Travis had taken Billy and Amber back to the base, after the hype of seen humans in Inkopolis had died down, of course.
Travis had come back and finally clocked in and sat down in his little office reciprocal.
The picture on his desk, taken when he was 14, when he had just gained humanlike features.
Travis was standing in front of his parents and 4 siblings. He was wearing his dad's blue sweater. He had inherited both side's colors, his mom's bright yellow, and his dad's dark blue. That's where he got the emerald color from.
The boss hadn't assigned anyone anything, since he was off planning their meeting with their superior. Travis was now extremely bored. Nothing new had happened, not in his job. He couldn't contact his family, reception didn't reach coffins, especially not filled ones.
Travis leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling. He felt his eyelids drooping. Two minutes later, he was soundly asleep.
14-year old Travis looked at his fellow siblings. He was the only green one out of all of them. They were either yellow, or blue.
Travis was in the middle of them, while they laughed. He had never felt as if laughing at someone was good especially when you are the one in the middle of it. This was the third time that day.
While it did seem mean, them laughing at him, it was worse when his own parents and relatives joined in. He felt such anger that night. During his sleep, something snapped. He felt a nerve go off. All of a sudden, nothing he saw was right. They all called him things and separated him from everyone else.
He realized something as quick as he snapped.
They don't love me. So I won't love them either.
In the middle of the night, Travis walked out of bed and went to the closet.
His parents came out shortly after.
"What do you think you're-"
His dad shut up when Travis shot him in the mouth with the yellow ink loaded gun in the closet.
His mom tried to grab the gun, only getting a few inches ahead before he cocked and fired the blue one, creating a very large blue and yellow mess.
"Hey, Travis! What are you-"
Travis dropped the empty guns and ran.
They all chased until the first kid went around a corner and fell over with a slit in his neck.
"WOAH-"
Travis kicked the next one over and quickly stabbed them. They screamed, but he didn't kill them. Just stabbed them and walked away, to let them die in peace.
Travis watched as his 2 brothers and 1 sister started running for their lives.
They all hid. Travis knew exactly where they were, but didn't open the door. Instead, he cleaned himself up,
Travis then pushed open the door and tossed a curling bomb inside.
They stopped screaming when they blew up.
Travis exited the house, not a single drop of residue on his nice, emerald sweater.
Travis woke to a little hand shaking him awake.
"Hey, buddy. Boss says that the way should be open to Omega's pocket dimension, if you want to go now. Amber's getting impatient." Billy said, patting a tired Travis on the back.
Travis stood up and stretched. The green toad in his room looked at the little picture.
"Is that you? You were an adorable child."
Travis looked at the picture. "That? No, not really."
Billy shrugged. "I dunno, toad children are…" Billy frowned. "Not as amusing as Inkling preteens."
Travis shrugged. "Maybe it's a species thing…"
Billy looked at the picture again. "If I could trade this measly toad body for your amazing stature, I would definitely do so…"
Travis felt weird after Billy said that. "I can't trade bodies, but you're smart, you'll find something, I'm sure. Now, come on. We gotta go now."
Billy and Travis made their way down the hall until they found Amber, who was in the portal room.
"Oh, there you are. Omega wants to see you. He also says to bring the prisoner."
Billy left to get Alph.
Amber and Travis sat down and waited.
"So… is it true that you only have one immediate family member left?"
Travis shrugged. "My dad adopted, so… no, not exactly. She's still alive because of mercy. Haven't seen her face for 8 years."
Amber shrugged. "I have my dad. My brother is dead to me. I just wish that my dad would let him go…"
Travis frowned. "Your brother's dead?"
"No. He ditched me and became an MVP. Some say he made the corporation. Nobody knows."
Travis looked up from the floor. "I've but two lifelong friends. That's Billy and someone else."
"I have my dad. You guys are gonna meet him soon. I had my brother. He was touchy about multiversal domination. He took the super weapon we had taken so long to make together, and ran away. We liked to call each other Greek names. I was Delta. Dad is the one we all know as Omega."
Travis waited for her to say the last name, but Billy returned with Alph. "Oh HI guys, I'm back. We goin' now?"
The portal led to a small room with five other portals, otherwise known as the other Gamma bases.
Amber led them out to the hall and started talking with the guards outside.
"Is Omega open right now?"
"He just got done tracking the next MVP ship. Headed right for us. Dunno what genius idea pops in his head this time, but we're on the verge of action. Anyway, your dad's open now. Might wanna see him soon."
Amber thanked him and they walked away. The guard took Alph away and the three kept walking.
Amber pushed open the large doors at the end of the hall. A large, neatly decorated room awaited them.
The man in the middle, having messy brown hair and wearing a green hoodie with a purple 𝝮 on the back.
He was standing over a large table with a screen on it. A red dot was moving across it. The red dot seemed to represent a MVP ship, which was closing in very fast now.
The man turned around. "Ah, Delta. Welcome back! I see you've brought me the two I asked for."
Travis and Billy waved.
"You may refer to me as Omega. That, or just Merryl. Either one, it does NOT matter. We're being hunted actively by this BLASTED ship that won't accept their comms being jammed. I had something to give you boys, but I can't shake this darned ship off of our signal."
Billy looked at the table. "Are you sure that it's a ship? If it were a ship, it'd be here by now. My guess is that it's a decoy."
Omega looked to the small toad by his screen table. "Why would a decoy be here? They have no reason to-"
A guard ran in, panting heavily and clearly impatient. "Boss, we have a problem!"
"What is it this time? Coffee machine created a black hole again?"
"No, a security breach! There's four MVPs, and they're flanking us!"
"Are they in?"
The guard started mumbling things to himself.
"I SAID, ARE. THEY. IN."
"Y-... yessir."
Omega sighed and tapped a button on the screen table. Alarms went off and Travis found himself being dragged down the hall by Omega and Amber.
They reached a room with a bunch of gadgets and weapons lying around.
"I was waiting to give you guys these, but it's about time they came to use."
Amber was handed a direct replica of the Monado. How it came to be, no one knew, or bothered to find out.
Billy was handed a weird chrome plate. It fastened itself to his back. He turned to see two large, robotic arms now on his back. Billy nearly yelled in happiness, but he was quickly shushed.
Omega picked up a jar lying in the corner. "Open the jar and claim the power inside of it. PSI. Known by few, used by many. Take it."
Travis tok the jar from Omega's hand and felt the energy emanating from it.
Travis slid the jar open and dropped it. Something was awakening inside of him.
Almost as if no time had passed, Travis was back in the room.
"Huh… that was… anticlimactic…" Billy mumbled.
Travis twirled the sparkles around his finger as he played with the straight power that had just entered his body.
Billy handed the uniform to Travis, wearing his own as well.
"Now that you two are suited up, the intruders shouldn't be a problem. Go now. Don't fail me, that's highly illegal."
Meanwhile, not far from their base...
Luigi laughed as he drove the tiny ship drone into the Gamma base. "Look at them. They've fallen for a trap! This is the third time that they've tried to jam the comms and attack."
The captain sighed. "L, please don't play cat and mouse with the drone, we NEED that."
"Hey, guys? We're about to hit a-"
3 was seconds late to announcing that they were headed right into the shielded part of the base.
They jerked forward and Luigi nearly flew out of his seat.
"OK. We have to manage on foot now, because we've tripped the alarms."
3, Simon, and Luigi all sighed at the same time.
"What? You don't pay for ship repairs!"
They got their weapons and hopped out of the stalled ship.
"So, what are we looking for?" 3 asked.
"Either Alph, or something that could help us with the Gamma case-"
They looked forward and saw the guards running at them.
"Spread out."
They all ran in opposite directions and attacked from there.
The guards were soon a pile of knocked out men on the floor.
Another person ran in. They had a purple Monado replica. They attacked Simon, who was just fast enough to draw his sword and not get his head brutally cut off.
Just as the captain tried to help, a toad with two sets of arms, one his normal arms, the other, large, mechanical arms, grabbed his hammer and chucked it across the room.
3 and L tried to help, but a third figure popped in behind them and blasted them both forward with a blast of fire.
Simon swiped and slashed at the person attacking him. They kept moving out of the way and striking harder. He tried again, but they knocked away his sword. He blanched as he started dodging repeated sword swings.
The captain was sadly trying to grab his weapon, but the toad attacking him kept throwing him everywhere and punching him with those metal arms. Finally, he stopped being thrown around like a ragdoll and was being held upside down by one of the large arms.
L shot an electric beam, the man just shook it off and hit L with an ice attack, sending him flying. 3 jumped on his back, but he pressed his hands together and a bolt of lightning struck them both. The man was unharmed, but 3 had been knocked off and was now on the floor. Neither 3 nor L had the energy or self-esteem to stand up and keep going.
Simon looked around. It's over.
He raised his arms in submission and lowered his head in shame.
The three on the opposite side started moving the agents to cells. Simon was guided to a cell, the captain was carried, and 3 and L were dragged.
3 woke up to Alph poking her face. "Wake up please… I don't know what I'd do if you were dead, so please wake up now!"
3 slowly opened her droopy eyelids and saw the little Koppaite standing in front of her.
"OH MY GOSH, YOU'RE NOT DEAD!"
3 sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I'm… alive." She managed to weakly mutter.
"Yeah, you really took a beating, from the looks of it. I had to fix you up because they wouldn't. You had jacked up your arm pretty bad. Your chest was highly bruised. You had better be glad that you aren't dead. I am…"
3 noticed the bandages wrapped around her chest and right arm.
"Thanks…"
Alph patted her on the head and walked to her bag on the other side of the room.
"Thank the Koppaite lords that you had that medical bag. If not, you may have died here."
3 sighed again. "How long was I out?"
Alph was the one sighing this time. "You were presumably dead for about…" He stopped to do the unwanted math and then continued. "Since you were brought in here… an entire day."
"Since I was brought in here? I was basically dead for a whole day?"
Alph shook his head. "No, no no…. Not dead, just… schrodinger's cat?"
3 had no idea why there was a cat named schrodinger, but it was not important now.
"We need to get out of here. NOW."
Alph stopped 3 from getting up. "No, don't do that. You're still missing a lot of… inkling blood… and nothing is stopping them from hurting us worse. Rest. Don't overwork yourself."
3 sat down and looked around. "Where's the others? L? Simon?"
Alph shrugged. "They weren't even in here. I think they're in a different cell."
The door opened, and the toad whom had jacked up the captain walked in, a devilish smile on his face. 3 scowled and resisted the urge to crush his little skull inward.
"Ah! You're awake! You and Mr. Tall Mustache were beaten up pretty bad. Nearly had to chuck you out of the garbage disposal. Would've been nice to have…"
3 and Alph sat there, clearly not amused.
"Whats with the looks, eh? Neither of you are strong enough to stop me, and you're my prisoners. Maybe you should have rethought going in here without the whole posse. Aaanyway, who likes Russian Roulette? I know I do. 12 times, undefeated. Poor fools who tried to challenge me got their heads blown off."
3 remained in a nasty scowl.
"Oh, don't worry, it's approved. I can play with the lab rats."
Some of the guards took 3 and Alph into a room with a singular ceiling light and a table. A large gun was on the table.
Billy tapped the control panel on the side of the laser gun. "For the max experience, you set it to random fire. No one knows when their life is in danger!"
He handed the gun to Alph. "Why don't YOU start?"
Alph sighed. Why did I get this job?
3 was looking at the gun with an intense focus. Something wasn't right.
Alph noticed her glancing toward the light. Billy started impatiently tapping the table.
3 weakly pointed to the light.
Alph, almost immediately, pointed up and pulled the trigger. The gun blasted out the little ceiling light, causing them to be immersed in darkness.
Alph felt his body get lifted and hoisted out of the room. 3, who was now carrying Alph, was limping and about to collapse.
Alph squirmed out of her grasp and sighed. "3, you can't DO things like that. We're good as DEAD now. Just hope tha-"
Alph turned and saw Simon, now with 3 over his shoulders and the captain in his arms. He motioned to Alph to be quiet.
"WHERE'D THEY GO?!"
"I-i don't know, we were all in the same room!"
"Complaining isn't gonna get you anywhere, now is it, thickhead?"
"I'll go look then."
Simon looked to Alph and whispered. "We need to find L before we leave."
Just then, a loud explosion sounded from the parking bay.
"SECURITY BREACH! ALL HANDS ON DECK, PARKING BAY, NOW!"
Simon grabbed Alph's hand and ran down the hall.
They reached a glass cell, where an unconscious L lay.
Simon pulled out a stolen keycard and opened the glass.
"I can't carry all of you! Someone will have to walk-"
3 hopped off of Simon's shoulders. "I'm fine. Get L."
Simon picked up L and looked around. "The whole crew's here. Stay quiet."
Simon ran till he found their ship. It was still in the dock, but there were guards there.
Simon turned around and Alpha was now standing behind him. "Hey, kid. You guys did us good by going here, as stupid as that was."
Simon sat L on the floor. "What?"
"We tracked your ship. Though you did this really stupid deed, We're here to get this place under control. I just wanted to see if you fellas were okay. It seems as if I were right, you aren't."
The guards in the background were steadily dying because of the MVP army Alpha had brought with him.
Travis grabbed Billy and Amber and jumped back into the portal to their base. They all had tried to escape the guards WITH Omega, but he was caught and taken away.
They toppled out of the portal and looked at each other. "Omega is gone. Who's gonna lead?"
Amber stood tall.
"I'm next in line for that position. If he's done, I'm the new Omega. He was gonna tell you two about the Ultra league. You, me and Billy were gonna be that group. Now, we are that group. Now, first order of business. Billy. Where'd you dump Mario? We're going to do some persuasion."
SORRY ABOUT THE PREVIOUS VERSION GUYS, I JUST FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE DOCX ON GOOGLE DOCS AND IT BROKE lol.
Anyway, we're nearing the supposed halfway point. That'll be known as the chapter: "Checkpoint Acquired."
Travis has this.. new ability, Billy can walk down the hall on his chrome arms, Amber... oh no...
Alph is back but is the most unharmed. L hasn't even woken up yet. 3 has some... new thoughts. Simon and the captain are having a chat about placement.
Anyway, sorry about the bad upload. Have a nice night, day, or morning, given where you live.