Moon-Man Chronicles Two: Electric Boogaloo.

Part Two: The Trail.

Moon-Man traveled in the dark, the sounds of unidentified liquid echoing in the concrete tunnel as the only company she had.

An hour ago, she wouldn't mind these circumstances in the slightest. She would tiredly embrace them, but some anxious feeling had crept on her heart and refused to leave.

The games were finished in quick succession as she had predicted. She had relied on the assumption that here opponents weren't as good as her, for the fact that she hadn't seen or heard of them prior to her long hiatus from the Turf War scene. At one time, nearly a year ago, she had grown tired of the constant adrenaline rush and had decided to quit after her loss in a tournament which would decide who would get the ultimate bragging rights or something.

She wondered what happened to those four kids, now that the thought crossed her mind. Moon-Man hadn't been in a Turf war since, and she wondered why long dead emotions had resurrected in her.

But the emotions were diluted. The real combat she had felt a month prior had raised the bar for all the feelings she had received however. So she fought with herself, trying to keep the pride of leading a squad down in her gut as she continued to work by herself.

She continued to follow the tunnel, which she had found the entrance to next to an alley that branched off from the back of Marauder's building.

For nearly an hour she had slowly made her way into the seemingly endless underbelly of Inkopolis, and methodically she worked her way to where she was now.

The sewer pipe had led her to a grand chamber, for lack of better words. Sun was filtering down through several slots in the top of the ceiling. The tunnel she had been following lead to a vertical drop, and when she looked downwards she saw dozens of similar openings and large pipes that sprouted from the concrete cylindrical room she was gazing into. She scanned the entire area, and watched a scarlet red figure standing on the center of one of the pipes that outcropped over the large drop.

Moon-Man's eyes couldn't see the figure in detail, so she slung her Gal across her back, and ran as fast as she could before launching herself onto the nearest pipe.

She landed lightly, before jumping downwards multiple times on other similar pipes, before reaching the larger one where the figure was standing.

She unslung, and shouldered her shooter, aiming it at red figure. Whoever it was, the build was similar to that of a squid, but the tentacles that were stationed on its head was a cone of flesh, tied together with some tether.

The figure then started to speak, in an incredibly soft, almost alien, but similar to an Inkling voice.

"Marauder. We were beginning to worry." its voice cooed, "We were about to start without you, and we all know you didn't want to miss it for the world."

The figure turned, facing Moon-Man for the first time. His eyes seemingly pierced her lensed gaze, with bright red pupils, and obsidian irises that had a cold light dwelling within. However, she couldn't mistake his boyish inkling face.

He seemingly recognized her as well for not being Marauder, and raised his hands in surrender. His claws raised slightly over his head, he began to step backwards slowly.

"Hello," He said, eyes narrowing at Moon-Man's shooter. "I apologize, I thought you were someone else."

Moon-Man continued to point the business end of her weapon at the stranger. She thought briefly on how she would go about questioning this… creature.

"You know Marauder?" She found herself asking, receiving a nod from her new found hostage.

"I do. Are you one of his friends? I'd be grateful if you would tell me where he is." The boy took a small step towards her, stepping away from the edge of the pipe they were standing on.

"How do you know him?" She asked, looking over his flesh. She could see it was spotted red, with strange patterns here and there.

After glancing at her exposed hand, she realized he had been scarred in a similar way as she had. This creature had been exposed to the dangerous substance of water.

"He works with me," he said, taking another half step away from the edge. "However, he went missing a month ago, not by any chance you know why?"

"He works with you? Doing what?" She asked, ignoring his question entirely.

She watched the figure frown, apparently the question dodge made him quite sad. He tried taking another step towards her, before she threatened him with death by ink gun should he move once more.

"Okay, okay. Calm down… I'm Infy. What's your name?" He asked, raising one hand slightly in front of himself, as if it would help should she choose to open fire.

She thought shortly about whether to share her alias with the almost inkling, but didn't see the harm in it, stating her name as Moon-Man, he smiled.

"Moon-Man. What do you think about this city? Don't you think it is odd how there are no adults? How you are made to fight in combat just to survive in this place they put you in?" He asked, as if preparing a speech.

He waited briefly, but without a sign of an answer, he continued his spiel. "Do you know what indoctrination means? Your government is teaching an entire city of children how to fight. Have you never asked yourself why?"

Moon-Man said nothing for a while. She didn't know what this inkling was trying to prove, but she had shared the same sentiment when it came to this city. If she was about to get answers to some of the bigger questions she's had, Marauder could wait.

"Tell me." She asked, gaining a toothy grin from the thing in front of her. The more she looked at him, the more differences she found between him and say, Bojable or Tome.

"This city is meant to train an entire generation of soldiers, who can only –be- soldiers. They teach you nothing but how to fight, to the point where the kids crave violence. Does that sound like a healthy way to raise kids?" He asked, stating his very biased thoughts to her.

"No." She said, agreeing with him.

"Indeed. I have been working for years to bring down this system, would you want to help me?" He offered. She didn't take her eyes off him after that, sensing some form of desperation.

"I don't know. Tell me what you are first, Infy."

"What I am?" He asked, taken aback, but smiling nervously.

"Do you know what a mutant is?" He questioned, but when he received silence, he continued. "Basically, I share similarities with an Inkling, but on the genetic level, I'm different."

"Different how?" She asked, seeming to find a line of questioning that put this Infy character off stable ground.

"Does that matter?" Infy questioned back.

"It might. I'm an indoctrinated Inkling, remember? So tell me what you are, and I'll decide whether to join your plan to kill kids."

"What?"

"Marauder killed two kids, Infy. You work with him, so you kill kids. Or was that too big of an assumption?"

"I don't kill children." Infy said, his soft voice becoming harder.

"Then who's Beak?" She asked, taking a single step closer.

Infy nervously chuckled, before saying, "Which one? There's about fourteen of them. Your government loves that word for some reason. There's Squid Beak, B.E.A.K., B-e-e-k-e. Going to need some more specifics."

She frowned at that. "B.E.A.K." She said, each letter leaving her mouth with a tinge of annoyance.

"Moon-Man, I don't know how you know about them, but I'd like too. I'd like to hear the stories you have, and what happened to Marauder. But I need an answer on whether you'll come join me or not." His voice sounded like genuine emotion, but she wouldn't trust anyone she'd only met for barely ten minutes.

But why was he rushed all of a sudden? She looked out of the corner of her eyes, looking to see if someone or something had found its way into this large chamber.

"Moon-Man."

"No. I want answers just as much as you, but you've done a poor job showing trustworthiness."

"Then I'm sorry. I want you to know that I don't kill anything. I'm a pacifish." He said, smiling sadly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But they aren't."

The next second became a storm of action. As she pulled the trigger, Infy jumped off the side of platform they were standing on, grasping a smaller pipe while he dangled over the large drop. Moon-Man didn't have time to think about Infy though, as she ran forward to dodge the laser that was targeting her from above.

Moon-Man saw another strange creature that was similar to an inkling, save for a curly tentacle on top of its head. In the not-inkling's hands was a charger, with the muzzle aiming at her head.

The meaning of the word 'they' suddenly hit her like a train, and she scanned for more enemies as she ran towards the far wall, which the large cylinder led towards.

As she was aiming for the tunnel that lead into the sewers and out of this chamber, she noticed she had goofed.

Either the not-inkling with the charger had the ability to teleport, or she had a clone, Moon-Man figured. As the second enemy fired their weapon at her, she dodged the purple ink that spewed from the muzzle of the shooter, throwing herself into the void off the pipe.

Luckily for Moon-Man, she looked before jumping, and only had to fall a hundred feet or so, before she landed on a similar pipe that she was just on. She could actually see where the light in the large chamber ended, and the bottomless void began.

She could also hear shouting coming from Infy, the words distorted by her rough landing. Moon-Man figured it might have had something to do with her impending escape, as she leapt across from her landing onto a sewer's entrance, similar to the one she had entered from.

A couple dozen feet into the dark tunnel, she could hear the landing of two creatures, which only hastened her steps into the unknown.

.

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Editor's Notes: You've gotten a lot farther than you should have, but then again...