Chapter 21

It was driving me crazy.Whatever this thing was that Dave was building had been a mystery to me for the longest time. Every passing day since I had found out about it, this desire to know what it was had gotten progressively worse, but it was only by the time we had gotten back to New York did I let this excitement get the better of me. I watched the henchmen head out of the submarine doors once we made landfall, obviously going ahead and taking the QCU back to Octo Corp headquarters. I was internally screaming from anticipation. I mean, giant tires? Huge sets of metal armor? A battery of intense charge? I mean—what was he actually building? Another gigantic airplane? Another tank? Then again, I don't think airplanes would have required tires quite that big, let alone a support tank… but you know. Whatever.

I reluctantly forced myself away from the exit of the sub and turned my attention back to Dave, who was currently looking over his schedule with some of his other henchmen. From the looks of it, we had a wave of pledge drives to attend, one of the first being here in New York.

"John, Malco, which location is my next pledge drive?" Dave asked upon looking at the list in confusion. "It looks like we have two in a row for New York." I don't know what it was about that pun he unknowingly made in particular, but... did he actually sound like John? Like, this wasn't just me, right? Is it possible that people can have voice twins? I heard about people looking the same as some stranger, but whatever. I might be overthinking things. I'm going insane, probably.

A couple of gobbles escaped the group of henchmen that had obviously been working out the schedule. One slapped another, and a small fight emerged like a domino effect, though it quickly dissipated once the argument had been settled.

One of the henchmen took the initiative and managed to get into the computer and fix the schedule. He then let loose a gigantic sigh as he turned back around to glare at the others.

"That's better," Dave spoke, smiling at the list in front of him. "Hopefully these next few pledge drives will bring in the money we need to make up for what I just spent…" Dave paused, and then turned around to look at me. His expression of deep thought changed slightly as a crooked smile overcame it. "Oh... well, never mind."

"Why do you torture me like this?" I said as I wrapped my arms tightly around myself to showcase my disappointment. "Why can't you just tell me what it is?"

"In due time, dearest!" Dave chirped. "It's a very special machine, you know. I had wanted to surprise you with the support tanks before my henchmen so rudely ruined said surprise, so I'm going to enjoy this next one."

I didn't even know why this was such a big deal, to be honest. I mean, of course it was a big deal in the sense of what it could be—any of Dave's freaking machines were marvels in their own respects. But how was this one was any different? I guess I had to wait and see.

Which was annoying as hell.

I tried deterring my attention elsewhere, and looked around the room. To the left corners of the room, located on a special little shelf, was a singular little snow globe. It was mildly cracked too, which seemed to do the trick in swapping my thoughts about whatever Dave was keeping secret from me to that.

"Hey... What's that for?" I asked upon walking over to the stand, although I didn't need to get an answer by the time I picked the little snow globe up.

It was the same snow globe I found at the airport before any of this happened. The one I found Dave in.

"No way; you still have this?" I asked gleefully. "I didn't think you had it anymore, since… well, you know, you were inside it at one point. I figured you had to break it to get out."

Dave was quiet as he stared at me from across the room, still at his place beside the computer. "Well... of course I kept it," Dave said. "I kept a snow globe collection for a long time, and that one happens to be the only one I was able to save."

"Save?" I looked up from the dancing pieces of white floating around in the small container, and to him. "You mean you had more of these?"

"Yeah…" Dave sighed. "They were lost a few months back when those penguins first ruined my plans."

"And put you in this one in the first place?" I finished for him, smiling ever so lightly. I didn't want to full–fledged laugh at him, since I knew how sensitive he was about losing to the penguins, so I kept it to myself. "Well, at least you saved one of them. That's all that matters, right? I mean, we could always find more if you really wanted too."

"It's cracked though," Dave responded, kind of bitterly.

"So?" I scoffed. "What's wrong with it being cracked?" I lifted it up a little bit towards the ceiling, where I stationed the object right under the overhead lights to where it filtered through the snow globe directly. It caused the light to filter through the cracked glass differently, making it look like it carried an array of colors that passed through the white specks. "It makes it look prettier, don't you think?" I said. "Also, if you think about it, if it wasn't for you getting stuck in this thing in the first place we never would have met."

It was quiet in the room, leaving an awkward sort of heaviness in the air. After a few moments of looking up at the snow globe, I finally put my arms down. When I did, I noticed that Dave was still staring at me. It wasn't a stare that would have indicated he was angry, or frustrated, but more of a relieved sort of stare.

"You're right…" he wistfully exhaled. "Sometimes I wonder how our circumstances worked out for the better. If you didn't find me I'd probably would still be stuck in that bathroom, or worse, thrown away and probably lost somewhere."

"And I would still be looking for a job," I joked. "Probably a very uneventful job as opposed to what you've put me through."

"Probably," he smiled softly, seemingly allowing himself to relax within the conversation.

The cam–caller on the computer starting ringing, breaking the tranquility of the room in an instant. One of the henchmen got to the phone before Dave managed to look away from me, allowing a series of gobbles to come from the other line.

After a while of back–and–forth gobbles between the henchmen, Dave finally started to explain what was going on.

"Looks like the henchmen are ready for us!" Dave said happily, sitting up from where he was and proceeded to unleash another one of his large grins. "It's ready."

. . . . . . .

Octo Corp headquarters had been cleaned and prepared for us by the time we got there. It had been pretty much completed beforehand, but I remembered there were still sections of the building that Dave had mentioned were still being worked on, so it was interesting to finally be able to walk down halls that prior to this weren't even there.

As we made our way through the large building I took notice of Dave attempting to suppress his own excitement. He kept chuckling to himself like a little fangirl, placing a tentacle up to his mouth in attempts to muffle these sudden eruptions of giggles.

"Can you at least tell me what this thing is called?" I asked as we continued walking.

"Well... I suppose I could tell you the project number," Dave mumbled. "In our records we call it Project 69."

My eyes narrowed as I registered what he just told me. He seemed to not think anything of it though, which was the funniest part. I guess that was a good thing. I'm horrible.

"Why is it called Project 69?" I couldn't help but laugh a little bit. "What the hell?"

"What's wrong?" Dave turned his head finally to look at me. "That's the number indicating the final blueprint of the project. I went through a lot of ideas before Penny's group and I settled on this one."

"Pffttt… Project 69." I laughed again. "I am so sorry, but what?"

We turned a corner before we reached a large doorway. It was here that Dave slowed down, his excitement returning once more.

"Okay, I want you to close your eyes," Dave said with a grin. "Go on; close them."

I smiled briefly before I did as I was told, and shut my eyes. It was only when he took my hand and I heard the door open that we started walking forward. After a few steps into the new room I heard a couple of gobbles from the henchmen that were in there, followed by a strained "shhh!" coming from Dave, who was trying to get everything in order.

I'll admit, I had an urge to peek, but this seemed too important to ruin my own surprise.

"Okay, you can look now," Dave said.

Once my eyes opened I'm sure I almost started fangirling, but at the same time my mind buzzed around with even more questions as to why this thing even existed.

It was a damned 30-foot tall robot. Mind you, it looked like it came straight out of a video game or something. It was so damned beautiful that I literally wished I could throw my arms in the air like I just didn't care, but I was frozen stiff from taking it all in.

The robot was octopus inspired, though instead of eight legs it had only four. These four legs reminded me of some of the pictures I had seen of the submarine's blueprints throughout my time with Dave, where it could walk on land. Although these legs, unlike the ones on the submarine, had more armored plating, and instead of claw–like contraptions at the bottoms of these legs, the large tires Dave had ordered were supporting the robot instead.

On the robot's face there was a green tinted rectangular windshield, which were accented at the upper ends. Where the 'nose' was there was obviously a weapon of some sort built within it, and below that was Dave's 'Dr. Brine' insignia, along with another weapon just below that. Of course, it was painted purple like the rest of Dave's things.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Dave chuckled gleefully and excitedly as he looked back and forth between the robot and to me. "We named it Tetradnaught. It will be used for defense purposes."

"Defense purposes?" I raised a brow, my excitement exchanging for caution. "What are we supposed to be defending ourselves from?"

"North Wind, of course," Dave said. "You don't think that we saw the last of them, did you? They escaped their base when we last attacked them. They are very much still out there, so if they do decide to come back we'll be ready with this. I have a scout team keeping an eye out for them, so it's possible we'll take the battle to them if they're found."

"Are you kidding!?" Of course I let my caution bubble into outright worry. Dave had literally built a robot of destruction for the sole purpose of taking on North Wind if needed. I honestly don't know what else I was expecting. I guess I kind of forgot about North Wind still being a possible threat. I mean, after seeing their base erupt into flames I pretty much anticipated we'd never hear from them again.

Penny popped up from around the corner at that moment, along with Jacob and RJ. They joined Dave in their gleeful expressions upon seeing my own.

"Come, let us take a closer look!" Dave grabbed hold of my arm and we all proceeded up towards Tetradnaught. We ended up climbing up a ladder to the side to get up to the very top where the cockpit entrance was located. Dave proceeded to open the latch for me to give me a better look.

"Penny designed the entire thing, so it should also be easy for you to understand the controls," Dave pointed out. "Go ahead, jump in."

"Wait, me?" I pointed to myself like an idiot as I stood there looking down at the cockpit. "You want me to get in there?"

"Yes you, silly!" Dave smiled.

I was shaking a little bit as I let myself down into the cockpit, then took a seat at the controls. A bunch of little lights were flickering around the cockpit area, indicating stats about the machine, which I mostly couldn't understand. However, the controls themselves were so incredibly familiar that I felt like I could put my hands onto the levers and buttons and start the thing up right then and there.

"Penny here, as I've mentioned, is a huge fan of human videogames, so she's taken the opportunity to apply the… what was it?" Dave paused upon trailing off with his question, which triggered Penny to start gobbling in explanation. "Oh! Yes, the Xbox controller. Whatever that is. I'm sure you'll understand what that is, Kailey. Of course it's been installed and engineered into a much larger size for the sake of controlling Tetradnaught, but it's all there."

I looked hard at the controls. When I did, I could finally see the Xbox freaking controller in this inspired piece of machinery. The two large levers worked like control sticks, although each had trigger buttons on the top that worked like triggers to a gun. A few large buttons at the bottom of the pad in front of me indicated important components to working the machine itself.

I heard Penny start gobbling excitedly again, causing the other henchmen to chuckle as she spoke, this in itself their way of outwardly expressing their pride in the work they had just completed.

"Penny says that you'd know how to work and move Tetradnaught if you played… what game, Penny, Skyrim? Yeah, Skyrim. Trigger commands shoot weapons, the large button there causes Tetradnaught to jump and so on. Which brings me to mention that I've exchanged the four legs ability to move around, unlike the submarines, and instead gave it a unidirectional purpose. This allows it to be able to jump higher. We've tested its ability to jump at about its own height with the help of thrusters and stored pressure in the legs, of course."

"Oh my God," I muttered to myself excitedly. Holy shit, was this real life? Like, did a little baby pink octopus actually just build a robot inspired by God damn video games? This was like, so freaking awesome but also so terrifying at the same time that I was speechless as I sat in the cockpit of this beast.

"Is this even legal?" I couldn't help but ask. "Yo, what if people find out about this?"

Dave scratched the back of his head in thought, obviously having never thought of that before. I was about to drop my fangirling in exchange for worry once more, but he seemed to be pretty laid back about all of it.

"Well, not really." Dave said. "The humans have seen my submarine before and how it works, for example, and they never questioned that before. If they see Tetradnaught then they'll think nothing of it."

"But what if you're shooting shit up when they see it?"

"Oh, it's not like I'm going to go around shooting up the city on purpose or something! This machine is specifically made for combating North Wind. If the humans see it, which is highly unlikely, they would simply think it's something I'm using to save the penguins!"

I gently placed a hand on my face in a light facepalm. I was worried, sure, but Dave was right. People were actually fairly oblivious, like I have seen countless times. So long as they couldn't see what Tetradnaught could do, then I guess we'd be out of trouble.

"What did you end up doing with that QCU?" I asked.

"Well, Penny here took the initiative and has formed it into a power source as part of Tetradnaught," Dave began to explain. "Tetradnaught still runs on normal fuel, since that's what it was initially designed to run on, but Penny added the QCU to act as a second source of energy. This dual energy source lowers the risk of a more dangerous explosion due to less fuel. Don't get me wrong though, it'll still blow up if you shoot it up enough, but that's not gonna happen with the armor plating we've put on it. I'd also like to add that the pilot is protected from direct explosions, as the legs would take on the full force of an accident."

"As much as I still want to protest about this literally being a machine made to fight the shit out of North Wind…" I started, "it's really, really cool."

Everybody started clapping then as Dave suddenly unleashed a series of gleeful woos, which seemed to make an echo throughout the large garage area we were in. "Successful day, everybody!" Dave shouted. "We're prepared and on our way!"

Hopefully we wouldn't even have to use this thing against North Wind, and the group would continue to stay gone and out of our way. I agreed on being safe than sorry, but I also didn't want Dave to actually have to use this against North Wind. A battle wasn't something I wanted to happen, by all means.

But that was simply negative thinking. Things have been working out really well lately. I'm sure everything would work out just fine and for the better.

Author's Note:

Tetradnaught is actually heavily inspired by the Ferdinand in the Megaman Legends series.