[Spawning grounds 5AM]
As is known to everybody on the field, Salmon run shifts get considerably harder when the sun is down. That makes many people reluctant of working during the night shifts; however some brave souls are always up for a challenge for good pay.
And with that we have a group called "Creatures of the night", Marcus, Raven, Nina and Jin are a little group of night owls that dominate the night sifts in Grizzco. Nina was even given a medal for taking down a Mothership by herself one day.
"Aaand that makes 30" Said Raven as she put another egg in the basket. "We are on a roll tonight!"
"Hell yeah we are! Salmon Rush is a breeze with rollers, and the Mothership doesn't even dare to show herself!" Said Marcus, holding his krak-on roller high in the air.
A static noise was heard by the team, soon revealing the voice of their boss. "I gotta say kinda I'm impressed, you guys are making quite a haul. But anyway it seems that the next wave is… huh?"
"Is there some problem boss?" Jin asked.
"Just a little question kid, how is the weather and the tide over there?" Grizz asked, the radio was producing faint static.
"Clowdy with mid tides, nothing that out of the ordinary" Marcus responded.
Grizz was silent for a moment, he didn't say anything but it could be understood that something was bothering him. It was ten seconds before he said something.
"Head back to the boat, this is weird."
That drew confused looks from the group.
"Boss what is the problem?" Nina said with a slight hint of worry.
"The radar is not working, there -zzzzz-thing causing an -zzzz-ference." Just as he finished that sentence a loud thunder roared from the skies.
"Guys this is weird…" Said Jin concerned. "No Salmonids are appearing."
Now that was weird, salmonids almost never stop attacking until a run is over, and now the waters were extremely quiet. Not a signal of the fish-things anywhere around the place.
"Mr. Grizz is something wrong?!"
Raven tried to communicate with her boss, but the all she was met with was static.
"Over here!" The group heard Marcus yelling at the distance and headed to where he was. In the way, two more thunders were heard.
Upon arriving at the back platforms of the spawning grounds, they saw Marcus poking a dead salmonid. However it was clear why it had died, three slashes could be found on the chum's "neck" each oozing a bright green goop, its eyes were black and it was spilling the same goop from it's mouth.
"Ewww… what is that?" Raven said pointing to the goop spilling out of the cut.
"No idea, but this happens when I squish it…" Marcus said as he pressed down the fish with his roller. Much to everyone's disgust more goop spilled out of both the wound and its mouth.
"Kick it back to the water before more comes out of it!" Said Nina, prompting Marcus to kick the fish away, miraculously his boot was unstained.
"Ok, with that dealt, Raven, how's the radio doing?" Jin asked her, but as soon as she activated the thing only loud static could be heard.
"Still off"
"The electric storm is not helping either." Noted Marcus
They were in a hard place right now, in middle of dangerous territory, in a thunderstorm, with no communication nor a way to return to the boat. Many would have already entered in panic, but Creatures of the Night worked well by themselves in the dark, it didn't take long before they stated working their way to spend the night in the small island, however as they were breaking down some antennas, Jin, who was on the top of one, got a signal on his radio.
" -zzz-lo? Anyone -zzz-ere?" A female voice could be heard through the communicator.
Jin signalized to his team that the radio got a signal and told them to wait in place.
"Yes can you hear me!?" Jin yelled
"Give -zzz- a sec-zzz-d" The voice said as the static effect started to disappear. "Yes I can. Who are you and why are you in salmonid area this time of night?" The voice asked seemingly concerned.
"We are Grizzco workers! We work on the night shift!" Jin yelled.
A small gasp could be heard from the other side of the line, along with multiple voices yelling from far away. "Ok kid listen, you REALLY shouldn't be there right n…" A thunder fell down causing the static to return. 'Oh no no NO!' thought Jin.
"Push me a little to the left!" He yelled.
After that, the voice started to return. "Kid I assume you have weapons of some sort with you right now, right? We will be sending some help, just tell me your coordinates!"
"Spawning grounds!" The whole team said in unison.
"Nice going kid, we'll be sending some help. Now hold your own over there, we'll be there in about 45 minutes. Just for all that is sacred, stay. away. from. the. water. Over and out." And the radio returned to static.
Jin dropped down in squid form to avoid damages and headed where his team was.
"Ok guys good news and bad news, which one first?" Jin asked.
They exchanged looks for a moment. "Good, then bad." Nina said while the other 2 nodded.
"Well the good news is that I got rescue on the way" Their faces lit up. "The bad news is that apparently we are in danger right now". They swallowed hard.
"From what she told me, we should be fine as long as we stay away from the water. So lets just sit and wait ok?"
The girls nodded, Marcus seemed bothered, but nodded as well.
And so they did. The team got together near to where the egg basket should be and waited for rescue. At least most of the team did, Marcus wasn't the kind that just sits down and wait, so he kept constantly walking aimlessly around the island.
For some reason, Jin was starting to feel really tired due to the whole situation. He was not the only one though, Raven was starting to fall asleep and Nina was already snoozing, 'One little nap won't cause much trouble' he thought as he lied down and closed his eyes.
(z z z…)
*SLAP*
"OW, WHAT the hell…?" As Jin woke up he realized Marcus had slapped him, but that is not what made him lower his tone, his surroundings did.
They were still in the spawning grounds, however 3 main things could be noted: First, the skies were filled with dark clouds. Second: the waters around them were green, but not the usual green, a luminescent watery green that made the whole island visible. Third: a horrible smell, not the average putrid smell that filled salmonid territory, no, it was a chemical smell of gas that was making his head hurt.
"What the hell happened while I was out?!" Jin asked.
"Way to much shit for me to explain! Get up and come with me!" Marcus yelled, he sounded genuinely scared, and that wasn't something he usually did.
And after following him to where the beach was, he realized the gravity of the current situation.
Raven and Nina were unloading everything they had on "Things" coming out of the water. Inklings, octolings, urchins, salmonids and shapeless blobs, all of them were crawling out of the water in a zombie like fashion, all had blackened eyes and green/blue skin, and were crawling towards them.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE THINGS!?" Jin screamed terrified.
"Zombies!" The other 3 said as Marcus jumped down to help the girls.
Although almost inking his pants, Jin picked up and started unloading his charger on the "Zombies" as they approached.
Frankly it was extremely gross, every time he landed a shot, their bodies exploded sending dismembered arms and legs in all directions. Marcus crushed them with his roller, as the zombies did not seem to have a good reaction time, Nita was clearing small groups with her blaster and anything else that remained was shot by Raven's squelcher.
Those things were definitely tougher than salmonids, but seemingly twice as dumb. Creatures of the Night could call that an easy shift… If they weren't about to throw up.
Slowly but surely, the creature's numbers started to drop as they were slaughtered by the team, and only after the last one of them dropped dead, the four workers headed back to the stone platform.
They were silent, no words could describe what just happened. Covered in green ink and with traumatized looks on their faces, they just sat there until Raven broke the silence. "What the hell was that?"
"Zombies? Monsters? Aliens? Who give a crap?!" Marcus yelled angrily. Marcus was never the kind to be scared, so whenever anyone would be, he just gets angrier and angrier.
"Are those guys… d-dead?" Nina asked while shaking.
"DIDN'T YOU SEE THEIR BODIES BREAKING APART?! OF COURSE THEY ARE DEAD!" Marcus yelled again, making Nina start crying.
While Raven tried to calm down her, Marcus headed off back to the coast to let off some steam, he could be heard yelling and bashing his roller against objects.
It didn't take long for Jin to look out for his friend, Marcus was a good person, and under no known circumstances he would try to make Nina cry. As he reached the beach, the boy could be found banging his roller against a barrel like a pickaxe mining on rock.
"Dude, you have to calm dow…"
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY CALM DOWN!" He yelled. "How the hell am I going to calm down when…" He said raising his roller in the air. "WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!" he banged the roller down into the barrel "WITHOUT ANY FORM OF GOING BACK!" and again, "SURROUNDED BY ZOMBIES!" and again.
"WE." And again "ARE GOING" and again "TO DIE!" he said finally throwing his roller on the floor.
As soon as the roller hit the floor, the whole island began shaking and the waters became agitated.
"ROOOAAARRR"
A pillar of yellow light came from under the bright green water, and from such light a goliath of ink started emerging.
What that thing was couldn't be specified, Its head had nothing but a mouth filled with what seemed to be glass teeth, one of its harms looked normal for the exception of the huge ink claw which was too sharp to be considered ink, and its other arm consisted of 4 flailing tendrils spreading ink every where. The thing was about a steelhead and half tall.
"Aw shit." The 2 said in unison.
"ROOOAAARRR" Was the answer.
The thing soon ran out of the water charging at the 2 boys. Jin shot his weapon and managed to swim away from the monster's path, but Marcus, having dropped his roller was a different story. He took the impact head on.
To Jin's surprise, he didn't get splatted.
He was thrown halfway trough the map and THEN got splatted.
Marcus life saver appeared right on Raven's and the now-not-crying Nina's side. While Marcus seemed ok, the life saver was slightly damaged.
After being revived, he switched glances with the 2 girls.
"Pick up your weapons! NOW!" He said.
And they charged off to help Jin, who was struggling to deal with the big monster.
As soon as the thing saw the girls charging at him, he spun his arm and shot a tendril at Raven, who barely dodged the attack. As he went to charge at the girl, the monster got interrupted by a charger shot in the head, which drove his attention back to Jin.
As he kept the monster distracted, Jin yelled "Marcus! Get the roller!" as he swam back to avoid the monster's claw.
Jin's tank was almost empty, he wouldn't be able to hold the thing anymore, but as soon as he ran out of ink, Nina's blast hit the thing in the face, seemingly dazing it. And just as he got out of the way, Marcus hit the thing on its back with a vertical roller swing.
The monster stumbled forward due to the impact, and soon started being shot by the other 3 team members. However the monster paid no mind to the shooting, instead he turned back to Marcus.
"Bring it on inkface!" Marcus taunted, holding tighter grip on his roller.
The creature roared, but instead of charging at him, it stared to back away.
"What are you scared now…"
And then it jumped.
"Aw fuck…" The 4 inklings said.
Marcus readied his roller vertically like a baseball player ready to hit a ball, a large murderous ink ball. However his focus was broken by a large speeding figure hit his target for his surprise.
The monster was knocked at the stone platform of the island, barely missing the 3 other inklings. However their attention was focused on Marcus's savior.
A huge machine, it was the best way to describe it. It consisted of a large torso with a glass visor, seemingly heavy armored legs with chicken-like dark feet, and two arms, one of which had probably the coolest splatling they ever seen, ornamented with neon ocean blue lights, and the other had a large metallic hand holding a huge harpoon. It had an ocean blue painting and yellow lines.
Then the machine turned to face Marcus.
"Thanks for the call kid" The machine said.
At that moment everyone froze.
"Uh, actually, I called you." Jin said
"Oh ok."
(Awkward silence)
"Grrrr…" Grumbled the ink monster as it began to get up, startling Jin, Raven and Nina.
"Kids, get back here, I'll take care of the rest." The machine said as it began to rev up its gun.
The monster then got up, evidently angry as its teeth grew sharper, its tentacles long and its arms more "muscle" like. It stared at the machine with its non-existent eyes, throwing back dirt like a bull ready to charge at someone wearing red.
"ROOAAARRR" Was heard as it charged.
"LOUD SHIP HORN*" Was the answer. And then the machine charged as well.
The monster hopped in attempt to claw the machine, however it stepped to the side, grabbing the monsters arm and using its momentum to effectively perform a judo throw that shook the ground.
"Holy shit that was awesome!"
The monster growled in pain, but it didn't stay too long on the ground, in a moment it was already up again, this time, it started to lash out with its whip-like tentacles.
While blocking the attacks with both arms, the robot seemed to be struggling to keep its footing.
"Two can play this game then…" The robot said as a small container opened on its back. Surprisingly, a wave of tenta-missiles came out of it and targeted the tentacles, blowing them mostly to pieces.
Before the monster could react, the robot dashed towards it and lodged its splatling on the monster's throat.
What came next could be defined by both "Awesome" and "Terrifying". The weapon released a powerful torrent of steaming ocean-blue ink, so powerful in fact, that it got the thing's head right out of its body.
But it was not down yet.
Slowly, the now headless one-armed creature stood up, tumbling on its way.
"How is it not dead!?" Raven yelled.
"It doesn't have a head! Why is it alive?!"
The kids yelled in terror, unsure of what was happening, but someone knew what had to be done now.
"I'm sorry for doing this little one…" The robot muttered to itself. "But you have to go." It finished.
As son as its sentence ended, it ran towards the monster with its harpoon in hand.
With a kick, the body of the creature fell on its back, barely offering any resistance.
He had to do this, he always did this, but he still felt bad as he looked at the silhouette of the poor octoling inside the creature's body.
Raising its harpoon, the robot whispered: "You escaped Kamado's containment area…" with that he slammed the harpoon on the creature's chest.
Getting up and turning its back on the monster, it said:
"Sigh*"
"Test failed…"
And after three rapid beeps the body of the monster inflated and blew up with a large explosion of deep blue ink.
And with that the sun began to rise, the clouds on the sky started to dissipate and the water returned to its murky green color. The spawning grounds looked quite nice under blue sky.
The 4 kids were in awe, in 2 years of constant nightshift salmon runs that was the coolest most terrifying thing they ever seen. They were in such awe in fact, that they didn't even see the rescue helicopters approaching the island.
"W-Who are you?" Nina asked the robot now walking towards them.
The robot's visor opened itself, revealing a small yet complicated looking pilot cabin which out of it, crawled a small glowing mass with a small captain's hat.
"C. Q. Cumber, Kamado's anti-sanitization forces commander." It said in a cute voice.