As Maya rode, the doors opened, and a sea cucumber walked out. He was wearing headphones under a conductor cap. It lurched over to Maya, but before it could speak, Cap'n Cuttlefish walked up to him and asked: "Can I hear what you're listening to?" "Sure," the cucumber said, "It's Color Pulse, by Off the Hook." the Cap'n listened to the music, and soon started nodding his head to the beat. "That's really good!" he said. Then he gave it the headphones back. "Alright," the cucumber said "let me introduce myself. I am C.Q. Cumber, and I will be your conductor for your journey. Oh, and speaking of which, here we are! By the way, take this." then the cucumber handed her a backpack with a curled up bag on it. Maya put it on and stepped off the train.
Maya was suddenly lifted up in something that looked like an octarian vault. When she reached a concrete platform, the vault let her out. C.Q. Cumber was already there. He pointed to a terminal like the one in the abandoned station and spoke, "At each station, the available weapons will be displayed atop the equipper. CQ points are required to take each test. We'll grant you 1,000 to start with. The test fee indicates the number of CQ points needed to take the test. The reward is how many CQ points you will earn for passing the test. Now go ahead and select a weapon." Maya looked at the equipper and picked the only two things she could: a splattershot and some splat bombs. As the machine retrieved these items, she turned towards C.Q. Cumber and he said "This area we're in now is called a station platform. You can find me here at each stop. If you'd like more info about a certain test, come talk to me. I'm always happy to help." Maya thought a moment and said "anything else I need to know" "Well…" he said, and then he extended a tendril and pointed to a gate in front of the entrance This is a turnstile. Swipe your card to pay the test fee and begin the test. If you don't have enough CQ points to take a test, you'll have to come back to it." then he retracted the tendril "anything else?f" Maya asked. "Hmm… Well…" he said, "visibility here is poor, so be careful, and to pass this test, you must shoot and then touch the goal." "OK." Maya said as the weapons popped out. She took them and then walked towards the turnstile. She swiped her card, and walked through the gate.
There were trees outside the turnstile. From Maya's CQ 80, Cap'n Cuttlefish's voice echoed. "Trees?! Man, this subway is weird…". All of a sudden, an Octoling appeared at the top of a pillar. She had sickly green skin and tentacles the same color, but they faded to blue at the ends. She was holding an octoshot. "O-oh… carp" then Cuttlefish spoke up "Octolings are your friends, right? Maybe try talking to them?" but just then, the octoling threw a bomb off the side, before leaping off. "Egad!" the Cap'n said, "Are they really going to attack a fellow Octarian?". When she landed, the octoling spoke, "Target acquired." it said, before shooting at Maya. She barely dodged it, and returned fire, while Cap'n Cuttlefish rambled on "You might wanna talk a little louder!" he shouted. "I don't think that's gonna help!" she shouted back. After a couple more seconds, she took out the octoling, but not before half her face and most of her pink tentacles were soaked in pale green ink. As soon as this happened, the gates opened and revealed… more forest. The Cap'n cose this time to speak, "That gate is open! I guess taking them out was a good idea after all." Maya ignored him and walked through the gates. As she walked through, two more octolings appeared, one using a brella, and one using a type of weapon called a roller, and although she had seen may pictures of rollers, this type she had seen only once before. She had seen it in a picture with two young inkling girls, one in a green hat, a face mask, and a green t-shirt. The other girl had a pink beanie, a pair of sunglasses, and a pink t-shirt. They were hugging an old squid that looked… "what?" Maya thought. All of a sudden, she felt full of energy! She charged straight at the octolings, and as she fought, the first few notes of a song was ringing in her ears, the same notes that she woke up with. The two octolings didn't stand a chance. She splatted them before they could jump off the pillar. The gates opened, but before they were all the way open, she was past them. She inked the pillar here in the blink of an eye and splatted the octoling up top. The final gates opened, and she shot the goal before collapsing. She had barely enough energy to touch the goal before she blacked out.