Meanwhile...

The mastermind flinches in his sleep, slowly awakening from his slumber. As he looks around, his face twists into a confused one as he finds himself in his childhood home on the sofa. He could tell he was a younger age because he could see out of his right eye.

"Midas!!"

He jumps in his seat, looking up as Ares towers above him. Jules was beside him, smiling and holding a piece of paper.

"Midas. Don't you remember? It's report card day! Where's yours?" Jules says.

Midas looks down at the envelope on his lap, sweat forming on his face.

"Uh..."

Ares snatches the envelope and beckons Jules to pass the paper in her hand over. She does and starts reading hers.

"Hm. Mostly B's, an A AND only two C's! Well done Jules, I'm proud of you sweetie."

Midas watches as Ares smiles at his daughter, cuddling and praising her. He sighs sadly, wishing he got the same praise that day.

"Why don't you go upstairs and ask mum to run you a bubble bath as a reward, eh?"

"Okay!" She grins, running upstairs. "Hey Midas! Come join me after dad reads your card! I bet it's good!"

Midas smiles a little before turning back to Ares. He opens up his report card and begins reading over it. Of course, since this was all far in the past, Midas knew what results he got that day;

Straight A's in everything.... except for Science, in which he got a C+ on.

Would Ares praise him for the good marks?

"Is this seriously the best you can do, M?"

Midas flinches slightly.

"Though, I guess I shouldn't expect something from nothing..."

To Midas' horror, Ares takes off the belt on his trousers and holds it in his hand. He approaches Midas and raises the belt up high.

"Wait, wait!! I'll do better!"

His sobs quickly turn into desperate pleas.

"I promise!!"

----------

Meanwhile...

Slone smiles, arms folded as she observes Midas in his cell. Overnight, while he was asleep, she had decided to torture him further by taking the memories she stripped Ares of, download them onto a headset device and put it around Midas' head. This would cause him to remain trapped in his own mind until the device was removed.

Trapping him in an eternal nightmare he couldn't wake up from.

"Remind me again why you're doing this ma'am?" Gunnar asks.

"I'm getting Midas back for the amount of trouble he has caused me in the past. Hopefully reliving everything Ares did to him in the past will be enough to finally break his spirit and... well, you can figure out the rest yourself."

Gunnar himself looks somewhat disturbed by this and looks over at Midas. The mastermind was flinching and muttering in his sleep, tears brimming in his eyes and sweat going down his face. He then turns to Ares who is slumped in the corner of the room, arms folded.

"It's...a brilliant idea, ma'am." He says finally.

"I know."

Slone turns around.

"There's no way he'll escape this, so both of you are coming with me. I'll leave a couple of guards outside the room."

They follow her out, closing the door and locking it up. Leaving Midas to suffer in the dark in complete silence. Slone sees two guards patroling the top floor of the blimp and calls them over.

"I want you two to stand here and guard the door. Do not let anyone in or out." She orders, tossing one the keys to the door. "I trust guards such as yourself can't possibly fuck this up, right?"

"Of course ma'am! We promise to not let you down."

"Good."

----------------

Meanwhile... again...

Jones carefully peeks through the bush he was hiding in. He had a good view of the house from where he was, and a good view of the I.O guards surrounding it.

"Okay. Keep calm John. You got this." He whispers to him.

He takes out the rift sniper he 'borrowed' off of The Foundation. It was the same weapon he saw him use when flipping the Island. He was pretty sure that as soon as he got back to the Sanctuary he was going to get a mouthful from the Foundation for not only disobeying him but stealing one of his weapons.

But frankly, Jones couldn't care less anymore. All he wanted was to find Midas and bring him back to where he belongs.

Taking aim, Jones shoots at a group of guards and a rift fires out the weapon. All the guards quickly disappear into it, alerting others nearby. The blond quickly aims again, taking out the others before they can try anything. Then he makes a dash to the house and charges through the door.

"Alright. I don't wanna take too long here. Just need to grab what I need and head straight for Tilted Towers." He tells himself, looking around.

Most of the house had been trashed by I.O when they took over. Stuff like tables, chairs and TV had been broken. Jones sighs, running upstairs to the remains of his and Midas' room. Their room was totaled, the bed and desk broken and items and possessions lying everywhere.

"Jeez, this sucks. Cleaning up's gonna be a chore when this is over..."

As he fishes through the broken wardrobe, he's greeted by a few of Midas' golden weapons such as two pistols, a shotgun and his trademark gold drumgun. He snags the pistols, a few sachets of ammo and puts them in his jumpsuit pockets.

He also takes Midas' golden pickaxe tucked away in the corner. Seeing as he only used Oro's staff nowadays, it wouldn't hurt if Jones kept his pickaxe, would it?

As he turns to leave Jones notices not only Midas' diary, but another book lying on the broken desk. He takes a closer look.

" 'Device Plans. LEFT BY EX LEADER OF GHOST. FOR NEW LEADER'S EYES ONLY.' " He reads.

He recalls Midas once telling him how he came up with the device he built and told him that the previous leader of Ghost left this book to him before giving Midas their position.

He skims through and finds a LOT of pages are missing.

"I.O must've stolen the book and returned it with all the important stuff taken out." He guesses. "Oh boy, Midas is gonna be furious."

He notices his old pair of boots on the floor thankfully still in one piece. Noticing how wrecked and dirty his old shoes are, he slips them off and puts them on instead. Before he leaves the room he pauses at the desk and looks through the draws. He eventually finds the things he was looking for and puts it in his pocket.

"Okay. Finally got everything. Now to- AHH!"

As Jones turns around, he's surprised by something there that wasn't there before. Thankfully not an I.O guard he missed, but a rift butterfly.

"Oh, it's one of you little guys again." He smiles, holding out a finger for it to perch on. "How I missed you, old friend..."

A ringing sound emits from it, seemingly understanding him. He smiles as he walks out the house, the butterfly following him.

"Kinda convenient that the last time I saw you was when I was rescuing Midas from the mothership. And now I have to rescue him from I.O, and you've shown up again."

The butterfly perches down on his hair briefly, as if it was a nest or something. Jones chuckles softly, as it then flutters around him and lands on his nose.

"You think you can teleport me straight to Midas? It'll save me a lot of trouble."

It lets out an acknowledging ring, but the rift butterfly's wings lower slightly. Jones raises an eyebrow, surprised.

"Can't you do that?"

It flutters slowly in response.

"So not even a teleporting butterfly knows where he is..." He says.

A confident look falls on Jones' face.

"Guess I'll have to do this the old fashioned way." He chuckles. "Okay, do you think you can get me to Tilted Towers?"

The rift butterfly's wings perk up. It shakes its wings faster before both of them teleport away.

-----------

Back at the Sanctuary...

Meanwhile, The Origin is busy talking to The Imagined.

Well, less talking, more arguing. Y'know, the usual.

"I'm telling you Origin! Paradigm won't betray us! She's coming to help us against I.O!" She tells him.

"You need to stop believing in those lies Imagined and wake up! She's a traitor and it's all she'll ever be."

A nearby Scientist has been hearing them bicker for the last 10 minutes, and it was seriously grinding on his nerves now.

"You guys!! Can you please stop arguing?! It's doing my head in and I'm trying to fix up this suit for Midas." He groans.

"Well can YOU tell Origin to stop being a grumpy old man and convince him that Paradigm isn't a traitor!"

The Origin turns to her, highly offended.

"Grumpy old man?! How dare you!"

The three of them continue to argue over themselves and the subject of Paradigm's allegiance. Suddenly, the doors to the engineering bay slam open and in comes The Foundation followed by Jules and Astra following behind.

"What's all the noise in here?" He shouts, silencing them all.

"They're arguing about Paradigm again and I'm getting tired of it." The Scientist speaks up.

"We can deal with that later. Will someone tell me where Jones and my rift sniper are?"

The other Seven members, except Origin, simply shrug. Jules and Astra do the same.

"I remember encountering him while the rest of you were in a meeting. He said something about Midas being captured by I.O and going to rescue him." He says.

"And you let him waltz out of the Sanctuary?! Probably with my gun?!" Foundation yells.

The Origin sighs.

"If I may be honest Foundation, I don't really think that it's been fair or nice of you to just... trapped Jones here." He says. "I can understand you want him alive so he can get us to Genō, but at the end of the day he's still a human being with his own life."

The Foundation remains silent, as do everyone else.

"I'm not the one for giving pep-talks, but I felt like I had to open your eyes for you to see what you're doing."

The room falls quiet for a moment. Foundation eventually speaks up.

"Perhaps you're right. Maybe I'm being too rough on Jones. But still I want him, and Midas hopefully, brought back here. Origin, would you go after him as you were the last one who saw him?"

"Sure."

The Origin turns to leave. Astra runs after him, saying that she'd come as well to help him.

--------------

Meanwhile, after teleporting from his and Midas' house, Jones soon finds behind a stone just outside Tilted Towers. He peeks over it, checking around for I.O guards.

"Phew, okay. All clear for now. Just gotta hitch a ride on one of those zip lines that are attached to the blimp."

The rift butterfly comes from behind him, perching on his shoulder and ringing quietly. Jones hums, understanding it slightly.

"I know teleporting straight to him would've been simple and nice, but there's not really much fun in an adventure if it's too easy." He admits. "Besides, if things get too hairy, I know you'll get me outta here lil guy."

The butterfly makes itself comfortable on his shoulder as Jones emerges from his hiding place and runs around the town. He runs past a few households being terrorised by I.O guards holding guns and bats. Midas was right to feel sick to his stomach about the way they treat the Islanders.

"They really are heartless. And I used to work for them!" He whispers to himself, stopping in his tracks briefly. "I wish I never took the job sometimes..."

He glanced at the golden ring on his finger.

"Though I suppose, if I didn't take the job... I wouldn't have met Midas..."

He brushed a thumb across the ring, sighing softly with a hint of sadness.

"Sorry for mixing you up in this mess golden boy. I promise I'll make it up to you somehow... right after I rescue you..."

Jones continues to dash around the town and stops at one of the zip lines connected to the blimp up above. He grabs on to one of the orange handles that hoist people up.

"Okay, now to-"

But before he can do anything, the sound of a weapon clicking and a blade being drawn causes him to freeze and tense up.

"You're not going anywhere, Jones." A female voice tells.

Jones slowly turns around to find Slone pointing a loaded pistol at him and her cyborg henchman.

"Ugh, should've known you'd show up Slone and..."

The blond gets a closer look at the cyborg's face and gasps.

"ARES?!"

----------------