Chapter 20: The End of Everything - Part 1
Tartar Labs
The entrance doors to the Lab opened, Commander Tartar himself slithering in. The alarm strobe lights were already off, as Tartar looked around. The ground was littered with dead stalkers and Sanitized Octarians. They had already been breached.
"My army…" Tartar grumbled to himself. He slowly walked around the halls, looking for any clues to where anyone who breached might've gone. Their submarine was still parked, so he knew they were still here.
Several minutes went by. He entered the center labs of the facility, studying the environment. This place had been breached too, the door to the time machine room wide open.
He entered. The time machine was booming with life as always, but it wasn't turn on. What did they want with the time machine?
"Hello, Tartar." A female voice said in the corner of the room. Tartar turned to see Marina, casually sitting down, fumbling with her fingers.
The sound of guns cocking sounded behind him, prompting him to turn around. Pearl was directly behind him, Dualies ready to strike. "Don't move, terminator."
Tartar grumbled and turned back to Marina. "…Mother."
"Let's drop the mother bullshit, alright?" Marina replied. "You're delusional, and alone. And we're here to stop you from your hellbent destruction of the entire universe."
"I see you read my plans." Tartar sighed. "…I don't consider it destruction. I consider it order. Correction for a sick universe."
"So your hatred extends just beyond Octarians and Inklings, doesn't it?"
"In a way, yes." Tartar looked down. "I've been studying your kinds for my entire life. I was built by humans, finished by you, and in all the time I had to reflect on all of that, I came to a simple conclusion. …No life-form deserves sentience."
"Including you."
"Including me. We're all too easily controlled by emotions, no matter how pointless. I want to cleanse the universe of these impurities, because really, the universe itself is pure without us."
"And what makes you think you're the robot for the job?"
"...Because I'm the only one who can see the impurities. I'm the only one with a grand enough will to act on it. But don't think that I exclude myself. When my job is finished, I will silently lay down my own life, as well as those which I have created."
Marina chuckled a little bit, standing up. "You've even more delusional than I thought. I'm actually straight up embarrassed to have designed you. You really don't understand, do you?"
"Understand what?"
"Not only is what you're doing physically impossible, but it's gonna destroy all of reality if you even attempt it. Unlike you, I have all the math in my head, space-time would actually become crippled after… what, three full uses?"
"You're lying to stop me."
"I'm really not, Tartar. It's science. You're living off of delusion. Oh, and another thing you fail to understand, is that the universe is only pure because it has those sentient beings to consider it pure. I don't even understand how you missed that."
"If only you were by my side all this time to tell me these things yourself, Mother."
"Maybe I would've if you didn't let yourself become a sick machine with genocidal needs. You destroyed my city, and I could never forgive something like that."
"So you're here to kill me." Tartar smiled.
"No. Of course not. …She is."
Tartar's smile faded as he turned around to Pearl, but it wasn't Pearl she was talking about. Marina suddenly dived to grab Pearl out of the way, both them sliding to the floor. Then, before Tartar could react, he was knocked out of the room by a heavy unseen force.
He rolled back into the main labs, and quickly got back onto his feet. Agent 3 appeared in front of him. "Hello again, Tartar." She said with a smirk.
"Executioner! Did you come back to get on your knees and beg again!?" Tartar yelled angrily.
"Not exactly." Agent 3 said. Suddenly from her hand, spawned the Executioner spear.
"That no longer belongs to you!"
"I don't care." Agent 3 then began to engage Tartar in combat, attempting to slice him with the spear. They were both quick, and due to Agent 3's skills vs Tartar's strength, it was a decently even match. 3 acrobatically dodged every single one of his attacks, but Tartar simply held through her attacks through sheer armor.
Eventually, Tartar managed to read her entire fighting style, and with a swift move, knocked Agent 3 straight into the wall, knocking her out instantly.
"NOW!" Marina yelled.
Once again, pink holgraphic rings surrounded Tartar, and a "BOOYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" sounded out.
This time, however, Tartar was quick enough to quickly dodge the sound waves coming from Pearl's killer wail. He crawled along the wall, and swiftly destroyed the Killer Wail with his claw, before swiping Pearl to the side. He moved to kill her, but was stopped by Marina.
Tartar began to get covered in green ink from Marina's hero shot, as he angrily turned back around to Marina. "Insects! All of you!"
"Look who's talking." Marina said. Tartar prepared to knock her down as well, when a splat bomb suddenly collided with his head. He turned to face Sheldon.
Sheldon smiled and saluted at Marina. "You just simply don't mess with the Squidbeak Splatoon! Now prepare to feel the wrath of the mighty-" He never finished his sentence, as in the blink of an eye, he was also knocked unconscious into the wall.
Marina sighed. "God dammit Sheldon. Stick to the plan." She muttered under her breath.
Then Agent 4 entered the room, running straight up to Tartar. He began to circle him, spraying him with ink while occasionally landing a few punches on him to throw him off. Unfortunately for him, this didn't last long, as Tartar eventually predicted his next move and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him to the ground, throwing him aside.
"NOW, CALLIE!" Another female voice rang out. Callie and Marie then ran in, holding a rope like the last time they fought him, and attempted to wrap it around his legs again. However, their plan failed, as Tartar instantly recognized the attempt and cut the rope with his claw.
Callie and Marie both tripped as the rope didn't go quite where they wanted. "Shit!" Marie yelled, as she slid and stood back up. The two popstars began to fire at him with their respective weapons, but Tartar no longer even flinched. Swiping his entire body, he tripped Callie, and then grabbed Marie by the throat swiftly.
He held Marie close to his face, his grip on her throat cutting off her oxygen. Marie struggled to breathe. "Hm. Yes. The Squid Sisters. Granddaughters of Cuttlefish."
"What, you know us?" Callie said, struggling to get up.
Tartar suddenly swatted Callie in the head with his behind, knocking her out. "Of course I do. Everyone knows who you are. I'm sorry about your grandfather, really, I am, but he was destined to die soon anyway."
Marie, even though she couldn't really breathe, struggled some words out. "You…. never… talk… about… Gramps…" She started to feel faint.
"Hm. You're all so pathetic. Holding on to dear loved ones. Weak. You're all dying today. And I'm going to enjoy every second you sit in the blender."
Tartar's evil grin was the last thing Marie saw as she passed out.
Marie gasped as she reawoke. She attempted to move, but quickly found that her entire body was bound by rope. She looked around, seeing that everyone else in the Splatoon, except for Agent 8, was also tied up by the wall in the lab.
She remained trapped for several minutes before eventually, Tartar stepped back in. He stopped to survey the area. "Hm… Are we all awake?" He began to walk down a line past everyone, looking closely at every single one of them.
The only person who seemed to still be out was Sheldon, although it should've been obvious due to his snoring. Tartar snapped his sharp fingers. "Wake up! Useless crab!" He yelled. Sheldon snapped awake with a small scream.
Tartar sighed. "You all continue to disappoint me, more and more as time goes on. Well…" He looked down at Marina. "Your plan failed. I have you now." Marina squinted her eyes in anger.
Tartar stepped back a bit so the whole group could see him clearly. "Most of you will be going in the blender. All of you except one." He moved over to Agent 3, suddenly caressing her face with his sharp claws, causing her to cringe to herself. "You… my dear Executioner… I'm going to personally kill you with my own fingers. I'm gonna watch you bleed."
Agent 3 sighed, disgusted that Tartar was currently so close. "Well, it's rude to keep a girl waiting."
"You stood by my side all this time and you turn on me because you lose an old squid. An old, old, squid."
"We made a deal, Tartar. Cuttlefish was supposed to live and you killed him. Now I'm gonna kill you." She put on a mocking voice. "I'm going to personally kill you with my own fingers. I'm gonna watch you bleed."
Tartar suddenly slapped her. "And I'm gonna kill you in front of them." He grabbed her by the rope, shoving her to the rest of the group. "Look to the traitor, people!" He announced to the rest of the group. "Let her be an example!"
Agent 3 sighed and closed her eyes, preparing herself for the inevitable pain Tartar was about to give her.
Suddenly, a grenade rolled into the middle of the room, attracting everyone's attention, including Tartar's.
Tartar stopped what he was doing, confused, as he leaned down to pick it up. "What-"
Suddenly, it exploded in a fiery burst, pushing Tartar back. Agent 3, who was already free of the radius, crawled away like a worm. Tartar stood up with the smoke, as a figure leaped in.
As the smoke cleared, Agent 8's figure became visible, who was standing decently far away from Tartar in a battle position.
"Well, well, well… Number 10,008."
"You still remember that number after all this time?" 8 teased.
"You're not an easy one to forget. Among the cockroaches, you really stand out." Tartar smiled.
"You keep calling everyone around her cockroaches when you're the only one here who even resembles one."
"I suppose you're here to kill me. The rest of your friends failed to."
"At least I have a few tricks I learned from Three herself." 8 said with a threatening glare. Before Tartar could raise an eyebrow to what she just said, she suddenly pulled out Tenta Missile launchers. Several Tenta Missiles flew out, heading directly for Tartar.
Tartar shielding himself a little bit and tanked all of the missiles, and 8 still wasn't done. She then equipped an Ink Armor, before rushing toward Tartar and landing a few punches on him.
Of course, the Ink Armor only a lasted a few seconds, and as soon as it ran out, 8 only had a second to react before Tartar sliced at her left arm, breaking some of the armor off and cutting her. As she screamed in pain, he then punched her right in the face. She fell to the ground, but quickly regained her senses and rolled over to grab 3's spear, which was sitting on the floor. She used it to counter Tartar's attack, and then attempted to cut him with it. The spear swiped his metal skin, but didn't breach it.
It didn't take 8 long to notice that she didn't really know acrobatics like 3 did, but it didn't matter. As soon as it was recharged, she reactivated the Ink Armor, and with a couple of swift punches and kicks, actually managed to knock Tartar down.
Tartar grunted, feeling a little defeated. He struggled to get back up.
Agent 8's Ink Armor ran out, although she wasn't paying attention to it, her cockiness overcoming her. She could kill him. "You're done Tartar. You're dying here."
Tartar only gave a sinister smile. Suddenly, in an upward swipe, knocked 8 into a backflip, causing her to awkwardly land on her back. She groaned, and watched as Tartar came in for the beatdown.
Letting out a gasp of fear, she shielded her face, tanking every one of his punches. His cold, hard, metal, painful punches. She grunted out in pain, as Tartar suddenly kicked her across the room. She came to a rolling stop, and now starting to fear for her life, forced herself to quickly get up.
Tartar was slowly going in for the kill. She had one shot to hold him back. She pulled out a Stingray, firing it directly through Tartar, but it didn't even seem to affect him. Tartar continued to walk through it as if the laser didn't exist, eventually reaching her. With a swat, he destroyed the Stingray.
Agent 8 held the spear up to her face to block more attacks, but to her dismay, Tartar simply tore it in half. 8 attempted to punch him, but Tartar grabbed her fist to hold her still, and then drove one end of the spear right through her armor and into her stomach.
She immediately yelped out in pain, fear showing in her eyes as she instantly remembered what happened to Marina.
"EIGHT!" Multiple people screamed out at once, Marina being the loudest.
Tartar slowly shoved 8 toward the wall, where she carefully sat down, and he pulled out the spear for her, throwing it aside. He gently caressed his face just as he did with 3. "I've gotta be honest, out of all the cockroaches here, you seem to be the bravest. I respect that."
Agent 8 silently gagged on her own ink as she stared at her wound in horror.
Tartar sighed. "I'll make sure your death is quick and painless. As a sign of that respect. It's been nice knowing you, 10,008."
Luckily for 8, the wound wasn't as bad as Marina's as it wasn't as deep, but it still hurt like hell. She groaned in pain, watching Tartar about to make his killing move, as she accepted her death. At the very least, she was making a warrior's exit.
Suddenly, however, another grenade rolled in, directly underneath Tartar. It once again bursted in a fiery explosion, this time, knocking Tartar down so his head hit a table. Tartar fell down, limp, the lights in his eyes powering down. The entire Splatoon looked to see what happened, seeing that Sheldon had somehow escaped his ropes.
"Oh my god, I'm so glad I convinced you to be Agent 5." Marie sighed in gratefulness.
Sheldon saluted. "Just doing my duty." He quickly went around the room, untying everyone. As soon as he finished untying Marina, she ran straight for 8, who hadn't really moved from her spot, still staring at her wound in disbelief.
"Eight! You're gonna be ok, look at me. We know how to heal this." Marina said quickly, grabbing her cheek for comfort. She turned to look at Callie. "Give her the sanitization!"
Marie walked up to her to check out the wound and the cuts. "It's too dangerous, that stuff made you flatline, remember?" She knelt down to look at her stomach. "…I don't think it's as deep as it was for Marina, but we need to get you medical attention as soon as possible. Can you stand?"
8 responded by slowly standing up, although her legs were a little weak. She grasped onto Marina for support, who held on closely to her in almost a hug.
Marie sighed. "Now's our chance, we need to destroy Tartar while he's still out!" She said, preparing her weapon.
Agent 4 suddenly went up to 8 and hugged her. "You are ok? I mean… stupid question, but-"
"I'm alive." 8 replied, as she continued to groan from the pain.
Sheldon, Marie, and Marina all knelt down to study Tartar's body. His skin was basically thick metal plates, and Marina slowly ran Agent 3's spear along it. Not a scratch.
"...I don't know how we're supposed to breach this." She sighed.
Marie thought for a second. "Let's use the bombs and see if we can blow him up. How many bombs do we have?"
"Everyone has several of their own grenades, and then we have a big one that can bring down the whole lab. The big one is a last resort, but, I don't know if the grenades can breach his skin. He's already gotten hit by one."
Marie groaned. "Dammit. Um… Maybe we should just use the big bomb and evacuate? It'd destroy Tartar, the machine, and the lab."
Suddenly, however, several high pitched roars could be heard from a distance, as if some sort of creature was let loose into the lab. They all stopped what they were doing in curiosity.
"Are there Stalkers in the area?" Sheldon asked.
"No… Stalkers sound different than that. These sound more like…" Agent 4 stopped, not knowing how to finish the sentence.
Whatever they were hearing, it was fast. Dog-like footsteps could be heard, scampering about. They all prepared their weapons.
Callie got in front of Marie, now being the closest to the door. She was breathing heavily. "…What is it?"
Suddenly, some sort of dog-like creature made out of Tartar's green goop, like a Stalker, leaped onto Callie, knocking her down. The Stalker Beast was violent and ravenous like a wild dog, and was currently attempting to aggressively eat Callie, scratching at her. Callie, in a state of panic, was only barely managing to keep its bite away from her face.
Multiple other Agents immediately attempted to shoot it off, but to everyone's dismay, the ink was only pissing it off and making it more aggressive. Marie, now desperate to save her cousin, took Agent 3's broken spear and stabbed it in the neck, immediately causing it to get off Callie. However, it still wasn't dead.
It let out a massive roar, and Marie, terrified, threw a grenade to the corner of the room. The creature immediately went to grab it, as it exploded, finally killing it.
"What the hell was that!?" Marie screamed.
"Looks like Tartar made more than just Stalkers. And there's more coming, so we need to move!" Marina screamed.
"Ah… My leg…" Callie grunted.
Marie looked down at Callie, and realized that the creature actually managed to breach Callie's armor, leaving a massive scratch in her leg. "Callie!"
She ducked down to check out the wound, which was now bleeding. "Can you stand?"
"I really, really don't know…" Callie said, grasping the wound. "God, if only I could get someone that crazy for me in bed with me…"
The roars of the creatures could still be heard throughout the facility.
"Guys! We've gotta move!" Marina yelled.
"Well, you screaming is just gonna attract their attention." Marie grunted. "Give me a minute, I need to treat this!"
Marina groaned, pausing for a second, thinking to herself. Then, she suddenly snapped. "That's it. I'm done with this." She walked into the room with the generator.
"Marina? Marina!" Agent 8 said, as she slowly trudged in after her.
"I don't wanna hear it, Eight!" Marina yelled. She walked up to the machine, staring at it.
"Tell me you're not going to turn that thing on."
"What else are we supposed to do?" Marina said, turning to face her. "Everything's going to shit. We're going back in time and we're ending this. I need you to stay behind the destroy the machine!"
Marina turned back to the machine and grabbed the lever.
"Marina!" Agent 8 yelled, attempting to run to her, being held back by the pain from her stomach. "I'm starting to think the sanitiziation is getting to your head!"
"It's already gotten to my head." She turned it all the way to 10. Instantly, the machine began violently shaking and glowing, an extremely loud buzzing noise emanating from it.
"MARINA!" Agent 8 yelled, going up and grabbing Marina. Although she managed to push Marina back a little bit, she lost her balance and fell toward the machine. The area immediately around the machine erupted in a blue ball of electricity, engulfing 8.
The machine then took a few seconds to calm down. Marina looked around the room, the machine becoming visible again. To her dismay, Agent 8 was now missing.
"Eight?" She said, walking up to the machine. She got walled off, however, as the machine produced some kind of natural force field. Worse yet, the machine was still running. Electric lights continued to pulsate out of the machine in rhythms. "EIGHT!? WHERE ARE YOU!?" She began to call out in a panic.
The rest of the Splatoon walked in, surveying the area.
"...Where's Eight?" Agent 4 asked nervously.
Marina turned back to look at them, her face wracked with horror. "…Oh god…"
Agent 8, having fallen on her side, slowly opened her eyes and looked around. What she saw horrified her, and she didn't know how to explain it.
She was in some kind of… void. A red void, the kind of red-pink tone that matched her ink color, was full of all sorts of bizarre dimensional twitching. Despite it being basically a void however, there was some kind of invisible ground she was standing on. Holding her stomach, she stood up, beginning to panic.
"MARINA!" She called out. "MARINA!"
"She can't hear you." A female voice called out to her, echoing throughout the entire void. An orange color began to mix with the red color of the void. "No one can hear you."
8 turned to see who the voice belonged to, and low and behold, her Inner Agent 3 was once again there.
"Hi again. Did you miss me?" She said with a teasing smirk.
8 immediately lost all of her self control. "FUCK OFF! JUST FUCK OFF! ALRIGHT!? I'M NOT DEALING WITH YOU!"
"You already deal with me all the time, Eight. I'm with you every second of every day."
8 furiously pulled out a grenade and chucked it at her face. Not only did IA3 suddenly vanish from sight, but the grenade didn't touch the invisible floor, instead falling into the infinite space below them.
As 8 continued to survey the area, IA3 suddenly appeared behind her again. "You must be extremely confused right now, huh? Don't worry. I think I know how to explain it."
8 grumbled, awaiting her explanation.
"You are currently in another dimension. Nothing like our own. Nothing that can be fully explained, experienced, or comprehended by Marina, or any Inkling or Octoling. This place is so whacky, it's whatever the imagination wants it to be. This place is truly something else. My guess is it's connected to space-time. Some kind of dimension that all of space-time is pumping through, the dimension you pass through to time travel."
"How the hell do you know that?" 8 questioned, still holding onto her bleeding stomach.
IA3 smiled. "I mean… I don't. You do. I'm just your rational mind coming out to tell you. You've learned a thing or two from Marina."
8 sighed. "Alright then, 'rational mind', why don't you tell me how to get out of here?"
"I have no idea. You're gonna have to wing it." IA3 said again, suddenly disappearing again.
8 looked around, when suddenly, there she was again, hopping all over the place. IA3 herself was surveying the area, looking at the beautiful blob of red and orange that surrounded them. She snapped her fingers. "A part of you wants to go right back to Marina and your precious Agent 4 and hug and kiss them or whatever."
The colors of orange and red began to fade, being replaced by… The New Squidbeak Splatoon. Like some kind of JPG image, they were no surrounded by a dome made up out of her teammates. She outstretched her arm as if she could physically touch them.
IA3 snapped her fingers again, as the void they were surrounded by once again took another form. "But what you really want and need is to go back, and stop this nightmare from ever happening."
They were now surrounded by a picture of Inkopolis. Bright and sunny and full of life and color. She longed for such a paradise.
IA3 snapped her fingers once again. "And in order to do that… You want to go way back, before Tartar ever hurt anyone." The picture that surrounded them was now the Deepsea Metro in it's earlier state, when it was still just a rundown metro. In the center of Central Station, 8 could see Commander Tartar himself, as a telephone, just sitting there. "You can go back right now and undo everything." IA3 continued.
"I…" 8 started.
"You might want to decide quickly. You don't wanna stay here too long, you'll probably lose your sanity or something."
"...What happens if I go back?"
"It's has Marina explained. You could defeat Tartar, overwrite the current timeline you live in, and you'd get flung back to present day in the new timeline. Your current consciousness in a new body."
"...But… Four… and Marina… I didn't… get to say goodbye." 8 looked down at her wound. "…I have to go back to where I was."
"I don't think that's such a good idea. You can't save them right now. The best way to save them, is to go back and undo everything while we're already in this dimension."
Eight sat down as the picture of the New Squidbeak Splatoon flooded back in view. "I…"
"You'd better make a decision. If you go back, I'll be here the whole time. In your head."
"...I'll lose them."
"You'll get them back."
"I'll get the overwritten versions of them. It'd be like meeting them for the first time. These guys… these are the people I know. They'll get overwritten."
"Yes. It'll be like the people you once knew simply… disappeared." IA3 sat down next to her. "Time travel is a funny thing, isn't it? I'm not going to lie to you though…" A picture of the machine flooded in the view, surrounded by the electric force field. "If you go back there now, all of reality could collapse. The machine is still running, and it's not gonna stop until it's destroyed or overwritten."
Agent 8 took several seconds to weigh her options. "…What do you think I should do?"
"I think you need to go time-jumping. But hell… what do I know… I'm just in your head after all." IA3 said. 8 looked over to her. Her smile wasn't the mature Agent 3 smile she's grown to hate. It was the smile of an Inkling, a young 14-year old Inkling who likes to play Turf War. "The tock is clicking, Eight. All of space-time is already getting pressured."
Agent 8 sighed to herself. The surrealness of the area was really starting to get to her head. "Alright. Fine. I'll go back. I just… I don't know how to go back, exactly?"
"Like I said this place is basically just your imagination, so… First, picture where you wanna go. What time, and what place."
8 obliged. "…Ok?"
"Now, imagine yourself falling into it." IA3 whispered, almost as if she was hosting an ASMR video.
8 did this for a second, closing her eyes, but nothing seemed to happen. "Um… Ok, what the hell is imagining supposed to-"
Suddenly, as if the invisible ground beneath her disappeared, she began falling straight into the void. Putting herself into a sky-diving pose, she stared at the void that she was falling into. Electric volts surrounded the area, engulfing her.
And then, all at once, as if she was never falling, Agent 8 was... standing. She groaned from whatever she just experienced, and looked around. She was standing in some kind of dark hallway, with an abandoned train track beneath her and graffiti and paper lined on the walls. She seemed to be back in the Metro. IA3 was finally gone again, leaving herself to her own business.
Her attention was quickly turned back to the pain she was feeling in her stomach. With a grunt, she put her hand over the wound again, and leaned on the wall. The pain was becoming a little crippling now. She wasn't gonna lie to herself; she was dying. If she was back in time, then she was still in her present day body.
She decided to test something. She reached up to her Hero Headset and pressed the talk button. "…Marina? Four? Can anyone hear me?" She was only met with radio static sounds. She sighed, pulling them off of her head and dropping them to the floor, as they audibly cracked against the ground. She was all alone now.
With her shaky right hand, she then reached toward her damaged left armor sleeve over her cuts, pulling at the plates. As she used her strength to pull them off, the pain flared up her stomach, and she winced in pain, gritting her teeth. She then surveyed the cuts she had on her arm. They were worse than she thought, and were now bleeding.
"Dammit." She muttered to herself, as she grabbed her Hero Shot and began to slowly move down the hall, not really straying from the wall.
Back in Present Day
"…Where's Eight?" Marie asked.
"I…" Marina hesitated.
Roars coming from the rest of the facility could be heard. Marie grunted. "We don't have time for this, where's Eight!?"
"I don't know…"
"Did you turn on the machine?" Agent 4 said, staring into it.
"The machine, Eight fell onto it, and… disappeared." Marina explained.
Marie walked up to the machine, but just like Marina when she attempted it, was walled off by some kind of force field. "What the-"
"The machine must be naturally creating the shield as it draws energy from the other dimension." Marina explained. "…There's no way in hell we're breaching it now."
Agent 4 took a random wrench that happened to be laying around, and attempted to hit the force field, but to no one's surprise, was knocked back in a small electric explosion. In pain, Agent 4 dropped the wrench and grasped his hand. "…Eight…"
"...I'm so sorry…" Marina said, covering her mouth. "I didn't mean to…"
"Did you intentionally turn on the machine?" Marie asked, a little angrily.
"...Yes."
"Why?" Agent 4 said, walking up to her, sadness and disappointment showing from his face. "You killed Eight?"
"I didn't kill her, I… she's probably in the other dimension."
"What other dimension?" Marie asked.
"It's this pocket dimension from our own, all of space-time flows through it. That dimension is what this machine taps into."
"Can we save her?"
"I mean, we can't save her, but I'm sure she can save herself. If she's in that dimension she could time travel to wherever she wanted."
"How could you let that happen?" Four continued.
Tears began to stream from Marina's eyes. "…I'm so sorry, Four…"
Roars continued to echo through the building.
"I'm sorry to break up the moment, but we have to move. We'll come back for Eight later." Marie said.
"There is no later. The machine didn't turn itself off. It's going to continue drawing space-time energy, and it's going to tear reality apart. We have to find a way to destroy it."
"We'll lose Eight if we destroy it right now."
Marina took this into consideration.
"Come on. We'll get Callie to the submarine where the first aid is, and then we'll come back. Hopefully that'll give Eight time to return. How long do you estimate we have?"
"I don't know."
The group went back into the lab, where Callie was still sitting, grasping her wound.
"Ok, this really hurts…" Callie continued.
"Help me." Marie asked Marina. The two of them grabbed Callie by the arms, lifting her up, and then proceeded to carry her out by her armpits. "Don't worry, Callie, we got you."
Back with Agent 8
After several minutes of walking, she eventually entered a large room. It took her a second to recognize it because of how much it's been changed, but she still recognized the ceiling. Sure enough, she was now standing in Central Station, and there seemed to be some commotion going on.
Using her remaining strength, she pulled herself up from the train tracks to the main area, when she saw it. That damn telephone, Tartar himself, and what appeared to be a male Octoling with a punk hairstyle talking to him. Whatever year she was in, this was before she herself ever entered the Metro. She quickly hid behind a trash can as she silently watched what was happening. She could barely hear what was being said.
"Congratulations, number 7,013, the door to the promised land will now open!" Tartar announced. 8 quickly recognized the situation.
"No…" She muttered.
Tartar's dial began to speed up, and suddenly, Tartar erupted with purple electricity.
Somehow, both Tartar and the machine pieces around them began to hover in the air, as they suddenly combined and formed a blender, with Tartar sitting on top. Carnival music and lights began to play as the entrance to the blender opened.
"Please, step right inside! Here we go! Don't be shy!" Tartar once again announced.
8 watched in suspense. Surely this guy couldn't be as dumb as she was back in the metro and enter it, right? But she was wrong, as the male Octoling began to step into it. Immediately, 8 decided to step in.
"Stop! It's a trap!" She yelled.
The Octoling, turned around with a confused expression. "What?"
"Dammit, it's a trap!" 8 repeated, as she used all her strength to run up to them. She pulled out a grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it into the blender.
"Do not listen to her, number 7,013, these thangs will lead you to the-" Tartar interjected, as the grenade exploded, immediately destroying the blender.
Agent 8 grabbed the stranger Octoling and leaped out of the way as shards of glass flew past them, and upon doing so, she quickly screamed out in pain, grasping her now pained stomach.
Tartar awkwardly landed on his back as it fell from the blender, twitching as he made small ringing noises.
The male Octoling turned to his savior. "Are you… are you alright?"
"I'm fine. I'm just slowly dying is all…" She said sarcastically. "What's your name?"
"Adrian." He answered. "You?"
8 took a second to think. "I mean… I don't really remember my name, I just go by Agent 8."
"Agent 8? That's odd…"
"I mean, it's not really out of norm for me. My ex-boyfriend just goes by Agent 4 and then this one girl I hate goes by Agent 3."
"Where exactly are you from anyway?"
8 rolled her eyes. "You don't wanna know." They both turned to see that Tartar was gone. "What…"
Then, they saw him. A little to their left, Tartar was now standing, the pole he stood on having somehow grown skinny metal legs and hands. Green ooze with a stray tentacle was now oozing from the head.
"What on Earth?" Adrian gasped.
"Ok, what the fuck, you could walk this whole time?" 8 added, a little bit disturbed.
Tartar didn't appear to be amused. "You speak as if you know me. Who are you?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I explained. But let's just say I know about all the shit you're going to pull."
Tartar did some calculations in order to find out who she was. "Number 10,008. Correct?"
8 didn't respond.
"...How do you know who I am?"
Agent 8 turned to Adrian. "You need to go. Get out of here. Now."
"But… Your stomach…" Adrian responded.
"GO!" Agent 8 yelled. As Adrian began to leave from the station, Agent 8 slowly stood up to face her foe.