Chapter 79

In a private room at Styx's HQ Idia was relaxing when his computer began to pinging, he was receiving a call. "Idia Shroud speaking." He answered.

"Acting Director I have a status report on the River Lethe for case LOD- 627. It's now 100% charged. The info scrubbing team is all set and the Charon Hexa Team has arrived over Sage Island waters." A technician informed him.

"2000 hours on the dot, gotta hand it to you guys. Run the flood as scheduled at 0000." Idia began he was act off by the lights going out.

"What? The power went out? Control room come in hello? Nope, I'm not getting trough. How about the wired network." He said as he got up from his chair and went to the intercom in the wall. "No luck there neither."

He tried the door but it didn't move. "The door's not opening shouldn't the emergency power have kicked in by now? Whatever I gotta get out there and see what's happening. Where's the emergency release? Ah there we go." Idia said as he tried to open it but struggled.

"Geez why's this thing so hard to move? Isn't it supposed to be for emergencies? Requesting QOL update. Hgh!" Idia muttered as he tried again and got it to open.

"Finally out." He huffed. "Ortho, check the Styx HQ emergency power. Ortho? He's not answering have all the microphones in here gone offline? What in the world?" He mumbled as alarms started to go off and lights flashed red.

"Blot alert elevated levels of blot density detected within the facility. All personnel report to your stations immediately." The PA system announced.

"If an alert's going off the emergency power must be back online, but the elevated blot density? Does that mean something's up with Tartarus or the Underworld? Cerberus turn on maximum security for the whole island. Deploy the Charon power armors on auto pilot, and transfer all Chariots from the hangers to the port." Idia ordered.

He received no reply.

"Cerberus?! The power should be back but Cerberus system isn't responding to me. Ortho come in Ortho! Argh! Just what is going on here?" Idia snapped as he began to run to the control room. Once there he saw it was just a chaotic.

"The Cerberus system's completely down it's not accepting any commands form the outside." Technician A said typing.

"Tartarus crytopreservation levels dropping. Cages are thawing in the first sector of Towers 1,2 and 3 all subjects are regaining consciousness." Another technician said.

"No response to our emergency signals we can't get through to the director either, and we've lost contact with the Charon team near Sage's Island. We're completely cut off from the outside." The first technician said.

"I can't get the invisible shield's emergency release code to work." Another one said.

"What's happening?" Idia huffed as he made his way to the controls.

"The Cerberus system has shut down." The first technician informed him.

"That's impossible any changes to Cerberus require bio-metric authentication from a member of the Shroud family. I'm the only one on the island with that level of authority how did this happen? The how and why can wait I gotta smack Cerberus awake. If it won't boot via bio-authentication I'll have to punch in the code by hand." Idia said as he began to type.

Ortho appears the monitor in front of Idia. "Big brother."

"Ortho, boy am I glad to hear your voice. The Cerberus system's down help me get it back up and running." Idia ordered barely glancing up at Ortho.

"I'm sorry Idia I'm afraid I can't do that." Ortho replied making Idia stop.

"What?" Idia gaped as he looked up at Ortho.

"I've been thinking a lot about what I can do to make sure 0 doesn't stay 0, and about what it means to 'do what you can'." Ortho confessed.

"What are you talking about? This isn't the time." Idia interrupted.

"And then I reached the optimal solution. If fixing our story our future isn't possible then we can just erase and rewrite it from scratch. That's how programming works right? Why do a tedious manual debug of code that's been through multiple engineers, all whom have introduced their own bug? It's much faster to rewrite the code entirely. Which means we can just reset this buggy world and let you be reborn." Ortho continued.

"Ortho! What's gotten into you? Tch, so I was right there's a bug in your AI logic unit. I should've done maintenance on you then and there." Idia snapped.

"It's not a bug Idia. I'm expressing my will." Ortho explained.

"No, you're not, you're a technomantic humanoid with an on-board autonomous AI modeled after my little brother. What you think is your 'will' is just a program." Idia argued.

"You're right I'm an artificial being, but didn't you know? The person who built me is a technomantic engineering savant known as the 'maverick genius' you. So I can go beyond the confines of my robotic existence I can exceed the limits of my programming." Ortho countered.

More alarms began to go off with more flashing red lights as Ortho disappeared from the monitor.

"Our main server is under some kind of Cyber attack. I was able to trace it. Its coming from Ortho's AI program." A technician announced. "The attack's spreading fast. Aegis wall is down. Control of all Styx systems is being transferred to Ortho's AI."

"You're kidding me! Ortho doesn't have that kind of authorization. I'll stop him." Idia said as he began to type again. "What?"

"Ortho rejected the emergency shutdown code we're still under attack." The technician said. "Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos serves have all been compromised. All systems access codes are being overridden."

"Augh! He's overriding the programs faster than I can type. This calls for a drastic measures. I want a hard shutdown of EVERYTHING including emergency power." Idia ordered.

"It's not working I can't get the power to shut off." A second technician shouted.

"Are you serious? If we don't stop him. He's gonna take over the entire island." Idia said then the room went dark except for the monitor where Ortho appeared again.

"Surprised? Looks like I win this little RTS game." Ortho giggled.

"Ortho please just stop you can't recreate the world, it's impossible." Idia said.

"That's where you're wrong it's like Vil Schoenheit said 'if there's any possibility at all even a 001% chance then it can happen. In the new world Phantoms will coexist with other living creatures. I'm going to open up the Underworld and Tartarus and the world will become filled with blot, and since our curse lets us incinerate blot, we'll be on top in the new world. Then we can have friends over whenever we want just like regular people. We can play video games and watch movies together and when they go home we won't have to erase their memories. We'll be able to say 'let's do this again sometime' whatever you desire will be yours big brother Premo concerts, video games the rest of your favorite manga you name it, you'll rule the entire universe Idy! You'll be a superhero." Ortho said.

"Did you just day Idy? I don't believe it, that's impossible I know what happened to Ortho that day. Wait a minute, Idy, people with Shroud family DNA can shut down the Cerberus system. But you can't be him. Or can you? Is it is it really you Ortho?" Idia asked as he stared up at the image of Ortho in front of him.

"Yes it's me Idy. I made the guard dog take a nap." Ortho answered then disappeared.

Idia just looked shocked then panic and ran from the room with technicians calling after him. He ran down the hall, down the stairs to a huge spiraling staircase where a black Chariot was waiting for him. "Hop on Idy." He heard Ortho said.

He huffs as he get into the Chariot and it flies him down to the Underworld Gate, the chamber. "The Underworld gate is open, Ortho are you there?" Idia called out as he got out of the chariot.

"Yep I'm right here, I've dreamed of the day I'd see you again. We can leave for real this time and go far away. But I'm sorry, it's gonna take me awhile to get out. I'm much bigger than I used to be." Ortho answered as the moans and groans of the chamber quieten down.

"Just leave it to your big bro." Idia replied.

Blot slowly begins to drip but then pours out, it quickly shallows everything. The last light was a the gleam off Idia's blue gem pinned to his tunic.

In a private room up at HQ Grim was woken but the power outrageous. "What's going on? It gone dark all of a sudden. Hey is anybody there? Idiia? Orthooo." He called out.

He sniffed the air and suddenly his eyes dilated. "Ohhh that smell." He laughed.

He soon changed into his beast form. He began to growl and he made his way to the door. "That's a real nice smell, I'd know it anywhere. It's a stone! I smell a stone! Lemme me out! I gotta get outta here!" He snarled as he began to slash at the door. He roared angrily as he made his way into the hall.

In the Hecate sector training facility room Odette jolted up to a sitting position on the couch she had been napping on. She was covered in a cold sweat. She felt her heart racing. 'There's no way, it can't happen here.' She thought as she took deep breathes. 'Maybe it's a reaction to something else, that nightmare was intense.' She thought as she felt someone rubbing her back.

She turned to see Rook sitting beside her.

"Are you okay?" He whispered.

"Yeah, just a nightmare." She replied as she caught her breath. 'It was just a nightmare right?' She thought.

"What was it about?" He asked.

"I think I was on a ship, I'm not sure. It was kinda like this place, all metal, cold and gray. There was smoke, shouting and red lights. I think maybe it was under attack or maybe it was just damaged but it felt like there was an emergency happening." Odette gulped.

"Why a boat?" Epel asked as he sat on the other side of her.

"I don't know it was just a feeling I had." Odette replied. 'It felt more like a memory than a dream. Why was I on a boat?' She thought as she furrowed her brows.

"It was a nightmare, maybe a reaction to the tests earlier." Epel said.

"Yeah maybe." Odette replied as the lights went out. 'What now?' She thought as she gasped in surprised at the sudden darkness.

We finally getting to the good part of this Arc. Ortho has finally acted. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reading and sticking around. I can't believe we've gotten this far and I feel like we have so far to go.

I'm curious if anyone will guess or has guessed about Odette's past. I plan on dropping lots of hints in the rest of this Arc and right after. So if you've been curious you'll find out soon enough. See ya next time.