AN: Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Splatoon 2 Untold: Mystery of Agent 8

Chapter 14: New Plan of Attack

I apparently dozed off after a little while because when I woke up, the train was completely deserted and wasn't moving anymore. I didn't see the captain either. Strangely, I also wasn't holding my doll.

"Don't tell me we got attacked again," I said, hoping that wasn't the case. I got up, but I noticed that there wasn't any damage to the train car. Well, any more damage. Once I exited the train, I realized that I wasn't in the facility anymore. I was in some kind of base which was steadily materializing into existence. I finally recognized it as an Octarian base in Octo Canyon. I looked down to see that I was wearing my old soldier armor again.

"I'm dreaming another memory again, aren't I?" I said. "This one seems a bit different. I wonder what happened here."

Part of me was tempted to try to wake up, but then I noticed a small Octarian trooper approach me. It looked about the same size as the doll. It looked up at me as if to say, "Pick me up." I obliged, and once I held it, it nuzzled against me. It felt weird, but I kinda liked it. Suddenly, it released itself from my grasp and ran ahead. It stopped and waved its tentacle, signaling me to follow it.

"There's gotta be a reason my brain keeps bringing me back here," I said while walking after it. "The question is...what is that reason?"

"HEY! Hold it right there!" a voice shouted. I froze in my tracks and looked around. Three other Octolings started coming from the train behind me and began to approach me. Judging from the fierce looks and the weapons in their hands, I figured that I shouldn't be stopping. I started running after my Octarian companion.

"We got another runner!" another shouted. "Stop her!"

I scooped up the little Octarian and kept going. I didn't stop or look back. I could hear several soldiers following me and demanding that I stop. This only made me start running faster.

Eventually, I saw an open door leading to a grassy field and a clear sky. It looked so peaceful, spacious, and a lot cheerier than the depressing atmosphere of this base.

"There...I need to go there..." I muttered. I ducked behind some wooden boxes and planned my escape. I set down the Octarian, but before I could even say anything to it, it took off running.

"WAIT!" I shouted. But it was too late. It got spotted, but this didn't stop it though. It ran past the Octolings while sticking out its tongue. The Octolings took off after it leaving me alone to finally understand what just happened. It distracted them so that I could get out of here. I was thankful, of course, but I hoped it would be fine.

"Hang on...this is a memory..." I said. "So does that mean an Octarian helped me escape when I was already planning to? Or is that just because I had the toy on my mind before sleeping?"

My body moved on its own towards the door. I tried to stop myself and go back to find and help the Octarian, but I couldn't do anything to keep myself from going through it. I was engulfed in the bright light, and I finally woke up.

I slowly opened my eyes, and I was still on the train. Thankfully, there weren't any issues this time, aside from the fact that we were stopped at another station. I looked at the doll in my arms again.

"I don't know whether you just stumbled into my dream or not," I thought. "But I'm keeping a close eye on you from now on."

The captain was sleeping across from my seat. I quickly checked the chatroom to make sure I didn't miss anything. Luckily, I didn't. Then, I decided to check to see where exactly we were. Just as I had hoped, we were finally sitting at Smash and Dash Station.

"Eh, I'll let the man sleep," I said quietly. "Besides, this shouldn't take too long."

I set my toy next to him and headed off the train. I got my Splattershot from the equipper and went up the ramp to see the next Thang.

Like the last one, it was encased in an electric shield that I disposed of to get the object. This one looked like a set of jagged knives sticking out of a wheel. I was extra careful when loading it into the train because those blades looked really sharp.

The train quickly got moving again. With nothing else to do until we got back into the central station, I started talking in the chatroom.

"Got the next Thang. Where's the last one?" I asked.

No response for a minute until I saw Pearl start talking.

"Aw, yeah! That's three!" she said. "Nice work, Eight! Now we just gotta get to that last one, and you guys are good to go."

"Where is it?"

"Marina found it on the other side of where you guys are, but there's a few tests you need to get through first before you can reach it."

"Alright, I'll just pick one and start from there."

"Awesome!"

After I picked the central station to drop off the Thang, I kept messaging Pearl.

"Soooo...what're you gonna do first, Eight?" she continued.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, what do you plan to do once you reach the surface?"

I wasn't expecting that one. I hadn't even thought about it, and now that I am, it's pretty tough to pick just one thing.

"I actually don't know…" I sent after a minute.

"Maybe me and Rina can show you around Inkopolis. I've done it for her once, so I don't mind doing it again. Or maybe Fin could show you around."

"Maybe...we could all go together?"

"Hey, there's an idea! Sounds fun! I know all the freshest spots in the city. I'll even show you a few tricks I learned to use in Turf Wars. I mean, if you ever get into one to try out for yourself."

"The tricks won't help, but it's a nice thought," Fin said in the chatroom.

"Hey, Fin! Wait...WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!"

"Uh, nothing..."

"That's what I thought!"

"Anyway...how're you guys doing?"

"I found the Thang you found earlier," I texted. "Was it circular with a bunch of blades around it?"

"Yes! That's it! Great work!"

"Find anything interesting?" Pearl asked.

"Actually, yeah. I'm in a room with some research materials in it, but I can't figure out this language."

"What language?"

Fin posted a picture of a piece of paper with some bizarre writing on it. Pearl and I couldn't read it at all.

"Wow...that's, uh, somethin'..." Pearl continued. "What do you think it means?"

"No clue. I asked Marina if she could do some research on what this language is," Fin explained. "But she didn't sound too confident about it."

"This is nuts. Secrets, tons of enemies, weird tests, missing memories, and a promised escape plan. It sounds like the setup of some kind of dark and edgy action movie. Which would be insanely awesome, and I'd definitely be the first to watch it. You know, if it weren't so...real."

"It's not all bad, I guess. We're at least making progress. We just have one last Thang to get, and we're home free."

"Are you at the central station?" I asked.

"Not yet. I've been looking around here for some info I can actually read, but no luck so far. But a few pictures keep coming up. They look like that telephone you keep putting the Thangs with. You think that there's some kind of connection?"

"I don't know."

"Either way, I don't think that I'll be there just yet. But don't worry, I'll be there once I think I can't find anything worthwhile. In the meantime, I have some good news. Marina and I got to talking, and I think we made a good plan to speed up this process with hopefully fewer issues."

"What's that?" Pearl asked.

"Hacking! Marina's figured out that the Kamobo Co. database might be able to be tricked into thinking that we passed more tests. All she has to do is work her computer magic, and we can skip full tests. That way, we can get to this last Thang and get out of here faster."

"BOOYAH! That's using your brains!"

"Well, more like we're using Marina's since she's doing most of the actual work ."

"That's the fun part about having a computer-savvy nerd as a best friend. She can use that big brain of hers for a lot of stuff."

"You really have a great opinion of her, huh, Pearl?" I added.

"Of course! She makes great music, and she's fun to hang out with. But I'll admit this...she is WAY too smart for her own good. Which isn't 'bad,' but it does kinda make things a little...awkward sometimes."

"Fair enough," Fin said.

"Don't get me wrong, Rina's awesome, and I couldn't ask for a better partner in the music biz. I just worry if she's working too much sometimes. Like, a little while ago, she worked all night making some FULL-SCALE STAGES for Splatfests! And, man, they look wild!"

"Splatfest?" I asked. I could feel that somewhere Pearl was probably shaking her head in disbelief at the fact that I didn't know what that was.

"Seriously, Eight...?" she continued. (The fact that this was her response after two minutes told me that I was right..)

"Hey, give her a break," Fin defended, "she's still kinda new to Inkling culture after all."

"Okay, true. We're having one come up soon! So we'll introduce you to those later. Actually, that reminds me. When I showed those pictures of Marina earlier, what did you and the cap talk about, Fin?"

"Oh, nothing. Just stuff about his old war days."

"Oh, like...THIS!"

Pearl then posted a black and white picture of two individuals in the midst of a battle. It showed a young male Inkling soldier with a bamboo stick confronting an opponent who wore samurai gear and apparently fought him off with stalks of wasabi. The two looked like they were both tired, but they had to continue the fight and win at all costs.

"Pearl...what is this?" Fin asked.

"It's a pic I found of the cap," Pearl explained. "I looked up his name to see if he really was the real deal, and this is one of the things that came up. Says here that this fight took place at somewhere called Arowana Castle. Whatever that is."

"Oh, yeah. The cap'n told me about that one. That was a brutal battle...apparently, a lot of people on both sides were lost that day. Inklings still came out on top, though, thanks to his leadership."

"This was during that Great Turf War thing that happened ages ago, right? You guys mentioned it before, and it got me wondering just how old the cap was."

"About...130 years old or so by now, I think?"

"HO...LY..."

Pearl did say another word after that, but I'd rather not repeat it.

Anyway, after more small talk, we wound up having to stop because we reached the central station again. The telephone greeted me again as I set the Thang down.

"Mad props! You have found the third Thang!" it said. "Just one more to find! The promised land awaits!"

"At least this time, it was straightforward…" I muttered when it went silent again. I made another message in the chatroom.

"I'm at the central station," I said. "Did you want us to wait for you, Fin?"

There was no response for a little bit.

"Hello? Fin?"

"YO, FIN! GET IN HERE!" Pearl said in the chatroom. Still, no response until Marina came online.

"I don't think he's available right now," Marina explained. "Also, hi, guys!"

"Hey, Marina! What happened to him? We just talked like five minutes ago."

"Is he okay?" I asked.

"He's fine, from what I hear. He said he made some extra discoveries, so he told me to tell you and the captain not to wait for him. He'll contact you guys when he gets there."

"Oh…"

"Hey, don't worry too much, Melody," she continued. "I'm sure he's trying to hurry and get back to you guys ASAP."

With that little glimmer of hope in my mind, I got back onto the train. This time, Marina was talking through the captain's radio. The sudden noise had woken up the captain, and she was in the middle of telling him what the new plan was.

"And hopefully, you guys can get out of there quicker," she finished.

"And we hadn't thought of this hacking idea much earlier...why?" the captain asked with a small hint of crankiness in his voice.

There was a very brief pause that I feel was made while each of us internally facepalmed. Why didn't we think of this plan earlier?!

"Uh, simply put, it'd be too suspicious if she got all of the Thangs so soon," Marina finally said. (I don't blame her for trying to smooth over our oversight.) "The database would've caught onto my hacking and probably would've put up defenses to keep me from doing it. But I think I speak for everyone when I say it's time we started wrapping this up quickly."

"So...how is this gonna work exactly?"

"Well, you see-"

"Hold that thought!" Pearl interrupted. "Maybe put it in plain terms so we can all understand it?"

"Good point...hmm...how do I put this? Um...a surveillance soldier inside of the Kamobo Co. main computer is in charge of making sure Melody is doing these tests without cheating. So what I'm going to do is trick that soldier into thinking that she's passing each of the tests that lead to the final Thang. That way, she doesn't have to run through the tests herself, and she can pick up the rewards."

"So, in other words, we're cheating," the captain said.

"In a way...yeah, basically."

"Can't say I like the sound of it. Just doesn't feel too good to me to cheat to get through this. But...if it means we can finally get out of here, so be it."

"I know it's not the best method of getting through these, but it's clear that something or someone is down there and wants to keep you both there. So it'd probably be a good idea to pull out all the stops and get you guys out before they succeed."

I could understand the captain's reasoning, but I can also understand Marina's. I couldn't exactly side with either one since I knew that he was right morally and she was right practically. But after considering that we were attacked by some enemies outside of the testing areas not too long ago, I started realizing that whoever is in charge of this place wants me for some reason. I had to escape unless I wanted to stay down here forever.

We went with the plan.

AN: With a new plan underway, let's see how it goes in the next chapter.