There was much murmuring in the room, though Cyclops was not a part of it, Aaron noted.

The newest member of the Pantheon seemed a bit, overwhelmed, with how many Chained were in the room that was an understandable situation.

Four people were seated at a raised table in the centre of the large room, and Aaron was one of them, the other three being Lu Bu, Solomon, and Viktor.

When it came to the Key, the heads of each member group was seated here and within the room were all the important members.

That would be, all the Chained, as well as the more important members of the Eyes of the Hunter.

“Let’s bring this war-room to order.” The use of ‘war-room’ immediately quieted the massive ballroom, no one talking as everyone stopped their discussions and stared to the centre of the room.

Other than the four seated leaders, the only ones on the raised platform were Baal, Typhon, Echidna, Sun Wukong, and Kevin.

For the record, Aaron definitely asked Sun Wukong to try and attempt a Kamehameha, though apparently that wasn’t happening.

The man was hilarious though, and he actually tried before judging that he couldn’t do it, making him alright in Aaron’s book.

“Right, we’ve all heard a bit about it, bits and pieces, rumours floating around about the plan, but it seems that only you three really know what’s going on… or should I say you five?” Viktor kicked things off, the normal humans in the room murmuring a bit at the seeming discrimination against them.

This resulted in the shuffling of some of the Chained as well, only to be stopped by Typhon clapping his hands harshly to silence the room once more.

It helped that Typhon clapped with enough force to mimic a certain angry green hero.

“Now that’s implications that aren’t quite true, as there are only three people who know the full plan, and one of said three is dead, another is me, and the third would be an inanimate object which gave me the plan in the first place.” There was of course, much confusion, though this was not the first such meeting, so no one cared anymore.

Aaron loved saying things that only made sense to him after all.

“So no, no one knows the full plan, no one knows the true extent of my vision bar me.” And there was a moment, a small moment in which Aaron gained a far off stare, his eyes shifting into the electric blue of a Cybernetic Chained before swapping back to normal.

An ability only held by Lords, most likely so that they could better blend into society.

“But, we’ve gathered to share the necessary aspects of the plan to all that need to know it. I’m going to be explaining the roles of everyone, as everyone in this room is necessary for Freedom Day to be a rousing success.” The name brought a smile to many a face within the room.

Freedom, the majority of the Chained within the room fought with that ideal in their hearts…

“Okay, first things first, I’d like to explain the basic idea of how Freedom Day is going to work… does everyone know what’s the first thing to do if your computer stops working?” Majority of people in the room were confused, wondering about the non sequitur, but most arrived at the same thought.

“You switch it off, and switch it back on, right? So the idea for Freedom Day is the same.” Many, many people felt confusion. Confusion was a natural state during such meetings, especially when Aaron was the main speaker… which was about nine out of ten of such meetings.

“We will turn off the entirety of Tartarus, and switch it back on again, taking control of its systems and using this time, destroy its walls.” Again, Aaron was insane and spoke in ways that no one around him could comprehend.

The only thing understood about the entire phrase was…

“Destroy the walls? How the hell…” Viktor, especially as someone born in Tartarus, could not relate Aaron’s words with reality, much in the same way someone before the nineteenth century would respond to being told ‘we’re going to fly’.

What Aaron said was that unbelievable, that even those from outside Tartarus stared at him as if he had been replaced with an alien.

“Alright, alright, clearly I need to explain how Tartarus works before this makes any sense. Let’s start with the layout of Tartarus.” Aaron said, looking to Typhon who nodded, his bracelets lengthening as the Nanobots created the outline of Tartarus, the land which was once Australia.

“Tartarus, as you all know it, is divided into twelve sectors, we don’t need to get into detail on what each sector does, we know what they do already.” Aaron said with a chuckle, standing so as to better look at the map.

“What the majority of you don’t know, is that the reason it was divided into twelve sectors was because each sector houses a Zeta-Generator.” There was of course, much confusion, as more than half of the people in the room were born in Tartarus and so they wouldn’t know about such things.

And even those born outside of Tartarus weren’t likely to know about the existence of Zeta-Generators.

“All you need to know is that a Zeta-Generator is a near permanent self-sustaining power source created by an amazing scientist. Tartarus itself runs on these power sources, and these power sources give us all electricity, and powers the defences of the walls.” More and more people were beginning to understand Aaron’s explanation…

Many were beginning to think that Aaron could have mentioned all of this background information before-hand though.

“In addition to the defences of the walls, the Zeta-Generators also power the Atmosphere Stabilizer which keeps the weather in this place swapping between spring and fall… autumn for the non-NAC members. These Atmosphere Stabilizers are part of the reason why aerial escapes are impossible.” The exact specifics of why it was impossible weren’t really necessary.

Aaron didn’t think most would understand that the same thing that controlled the weather and provided them with clean, breathable air, also controlled air pressure.

Above a certain point, roughly fifty to one hundred metres below the top of the walls, air pressure gets strong enough that it’s essentially a wall, and if that wasn’t deterrence enough, there were a bunch of detection methods to allow an automatic expansion of air in that area, creating a concussive explosion of sorts to knock anything that went that high back down.

Harpy was very hurt testing that out once… and Aaron knew the creators of Tartarus treated flyers much like how the sun treated Icarus.

Fly to close to the sun and get burned.

“So, for the past year, throughout our skirmishes with Management and the injuries and deaths, we’ve managed to figure out the location of all twelve Zeta Generators.” That was the start of the plan securing the power supplies.

Of course the question of why the power supplies were inside the prison could come up, but it was a matter of efficiency, most of the Zeta-Generators were very difficult to access, and roughly at the centre of their areas.

The Zeta-Generators themselves were near perfect, so long as they weren’t compromised they were estimated to be able to continue generating power for upwards of a millennia.

The storage and movement of said power, was not as advanced.

“And, on a very specific day once a year, the Generators are accessible. It’s supposed to be for maintenance, make sure they’re fine, and adjust their output, that kind of thing. But for just one day, we will have access to the beating heart of Tartarus.” Aaron said with a smirk, looking to the Nano-bot sculpture of Tartarus on the meeting table, snapping his fingers and having twelve points appear on said map.

It was obviously Typhon who moved the Nano-bots around, but again, Aaron loved theatrics.

“With said access, we’ll be able to shut down the automatic defences of Tartarus which prevent us from just attacking the walls, or flying above a certain height.” That last bit was especially important to Harpy, who seemed to stand slightly straighter in response to the implication.

“However even if we do this, everything will reset to ‘default’ after twenty four hours, meaning that, whether we like it or not, we only have twenty four hours to complete this prison break.” Aaron warned, letting everyone get the idea.

“Basically, once the day begins, one minute after midnight, we have until one minute before midnight to take this weakness in their system, and pry it open even after they put their guard up again.” Aaron stated, and the idea was there.

“But obviously things won’t be that easy, right? Management has been securing more and more humans to do combat, they still have the Hell-Hounds, not to mention Leviathan.” Viktor carefully did not mention Jaeger, the Hunter.

Jaeger was not someone the Eyes of the Hunter would ever face, rather running in the opposite direction from the man who was once their leader.

“You’re right, things won’t be easy. Obviously Management knows where the Zeta-Generators are situated, and they know when they become vulnerable.” Aaron began with a frown, a hand coming up to cup his chin in thought.

“So first, if there are any guards, we need to disable them and then access the Zeta-Generators. I know for a fact that the head of Management would never place her strongest to guard those places, she’s too prideful.” Aaron noted the truth easily, smart she might be, Gilgamesh was so prideful there were many times she did things inefficiently to play into her pride.

An example of such would be the giving of Aaron the Odysseus Code, making him a Lord and granting him even more power to better defeat her.

Granted, she was trying to brainwash slash torture him into obedience, but the much more efficient thing to have done would have obviously been to kill Aaron the moment he was captured.

Aaron was obviously glad she didn’t kill him, but Gilgamesh was really dumb when it came to her own image and self-worth.

“On the other hand, the moment she is slighted, Gilgamesh will return fire with her full force, especially considering we have routed her once before.” Aaron said that last bit with a smirk and nod to Empusa, who acted as if she needed to clean her teeth.

Cyclops still didn’t know about that part of the story, thankfully.

“Unlike the last time we clashed against her, we now have Lu Bu on our side, as well as many more Chained and even more manpower.” Aaron said, gesturing in turn to Lu Bu and then Viktor, both nodding in agreement.

Lu Bu was the most powerful of the Lords currently active, by Aaron’s ranking of Chained, Lu Bu was either a middle-ranked on the verge of High, or vice versa, not to mention the training he granted to those around him, Lu Bu was one of the greatest gains for their team.

“But we also need to consider that she hadn’t brought any of her own personal Chained along with her last time, with the exception of Leviathan, and later her retrieval of Behemoth.” Jormungand who wasn’t actually at the meeting, but watching it from his place in Area twelve, growled slightly in the knowledge of what happened to his best friend.

“From what intelligence I’ve managed to find, Gilgamesh should have had a really small selection of Chained, though each are powerful in some degree.” Aaron noted, recalling Geist and Toy Maker, both of whom were dead and actually considered part of Gilgamesh’s Chained army.

It also seemed that no one was made into those particular Chained going by the reports of Trojan…

“To state them all, under Gilgamesh’s command, not counting the anomaly Beowulf, there’s Tiamat the ‘Mother of Monsters’, a large-class Bio-Chained.” There were no images of the actual Tiamat, but Tiamat was Gilgamesh’s second-in-command, more trusted than either Beowulf or Leviathan…

Tiamat was, according to Trojan, usually patrolling the outside of Tartarus, to make sure no one attempted to break in.

Aaron found himself glad that he never attempted to actually break into the prison given that he’d have to fight that kind of monster just to get in…

“Other than Tiamat, there are also her ‘children’ according to myth. Obviously they aren’t actually related, but the eleven other Chained are all dangerous as well.” There were a few glances around, obviously no one really knew who these other Chained were.

“But I’ve already managed to figure out where each of them would go when our plan starts, all we need to do is separate them into manageable groups.” Aaron said, pulling out his phone and looking over a note he had written a while back.

“Right… Cyclops, Cerberus, the two of you have Area three, your likely opponent will be Uridimmu, the Mad Hound. He’s a staff using Bio-Chained, physical superiority is his thing, along with releasing a gas which heighten aggression.” Cerberus and Cyclops looked to each other, a nod passing between the two.

Even though they had barely met two weeks ago, it seemed that they were fast friends, or just good work colleagues, Aaron didn’t really know, despite being barely a year or two older than them.

“Baal, with Solomon’s permission of course, I’d place you at Area four facing against Umu Dabrutu, the violent storm… obviously with the enemy being a Cybernetic-Chained using lightning slash plasma, I’d rather put someone resistant to the stuff against him.” Baal glanced to Solomon with a raised eyebrow, leaving the Wise King to roll her eyes, a form of agreement.

Even if Solomon had to disagree Baal likely would have gone anyway, he worked with Solomon and Aaron, but he obeyed no one.

In addition, placing Baal, someone who did wide-spread damage when fighting seriously, in the Area that no one liked was something everyone approved of, especially the women.

“Next, Mino, Nemea, I’d like you two to be in Area eight, your opponent would likely be Kusarikku, the Bull-Man… basically, a bigger, meaner Mino, even back before Typhon got his hands on you.” Mino frowned at the idea of someone being just like him, and stronger, but Nemea was smirking at the challenge.

“Let’s see, against Usumgallu, the great dragon, I think Sun would be perfect… but they’re also likely to pair Usumgallu with Behemoth, so Sun, think you can work with Jormungand in Area twelve?” Sun blinked, realizing what kind of fight he was being sent to and sighed, scratching the back of his head.

“Alright, is that cool with you, big one?” Sun said with a joke, his narrowed eyes and small smirk letting anyone looking at him know that this man was actually getting excited despite his previous appearance of reluctance.

“Sssure… I’ll sssmack sssome sssense into Behemoth…” the booming voice of Jormungand was slightly softer coming through the speakers of a phone, but even then it was noticeably inhuman.

“Harpy, Siren, the two of you will be necessary in Area one, your opponent is likely to be Ugallu, the weather beast… it’s especially important to take him out, as with him gone, we will have aerial superiority.” Aaron pointed out, the rocker Harpy and her little protégé Siren both nodding with determined expressions.

Indeed, due to the air-pressure preventing flight within Tartarus, Tartarus itself had little to nothing in the way of aerial capabilities, no jets, planes, helicopters, nothing, just long-distance hover cars which could fly high, but slow…

They would be sitting ducks for Harpy if she were to have aerial freedom.

“Manticore, you’ll be facing Girtballu, the Scorpion-Man, over in Area two. Kind of an obvious choice, isn’t it?” Aaron asked with a ‘I caught on shit’ smirk, leaving Manticore to palm his face with a sigh, unable to deny the request anyway.

“Dryad, you and Satyr can give Laumu, the ‘Hairy-man’ a haircut over in Area nine. I’m sure the improved Treant-bot can do a lot of damage there.” Dryad smiled brightly, Satyr casually leaning into his girlfriend and throwing an arm over her shoulders, sending a nod to Aaron.

“Empusa, Medusa, the two of you will be facing Basmu, the venomous snake, over in Area seven, you both have resistance to poisons so it works out.” The two ‘spouses’ of the highest ranked men in the Pantheon nodded, looking to each other with smiles.

“Hydra! Front and centre!” There was some shuffling among the crowds, the legendary Hydra triplets standing in front of Aaron and the other leaders with salutes, which was slightly comedic.

“You three will be taking the Chimera triplets with you over to Area five, I’m trusting the six of you to handle the exalted serpent and the furious serpent… Musmassu and Mussussu respectfully.” Aaron said the names reluctantly, already catching the snickers going between the three still saluting.

“Consider it done big-boss!” Eins said with a nod, his brother and sister nodding in agreement.

“Charon, Sphinx, you two will be facing Kulullu the fish-man over in Area ten, Sphinx because you’re the boss there, and Charon because I believe anything that enters water near you is asking to die.” The two professional killers looked to each other with a sigh, both disliking the other for some unknown reason, but willing to work together nonetheless, especially if it would result in their freedom.

“That leaves Area six and eleven, which I think I’ll be leaving to Solomon and Lu Bu?” Aaron looked to his fellow leaders of the Key, the two raising eyebrows and nodding.

They already knew who their most likely opponents were after all… Solomon against Doctor Lionel and his Hell-Hounds, and Lu Bu against Tiamat.

“Everyone else will be spread out through the Areas, assisting the Eyes of the Hunter in their battles against the Management soldiers.” All the Chained looked to one another, realizing that the main fighters were mostly from the Greek group, the Pantheon.

It actually made them trust more in the Pantheon, knowing that they were facing the most dangerous enemies, leaving the weaker chaff for the other members of the Key to deal with.

Aaron hid the smirk he felt within his heart.

‘You see, we take on the difficult part, you just do the easy part and follow… like the sheep you are.’

Aaron hid the manipulative, vile part of him within his heart as well.

“What about you and the royals?” Lu Bu asked, giving a pointed look to Typhon and Echidna, the latter of which was sending occasional worried glances towards the newest member of the Pantheon…

Kids sure picked crushes up quickly, huh… although Aaron had no right to talk about that given how quickly he was to become close with Medusa, but that was an odd situation.

Also, again, Aaron was younger than Typhon and Echidna… yet he called them kids mentally.

Another odd trait of Aaron… moving on though-

“As for Echidna, Typhon and I, we’ll be heading to Tasmania.” There were a lot of question marks popping up with that statement, understandably.

“It’s an island to the south of Tartarus, or rather a lot of islands to the south of Tartarus… anyway, it’s big, and we’ll need to cross about two hundred plus kilometres of ocean to get there.” Aaron begun his explanation once more, everyone in the room by now used to these exposition moments as he gestured to the ‘map’ on the table, an extra shape appearing separately from Tartarus.

Typhon’s eye was twitching by now as he recalled how much he had to practice to get the shapes even close to correct, let alone learning how to control Nano-bots which were separated from his bracelets/anklets.

Typhon couldn’t even attack with those Nano-bots just yet, so they were kind of worthless beyond doing things like this though… which was why he was pissed when Aaron told him to get better at this… or rather, Typhon didn’t mind until he was told why.

“If the Zeta-Generators are the heart of Tartarus, within Tasmania is the brain… the server rooms.” Aaron said, his smile dropping slightly as he considered how much information to share with those listening.

“The server rooms contain the ‘default’ settings which the Zeta-Generators use after the twenty four hours are up, meaning that if we can change the settings there, we can completely prevent any of the Managements systems from working.” Aaron decided to just say the basic information instead of the full explanation.

Aaron was sure many of the Chained would have been concerned if he let them know that all that knowledge Cybernetic Chained found themselves knowing, such as Sphinx with lying or Cyclops with cars, was on those servers.

Or that, hidden, encrypted within those servers, was the method to create each Chained?

Aaron doubted that he would be able to unencrypt those files though, Doctor Krauss was a genius in more than just robotics, biology and energy generation after all, and coding was one of his fields of study.

Rather, the man studied a bit of everything it was how Krauss managed to create the massive repository of knowledge each Chained possessed limited access to.

But Aaron wouldn’t disturb the servers… too much.

“The problem is that, given what we’re doing, there’s no way that Gilgamesh wouldn’t be able to get to the servers before we do. And, the servers have a dedicated guardian in Beowulf.” The latter was the more problematic of the two actually, even in his best estimates Aaron could tell it would take Typhon and Echidna to defeat the mad Lord without killing him.

It was very important that they not kill Beowulf.

“So of course I need Typhon and Echidna to distract Beowulf and Gilgamesh while I go access the servers and shut everything down.” Some murmurs went across the hall, many whispering about how ‘Odysseus wasn’t going to fight’.

Aaron didn’t mind the assumption… he was going to be facing Gilgamesh whether he liked it or not actually. Typhon and Echidna couldn’t block both Beowulf and Gilgamesh despite their much higher power.

Gilgamesh was immortal as it was, she could regenerate anything given a day or two, the only debilitating injury that could be given to her would be cutting her head off, and that was only debilitating because she’d regenerate a new head with no memories of anything past the point she became Gilgamesh.

With her Babylon armour, Gilgamesh couldn’t be stopped by Echidna, only Typhon…

But Echidna would need the help facing Beowulf, so Typhon couldn’t focus on stopping Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh would bypass those two and attack Aaron.

But no one would accept letting Aaron go by himself if they knew this, they’d try to get him a guard from one of the Key groups other than the Pantheon.

Aaron scoffed at the thought, some watching him confused on why he did that, unable to see his thoughts like a certain Gorgon.

Aaron refused to let anyone kill Gilgamesh but him. Gilgamesh would die, and he’d be the one to do it.

Besides, it would be more difficult for him to fight her if he had people at his side.

“So the idea is clear. Take over the Zeta-Generators, make them do what we want, guard the Zeta-Generators until the end of the day, or at least until Typhon, Echidna and I get out. Then, the three of us will access the servers, and shut down Tartarus, allowing everyone here to tear down a segment of the wall to escape.” Aaron said with a smile, even as Solomon tapped loudly on the table, calling attention to her.

“So… basically… we all need to fight, and possibly sacrifice ourselves, so that you and the royals can escape, and then hope that you turn around and help us escape. Am I wrong?” Solomon asked, and Aaron’s smile became a bit crooked.

Of course Solomon would be the one to see the issue with this plan, as she still disliked Aaron for his actions in forcing her against Gilgamesh.

Knowing what she knew now, there was no way that Solomon would have kept willingly working for Gilgamesh, especially given the allure of being Synchronized and Stabilized by Echidna and Typhon…

But even if it was good for you, no one liked being forced into doing something.

So obviously a grudge was still held by Lu Bu and Solomon for Aaron’s actions.

“No, you’re not.” Aaron, instead of defending himself, stayed his course, shouts of indignation arising from the Chained of the Fourth Kingdom and the Ars Goetia, with the exceptions of Sun Wukong and Baal.

“You’re not wrong, if you were asking for a dumbed down explanation that paints me out to be someone who would abandon you all, you’re not wrong.” There was a collective flinch at the steel in Aaron’s tone.

“But here’s the thing, Solomon… If I were to escape, with Typhon and Echidna… we’d be free, yes… but we’d always have the shadow of this place looming over us, the fear that we could someday be caught by Gilgamesh and her connections all over the world.” Aaron started, a fist slamming on the table and damaging it badly as Aaron glared at Solomon.

“I refuse to be chained down by anything, even fear itself. So what’s the obvious solution?” Aaron asked, raising his hand from where it damaged the table, holding it out to Solomon before clenching it.

“I need to crush the source of my fear. And I shall do that by destroying Tartarus, in its entirety. I’ll make this place a shadow of its former self, I will demolish the very walls I wish to stand upon, so long as this place will never be a threat to me and mine again.” Aaron spoke, Solomon looking down at the table, looking for all intents and purposes like a chastised child.

“For now, this meeting is over. Return to your posts. For us, Freedom Day comes in two months, on the third of April, the day Tartarus was completed.” Aaron dismissed the entire room as he walked away, followed by Typhon and Medusa.

“Mister Odysseus seemed… angry…” Cyclops noted with a frown, recalling the friendly man from the night before and contrasting that with the man who had just stormed out of the ball-room.

“No, he wasn’t angry… he was… I suppose scared would be the most appropriate emotion.” Cyclops blinked, looking to his side and seeing Echidna, provoking a blush from the younger Chained.

“M-m-miss Echidna…” There was a glare and a huff before Cyclops managed to calm down.

“What do you mean by that, Echidna?” Cyclops asked, wising up to how Echidna did not like his form of address for her.

“Aaron is an actor, a grand showman. Majority of the time, especially in a public setting like this one, he’d never act like how he really feels... but Medusa and my brother will help him.” Echidna said with a nod, before looking away from where Aaron had left, glancing upwards at Cyclops with a coy-smile on her face as she grabbed his arm.

“Come on, I need to show you your car.” Cyclops blinked, being dragged by one of the strongest Chained within Tartarus without getting a say in anything.

With Aaron, Typhon and Medusa, Aaron was breathing heavily, holding a glass of water which shook against his will.

“Damn it, damn it… damn that woman…” Aaron cursed, his left hand coming up to try and keep his right still, drinking the water to try and calm his nerves, Typhon guarding the door as Medusa sat close to Aaron.

“Which one would you be talking about, Solomon or Gilgamesh?” Typhon asked from his point at the door with a raised eyebrow, knowing that he needed to be an asshole to Aaron right now to get Aaron out of his funk.

“Both! Damn Solomon for suggesting that I’d abandon you all… and damn Gilgamesh for making me unable to escape my fear.” Aaron finally said after a moment of thinking about the whole situation, Medusa resting a hand on his shoulder.

Typhon swore to himself that if that hand moved anywhere beyond that point he was getting out of the room and locking the door, because he remembered what happened the last time he hadn’t escaped fast enough.

“Remember all those times you heard someone say ‘courage is moving in spite of fear’? Well, soon, it’ll be time to move.” Medusa said with a soft smile, drawing a scoff from Aaron, as obviously he knew exactly what Medusa was talking about.

“That’s so cliché… then again, my whole persona seems like cliché upon cliché.” Aaron noted, and now it was Typhon’s turn to scoff, agreeing with the crazy Lord of the Greek.

“That’s an understatement… so, why did you leave out the role of the Lords in this?” Aaron looked to Typhon, thinking to the question and shrugging.

“Would it matter? Rather… Doctor Krauss was terrifying. So were your parents.” Typhon had already heard this before, but instead of rolling his eyes, he just stayed quiet and listened.

“A Lord is a combination of Biological and Cybernetic enhancements, both normally disagreeing with the other as Cybernetic enhancements were made for humans, and Biological enhancements would cause a rejection with Cybernetic parts…” Aaron then smirked, a smirk appearing on Typhon’s face as well.

“So considering your Nano-bots, and the physical enhancements she got within the Biological Cradle… you and Echidna are Lords, even if it is by technicality and without the Ruler ability to show for it.” Typhon knew about this, as it explained why his father and mother left him and his sister in the wrong Cradles.

“And at minimum, three Lords are required to access the servers. When Doctor Krauss turned his lab assistants, your parents, into Typhon and Echidna, do you think they did it for this coming moment?” Aaron asked with a single eyebrow raised in question.

Typhon scoffed before giving his answer: “Of course they did.”