was at this auction that Odysseus and his group did battle with Sphinx and his bodyguard Cerberus, the two Chained battling them under behalf of a man named Lukas Vann.

Apparently, from what Manticore had to say, Odysseus had somehow managed to convince Cerberus and Sphinx to join them after a fight, and instil a seed of doubt against Lukas Vann’s enforcer during the fight.

“I’m sorry but… at this point, it’s starting to sound like this guy gets everything right.” Cyclops admitted, and Manticore shrugged with a nod.

“Admittedly, yes, it seemed like Odysseus never loses… but you come to realize that he doesn’t lose because he has tasted defeat before, and worked to make sure it never happened again.” Manticore looked away for a moment, and even the cheery Dryad had a frown on her face at the mention of Odysseus’ mistakes.

“…Sorry, I guess that makes sense… is there more to the story?” Cyclops asked, the other two Chained in the van practically reviving as they nodded.

“Right, um… continuing from the recruitment of Sphinx and Cerberus…” Manticore began as the van started moving again.

Cyclops continued to be incredulous about the stories of Odysseus and his successes, though now a bit more open to the idea as ‘maybe they really did happen’.

The next ‘chapter’ in his story was that he and his team attacked Lukas Vann’s territory, splitting into three teams and attacking Lukas Vann’s enforcers, with Odysseus confronting Lukas Vann alone, killing the other in what was apparently an anti-climactic moment of stabbing one another.

Manticore reminded that both were normal humans, and that unlike what most would think, dying was an easy activity to partake in.

The sarcasm was powerful, and apparently that was Odysseus’ words verbatim.

And after that was the first loss of Odysseus within Tartarus grounds, ambushed by snipers as well as a massive robotic armour called the Warden, as well as two powerful Lords of Chained like Odysseus, Solomon and Lu Bu, Odysseus’ entire team was already tired and wounded, unable to defend as Odysseus was kidnapped.

Odysseus then underwent the Ascension Process, the method to create Chained and specific beings could become Lords, beings capable of commanding Chained and bending their wills to said Lords.

It went unsaid, but Cyclops’ face paled as he realized that he was being brought to someone who could apparently control him mentally, he would be a slave to the whims of Odysseus…

“He doesn’t do that. What you’re thinking of, he doesn’t do that.” Dryad stated with surety, making Cyclops look at the girl who stopped her typing for a moment to look at Cyclops’ face.

“We, as in the newer Chained, all thought the same thing at some point… my abilities as a Chained barely make me any stronger than a human with power armour, I couldn’t fight back even if I wanted to, but… I was given the freedom to leave the moment I met him.” Dryad sounded different from earlier, a bit more… stern? Confident, sure of herself… she was serious.

Even with having only met the girl the day before, Cyclops was aware now that this was a topic which was given the attention it deserved, instead of being ignored as trivial or treated childishly like she was acting before.

It was so jarring it reminded Cyclops of that saying about judging a book by its cover.

Manticore gave a small smile at Dryad’s words, before focusing back onto the road…

“Uh, why aren’t we being attacked?” Cyclops’ question was valid, despite not growing up in Tartarus like the previous Cyclops, he had heard horror stories of what probably went on inside the prison…

And having grown up in a bad situation, Cyclops was aware that the best way to escape danger was to be discreet, but in their car, not to mention that most people in Tartarus walked to places…

He had never thought he’d end up in prison himself, but shows what he knew… if only he never hotwired that last car…

“No one would dare attack any brightly coloured vehicle… basic white and black, darker colours, those are open game, but cars like our current lime green are universally considered to belong to Odysseus’ faction, the Pantheon.” Remembering the mention of the group of Greek Chained, Cyclops nodded… then realized he would be considered one just based on his name and the symbol on his collar, a Greek omega…

He was now definitely going to respond to the name Cyclops, but remembering that he wasn’t a normal human anymore was a bit difficult.

“But what if someone not related to the Pantheon did that?” Cyclops asked, wondering why blueprints to the van they were in suddenly popped into his head as he looked around the thing…

Huh, cars had a lot of parts…

Also, why was there a blueprint of a tank in his head?

“If someone unrelated to the Pantheon tried to use a brightly coloured car as a vehicle… well, it has happened once or twice… we simply appropriated said vehicles for ourselves once we found out, Odysseus quite likes his collection.” Manticore added, moving onto a road that would head straight out of Area twelve.

That was a scary thing Cyclops has just heard… pretending to be a member of the Pantheon would just result in the actual Pantheon stealing your car and accepting it as a ‘gift’.

That sounded like punishment enough really, having your car stolen just for having it be a certain colour.

Continuing with the story once Manticore could afford to zone out while driving, Cyclops continued to hear the tale of Odysseus.

About a year after being kidnapped to become a Lord, with small skirmishes between the early Pantheon members and Tartarus management laced in between, Odysseus managed to escape before his Ascension process was ‘complete’…

The complete version would apparently result in Odysseus being utterly loyal to the owner of Tartarus as well as insane, so a nearly complete Ascension was better than the alternative.

A bit after escaping, Odysseus found himself in Area four, where he attacked the ruler of the Area, a Chained with necrophilia and a rape fetish named Toy Maker, Odysseus had taken out the Chained just to reveal his return.

With his revealing, Typhon and his sister, Echidna, chased down the wayward and still unstable Odysseus along with Empusa and Medusa, eventually catching Odysseus and ‘fixing him’ somehow.

How that worked, Cyclops wasn’t aware…

“You’re still a new Chained, so it hasn’t kicked in yet, but you’ll feel it soon.” Dryad said in a half sing-song voice, Manticore wincing in sympathy.

“Feel what?” Cyclops asked, seeing another car and another blueprint hitting the forefront of his mind…

Except this time the blueprint seemed to glitch, and a pain unlike any other before struck Cyclops’ skull, acting as if an ice pick was being driven into his brain.

After a moment or two the pain vanished, leaving Cyclops huffing and panting, realizing with a wince that he had been screaming during the pain, and that he had apparently puked.

“There we go… Cybernetic migraines, all Cybernetic Chained like you or I get them.” Dryad said, and her words felt like a sledgehammer into Cyclops’ soul… in other words it hurt a lot.

“Yeah… that feeling right there, it’s a sort of disconnect between your brain and your cybernetics, the robotic parts basically. Even if your cybernetic enhancements are entirely physical it leads to pain in the skull and bouts of insanity…” Dryad warned, and Cyclops finally started to feel better, having broken out into an instant sweat.

“Funny thing about the insanity thing is that all Cybernetic Chained have their own ways of dealing with it… the original Cyclops drank, and Baal became a hermit.” Manticore added.

“And Dryad ended up shutting down Area nine a few times to clear off steam… and other ways.” Manticore looked to Dryad with a disapproving look as Dryad frowned at the older Chained.

“Well sorry if pleasure makes me relaxed… besides, at least I don’t sleep around.” Cyclops just stared at the woman for a moment before realizing that yes, Dryad was a grown woman and that was her choice.

Cyclops wasn’t a stranger to the idea of sex, it was just that… well, he was shy, and he wasn’t really holding out any hope of getting laid before he got arrested…

Getting laid in prison was a bit… some old stories of same sex prisons still went around and Cyclops was pretty sure he was attracted to women.

“I understand Dryad, I get it, but… you and Satyr are quite loud. And you sometimes forget to lock the door of wherever you two end up. Not to mention the age gap…” Manticore shivered at that while Cyclops had to wonder if this part was something he wasn’t supposed to be listening to…

He felt awkward, so he was guessing that no, he wasn’t supposed to be hearing this.

“Okay, yeah, that’s our fault, sorry. And as to the age gap, we age really slowly anyway, so in a few decades we might look the same, the gap is never really going to get smaller and he looks just a bit older than me.” Dryad reminded Manticore and these words had Cyclops looking between the two with worry.

“Sorry, wait, wait a moment… first, damn that hurt. Second, explain why I get these again and why it hurt so much… and third, what was that about slow aging?” Cyclops asked, getting a moment where Manticore looked away from the road to look back to the two before turning back to the road.

“Sorry about ignoring you for a bit Cyclops, it’s usually best to give Cybernetic Chained their space while that’s happening… anyway, to answer your questions in reverse order, all Chained age slowly, some don’t even seem to age at all once reaching their physical peak.” Manticore added, gesturing towards himself, and indeed Manticore looked like a man in his late twenties or early thirties.

“As for why you get those sharp pains in your skull, well, as Dryad mentioned, that is caused by your robotic parts not quite connecting properly to your fleshy bits, to quote Odysseus. Using a simile, it’s like you’re a car given an engine upgrade but you are not converting that power correctly, you’re wasting energy, said wasted energy results in bad things, like your migraines.” Strangely enough Cyclops found himself perfectly following along to that example.

Sure, he liked cars, what boy didn’t, but he wasn’t supposed to immediately come up with a few ways to fix whatever efficiency problem said car might be suffering from…

Why did one of those efficiency boosters happen to involve taking parts from a toaster?

Regardless of the fringe-science involved in the minds of Cyber Chained and the creation of Chained in general, Cyclops got the idea; pain was going to be normal from now on.

“And finally, yes, I assume it hurts, I wouldn’t know as a Biological Chained myself, but from what I’ve been told, you’re lucky your first spike was that calm. You’ll just have to deal with it or drink to numb the pain until we get to Odysseus and his top enforcers.” Who said enforcers were was kind of obvious at this point from having listened to the stories.

From what Cyclops had heard and understood, all Greek Chained were welcome, but the original members were more trusted, and even of those original members, the only ones who could be considered ‘top enforcers’ were Echidna, Medusa, Empusa and Typhon.

The other members were all appreciated and treated fairly, but those five (once Odysseus was included) were the highest echelon of the Pantheon. And apparently they could solve Cyclops’ extreme pain.

How splendid, even if Cyclops was suspicious on whether or not Odysseus was controlling his fellow Chained without them knowing, they wouldn’t know, and he needed to get rid of the chance of that pain spiking up again.

Cyclops hadn’t gotten into many fights growing up, knowing when to run when things got a bit dangerous, but he was well versed in getting hurt when it did happen.

The pain from the Cybernetic-migraine was to the point that his previous losses in fights felt tame in regards to pain felt. It felt more like someone shoving a hot poker through the skull.

So he’d need to get rid of that pain. To do so would require going to the man who might brainwash him.

Splendid.

The story continued a bit after Cyclops had nodded, understanding now that Echidna and Typhon were the two who ‘fixed’ Odysseus much like Cyclops now needed to be ‘fixed’.

It was odd being called ‘broken’ in a round-about way.

After being ‘fixed’ by Typhon and Echidna, Odysseus decided to go recruit more followers while evading detection from Tartarus management.

Interestingly enough, they apparently did this by having the other members of the Pantheon (or Key, as they were back then) being very visible and conspicuous in other places within Tartarus, occasionally getting attention and keeping it off of Odysseus who would have normally been with his followers.

While they distracted Tartarus management away from Odysseus, Odysseus travelled through the Areas he had strayed away from during his last bit of traveling around Tartarus, starting at Area four, moving to five, skipping through to eight and nine before moving towards twelve, recruiting at least one Chained at each place with the exception of Area four.

And even that was debateable considering Odysseus was now a Lord, so… technically they got a Chained in Area four?

In Area five Odysseus had managed to recruit Satyr, the aforementioned Chained that was much older than Dryad yet in a very… vigorous relationship with each other, also having Empusa kill another Chained named Leraje while they were there.

Then in Area eight Odysseus had fought the Nemean Lion and defeated her, bringing her into the fold, though there was apparently more to that situation that Manticore stated.

Finally in Area nine Odysseus had gotten an invitation to join the Assassin’s Guild and instead reverse recruited their leader while facing against the two Lords working for Tartarus management.

Cyclops noted that Solomon and Lu Bu also happened to be the names of the leaders of the other groups of the Key.

Cyclops could see where this was going, given Aaron’s ability to make ‘friends’ with everyone in the most vicious way possible without including threats and blackmailing…

Though he did end up blackmailing Solomon into joining apparently, by feeding her ‘forbidden’ information and knowing that she’d die for it unless she had protection.

Bit of a side note, but Cyclops was wondering as to why Solomon was a girl, but that apparently wasn’t the weirdest thing about the Chained when it came to names.

Then they ended up in Area twelve where a huge battle went down between the Pantheon, the rulers of Area twelve, one of which was brainwashed into attacking his fellow ruler, and Tartarus management.

The result of the fight was that both sides lost someone, with Tartarus management no longer having a known warden, and the Key losing the original Cerberus and the original Cyclops.

And it had been a year since that fight, making it about two to three years since Odysseus entered the prison…

“That’s an impressive list of achievements for someone to do in three years, given how crazy these incidents apparently were.” Cyclops noted almost clinically.

Dryad who was still busy with her computers gave an indignant snort at the statement.

“That’s an understatement, boss Odysseus is basically a legend in Tartarus at this point, and even random humans on the street know who he is.” Dryad had a bit of hero worship for the guy…

Cyclops wasn’t sure on the why, but he certainly recognized the emotion on Dryad’s face as admiration while she looked at some odd schematic on her computer screen.

From what little Cyclops could see, it looked like… a metallic tree? Whatever, it wasn’t a car so it wasn’t really as important as the blueprints in Cyclops’ own head.

“Yes, Odysseus is amazing, but he’d be annoyed with you pretty quickly if you acted like that around him. He doesn’t like acknowledging all the things he’s done unless it’s to annoy someone.” Manticore admitted with a shrug as Dryad smiled…

Cyclops still wasn’t sure if the two were really brainwashed or not without realizing it, but if they weren’t, the picture they were painting of this Odysseus seemed to be a nice one.

“Ah, we got a message from big sis Medusa. Apparently boss Odysseus got the message about Cyclops here, and the boss wants us to stop by all the junior Pantheon members to tell them about a party.” Manticore blinked at that, slowing the van down to a stop so he could turn back and look at the younger Chained.

“The junior Pantheon members? Well, I don’t really want to deal with all of you… but they didn’t say we had to travel with them, right?” Manticore asked for clarification as Dryad typed out the question.

“No, we don’t need to travel with them, though big sis Medusa is strongly implying that we should. She said it’s okay if we get one of the hover-busses for this.” Dryad sounded excited and Cyclops was left a bit quiet as the two more knowledgeable people in the car spoke to each other.

“That ‘strong implication’ is a ‘do it or I will make your life miserable’. I don’t feel like learning how she would do that to me, even if Odysseus didn’t give such an order himself.” Manticore sighed, leaving Cyclops to motion out his confusion without speaking.

“Oh, right, you’d be considered a junior Pantheon member too if you wanted to join. You don’t need to, even if the party is for you.” Manticore added as Dryad spoke out.

“Though it would be fun if you did, we have a lot of fun when we’re together, the Chimera triplets are hilarious, Siren has a beautiful singing voice when she isn’t trying to burst ear-drums and Harpy can be edgy, but she’s really sweet.” The burst of information just had Cyclops blink and response with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, and Cerberus, can’t forget him, he’s kind of like you, being the ‘second generation’ of one of the original members of the Pantheon, I bet he could talk to you about that.” Dryad added, softening the apprehension that Cyclops could feel building up at the idea of interacting with all these people he doesn’t know.

“The only issue I have with you junior members is that unless one of the top echelon is around you all have a habit of doing chaotic things around one another.” Manticore added with a sigh.

Had either of the two younger Chained been aware of what it was like when the original members of the Pantheon were together, they’d both call the man a hypocrite.

Unfortunately the two had never seen all the members of the original Pantheon together, so they were just left to nod with the understanding that Manticore didn’t want to babysit destructive teens.

“Don’t worry mister Manticore, we’re awesome, unless someone scary like the Hunter comes around, we’ll be okay, right?” Dryad’s words got a shiver from the Chained sitting in the driver’s seat.

“That’s just reinforcing that you weren’t around when Odysseus travelled more often… we’d all hurt you for spitting in Murphy’s face.” The younger Chained in the car didn’t quite understand the reference but instead shrugged as Manticore shook his head.

“Dryad, pull up the database, check where each of your friends are. Odysseus should be in either Area seven or Area one, but the party will be held in Area eleven like usual.” Manticore added, and Dryad’s fingers blurred over the keyboard.

“Got it, the Chimera is in Area three, Harpy in Area two and Siren is around Area seven… why is she there… never mind, anyway, Cerberus is in Area eight training with Miss Nemea.” Dryad said, leaving Cyclops to look to Manticore in question.

In response, the older Chained just nodded with a smile in the rear-view mirror, turning the wheel of the van, changing their direction.

“Let’s go on a journey.” Cyclops felt the need to get out of the van instantly for some reason.