If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm using the morning scenes to practice my vivid writing.
See, look at this.
—
As the morning star climbed over the horizon, bathing the scenery with a golden light, dawn once again blessed the peaks and valleys of the city. Shadows stretched far beyond the woods and plains, and Simon behind them as he ascended the path to the tip of Inkopolis Tower.
Already standing there, he saw Rose, leaning against the railing with a whiteness in her eyes, as if they themselves were luminescent and not a distorted reflection of sunlight.
She was tracing the combined silhouette of the mountains in the distance with her bright eyes, not noticing him or the obvious noise he was making with the clank of each step upon the metallic staircase.
More inconspicuous was Marie, who was, instead, sitting near the railing on the opposite side of the rounded floor, giving her own little glow to combat the intensity of the sun. She acknowledged him with a slight, almost indiscernible nod.
He stood there, one step below the top, and pondered the immense dissimilarity of his friends. The Great Zapfish, oddly untouched by the attack, soared overhead. Although, with the thousands of Golden Eggs in the opposition's hand, there was really no point in taking it,
Finally, he took the last step to the top, ensuring its volume was louder so as to attract the other's attention.
Like a startled cat, Rose tensed for a split second and placed her hands on her weapons. Once she saw the unmistakable shape of Simon, she relaxed and returned to the mountainsides. Simon was unperturbed by the disturbance.
He saw Marie crack a smile, despite her almost pointing a gun at him. "Good reflex." As if she needed to say it out loud.
He took a seat and leaned on the railing, perpendicular to the line that separated the other two. "Why're we up here?"
Without a word, Rose reached into her pocket and removed a folded, slightly crumpled piece of paper. The one from Grizzco.
It seemed forbidden to break the silence of the early hours.
She repeatedly ran her eyes across the one line on it that chilled her more than the rest.
You are never safe.
You are never safe.
You are never safe.
Her arm moved behind her, prompting either Simon or Marie to take it.
Eventually, it was pulled from her grasp, but by whom, she did not know.
"Oh, this?" It was Marie's voice. "Yeah, should we have night guards until this ends?"
Another rhythmic pattern of footsteps reached her ears, which she assumed was Callie, for nobody said a word about it. A quick glance behind her back confirmed her guess.
"No," said Rose, reluctantly voicing her concern. "What about after? I've been thinking, what if he has someone to replace him if something happens to him? And what about Eileen and her brothers? We don't even know if the fourth child is a spy and the story is just a cover."
Silence ruled again as her voice fell and the clouds gained an impressive contrast of opaqueness and translucence of the multi-colored glow, giving the sky the beauty of a painting and the clarity of a photograph.
"Guess you were right, Callie," Simon said. "We might have to go into hiding after this."
Callie's frustration gnawed at her, but only her shoulders sagged. "Again," she whispered.
Rose heard the rusting of paper from directly behind her. As she reached the highest peak she could see, Marie joined her, fixing her face on the jagged rays of light, and handed her the paper, which she folded and stored in her pocket again.
"But for how long?" said Callie, who joined her on the other side. "Do we find anyone who willingly served Akash and just throw them in jail?"
Simon, the last one, stood to Callie's side and took her hand in his. Instead of the sunset, they stared at each other.
And then Rose finally put two and two together, but said nothing about it since, as she thought about it, it was staring her in the face this whole time.
"No," Marie said. "Octavio'll take care of it. He'll do something to the free ones. Besides, it's too dangerous for us to actively search for them."
"This has all happened so fast," Simon said. "None of us really had the time to think about this. If Octavio wasn't there, we would still all be with Akash. He got us. He was too fast. What will we do about it?" When nobody said anything, he continued,
"The whole time, we thought we would win, but really. How?"
He let the question hang in the air. Yes, they knew there was a plan. They knew there were hundreds fighting alongside them.
But would it be enough?
Off in the distance, in the lowest valley of the mountainside, Rose saw a fleeting glimpse of a silhouette of an eight-limbed creature, with a glow behind it the same color as the sun. It was too disfigured to be an octopus, and too small to be yet another metallic beast.
But when she blinked, it was gone. She paid no heed to it and passed it off as a mere figment of her imagination.
The memory of the image slipped away.
—
Twenty of the most proficient willing recruits joined the tech team, ten for weaponry and ten for everything else.
"Dismissed!" Marina said, allowing them to break the neat arrays they were in and return to the bottom floor, or the bunking floor of the facility. They deserved the rest, for they were awake all night performing the tests that she and Sheldon constructed.
The floor directly above it, which is where the test was administered, kept the melancholic color scheme of grey and black that decorated the entire facility.
It was a tall and wide room, similar to the Dualie division's, designed as an all-purpose floor. The two floors were not considered part of the training camp, but they were the eleventh and twelfth, below the Dualie floor and still connected as part of a larger whole.
Sheldon was near the other corner, gathering scraps Andy unused parts of various weapon classes.
She approached him and asked, "Are we using this room as the TT HQ?"
He nearly dropped the handle of a Slosher, but spoke without stopping his task. "No, no, I've already planned for that. We're using the bunker, but locking the paths to the lounge and the workspace for me and my apprentice. The third door near the back which nobody ever notices is where we'll meet. I've divided the area inside and given you more space to work since weapons are pretty small. However, I'm terribly sorry to ask this of you, but would you mind helping me move all of the workbenches to one area so nobody trips over them?"
Marina took a moment to process the lightning-fast speech of the crab. "What about the passcode to the bunker? Are we leaving it open so nobody finds out?"
"Precisely!"
The PA system near the staircase sounded it's tone. "Would Ms. Ida please report to my office?"
Marina grew tense, but she knew Barry wouldn't to anything to her other than a poilite request. He respected her too much.
She opened her mouth to say something, but Sheldon interrupted her before she even began, saying, "No, go ahead! If you're not back for a while, I'll assume you're off doing something important."
She slowly backed away. It was scary how Sheldon could change his mind almost as fast as he speaks.
—
"It's time to initiate phase 1 of the plan."
Marina, Callie, and Simon stood on the other side of Barry's desk.
"Already?" Callie said. "It's day two!"
"The earlier we get this part done, the better," he rested his elbows and clasped his hands against the desk, one of the few wooden objects in the area. Despite its material, it still appeared gray due to the gloomy, dim lighting.
The elder with the wisened face, still, sat at his side desk, doing... something.
"I'm sending you three on it." There were no protests. "Any more, and we risk being found from miles away. So remember. Don't be loud." He stressed the final sentence. "As far as we know, the city is clear, but we know barely anything about outside. If Akash or any of his unhypnotized-"
"Yeah, yeah, we get it," Simon said. "But why us three? Only one of us has any clue what to do."
Barry frowned. "First of all, we need guards to escort and protect her while she works. And can you really think of anyone else who has a clue?"
No answer. "Good. Now go. And take this route." He tossed a map at Simon, but Callie jumped in front of him and caught it playfully.
The three turned their backs to the desk and walked to the slightly brighter entrance.
The door shut behind them, once again introducing them to the disarmed traps and overwhelmingly dull colors.
Once they were a distance from the door, Simon spoke up. "'Not disciplined enough.'"
Callie threw the map at him, which he grabbed without flinching.
Needless to say, Marina felt very awkward as a third wheel.
—
Rose heard the announcement on the PA system, but it was nearly drowned out by the chorus of ink being shot. Probably the train station part of the plan. She didn't pay much attention to it; her only role was to train and then fight.
Exactly 103 formed the division. They were divided into ten platoons: seven with ten each, and three with eleven.
Once again, her attention was on Sky and her eleven-strong contingent. She was different from the rest. Obviously, she was well versed in combat. That much needed no words.
No, what she noticed was that she carried an air of mystery and other indescribable emotions. Gloom? No. Boredom? Something between the two.
Whatever the case, she had the worst possible group of people, but somehow, they were making good progress. Not much progress, since it was her first day with them, but the ten weren't completely useless anymore.
Rose and Pearl made periodic checks on the various platoons and sometimes took over for each one's leader. Pearl made it clear that they were doing so not because they were too incompetent, but because they were allowing time for breaks.
"We better get better weapons soon," Rose muttered. As she watched from above on the podium, she noticed several different styles of strategy that a different weapon, like Dapple Dualies or Glooga Dualies, would suit far better. For now, they were stuck with hundreds of Splat Dualies.
Then she wondered if it was possible to translate the other weapon proficiencies to Hero Dualies, so a pair could have the strength of said Hero Dualies and the speed of Dapples.
She waved Pearl over and explained her plan. "I'll go ask Sheldon a quick question. Tell the leaders to pay attention to play styles, 'Kay?"
She nodded and flashed a toothy smile. "Gotcha."
Rose turned away and ran.
The slam of the stone slab shutting and locking resonated in the acoustics of the hall.
—
"Take a left here, and there it is," Callie held up her hand and pointed.
The train station was near the east side of the city. Here was phase 1 of the plan.
It resembled a greenhouse in shape, though the roof was white and the walls were purplish. Each of its short sides had a gaping hole, allowing easy locomotive entrance and exit.
One train in particular, a bullet train with a rounded locomotive and a curved, futuristic body, extended for several yards. It was the main vehicle of transport between Inkopolis and southern cities. Sacrificing some of the comfort, it could easily fit well over 500.
Simon was hit with a bout of nostalgia, for the scene was exactly how he remembered his first time in the city. The sky and time of day was even the same, for the sun hung suspended behind the only tree in the area.
The only thing missing was the people.
"Alright, what do we do, then?" Simon placed his hands behind his head and stretched.
"Sit back and watch," Marina dashed inside with her duffel bag swinging by her side, and then she was followed by the other two.
Phase 1 was a risky one; it relied on Akash picking a next point of attack that would run straight through the rails of the bullet train. It would have to be somewhere south or possibly a short distance north.
What were those cities? New Blue, Pufferia, Eelidu, Manowur, Sharktown-
Wait. Sharktown?
Simon's hometown?
It got him thinking again. Ever since the attack, they were cut off from the outside world. There was no news coming into Inkopolis or out of it.
"Hey, Cal?" He said. "What's happing out there?" He picked a bench in front of Marina's duffel bag, then plopped down on it. A motion detecting light flickered, shone its light, then died.
"Out where?" She sat next to him, leaving barely any distance between them. Her Roller covered the remaining space on the bench.
He stared at the ceiling like it would give him answers. "Everywhere else. Here, we know exactly what happened. Everywhere else, they're probably freaking out over all of this."
Callie realised something else. "Next place to be attacked will be as sudden as this." That helped her realize something else: the weight of the situation. It was already heavier than the train in front of her, yet...
"Next time is our only chance."
If they never reached the next city, Akash's army would grow too strong.
If they failed, there was no army.
Going to the government was no option because Inkopolis was its center.
The official army couldn't help, either. The attack would be too quick to anticipate, and if they tried going to them now, Akash would personally crush them, as he had proven he was willing to do already. And who knows if he has a spy?
The case was clear.
One chance.
No room for error.
