I AM NOT DEAD! THIS FIC WILL NEVER DIE!

Whew..needed to get that out of my system. Been waiting to say that for a while.

I have been distracted by other projects and been busy but I don't think it's right to end this unfinished. When I read fanfiction, I hated it when stories were left unfinished. This is my best work. I want to continue this for as long as I can. I can't promise consistent updates but I will try to keep this fic alive.

In the vein of a quote of my favorite book, this fic has no flesh and blood under it to kill.

It is an idea.

And ideas are unkillable...

I walked as if I had somewhere to be, confidently as if I was just passing through. I didn't dare try to enter the UFO yet. I ducked behind a corner near the UFO, out of sight and observed.

The two octolings on guard stood at rigid attention. Octolings always were disciplined. We take pride in the order of things. Playtime is frowned upon which more than explains why we nearly beat the inklings in the Great Turf War. However, the way their posture was, the way their heads didn't move an inch...it was unnatural.

It must be the hypnotization. I practically had to stop myself from entering the UFO and setting them free...

WHABOOM!

Suddenly, I heard an explosion. A loud one that nearly knocked me off my feet as it quite literally shook the ground. How much splatbombs did I give Uno again? She managed to create quite an explosion. Then again, it was definitely pretty close. The octoling guards would likely not pursue an explosion from far away and opt to protect their leader in the UFO instead. The octolings immediately were startled. For a second, they seemed...like actual octolings. Their reaction was one of complete surprise, spontaneous, uninfluenced by hypnotization. I could see the fear on their faces as one yelped in surprise.

"What was that?!" screamed one of the grunts.

There was no further talk as the other grunt already was moving toward the explosion, her companion soon followed. As soon as they were gone, I speed walked toward the UFO.

At the mouth of the ramp, I hesitated.

What am I doing?

It was a good question. Either way, this was it.

It was time to end this.

I went through anyway. I slowly speedwalked corridor to corridor. It wasn't hard to find out where I needed to go. These things all had a similar design, although I had never been in Octavio's before. It was pretty much the same. UFO's were made of large interconnected corridors. The control room should be somewhere in the center.

The passages were dimly lit with only purple lights lining the passages. I didn't encounter many octarians aside from the occasionally octoling speed walking past me. It was odd. Everyone I passed by was so calm...I couldn't tell if they didn't hear the explosion or if they were just too hypnotized to be scared.

I was sweating and bordering on shivering. If I gave myself away, everything would be for nothing. I tried to focus on my breathing. I was fine. Nobody was questioning me. I was going to be fine. Soon I would be back up in Inkopolis.

I was, however, and was beginning to feel lost. I thought this thing had a similar design to all the other UFO's I was stationed on? Where was the control room? I took a left and then another left. The control room had to be near. I wanted to get there quick. I was pretty sure I was gonna have a panic attack wondering these halls any longer.

"What just happened?"

My body froze. I recognized that voice. How could I not? It was the one I remembered hearing all the time in the songs my glasses played.

It was Octavio.

I saw a chamber opening to the right down the dimly lit hallway before the hallway banged a left. That must be where he is. Just hearing his voice scared me out of my wits. It was surreal. Octavio was here and I was but a couple of meters away!

I took a deep breath and composed myself.

I walked down the hallway at a fast jot so it wouldn't look to anyone looking out from the chamber to the hallway as if I was doing anything suspicious. If I could just get to the end of the corridor, I could disappear around the corridor out of sight.

"We do not know your highness. We haven't heard any other explosions."

That must be an octoling.

"Well I want to know as soon as anyone finds out!"

Just hearing his voice made me want to retch.

I hated him.

I could charge in that room and kill him right now.

His tone was so authoritative. Even when he had an octoling under perfect control, I could just tell he wanted her to work faster. This explosion was out of his control and Octavio hated not having things under control.

Is that why he hypnotized us? Some insatiable need to control all of us. I didn't understand him. How could he betray his people? How could he make them his slaves? How could he make Uno suffer? Make my old comrade Kelp suffer? Make me suffer? He ruined our lives, pursued us one some mad scheme to steal the Zapfish.

I wonder who the octoling talking to him was. She could have been an acquaintance of mine. Her voice was so monotone that I couldn't distinguish it from any other hypnotized octoling I came across. Maybe she almost escaped. Maybe she wasn't even close. Either way, she probably was serving as his puppet for years, along with countless others.

I was about to pass in front of the open chamber. I wanted so bad to just look. To just look at who had caused all this misery to me but I couldn't. If I turned my head, even out of curiosity, I would look suspicious.

I went past the opening and turned the corner.

"Now contact the officer of this area! I want a full report!"

"Yes sir!"

Goodbye Octavio.

Soon after, I found what I could only assume was the control room with a large metallic door. All that was left would be to go in here, hack the controls, ensure the UFO would make a full loop or two over Octo Canyon, and get the shell out. There shouldn't be anyone here considering the UFO was grounded. I simply pushed a button and the door opened.

Unfortunately, I assumed wrong..

There was an Elite octoling here, much bigger than me, who was hard at work. She was typing something into the controls, probably just doing some maintenance. However, she turned around almost immediately. It didn't look like she expected visitors.

"What do you want?" she asked, annoyed that I was interrupting her duties.

I had two options, I could either fight this out or negotiate. The octoling, even for an elite, looked tough as nails. She must have trained incredibly hard before being hypnotized. She was not only tall, she was muscular. She looked like she could snap me in two if she wanted. I suppose Octavio was specifically selected here to be part of the UFO force.

"To set you free." I replied.

I ran up to her without thinking. There was no turning back. I didn't care if she was an elite or an octotrooper. I couldn't stop now.

Before she even knew what was going on, I whacked her upside the head with an octoshot that I borrowed from Uno. Under normal circumstances, I would assume this would knock anyone's lights out easily. The octoling hit the ground hard but immediately got back up yelling.

Stupid. Elites had trained their bodies to have almost supernatural endurance to damage. Punching included. I had only sparred with octolings my rank but regardless, the octoling's physique should have told me this was a bad idea taking her head on, elite or no.

"Someone help!" she screamed, "There is a traitor in the cockpit! There is a traitor in the_!"

I only had one shot at this. The element of surprise was lost.

I tackled her to the carpet with a reckless charge and put my hand over her mouth which she immediately began biting. Ignoring the pain, I put my hands over her shades and ripped them off.

The octoling went limp immediately. In place of the faceless shades were two terrified eyes. They widened with a muffled scream and she suddenly began trying to overpower me again.

I didn't have time for this.

"Listen," I said harshly, "I am here to save you not hurt you. You are confused and disoriented but do not say a word! If you say anything you put us both in danger!"

She seemed to calm down after that. I put my hand on her mouth, made a shhhh sound and began punching in coordinates. It was harder than expected. I was rusty with octarian technology but as long as I could do so uninterrupted I should be fine. The elite just watched silently. That was good. I could see that her signature octarian obedience was excellent. Even without hypnoshades, us octolings typically followed orders to the letter.

Suddenly, my com crackled to life, "Christine, we got a problem!"

It was Agent 4. Her voice sounded panicked. Whatever was happening, it wasn't good.

"What is it?" I said nervously. I was still in the middle of my hack.

"I'm taking fire here!" she yelled, "An octarian squad found me!"

"Wait what?" I yelled.

"An octocopter was passing through!" she yelled, "He went right underneath the docked UFO!"

Damnit. I hadn't expected this. The hack was taking too long.

"I can barely maneuver and protect the device at the same time!" she yelled, "Hurry up!"

My face went white. I didn't have enough time. I had barely gotten past the first half of the octarian firewall.

Hacking wasn't an option. Those octarians, though dimwitted, were probably relaying what they saw to Octavio. More octarians would come and the device would likely be destroyed.

Unless…

I took a deep breath.

"Shelly!" I yelled, "Turn on the speakers now!"

"Why?" she asked, "Calamari Inkantation won't work on them!"

"Just do it!"

A second later, I heard a loud noise rock the control room. The Inktation was quite literally shaking the entire vessel.

I didn't have time to waste. I took the loudspeaker in the control room and yelled, "All octolings, if you want to be free, get off this UFO now! I can only give you a few minutes!"

I turned to the elite, "You should leave."

She did so immediately without saying a word. Silently, I thanked her for being so cooperative. She must have been incredibly confused. It was good that she understood that I was here to help.

"Shelly," I yelled through the intercom, "Can you hold the octarians off for just a little bit. I need to get all the octolings off the UFO."

"I can but I'll be cutting it close!" she yelled.

I waited for a couple of minutes, listening to the pounding sound of Inkation.

This was it. Last chance to get out of here before I enacted my plan.

Last chance to…

"Christine!" yelled Shelly frantically, interrupted my thoughts, "I can't do it anymore! You got to get off and send the thing up into the sky!"

"I can't program a course." I replied calmly, "I haven't finished hacking."

"Then get off!" shouted Shelly.

I could do it. Get off and live in safety. I would waste all our hard work. Save a few octolings and go back up to the surface. I could see Jessie, Eight, Blue, Callie, Marie, Marin...all of them.

I could be back in Inkopolis, playing turf wars and having fun. I could live the life I had worked so hard to get...

I...I couldn't do that. Not when I had the chance to save so many.

Forgive me Jessie.

I took the manual controls and shot the UFO straight into the sky.

I didn't have time to program a course. I would do so in the air so no octarian could reverse what I had set in motion. However, that meant I was a sitting duck. Landing the UFO after the time necessary to hack a course would be suicide. Octavio was probably already preparing Octarians to stop the speaker. They couldn't fire on their own ship but could easily dismantle it if the ship was grounded long enough.

In other words, I wouldn't be able to leave the UFO, even after I got it on auto-pilot.

In other words, I was basically done for.

I would save everyone at the cost of myself.

I smiled. It's funny how things end.

Was it selfish to throw myself away? To leave my friends to mourn me? It was fine. I had experienced Inkopolis for a few months. That alone was worth it. Soon, more could do the same.

"Christine?!" Shelly screamed, "What are you doing?"

"We ran out of time!" I replied, "I have to program a course up here!"

"What about you?" yelled Shelly.

"I-I'm going to have to stay up here."

Shelly's voice then came in with such distortion that I could barely understand her. It sounder like her voice was so loud that the com couldn't process it.

"That's insane!" she exclaimed, "You need to land the UFO! Octavio will hypnotize you!"

"My minds made up." I said, my voice cracking a bit, "T-This is what I came here to do!"

"You've lost your mind!" yelled Agent 4, "Get back down here!"

I realized she was crying.

"Please come back!" she cried, "I need to have a chance to be good to you…"

I felt bad. Shelly needed closure. The guilt in her voice was undeniable.

"I forgive you." i stated, "You've helped save the octolings. We're even."

"THAT DOESN'T FREAKING MATTER!" she yelled, "LAND THE CURSED UFO! YOU NEED TO COME BACK!"

I ignored her. I began to cry, continuing my hack as I piloted the shuttle above Octo Canyon.

"Please…" she begged.

"PLEASE!" she said now in desperation.

Soon more voices came on the com. Marie, Callie, and Uno. They begged, yelled, screamed for me to come back. They became a concerto of pleading voices. I ignored them. This was what I had to do.

This was how it was to end.

I would save the octolings. Simple as that.

And the story continues...

Thank you to all who have supported me. I'll try to update soon-ish!

Fight for all Fiction!