As I wander through the desert, getting ever so closer to Octo Valley, my mind starts to drift, thinking about random things. Things like 'When's the next time I'm going to eat kelp chips?,' or 'why hasn't anyone been sent off to go after me?' among others. As these thoughts drift around my head, I get snapped back to reality by my stomach rumbling. "Seems like I need food, I can take a little stop, I guess." I say, while looking around for a tree, finding one in no time.
As I set up my tarp over a few low hanging branches, I quickly pull out a bottle of water and some salted kelp chips. "It's gonna get hard getting used to this lifestyle, and it's not sustainable either." I say, with a somber look on my eyes. "Eventually I'm gonna have to move back to inkopolis, as the newly founded splatsville is across an entire ocean. No way I can make it across that." I say, putting my hand up to my eyes.
Soon I'm done eating and drinking, the water bottle being half empty, due to eating salted food, I became very dehydrated, and I needed to drink more than normal. "Maybe bringing salted food wasn't the smartest idea..." I say, while wiping off my hands. "Yawnnn Man, I'm tired, I've made good progress since last rest, I should probably take a nap." I say, while pulling out my blanket and pillow. "Just... I hope I keep on having good dreams, like I have been." I say, while drifting off into sleep.
"Oh cod, oh cod oh cod!" I hear the General shout, everyone in a state of panic.
"They took down the Octostomp with ease! What're we gonna do!" I hear an engineer shout.
"Everyone calm down!" The General shouts, but nobody listens.
"Guys!" I shout out, trying to get everyone's attention. "The Octostomp is out weakest weapon, remember? We have so many more, there's no way they can get past them!" I say, trying to lift the morale of everyone there.
"Yeah, you're right! There's no way they can beat the Octonozzle!" I hear another engineer shout, with more energy in their voice.
"That's the spirit!" I shout out.
"C'mon everyone. We need to work on more things to help us take down the Inkling." The General says.
"SIR YES SIR!" We all shout, before running off to our rooms, and drawing up many inventions.
As soon as I enter my room, I know what I have to do. "Thank ink sentry I sued to be so infatuated with... I need to get it done." I say, before running over, and grabbing a few sheets of paper. "If I can get it right, I'll save so many lives, and make it a living hell for that inkling, even if they do destroy it, reinforcements will have time to arrive." I say, with a smirk forming on my face. "It's genius, and I think I have the perfect design..." I say, before getting to work on sketching it out.
Soon, I'm done. It looks similar to the first re-design I had. Standing on a tri-pod, it has a round metal platform, with 1 heavy splatling on each side. The metal platform has a built in ink tank on the back, which not only pokes outside the sentry, but also goes inside it. The finishing touches include 3 pipes leading into the ground, so it can get ink from the ground to fire with. "It's... perfect. I covered the re-fueling weakness by adding pipes into the ground" I say, patting myself on the back. "All that's left is getting the resources for it, and that's going to be... hard, to say the least." I say, while putting the finished design onto blueprints, making sure to make everything as detailed as possible, while labeling it to the best of my abilities.
In the cafeteria, I can hear everyone dreadfully chat about the Inkling, and how skilled they are. "I heard they're just about to fight the octonozzle" I hear one of them say.
"There's no way they are, it's only been an hour." I hear the other one respond.
"THIS IS AN EMERGY ANNOUNCEMENT. IT HAS BEEN AN HOUR SINCE THE OCTOSTOMP WAS DESTROYED, AND THE INKLING HAS JUST DESTROYED THE OCTONOZZLE. I REPEAT, THE INKLING HAS JUST DESTROYED THE OCOTNOZZLE. IF YOU ARE AN ENGINEER, EXCLUDING THE ONES WORKING ON THE OCTOGIGA MECH, WE NEED YOU TO STOP DESIGNING AND TO START GETTING ON THE FRONTLINES. WE HAVE PROVIDED EXTRA OCTOSHOTS FOR ALL OF YOU. ASSIST THE ELITE SOLDIERS IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE." The intercoms then shut off with a click.
"OH COD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" I hear one octoling shout on the other side of the cafeteria.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" I hear a different octoling shout, this time closer to me.
"You're so lucky." I hear someone whisper into my ear, probably because I'm working on the project, which is a rarity in of itself.
Eventually, everyone settles down enough to go and grab their octoshots, while the elites are just sitting there, dumbfounded at the events that just occurred. Soon, the intercom turns back on, with a new message. "TO ALL THE ENGINEERS WORKING ON THE OCOTGIGA MECH, PLEASE HEAD TO THE OCTOGIGA ROOM AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. WE'RE SHIFTING IT'S DEVELOPMENT INTO OVERDRIVE, THERE'S NO TIME FOR OTHER INVENTIONS. HURRY THERE, THROW AWAY LUNCH IF YOU HAVE TO, JUST HURRY THERE." The voice on the intercom says in a panicked voice, panting is audible throughout the entire conversation.
"Well, I guess that's our queue to get going." I say, while standing up, and throwing away my lunch.
"Yeah, I guess it is." I hear a different elite say, from somewhere across the lunch room.
Soon, we're all gathered in the chamber, none of us knowing why we're here. Contrary to what you might think, we're not a very close knit group, we barely know each other. We're a group of engineers assigned to this project.
"I'm sure you're all wondering why we've called you all here." One of the project leaders announces, an Elite going by the name of Tasha. "Well, it's quite simple really. We need this to be completed, and fast. We fear it's the only thing that can stop the inkling." Tasha announces, with a distressed look in her eyes. "The truth is... we announced the octonozzle defeat 15 minutes after it had already happened." Tasha says, with genuine fear in her eyes.
"If Tasha's scared, then..." I hear an engineer murmur, fear evident in their voice.
"Yeah... this is gonna be intense..." I hear a different one respond, also very scared.
"Listen, I know we're all scared, but we can't let that distract us from our goal. We need to stop this freak of an inkling, so let's try our hardest to finish the OctoGiga." Tasha says, trying to rally us all together.
"YEAH!" We all shout in unison, getting ready to finally finish the octo giga.
As I close my eyes, and raise my hand in the air, I suddenly wake up. "Right, dreams are dreams..." I say, with a sad look in my face. "I helped create that weapon of mass destruction..." I say, with a somber look growing across my face. "All I can hope for is that it only ever gets used against that freak of an inkling." I say, with a bit of anger in my voice, before slowly getting up, and packing everything away, forgetting to pick up my bag of kelp chips as I walk away from where I slept.