Agent 3 let herself home in on the spawn point and disappeared from the captain's side.
Once she was gone, he got ready to set up his lookout. He took out the scope that he'd brought with him and set it up to peek through the bush that hid him.
It was a nifty little thing. It was one of the many add-ons that Ammoses had created to allow the captain's trusty bamboozler to be taken apart and customized.
As soon as he'd finished setting the scope up, he turned on his communicator to speak to Agent 3. "Alright Agent 3. I can see yer position. Keep moving forward right now. There should only be one way forward. When I say hide, the octostriker is lookin' yer way, so hide under anythin' you can. And try not to use yer ink unless you have to. We don't want 'em to know we're here."
The invasion was still going smoothly so far. Not that that was surprising.
It was really kind of boring actually.
But he would stay vigilant!
The information they'd gathered said there would be a zapfish near some sort of skatepark. The radar they had was able to confirm that the little fish was somewhere in the area, they just had to thoroughly search the area.
Inkurren scanned the ground once again, not really expecting to see anything.
Oh wait. There was some movement!
Inkurren focused his vision where he saw the suspicious movement, preparing for the worst… and was not impressed.
Ugh. It was just a gusher near some stairs. One of the octarians must've nudged it. Those thing were notorious for going off at the slightest touch.
Oh well. It's not like it'd draw much attention like this, and Inkurren trusted his splatoon not to carelessly walk into it and get splatted. He waited until it stopped squirting out ink before he doing anything else.
He sighed and went to watch over the other side of the area. He could see some octarians searching in the skatepark, just wandering around. It didn't look like they were having much luck.
Just as he thought that, his radio turned on and he heard the staticy voice of the twintacle trooper in charge.
"Captain, we're not finding anything here. Can you see anywhere we haven't looked from up there?"
"Hmm…", Inkurren glanced around the skatepark, trying to find a place he hadn't seen anyone look yet. "There a small building a little to the west. It doesn't look like a residential building and it's the only building in the area, so that might be part of the maintenance. They might've stored the zapfish in there. Take some of your squad with you and report back to me if you find anything."
"Yes captain."
The radio went silent and Inkurren turned back to watch some more. Still nothing, but that was a good thing.
He spent the next few minutes between giving directions and watching nothing happen when it happened.
Out of nowhere, his radio flared to like, spitting out the frantic voice of one of the octolings. She was stationed near the UFO that had crashed when they were first stealing zapfish.
"Captain! Intruder! It's the inkling! It's right here! It's-GUH!"
At the octolings scream, the radio abruptly cut off, leaving the air silent.
Dread and indignation filled Inkurren, and he immediately turned toward where the octoling had been and launched the strongest ink shot he could. As he looked over the edge of the ship, watching the ink cyclone dissipate, he thought he saw just a little bit of teal ink. Most of it had be covered by his own magenta, but some of it was up along the wall and ground, right near where they'd placed the…
Oh no.
He had the thought just a second too late, so he didn't see the moment the inkling thumped down on his ship.
He flipped around just quickly enough to dodge the inkling's first shot and be face to face with the creature.
"Agent 3, yer as sneaky as a starfish! Good job on avoidin' all those octos!"
Agent 3 had kept mostly quiet to avoid getting caught and only made a small noise of acknowledgement, so the captain continued talking.
"It took a while to sneak through that area, but you did it! Now, the area up ahead should be clear for the next minute or so before the octos come back to it. See if you can get through now."
Agent 3's dot on the screen move forward up the slope and past another checkpoint. The captain watched her location and made sure that the octostriker was looking well away from where she was when he heard Agent 3 squak.
"Agent 3! What happened!"
He looked at the camera feed from her headset and nearly sighed in relief when he didn't see any octarians. It was just a gusher. She must've nudged it it or something.
But an active gusher might draw attention. "Agent 3. There's no octarians, but you should hide in case that gusher it attracted any unwanted visitors."
Agent 3 looked around so quickly that she almost made him dizzy before running up to a tree.
A tree is good cover but it might not be enough for this is what he might've thought had she not scrambled up into the branches faster than he could blink.
Well. That solved that.
Just in time too, he noted. The octostriker had seen the gusher. The captain just had to hope that the octarian wouldn't think anything of it.
"Stay where you are, Agent 3."
They were lucky, and the octarian looked away. The captain waited a few extra moments, and when he saw the octostriker face away and talk into a radio he thought it safe to go.
Up next were several nerve-racking minutes where Agent 3 had to avoid the octarians around the downed UFO.
She did get past without being spotted though.
Agent 3 hurried around the corner relieved to be out of the area.
Only to come face to face with an octoling that the scanner hadn't picked up.
Both cephalopods froze for a moment that seemed to stretch on. The captain was surprised too.
He had time to think of two things.
One: through the camera he could see from the lack of kelp that the octoling girl wasn't an elite soldier.
And two: Agent 3 had never encountered an octoling, and might not know if this was an enemy.
The moment was broken though, when the octoling reached for some kind of communicator and spoke quickly. The captain couldn't quite tell what she was saying through the radio, but he heard the word 'intruder' and it kicked him back into gear.
"Agent 3! Splat her quickly!"
Agent 3 was lucky, and the octoling was too distracted trying to alert her leader to dodge the hero shot.
He knew it was too late though.
"The launchpad's just up those walls! Get yerself up there as fast a you can!"
The captain looked through his scope again, and saw that the octostriker was turned to Agent 3's location and was charging up an octostrike.
"Hurry Agent 3! Octostrike inkomin'!"
Agent 3 didn't reply, too busy covering the wall in ink. She rushed at the wall and jetted herself up the ink. In the back of his mind, the captain noted that she was using her new technique.
The octostriker had finished charging up and shot the missile of ink down where Agent 3 had been moments ago. The strike exploded against the ground, rising into a swirling cyclone of ink, high enough that the captain could see it from his hiding spot. Far more powerful than the average octostrike.
Agent 3 was almost up the second wall, and the magenta ink was still fogging up the air, probably blocking most of the view.
Agent 3 finished climbing, and ran straight toward the launchpad. She jumped in it, charged up, and soared up onto the octostriker's UFO, landing with a thump on another checkpoint.
Now the captain could see her with his scope. She fired off a shot the octostriker just barely dodged, and they both stared at each other for a moment.
Through the headset camera he could see the octostriker was hovering just to the side of the large pool of magenta ink. It had a helmet that looked slightly different from the usual. It'd been a few years since the captain had see an octostriker, so maybe they'd designed new helmets?
As he pondered on the headgear, the octostriker started speaking into a small radio, probably calling reinforcements. He was about to tell Agent 3 to attack, but she took the initiative herself and rushed forward, hero shot ablazing.
"Octostriker are long range fighters, Agent 3! Get close if you can!"
While agent 3 fought the octarian, the captain looked around the area, trying to see if any reinforcements were incoming. He saw a few octocopters starting to fly toward the ship.
"If you don't defeat that octostriker soon, yer gonna have company!"
Instead of answering, Agent 3 started shouting something at the octostriker, and tossed a splat bomb out behind it. The octostriker saw it and flew up out of the blast range, charging up and octostrike.
Agent 3 sprinted away from the blast, trying to get closer to the octostriker. After firing the octostrike, the octarian descended slightly, just barely into the hero shot's range. She got in a couple good hits before the octostriker flew back up.
The captain noticed that the UFO was getting closer to the ground, and closer to the octocopters. They were almost hovering over where the other UFO had crashed.
The octostriker let out another octostrike, just in time for the first octocopter to arrive. The captain didn't even have to warn Agent 3 before she dodged the ink cyclone and turned the hero shot on the small octarian. While she did splat it, the time she spent meant that she lost her chance at shooting the leader.
More octocopters arrived, and Agent 3 alternated between dodging octostrikes, splatting octocopters, and taking a few shots at the octostriker. All the while the ship got closer to the ground. The octostriker was probably too busy concentrating on Agent 3 to steer properly.
After the eighth or so octocopter, Agent 3 got her chance. When she dodged the octostrike, there were no octopcopers to get in her way, and the octostriker fell a little too close to the ink covered surface of the ship.
Agent 3 rushed forward, nearly close enough to touch, and blasted the octarian with all her strength.
She splatted it in an instant, and the pool of ink started to drain.
"Alright Agent 3! The zapfish should be in the center of the ship. Take it before that octarian comes back!"
As the ink level lowered more, the sphere which held the zapfish peeked out from under the liquid. Agent 3 approached once the level was low enough and cracked open the sphere with the hero shot.
"Yer close enough to the ground that you can just take it now. Grab it to shut off the checkpoints and I'll head over to yer location."
The captain put away his scope and watched as the ship fell a small distance to the ground when the zapfish was removed.
He packed up his things and made his way over to Agent 3, ready to congratulate her. He took out his communicator and called Sheldon while he walked.
They'd need some help for cleanup.
Didn't make any changes here. Thanks again to those who left reviews!
From AO3:
I wanted to get this done sooner, but I had a summer exam that got in the way. Also I've been playing possibly too much Tales of Symphonia.
I hope this was an exciting enough adventure because I didn't really proofread it lmao.
Also, Inkurren will make his return someday... in a while. I also mentioned Cap'n's bamboozler. I've got some ideas for that.
Tell me what you thought of this chapter! Or talk on tumblr!
Up next: we see what Sheldon's been doing!