The four siblings seated in the octarian rainbow blaster deluxe, which was quite the spacious vehicle on the inside, Cambridge got stuck sitting on his mother's lap from the lack of seats. But for him, anything was better than being on foot against the scary weird giant chimera. Though Zaffre wondered what happened to the blue squid's shirt, she ignored it, flooring on the gas just as the monster swung another tentacle at them. It missed and flopped to the ground, the vehicle moving with great acceleration.
"Okay! Since you three are on them, use the cannons!" Zaffre told her children. Rackley however was looking over the instruction booklet he had taken earlier from the garage.
"Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sounds of my weapon firing!" Alizarin apologized, already shooting rainbow blasts of ink and hitting the head of the large fish and octopus hybrid. The earthquakes seemed to lessen, and the ink burned the creature, though it was quickly getting it off.
"And I thought my old life was rougher," Kreon muttered while opening fire too, each blast of rainbow ink making the monster recoil in pain as it stepped back. Cambridge noticed a weird keypad on the steering wheel, which his mother had tried already and it had done nothing. She had admittedly hotwired the war vehicle to get it moving, so she might have broken it.
"Uh, Rackley… does that book mention anything about hidden weapons?" Cambridge requested if the keypad had some specific code to put in to activate different weapons. At this point they were driving circles around the monster and blasting ink at it.
"Gimme a second. Just don't let it hit us," Rackley reassured while turning pages, rapidly trying to skim through the booklet as fast as he could to try and figure out anything that could be of use to them in this vehicle beyond the default weaponry. The monster opened its mouth, firing a big burst of black goo which hit the car directly.
"Oh, come on!" Zaffre cried in irritation, turning on the windshield wipers. It barely mopped up the black goo from view, only making the window partially visible. A tentacle stamped the ground in front of them. With little time to react, Zaffre quickly slammed on the break, only to hit the tentacle at next to full speed, sending the car flying in the air. It crashed into the ground upside down, rolling over onto its right side again, though three of the tires were now destroyed. The war machine was surprisingly durable, but now the drivers and passengers of the vehicle were out of their seats, thrown about into uncomfortable positions.
"I can't feel my tentacles…" Alizarin murmured, Cambridge and Kreon realizing they had fallen onto him.
"Sorry!" they said, trying to help him up. Zaffre held her head in pain, having hit her forehead on the windshield. For a war vehicle, it had a lack of safety features for them. Rackley suddenly gained a bright big grin across his face, tossing the instruction booklet aside.
"Let me take the driver's seat!" Agent 3 exclaimed, hopping over the chairs into the driver's seat. He had found something out that brought him to excitement.
"Wait, you aren't old enough to drive yet," Zaffre stated, though the giant monster removed its tentacles from the ceiling, and began to turn around slowly. Each time its foot hit the ground was another shockwave of tremors.
"Please, mom! This is going to be awesome! You're going to live my dream!" Rackley insisted. At this point his mother gave in. He had some ace up his sleeve which she just hoped worked. Cambridge climbed into the back cannon while Kreon and Alizarin got back into their cannons, despite the pain in their bodies.
"Huh… when did you start to get muscles, Cambridge?" Zaffre just noticed that her son actually had gained small muscles recently. She never realized it until now, once again not caring about his lost shirt.
"I-I don't know… Rackley, please hurry!" Cambridge requested while changing he topic, as they saw the monster halfway turned around. Rackley cracked his fingers, typing into the keypad code and entering 3194. The keypad flashed brightly before the lights ended.
"Uhhh… are we moving again?" Alizarin asked. Their tires were nearly all out, but as he noticed, the vehicle was beginning to rise. Suspension underneath the war machine was lifting it up as the front half of it split apart and folded out into a pair of legs. The cockpit they were in rose upwards, centering itself, the black goo clearing away as the sides opened up, revealing arms attached underneath the side cannons. Once it was upright, the back cannon tilted backwards, revealing a head to the war machine that had just transformed into a big robot, though the monster was still nearly twice their size.
"Oh my gosh… I have had millions of dreams of this! It's happening! It's finally happening!" Rackley looked ready to pass out from how excited he was getting. Cambridge nervously tried to figure out what had just happened. He wanted to steal the technology he had read about on the files earlier, but his mindset was being messed up now.
"What happened?!" Zaffre asked the question that everyone else could not force out of their astonished mouths, since all five of them had control consoles now instead of their prior controls.
"It's a zord! The war machine turned into a fighting robot! I've always wanted to pilot a zord!" the squid ranger answered. It was then that they realized the monster had set its eyes on them. It raised one of its giant tentacles up, beginning to swing it downward.
"Watch out!" Kreon and Alizarin made the war robot quickly raise its arms up and catch the attack, stopping the heavy tentacle which made its robotic feet press a little harder into the ground. The two actually synced up pretty well, when they weren't bickering.
"Sh-should I be concerned that I-I find this normal?" Cambridge asked. His brother and sister had control of the arms while he and their mother had control of the legs.
"At this point, honey yes," Zaffre rubbed her head sorely, "But we'll worry about that later once we splatter this beast!"
Zaffre grinned, taking control already and making the robot step aside, letting the tentacle get shoved off. Cambridge got forced into moving his controls, panicking and trying his best not to mess up. Everything felt so complicated, even though the control console was just a control stick and buttons.
"Let's go for the part on its back. I think it might be his weakness," Rackley suggested, his eyes locked on the robotic part sticking out in plain sight. At this point, there was no chance to call the Squid Sisters as deep as they were underground. though he doubted his girlfriend would believe any of this to begin with. They watched as the monster began spraying out its black ink everywhere, covering a lot of the ground. It jumped up into the air and flopped into the ground, splashing the ink up into the air.
"Uh oh," Kreon aimed her cannon, firing multiple blasts of rainbow ink at the black ink above them, that was threatening to hit them. It destroyed the black goo as the rest of it fell around harmlessly. They continued manoeuvring the robot toward the monster. This oddly was very enthralling to the family, though Zaffre wished they could have bonded over weapon cleaning or exercising instead of zord fighting giant monsters.
"Let's see if I can blind it," Rackley hit the button on his control console, watching the third cannon on the back raise up onto the shoulder of their robot. He fired a big burst of rainbow ink that hit the monster in the face, covering its eyes in the stingy burning ink.
"We-we're going in," Cambridge stuttered, trying to muster up courage on this, but everything happening so fast that his mind was having trouble handling it all. Their robot stepped quickly to the back of the giant monster, and they made it jump up and grab onto its back.
"We're on. Now what?!" Kreon asked as she her red brother did their best to keep their robot's grip onto the monster. Agent 3 had no clue. He did not expect them to make it this far.
"Smash that thing!" Zaffre ordered.
"This is a lot of fun!" Alizarin grinned, making the arm he controlled raise forward with its fist clenched, punching it against the robotic parts of the back. The monster let out a howl of agony as Alizarin continued the machine's fists of fury, until the beast began to fall backwards, shoving the octarian rainbow blaster deluxe into the wall, that part of the wall to collapsing on top of them. Silence and darkness filled the family at the moment.
"Di…did we win?" Cambridge asked, hitting a button. No response, as their robot had ceased functioning.
"I guess so. I don't feel like I'm being shaken hard enough to lose my lunch," the green dragon squid chimed, kicking at the windshield, trying to break it open.
"Here sweetheart, you have to put your hip into it more, like this," Zaffre kicked the windshield with brute strength, sending shattered glass everywhere. Rackley was disappointed that the zord was down for the count, but sighed. It was fun while it lasted. They all began to climb out of the ruined and buried robot.
"I'd say that's a win," Alizarin agreed happy that they had won. The monster they had been fighting was now buried under too much rubble that they doubted it was active anymore.
"I'll just cross this off the list of things I never thought I'd do in my life," their mother sighed in relief, wrapping her arms and tentacles around her young squids, feeling great to know she could relax for once.
"Hahaha… don't think this is over yet," a laughter suddenly sounded, and then millions of charger lasers were aimed on them, ready to fire at a heartbeat.
"…can't a mother get one second with her children?" Zaffre groaned, hanging her head low. Cambridge stepped forward and looked upward at the very spectator's box that he had fallen out of with his siblings when trying to save Rackley.
"Wh-who are you?" Cambridge called out. A tall man stood in the upper area, with pale skin and white hair tied into a ponytail running down his back, and wearing a white suit. A big grin showed across his face, with an eye patch on his left eye.
"I am Zaiton the pinchling, and second of the Amabile family line. I understand you're all the ones causing my family issues," the man introduced himself as father to Celesio, he was a yeti crab with an outstanding reputation in the criminal underworld. Just after though, he looked irritated as he reached up and ripped the eye patch off his face.
"Alright, who said I should wear this for dramatic effect? It does NOT help make me look more intimidating. It makes me look like a moronic pirate," Zaiton asked. He had brought dozens upon dozens of inklings armed with chargers at the moment all focused on the Verlegen family. The yeti crab held his head in annoyance.
"That's them, daddy! They've done nothing but attack me and grandpa for the last two weeks!" Celesio chimed up, stepping up beside him, wearing an eye patch herself over her scarred green eye. Her father looked at her irritated, and took the eye patch from her, tossing it aside. One of the many squids they had brought insisted they wear them for dramatic effect, yet the white crab was no longer agreeing with that.
"And injured your pretty face. Boy, I have to say watching you all in action is heartwarming. It's nice to see the Amabile family isn't the only family working in Inkopolis's shadows," Zaiton stated, the metal shutter opening again as more inklings stepped out, all armed with splatling guns. Cambridge could not see any way out of this, and neither could the rest of his family. They were all drained of their energy, and no matter how hard they fought, they would inevitably get splattered.
"Inkopolis's shadows? We just wanted to save it from that earthquake causing freak of nature," Alizarin retorted.
"You mean this useless heap of flesh we used?" Celesio pulled out the remote control and tossed it off the side, now that the monster was gone it was worthless.
"We activated that. Terribly sorry, but we were hoping you coming down here would help find us the genetic modification machine," Zaiton said, a few more inklings stepping up behind him, all of them wearing eye patches too.
"Sorry, mister Amabile, but we couldn't find the machine anywhere. Files said it was stored away. They might have moved it to another facility, but we'll search the lower levels one more time." One of the squids spoke up, not taking into account their boss's anger.
"Oh for the love of… TAKE THOSE STUPID THINGS OFF!" Zaiton shouted. Someone was playing a horrible joke on him and handing out eye patches by the dozen. Kreon had to suppress a giggle, hearing his rage.
"Who even gave you those?! Actually, don't tell me! When we get back, we'll do an entire search of all the rooms! When I get my hands on that idiot, I'll…" Zaiton began to ramble on, Celesio seeming to be the only one with focus on the verlegen family.
"Why did you need us to find this thing? You have a splatoon. Why didn't you just send them in to find it? Why go through all the trouble of causing huge earthquakes that might have damaged the facility more?" Zaffre was not able to put any of this together in her head, but that could be because she was drained mentally and physically.
"Hmm… you make good points," Celesio tapped her chin, then showed that same smile with smug written all over it, "If you're ever interested in joining the Amabile family just let us know. We could use more group coordinators. Hehe!"
Zaffre felt her eyes glaze over, assuming the avoidance of answering meant that they had not remotely thought this plan through. Kreon wondered if she was as bad as the pinchling when she used to act like that. Cambridge was stuck there trying to think of something. The idea he thought of then froze him for a second.
"Psst… I have a plan," Cambridge whispered, creating a triangular ink bomb in his hands behind his back. He dropped it on the ground as the family had their backs against it.
"I want you all to know I love you…" Rackley said, grabbing the first hands and tentacles he could. Zaffre rubbed his head, understanding his fear.
"I love you too, Rackley… I love you all," Zaffre reassured. Cambridge smiled, and in a second, the ink bomb exploded. The splattered family of blue ink vanished instantly, leaving only a pool of blue goop to the piles of various colored ink.
"Uhhh… daddy?" Celesio spoke up, the spider crab getting her father's attention away from all their eye patch wearing goons.
"What is it, Celesio? …dang it, I thought they were out of ink!" Zaiton groaned, having miscalculated that. This entire plan seemed poorly put together, but there was no time to dwell on poor tactics when they were in the midst of said poor plan.
"Alright, squad. Let's get to searching for the machines!" he hollered. The arena began to clear out in seconds. The Amabile family forgetting that someone could not splatter themselves with their own ink grenades. They would have to hit their selves with their own weapons to accomplish that. Once everything was clear, Cambridge poked his head up from his ink in his tiny squid form.
"I'm not going to let them take away my only chance for bringing dad back…!"