AN: Let's see how well this story is gonna wrap up because frankly, things are looking like they're going just a little too well right now...

Hope you enjoy it!

Splatoon 2 Untold: Mystery of Agent 8

Chapter 20: The True Mystery Revealed

After a little bit of taking in the scenery as the sun rose, we started hearing sounds. It was a really low rhythmic thumping sound.

"Hey, what's that?" I asked.

"What?" Fin asked.

"That sound. It sounds like...well, I'm not sure..."

"I hear it, too," Cap'n Cuttlefish said. "Sounds almost like that bass sound you hear from a speaker..."

We looked around to find the source of the sound as it gradually became clearer. It was music.

"Hey, look over there!" Fin eventually exclaimed while pointing in the air. A fleet of helicopters was coming over in our direction. A few of them carried big speakers which were blasting Nasty Majesty so loud that we could hear it from where we stood.

"YO, GUYS!" Pearl's voice rang out from the speaker. "WE GOT YOU!"

We noticed that the biggest helicopter which was leading the fleet was carrying a large pad on it. It eventually came close to us. On the helicopter, an Inkling girl with a large pink and yellow hoodie and a big golden crown holding a microphone stood by an Octoling girl with a white shirt, teal pants, and a bandana. They also both had chain necklaces around them. It honestly felt so nice to finally see those two in person.

"Hop on!" Marina shouted over the helicopter wind.

We all carefully got onto the pad, and the helicopter took us up.

"Phew..." she continued contentedly. "Hopefully, we can breathe easy now."

"Marina, Pearl, you two are life-savers!" the captain said.

"It's what we do," Pearl said. She focused on the captain. "But cap, we have some unfinished business!"

"Oh, do we?" he asked as a small smirk came upon his face. (At least, I think it was a smirk hidden under that beard of his.)

"You know we do!" She then began rapping. "WE FLY HIGH, WE TOUCH THE SKY!"

"FIGHT HARD UNTIL THE DAY WE FRY!"

"NO LIE WE DON'T QUIT, DON'T YOU EVER FORGET!"

Marina facepalmed and chuckled as they kept at it.

"Here we go again...you guys..." she said trying to sound like she didn't care. But her smile let me know that she did enjoy the spectacle. So did I, to some extent. Fin, however, was strangely very quiet.

"Fin?" I said gently.

"Hmm..." he only hummed as he looked at the big exit platform we previously stood on.

"Is something wrong?"

"You could say that..." he said uneasily. "I think there's something I'm missing here, but I can't remember what it was."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's good that we're out of the facility and everything, but...that telephone..."

"Oh, come on, Fin!" Pearl exclaimed. "Forget the phone! It's probably just sitting somewhere yelling at how we're a bunch of 'scraps of seafood' or whatever."

"It's not that, Pearl. It's the plan it had that I'm concerned about."

"What plan?" the captain asked.

"Remember back when we split up? Well, when I started investigating, I ran across some interesting info for...something really weird. But I think it had something to do with that crazy goo. And whatever it is, it's really, really bad..."

As he spoke, I took notice of the platform in the water shaking and beginning to rise up slowly. Some kind of...somewhat odd-looking being's head was underneath it, and it made that platform almost look like a crown or hat to me. My gut began to say something along the lines of "I TOLD YOU SOMETHING BAD WOULD HAPPEN SOON!"

"Fin...by any chance, does that have something to do with what you found...?" I asked while pointing to it. Everyone looked at it with surprised expressions.

"What...is...that?!" Pearl shouted.

"Uh...c-captain...? Any ideas on what that thing is...?" Marina asked uneasily.

"That form..." the captain said in awe. "But they were said to have vanished so long ago..."

"W-What is it?" Fin asked.

"It's...HUMAN!"

"Human?!" we all said in shock.

"That's what they look like?!" Pearl asked. "Huh. Wow, they're...WAY bigger than I ever thought they'd be..."

"I think it's just a giant statue of a human, Pearl..." Fin said.

"Wait a minute..." Marina said. "What's that in the eye?"

We all looked at its right eye. Inside of it was something that made us all gasp.

"Oh, not that phone again!" the captain shouted in annoyance.

We all heard a loud feedback screeching that caused all of us to cover our ears.

"TARTAR IN DA HOUSE!" the phone bellowed. The unseen speakers' volume lowered a bit, but now the phone disabled its current speech mode. It sounded much more robotic and sinister and had a very unsettling gurgling noise going with it. "That is better. I am Tartar."

The phone now had a familiar-looking spiral of goo stuck to (and dripping from) it, leaving the bells and the mouthpiece exposed almost like a distorted face. I could've sworn I saw a tentacle sprouting from the top of it, too.

"T-Tartar?!" the captain repeated. "What are you?!"

"I am an AI construct created 12,000 years ago by a brilliant professor."

"That looks like the room I found when I was investigating!" Fin exclaimed.

"You are correct, my former minion. I have a multitude of rooms similar to the one you discovered some time ago. If I may explain my story."

"Please do!"

"I was created with the prime directive of passing on humanity's knowledge to the next worthy lifeform once the human race became extinct. When your kind became self-aware, I had hoped that my long wait was finally over. However, as I observed your species, I found myself appalled at its nature."

"What do you mean 'appalled'?!" Pearl asked defensively.

"As I observed your species' evolution, I WAS DISGUSTED!" Tartar said while raising its voice. "Waging war over minor genetic deviations!"

Fin, the captain, and I grimaced at that.

"Obsessing over the most trivial fashion trends!"

I noticed Pearl and Marina also grimace at that point.

"After observing the evolution for so long, I realized that I could never pass on such important knowledge to the likes of you inferior creatures. I still needed to execute my prime directive, but there was no method of carrying it out as the world is ruled by your species. That is why I had to create an entirely new prime directive: destroy all life inhabiting this world and start anew!"

"WHAT?!" everyone shouted.

"From the best and brightest test subjects who could pass my challenges, I created a sludge of supreme DNA...a primordial ooze from which the ultimate lifeform will emerge. Today is the day in which my vision becomes reality...as I destroy Inkopolis and everyone in it!"

A large amount of mechanical whirring came up after it said that, and the mouth of the statue began to open. Something began to slowly appear from it. Once it got out into the open, we stared in horror at the object. It was some kind of gigantic cannon with six of those giant blenders filled to the brim with that teal goo. (I wish I were making this up, but it really was the truth.) The orange tubes connecting the blenders to the cannon barrel pulsed with goo intermittently as it slowly spun around.

"Yo...what the heck is that?!" Pearl exclaimed.

"Something I think I saw in that room..." Fin said anxiously. "Marina, analysis, please?!"

"Gimme a sec!" she said as she frantically pulled out a laptop and began typing on it. "Oh, no...I'm picking up a massive amount of energy emanating from that statue..."

"That does NOT sound good..." Pearl said. "Fin, what do you know about this thing?"

"Not much," Fin admitted. "I just had a terrible feeling when I looked at it..."

"Okay, hold on," Marina said as she typed more. When she stopped she whimpered. "Holy carp! And it looks like that terrible feeling was justified. Apparently, this statue is charging up enough energy to fire that cannon and from what I can tell from this, it won't only just destroy Inkopolis...but also the whole world!"

"HOW DO WE STOP IT?!" we all shouted in unison.

"Let's see...Oh! This is interesting."

"What what what?!" we all said. Marina showed us a drawn-up diagram on her laptop. (How she drew it so quickly and so well, I'll never know.)

"This thing is solar-powered. The statue is absorbing sunlight and converting it into that cannon's energy. If we can stop it from charging up, it won't have enough energy to fire at Inkopolis."

"Great!" I said. "But how do we do that?"

"I have an idea. If we can somehow cover that entire statue in ink, it should stop the charging process."

"We gotta cover that entire hunk of rock?! Seriously?!" Pearl said in disbelief.

"That'll take way too long," the captain said. "Unless we have giant bombs or very efficient ink weapons."

"Bombs...MARINA! Your hyperbombs!"

"Great minds think and ink alike, Pearl," Marina said with a smile. "We can use those, but they're still prototypes. I can't set them off remotely, so they need to be detonated manually."

"How do you do that?" Fin asked.

"They...need to be shot at...but the explosions should be able to cover the statue if we place and set them off at the right times and in the right spots."

"So someone needs to be on that statue?"

Fin and I looked at each other. We nodded in agreement.

"We'll handle that," we said in unison.

"How are your weapons?" the captain asked.

We both looked at them. They both seemed fine, minus a couple of small dents here and there.

"Okay, so those two are gonna blow up the bombs," Pearl said. "What should I do?"

"You've got a big job, Pearl," Marina said. "Once they've stopped the statue from charging up, you need to hit with a full-power battle cry."

"Wait, what?! But I haven't done that in forever!"

"You've got to, Pearl!"

"I'm not even sure if I can do it anymore."

"Well, from the looks of it, we only have a three-minute window for this plan to work before it's ready to fire, so during that time, you can warm up your vocal cords. We're definitely gonna need maximum Pearl!"

Pearl looked concerned, but she huffed a bit and became more determined.

"Alright," she said with an assured nod. "Blowing out my voice is a small price to pay for saving the world. I'll do it!"

"Awesome!"

"Er...what about me?" the captain asked. "What should I do?"

Everyone else looked around at each other because frankly, we didn't know what he could do.

"You can...uh..." Marina began uneasily.

"Be our hype man, cap'n," Fin said. "We're gonna need a LOT of support for this."

"You got it, bucko!" the captain said happily. "Is that all we have to do?"

"That's about the size of it, captain," Marina said.

"Then in that case, here's a cheer to get us going. Ahem...world about to blow-SQUIDS AND OCTOS, LET'S GO!"

"Huh...you know, that's not bad," Fin said.

"But, uh, maybe keep working on it, cap..." Pearl said.

"I'll prepare the hyperbombs," Marina said. "Fin, Melody, you two get on that platform by the statue's chest so we can start this."

"Right!" we said when we found it.

We stood at the edge of the platform and stared at the intimidating statue. The one thing that could destroy everything and everyone we know loomed over us with a massive cannon in its mouth and filled the air with a sense of imminent doom. And a small group of Inklings and Octolings were the only ones who could put a stop to it.

Fin and I looked at each other, nodded, then exhaled heavily right before we launched ourselves over to that platform.

Once we landed, I felt so small compared to the statue. This plan seemed like it was crazy and somewhat poorly thought out, but it was all that we had to go with for now.

"Okay, Marina, how are the bombs coming?" Fin asked.

"They're ready," she responded. "But we're in limited supply since this is so short-notice..."

"It might have to work."

"I got this planned out to make the most out of these three minutes. I'll launch five bombs on the statue's chest at the start, then five more every thirty seconds on the neck, back, right arm, and finally ten bombs on the head. All in that order. Once I drop those last ten, you only have one minute left before this thing is fully-charged."

"One minute...?" I repeated as I looked up at the massive statue head. "How do we get up there to get them all in time?"

"Hey, look up there!" Fin as he pointed up. I noticed a few floating objects...and I recognized them.

"Grind rails?" I said.

"I don't know how or why they're there, but they're perfect for navigating the head. If we activate them, we might have a chance...if they go in the right directions anyway."

"Let's hope so."

"If you believe you have the possibility of stopping my plan, I will assure you all that you are sorely mistaken," the phone announced. "My creations will put an end to your actions permanently."

We then saw a few Sanitized Octocopters and Octotroopers coming out of the statue.

"Oh, great..." I muttered. "What do we do about those guys?"

"I got a plan," Fin said. "This'll be like a Turf War back home."

"What?"

"Look, the phone...I mean, 'Tartar'...is gonna do whatever it can to keep us from stopping this weapon from charging up, so we need to counter it somehow. Right now, he's our opponent with a plan to cover our turf in a messed up ink, but we've also got a plan to do the same to him."

"Ah...I see what you mean. So what did you have in mind?"

"We split up and focus on different targets. You go around the statue and focus on hitting all the bombs as Marina drops them. In the meantime, I'll focus on protecting you by taking out Tartar's little helpers and finding some way to activate those grind rails. Once I do, we both hop on the rails and finish off the bombs on the head. Got it?"

"Works for me!"

"Initiate charging sequence!" Tartar announced. "Stop those pests and remove them from my weapon!"

"Guys!" Marina shouted. "We only have thirty seconds left before it all starts!"

"It's all coming down to these three minutes," the captain said. "The whole world is counting on Inklings and Octolings working together once more to keep it from certain doom. May the Great Zapfish give you both strength."

"Not what I'd call 'hyping up'..." Pearl said. "But good words, anyway, cap! You guys got this!"

"Ten seconds!" Marina warned. "We know you can do it!"

"We have to," Fin said. He turned to me as his tentacles turned pink to match mine and held up his Hero Shot. "Alright...ready to save the world, Melody?"

"No..." I admitted. "Are you?"

"Not at all...but someone's gotta do it..."

"Yeah..."

I took out my Octoshot and got ready for probably the most important Turf Wars to ever occur in history...one that we had only one chance to win.

AN: Looks like the finale is coming up soon. Let's see how it goes in the next chapter.