Chapter 77

"What can I do to make sure 0 doesn't stay 0?" Ortho mumbled once he was out in the hallway.

Ortho's vision filled static and he heard a voice whispering to him.

'Would you like me to tell you?'

"Huh? Who's there?" Ortho called out as his vision returned to normal.

"Come here this way." The voice whispered as his vision filled again.

"It sounds like it's coming from Tartarus. Are you a Phantom?" Ortho asked as he made his way to a downstairs staircase.

"You want to know what you can do right?" The voice asked.

"Yes I want to change the future so badly." Ortho confessed as he followed the voice down the stairs that eventually lead to a larger spiraling staircase.

"Then come closer come down here. That's right keep moving down down." The voice called leading Ortho through Tartarus itself pass the frozen Phantom cages. "Yes, into the deep, dark, frigid, underground."

Ortho finally arrived in a large round ancient chamber at the bottom of Tartarus. "Hello?" He called out.

The voice was soon joined by others and they were giggling.

"Are you there?" Ortho repeated.

"Yes, I've been here since long before you were born, but I was never lonely. After all I have so many friends down here." The original voice answered.

"Friends?" Ortho asked sounding hopeful.

"I want you, well really I want everyone in the world to be our friend then we don't need this cage anymore. Idy will be free." The voice said.

"Idy, wait is it you?" Ortho asked.

It was a little awhile later Ortho enter the Hecate sector training facility room. "Hi Rook Hunt, Epel Felmier, and Odette Thropp. Is there anything you need?" He asked.

'He sounds like off.' Odette thought as she glanced over him.

"Your kindness is most touching Ortho, we're all faring quiet well here." Rook answered.

"We've spent most of the day catching Odette up on the greatest movies she's missed." Epel joked as he gently elbowed Odette.

"I mean some of the movies aren't that far off from what I can remember of my world." Odette defended herself.

"We've finished the tests for Vil, Grim and all the others. Everything went smoothly with no major issues. They're all pretty tired though so they're recovering in their rooms right now. Grim had an especially large battery of tests. Now he's sprawled out on his back snoring away. You'll be able to see them tomorrow morning when you leave the island." Ortho informed them still sounding off.

"Oh what I would do so I could see Vil looking hale and hearty sooner but if he's fatigued then so it must be." Rook sighed.

"I'm glad everything worked out with Grim, I hope we can see each other soon." Odette said.

"Oh, and I made sure to pass along the skincare products to Vil." Ortho added.

"Truly? Merci, I'm most grateful for your friendship and generosity." Rook thanked him.

"If anything we should be grateful to you. Thanks to you and your friends coming here I think I finally understand my purpose. I must do my best so I can say 'I did what I could', so 0 doesn't stay 0." Ortho confessed.

"Monsieur Marionette, I hope your endeavors lead you to a bright and shining future." Rook smiled down at him.

"Thank you I should be going now bye." Ortho said and left the room.

"Is it me or was Ortho acting differently from this morning?" Epel asked once he had left.

"It's not just you." Odette reassured him as Rook just remained silent.

Ortho had returned to the bottom of Tartarus.

"Now let us first put Cerberus to sleep." The voice commanded.

"This command cannot be undone, proceed?" Ortho asked as he closed his eyes.

"The time has come let us go the whole universe awaits." The voice cooed.

"Voice verification confirmed all systems green, executing program." Ortho stated as he opened his eyes back up.

The chamber began to fill with moans and groans. "Oh how I've longed for this day. I have no doubt that together we can change the future." The voice exclaimed.

"I won't let 0 stay 0." Ortho mumbled as he watched vapors begin to raise from the center of the chamber and fill it.

"We meet at last. Please to make you acquaintance Ortho." The voice greeted as a black figure rose from the pit.

In a private room in HQs Idia was relaxing on a company laptop. "Whew, finally done examining all the troublemakers. I'll follow up on that spell Grim's got on him, but considering his magic reserves even if something DID happen, it wouldn't be super disastrous. We'll just keep him under observation and call it good."

He opened several programs including the data on all the troublemakers but he was mostly looking over Grim's numbers. "I do wonder though, who put in the req for Styx to examine NRC students in the first place. It was an anonymous tip via the Land of Dawning government channels and it was totally untraceable that's omega sus, and speaking of suspicious. 5 people overblot in such a short span of time is certainly bizarre, but the number of overblot incidents at NRC hasn't even hit double digits in the last 100 years. Then they get 5 in less than 6 months?" Idia muttered as he pulled up the history of Sage's Island history.

"You just can't chalk that up to a few troublemakers. Their tests results don't show any particular traits that would explain it either. I mean overblots can happen because of powerful curses or sealed Phantoms getting loose it's not entirely unprecedented. But Sage's Island isn't like this place. We have no intel on any locations or ruins there where large amounts of bad stuff has been sealed away." Idia continued as he continued to look at Sage Island's available information.

"Could someone be inducing them on purpose? I can't imagine how they would though. As far as the general public knows overblot happen when the caster overuses magic and builds up too much blot while experiencing intense negative emotions. But it's not that simple." Idia muttered as he rested his head on his hand and rested his elbow on the desk.

"There are countless causes one thing leads to another leads to another. It's a cascading effect that stretches back years, and the thing that triggers the emotional outbursts is the hardest to quantify out innermost feelings or 'heart' so to speak. A person's heart is the one thing we can't control no matter how hard we try. I mean if it WAS possible to control overblot Styx would've shut down ages ago. Ugh, why do humans have to come pre-installed with such an annoying feature? It's super unstable not to mention we're totally at it's mercy. That's gotta be a defect talk about a launch day bug. Whoever or whatever made us was just like 'QA? What's that'?" Idia began to rambled.

Then his messenger app dinged getting his attention.

"Hm? A DM from Muscle Red? Oh crud! I was suppose to run the new extreme dungeon with him today I totally forgot. I haven't even installed the latest xpac on the PC at my parents' house. I don't think today's gonna work." Idia exclaimed as he opened the message and began to read the message.

They begin to message back and forward and finally settle on running the dungeon next week when things have settled down for both of them.

"You don't have to know a thing about each other and it doesn't matter how far part you are online you can game with whoever you like. I'm so lucky I was born in the age of online gaming I'm already getting hype for next week." Idia smiled as he closed the window.

Meanwhile back at Diasomnia in Lilia's room, he was logging off his computer.

"I feel bad for canceling on Gloomurai but now is not the time for fun and games. The Housewardens have been taken and all the other dorms are in a state of chaos. Our dorm is fortunate in that only Silver and Sebek sustained minor injuries from Styx's attack. But as Ruggie and the others pointed out there's no telling what the Watchman right do next. It would be wise to remain vigilant." Lilia sighed.

'It's been 24 hours since the attack and since Odette left with Rook and Epel and nothing has happen. Was I too relaxed in my approach to this? How much longer will they be gone and how long until Styx comes back.' Lilia thought as someone knocked on his door.

"Father? Are you there?" Silver called through the door.

"Yes, come in, what is it?" Lilia answered as Silver came in.

"Thank you, it's about Malleus." Silver informed him.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for sticking around. I hope no one minds me cutting out Idia's and Lilia's conversation but it just seem to add unnecessary padding to the chapter. We finally got to see a glimpse our Diasomnia boys. The next chapter of course features them. :) See ya next time.