Twisted Wonderland Book 6: The Watchman of the Underworld

Chapter 73: One Final Blast

Hanging on to the wall, Ortho is exhausted from all the climbing he's been doing.

Idia flies to Ortho and asks in concern, "Ortho... Ortho! You okay?"

"Mm... I'm all right, Idy," Ortho answers, "Still electrified, though. I can barely move."

I always thought the Thunder Spears were just pieces of junk gathering dust in storage, but man. Those stupid things pack a punch."

"I can control any Styx-made technomantic weapons, but not ancient magical artifacts," Ortho says, "Guess they found a loophole with those spears. Not to mention they charged them with their own magical power to increase their potency.

"Tch..." India scoffs, "This is why I can't stand brute-force button mashers."

"Yeah well, two can play at that game," Ortho says, "Don't worry. This body's got a heavy power build. Besides, I'll never lose as long as I'm with you.

Idia looks up and says, "We're almost to the exit. Think you can stick it out?

"Absolutely. And all our friends say they can keep going too!" Ortho says.

Suddenly, voices appear, "OUTSIDE...SO CLOSE.... OUTSIDE... FINALLY... SO HAPPY... SO..HAPPY..."

Then Grim says, "Grr.... Rrr... Stone..."

Ortho and Idia look to see that freedom is almost at their reach.

Idia turns to Ortho, "Let's go, Ortho."

"I'm with you all the way, Idy," Ortho says.

With that, Ortho begins climbing up.

At the first sector, Vil, Briar, and the others are ready to fight.

Sereia looks down and says, "They've started climbing up the wall again!"

Soon, the Styx Staff rush to the group, "The Thunder Spear's 80 percent charged!"

"Rgh..." Another Styx member says, "We redirected all the technomantic energy we had, but we still couldn't reach 100 percent!"

"This is more than enough. Thank you," Vil says.

"There will be a battle here shortly. You all must flee to safety!" Rook says.

"...All right," The Styx Staff says, "You all stay safe."

Soon, the Styx Staff members begin to leave for safety.

"Let's review our objectives," Vil says. "First —get the Phantomized Ortho away from Idia and break him out of his overblot. Next, rescue Grim. Then we send the Phantoms that fused with Ortho back down into the Underworld. And lastly-restore the Cerberus System and reseal Tartarus and the Underworld."

Epel then says, "...We're gonna be fine. We managed to get Vil back to normal after he overblotted, and we still performed at SDC. We can handle this too!"

"Heh. Well spoken for a spudling," Vil says.

"I expect no less from Monsieur Pommette," Rook says, and talks through the communicator, "Control, is there any hope of restoring Cerberus on your end?"

"...Not much of one," The Styx member answers. "The Cerberus System controls Tartarus and the Underworld. It normally uses DNA authentication from a member of the Shroud family to shut down and reboot. But a Shroud started this whole mess. We've repeatedly tried to use the control codes we have in case of an emergency.... But Ortho's overridden them all. The system's not accepting any commands from the outside. Believe me, we've been trying everything we could think of.

Then Vil says, "Then all we can do is make them clean up their own mess. Alright. Leave Idia and Ortho to us."

"...Understood. We'll keep doing what we can on this end," The Styx member says.