Twisted Wonderland

A Villainous Speech

Riddle nods. "Right. And once we're there, we can assess the situation."

Vil gestures with an hand. "All right, let's move on."

In the control room, it's a mess of activity. People running around, typing furiously into the monitors.

"All Charon power armors are active and on autopilot. Ortho's got control of their admin rights! We've received reports of them attacking and capturing our own personnel! Several people have been injured."

"R&D, what's the status of the weapons in the hangars?"

"All weapons with Styx-made technomantic circuitry remain offline!"

"That's all of our weapons! Get them working, even if you have to disassemble them to do it!"

"We've had no response to the distress signal we sent to the outside! And we've lost communication with the staff who were heading to the power stations and emergency escape terminals."

"An analysis of the River Lethe's configuration data and stored energy has been started!"

"I'm trying to run a brute-force attack program to get Cerberus restarted. But he keeps overriding the activation codes! his processing speed's way beyond ours!"

"Tartarus freezing system disengaged. It'll be fully thawed in six hours and sixteen minutes! It's going faster on the upper levels. The thaw should reach sector four in another three hours."

"Tower one has already started to unfreeze, all the way down to sector twelve."

"Sector twelve? That's where the original Phantoms are! So it's only a matter of time before the Titans awaken?"

"Blot density is rising throughout HQ! Sounding the contamination alarm!"

"We're simply no match for Ortho's computing power. Is there nothing we can do?"

The door slides open, halting the flurry of activity. All the technicians and engineers look to the door in surprise.

Vil smirks as he walks inside. "Come now. Don't tell me you're giving up that easily."

"You're the subjects from Night Raven College!"

"You were put in isolated cells. How did you get here?"

Jamil turns to the man he hypnotized. "Thank you for your help. You're free to go."

"Yes, sir." The man blinks and looks around wildly. "What? Why am I here? I thought I was on my way to an escape terminal!"

The staff all gasp. "Subject D used his signature spell to control a member of our staff!"

Leona steps inside. "How we got here doesn't matter. Where's the acting director?"

"If you're looking for my brother, he's with me."

Everyone freezes. Azul tilts his head. "Ortho?"

Ortho appears on the large screen. "You certainly are SSR Epic Troublemakers. Your cell doors were designed to not open from the inside."

"Oh, yes." Vil takes a step forward. "Now that you mention it, something about them didn't seem quite right, but we managed to get them open. Now what exactly is going on? I believe we deserve an explanation from the boss. Where are you right now?"

Ortho shakes his head. "Sorry, my brother's indisposed at the moment, so you'll have to talk to me instead. We're currently in the lowest sector of Tartarus, the Underworld. We're going to free all our friends trapped in here."