Three spat as fresh crab blood splattered her in the face after having just crushed his head with her hammer. A cohock came up next and she fired her hero shot from the hip, splatting him in less than a second.
"Hurry up!" She called out.
Four and Pearl had led a team out into the midst of the battlefield under the cover of Gamma Company's guns to retrieve the growing collection of frying pans being wielded by the Salmonids. Both of them had brought their dual splattlings, making them a potent force against the unending tide of chums and cohoks.
The troopers with them were those of third splatoon, who frantically grabbed and carried as many of the pans as they could while Pearl and Four provided close cover. Arms finally full, they trotted back to Gamma's lines, Pearl and Four firing even as they hurried backwards.
Three forced a space open in the ranks and the raiding party got through safely. She then hurled a splat bomb into the midst of large group of chums feasting on a crab's corpse, killing all of them.
Satisfied, she withdrew and Gamma's new company commander ordered Third Splatoon back into reserve and First Splatoon to take its place. Once that had been completed to her satisfaction, Three withdrew to the rear.
Pearl collapsed into a seating position next to one of the trucks, panting heavily and fanning herself with her hand.
"That was the most intense thing I've ever done."
Four smiled and offered her a canteen which she happily drank from. After expending so much ink over the course of the battle thus far, Three was making sure everyone stayed hydrated. Even now, Third Splatoon was drinking from canteens freshly filled by the walking wounded from the Octarian's cisterns.
The Octarians had been reluctant to share their water but Callie had more or less threatened to throw the guards into the midst of the enemy horde if they didn't let them. Sever had voiced no objection.
The raided frying pans were loaded onto an Octarian hand cart which a member of Iota Company hauled out to a makeshift workshop area further to the rear. Marina and members of the Guard's support companies were fashioning them into makeshift shields for the Octarian Army to use against the crabs. Octarians from other parts of the domes were pouring in to help.
"How's morale?" Three asked, quiet enough that nobody other than Four and Pearl could hear over the tumult of battle raging around them.
"Good," Four replied with an overcast smile. "I don't think the casualties have hit 'em yet."
Casualties had been less than they'd feared, but deaths were unavoidable. All the dead were being kept far away from the rest. Three didn't want her troops seeing them while they rested and waited for their time back in the line.
"We'll deal with it after. Everyone's doing very well. Make sure they know it, but don't let them get cocky."
Four flashed green and Three gave Pearl a respectful nod before hurrying off. She needed to make sure she kept tabs on all the Guard, not just those on the line.
The aid station was her next visit. A few supply trucks had been parked end to end as a defensive wall, with enough gaps to let casualties through. The very ground of the aid station was soaked in blood as casualties nursed severed limbs and brutal lacerations. Some of the medics were among the Guard's adult volunteers. They were having to perform field surgery on some of the worst injuries.
She spotted Tephila among the medics, her clothes already spotted with blood and ink. She was tending to an inkling girl who had lost both her hands, replaced with a pair of heavily bandaged stumps. She reached into the girls pocket and carefully placed a small photograph so that she could hold it between the stubs.
A ruckus happening at the other end of the aid station drew her attention away.
One inkling boy was struggling against the medics as they tried to hold him back. He had a bandage over one eye with blood still dripping down that side of his face and his left arm was broken.
"Let me go! I can still fight, I can still kill more of them!"
"No! You can't, you're too injured! You need to recover. You're done fighting."
"No way! I'm not done 'till I say I'm done!"
"Is there a problem here?"
Three's appearance brought a momentary lull in the argument and all three people involved paused to stare at her.
"What's the problem, trooper?"
"He's trying to get back to the line to fight," one of the medics cried. She was one of the adult volunteers. Her nursing scrubs were already soiled. She looked to be at least twice her own age, and that might make this interaction difficult.
"That's where I should be!" He shouted. "I can't stay here taking it easy while everyone else is fighting!"
"You've lost an eye, blood, and your arm is broken!"
Three displayed an order for silence. "There are ways you can still help defeat the enemy without fighting. You can help refill canteens, pull carts, be a messenger."
"I ain't gonna' do that when I could be fightin' and killing those…" His remaining eye watered and Three understood.
"I don't know who you lost, but getting yourself killed isn't the way to honour them. You have to be alive at the end to do that. You should know that everyone working behind the lines is just as important as the ones fighting. This way you can still contribute. None of us like it, but we always have to keep going. The dead and those too injured to do anything anymore are all cheering us on."
"He shouldn't be helping either," the medic said.
"I won't deny him that!" Three said firmly, trying not to bite the inkyora's head off. "He clearly has the energy from the hard time he was giving you."
She gave the trooper a smirk and he managed a tiny one back. Then she said, "report to whoever's in charge of the support element of your company. Keep everyone else cracking shells."
The trooper nodded and managed a weak salute with his remaining arm before he ran off, wobbling just a bit.
"You shouldn't have let him go like that," the medic chastened her. Her tone was very much of an adult speaking to a child, and while that was her right in most circumstances, Three was the one in charge here, she was the one responsible for the lives and deaths of everyone under her command.
"It would have been more trouble to try and keep him here and I can't spare people to babysit. Besides, we all want to contribute. More lives will be saved that way. He might pass out but at least he'll still be alive." Probably.
Three left before she received any reply. She didn't have time for idle chit-chat nor critiques about her command.
Lady Sever's makeshift command post was in the centre of the second defence line. From there, she was keeping an eye on the entire defence and giving out orders as the situation developed with their new formation. Three climbed up onto the roof of one of the other trucks nearby to survey the situation for herself.
After the Salmonids had appeared, Sever had ordered a change in the distribution of their forces. Now, a company of the Guard was on both wings of the combined army, holding the flanks against the crabs, and a third company had been placed in the centre between two elite Octarian companies. This had the effect of strengthening the line overall as the Guard and its hammers were now guarding both flanks and the centre, unfortunately, it also had the effect of spreading out the Guard, making it more difficult for Three to keep tabs on all of them and they were forced to rely on unfamiliar forces instead of their sister companies.
As the battle was clearly going to go on longer than anticipated, Three had also ordered reserves to be switched in and out by splatoon instead of by company. She hoped this would give enough time for everyone to rehydrate and get their strength back before being sent back into the grinder.
Unfortunately, the enemy had also switched up their tactics. The crabs were now deliberately trying to avoid the Guard companies with their deadly hammers and focusing more on the Octarian Army, who lacked any adequate defence against them, although the piles of dead crabs in front of their barricades showed that the superior training of the Octarian troops still allowed them to hold their own.
Meanwhile, the Guard, who had been more trained and equipped to fight crabs were facing primarily Salmonids now. The front ranks still used hammers, the melee weapons still proving plenty deadly to those Salmonids that actually got close, but the second rank now relied on their ink rifles, which lacked the rate of fire and ink saturation of Octoshots. Despite this, the Guard tried to compensate by being more accurate, aiming for the heads of the assaulting Salmonids to kill them more effectively. It also didn't hurt that many of the Guard were veterans of salmon runs, and so were much more experienced handling them. The barricades were more effective against them too as Salmonids were terrible climbers.
Three spotted Callie sitting further back from her position, resting and nursing her wounds. When the Salmonids had first appeared, Callie had sallied out with her guards to buy time for the defence to reform. Several of her guards were injured but, remarkably, none of them had died.
Three wanted to go to her, ask her if she was okay, comfort her, but she couldn't do that, not when she had to keep an eye on a whole army. Briefly, she searched for Eight amidst the chaos. She had been attached to Hani's Delta Company of headhunters, searching for anyone on the enemy's side acting as an officer and higher-threat individuals, taking them out by some means or another. Occasionally, that meant venturing out in front of the line, but she hadn't gotten any reports of heavy casualties.
Can't see her.
She sighed and tried not to be worried. Eight had occasionally helped train the Guard and was still fit as a fighter, even if she might be a tad rusty, she was still probably the best of the former NSS members besides herself and a match for Callie and Marie prior to their yun'brennen.
She'll be fine. When all this is over, I'll see her again. She'll be just fine.
The ringing of bells filled the cavern and Three frowned. What was that?
She hopped from her truck over to the one Sever was standing on. The Octarian commander was standing on the tips of her toes to try and get a better vantage than the roof of the truck could provide.
The crabs and Salmonids were withdrawing towards the water.
"No way they're giving up," Sever hissed. "They're regrouping."
Three flashed green. "We might be seeing the giants now." And probably the more advanced and dangerous Salmonid species, with more than frying pans.
Callie walked up behind them, standing slightly taller than the truck. "Sounds like the opening act is over and the real show is about to start."
"Most certainly." Sever pulled lightly on her tentacles, glaring down at the enemy. "And I have little idea of what to expect."
"We've never seen the Salmonids fight alongside the crabs, but we've fought Salmonids by themselves before. If the Salmonids are coming with their own heavy units, we could be in trouble."
Sure enough, large figures began to emerge from the water. Two giant crabs, three steel heads, and half a dozen flyfish. It was the flyfish that had Three worried the most. The flyfish would be able to shoot over the barricades and rain fire down into their tight formations. Even if it didn't kill anyone, it would spread the Salmonid's toxic ooze on the ground behind their lines, and that could lead to all sorts of problems. And this probably wasn't even all of them.
"Then it is time to deploy our own heavy weapons. We cannot hold anything back now."
Callie nodded. "It's make or break time." She picked up her enormous ink rollers. "So let's do some breaking."
—-
Tabani shivered as a fresh gust of frigid winds whipped at them. It had been a long time since she'd been on the surface, and she didn't remember it being nearly this cold. She'd nearly gone into shock when the first blast of cold air struck her, but bearing with hardships was part of the Octarian way of life; it had always been.
She and the rest of the rescue party kept low behind fat boulders – boulders which were normally guarded by octoling turncoats, according to Rizlin, their scout. She had memorised the various routes they could take to the Inkling's headquarters and even the positions typically occupied by the various guards, but the headquarters seemed completely deserted.
Tabani reached up to the door of the small wooden shack and tried to turn the handle but it wouldn't budge.
"He's not in there," Rizlin told her. "We don't have to waste time breaking in."
"It wouldn't take long," another one of them muttered.
Rizlin ignored them. She was focused on their mission. Everything else would come later.
She brought them to the side of a cliff peering down into Octo Canyon. Tabani joined her and saw a small ledge ten metres down.
"There's a cave down there," she explained. "It's small but enough to keep him out of sight."
Tabani blew on her hands, trying to warm them with her breath. The winter clothing they had was old and worn, barely adequate.
Rizlin nodded. "Right, we need to get down and out of here before our hands get too cold to hold the ropes. She nodded to someone else on the team who fastened a rope to a nearby tree then tossed it over the edge, which it just barely reached.
Three of them descended down a sheer cliff with probably another hundred metres or more to the bottom was probably one of the most nerve-wracking things Tabani had ever done. The wind was even stronger within the canyon, and constantly had them swaying and banging into the canyon wall the whole way down. At least once they reached the ledge it made it much easier to safely land within the cave.
Around a small bend in the cave, they found a simple wall made from plywood with scrap pieces of debris on the outside. A door with a simple but robust key lock seemed to be their only obstacle. Another member of the squad went forward with a small bag of tools and began working at it while the rest of them stood guard.
After a few minutes, Rizlin asked, "is there a problem? I've never seen you take this long to get through a lock unless it was rusty."
"This one's just very heavy," the lock picker answered. "I'm having to be very careful to avoid breaking my tools."
After another few minutes of careful work, they eventually got the door opened, and they went inside.
The air was much warmer and they found a small area immediately inside with a few cushions around a wooden box, probably where guards would normally sit while watching their prisoner. Said prisoner was floating in a large glass globe, turning around and staring at them with large, green eyes and a sour expression.
"About time, again. How many times do my soldiers have to try and rescue me until I stay rescued?"
The three of them bowed low, but Octavio began to bellow at them impatiently.
"Can the ceremony and get me outta' here!"
While the other two worked on getting Octavio out of his glass prison, Tabani filled him in on current events, explaining where all the guards likely went and that the domes may be under attack.
"I never trusted those crabs," Octavio hissed, "but I trust the inklings even less. Once we show weakness they'll pounce on us. They would have killed us ages ago if they could. Besides, Cuttlefish, if he really is still alive, will be making sure to at least keep us pinned in the domes 'till we rot! No, the only way there can be peace is if one or the other is defeated."
Grinning gleefully, he rubbed his tentacles together. "And this circumstance gives us a golden opportunity."
Tabani frowned. "My Lord?"
"If the inklings are all occupied with the crabs then that means they're vulnerable, their most crucial places open to attack, and if there's one thing inklings are good at it's squabbling pointlessly during a crisis, which means all their leaders will be in one place to do exactly that."
Tabani's eyes widened. "Sir? You want to attack the inklings now? But the whole army is engaged!"
"I assume you brought a team?"
"Yes, My Lord; a whole splatoon."
"More than enough. I've had a long time to plan this out and I know a way we can sneak into Inkopolis. Besides, we'll need a good bargaining chip to keep the inkling army from trying anything cute. In a single stroke, we'll paralyse all Octarian enemies. And after that, we'll deal with the crabs."
Rizlin frowned. "But what about the domes? If the inklings were telling the truth then they really could be under siege."
"Bah!" Octavia waved a dismissive tentacle. "The crabs could never sneak an army big enough to threaten the domes in. Even the inklings aren't that oblivious. If they did manage it, then they'd be allied with the inklings and there's no way that's ever going to happen. Now come on, I want out of this dank cave. When we get to your splatoon I'll tell you all my plan to conquer Inkopolis in a single stroke."
Rizlin's frown deepened but Tabani followed excitedly. This was exactly what Lord Stonefeller had been hoping for: Lord Octavio finding them a way out. She was more than happy, and willing, to carry out whatever his plan was. Once they got back to the surface she would eagerly radio Lord Stonefeller to let him know.
—-
Marie had to admire the tenacity of the crabs, fighting back even against hopeless odds. Not only were they up against a numerically superior force, they were up against the very best Inkopolis had to offer. The giant Hallar ripped their formation apart with their massive staves, scattering them across the floor if not outright killing them, leaving them open to attack from the Enforcers and the rest of their forces. It also effectively freed those trapped within the crab formation, giving them a means to escape their encirclement.
Vella and Septain Clearsky filtered through the small gap to safety. It was important that these two stayed alive to report what they saw. How had they gotten into this mess?
They stopped a safe distance from the battle, panting.
"Are you alright?"
"The crabs were waiting for us," Clearsky said. "They ambushed our forces from behind when they went to clear the other hallways."
Marie grimaced. So, they'd been tipped off somehow. It couldn't have been a spy or else they would have simply abandoned the base, knowing what was coming. The situation must not have been clear.
She looked back at the battle, the crabs were still fighting hard and their determination had gotten them out of their own encirclement to form a line with their backs to one of the other sections of the base. Searching through her mental map of the base's known layout, that was where the mysterious deep pit was supposed to be. Could these crabs be waiting for reinforcements?
"Keep a lookout!" Marie called. "They wouldn't still be fighting this hard if they didn't think someone was going to come save them."
Those whom they'd rescued seemed more inclined to listen to her, having been ambushed and duped once before. Many of them began climbing up to the second and third floors, taking defensive positions. They'd just begun searching the nearby rooms when a terrible noise reverberated through the underground.
It was deep, throaty yet raspy, but it sounded like there was a second voice underneath it, like someone trying to scream when they were being choked.
A loud bang shook the whole room and the ground started to shake. Even the crabs didn't seem to know what was going on. Debris started to rain down as the walls and ceiling cracked and chunks started to fall off.
A pillar fell over and crashed into the water, breaking the top of the dam and causing seawater to start flooding the space.
"Everyone get down!"
It was already too late to escape. Marie could only cover the people she could and weather the storm, as chunks of concrete and earth fell around and on top of her.
Something exploded through the wall, crushing crabs and inklings alike under flying debris. Marie glimpsed the Grand Master dodge everything and rush in to grab two NSF officers and pull them under cover.
A warbling roar further shook the space. Shafts of sunlight began to pierce through holes in the ceiling. One of those shafts shone down on an enormous shape, vaguely serpentlike with bulging yellow eyes and a massive, elongated jaw full of rows of sharp, serrated teeth.
Wincing with pain, Marie straightened up, debris cascading off her back. Vella, Clearsky, and the handful of others she'd shielded checked their surroundings, reacting in horror at what they had just narrowly avoided, and what else had yet to fall upon them.
Survivors of the collapse began to move amidst the debris, checking each other for damage and helping others trapped underneath. A surprising number had actually managed to escape to cover, under still intact sections of the structure. But how long would that last if this… whatever it was kept trying to bring it down?
Smaller, more high-pitched cries joined those of the giant, and they belonged to swarms of Salmonids, pouring out through the huge hole the giant creature had made in the wall, and the rising water was letting them simply swim over some of the debris.
"Take defensive positions!" Marie shouted to everyone. "Look for areas already collapsed so nothing else falls on you!"
As if on cue, the giant roared and began banging against the walls and floor, shaking everything and causing more sections to break apart and collapse.
Marie grunted as her head was hit with a sudden pain, as if something were squeezing her brain on all sides, and a dark, slimy voice began echoing inside it.
"All will fall, all will be crushed, but I will survive to take all."
Marie shook her head and gritted her beak then locked eyes with the giant Salmonid. It leaned into an enlarged ray of sunlight, letting it gleam off obsidian scales and revealing a mane of orange and green tentacles behind its long head.
"I am queen of all. I am amazingness itself! All will be what I want!"
"The Salmonid Queen," Marie murmured. She hadn't known such a thing existed. She thought the eggs just came from a bunch of different Salmonids. Was this a creation of the Consortium or had it always existed?
The firing of ink weapons finally added a competing chorus to the Salmonid's screeching and squelching. The assault force was finally finding its feet again, firing on the advancing Salmonids from islands of debris amidst the water. The Hallar were all armed with melee weapons and focused on keeping them from getting too close to the shooters. But there were a lot of them.
The Salmonids moved like a single mass, charging mindlessly into concentrated ink blasts, but also working around the islands of resistance like an amorphous blob trying to absorb them.
Something burst out of the water right near them and Vella screamed as she was caught up in the mouth of a large Salmonid – a maw.
The big-mouthed fish started to sink back into the water and sludge in which it swam but Marie grabbed onto it, using all her strength to prevent it from slipping away.
"No you don't!" Out of her tentacles came large hooks which she stabbed into the surprised maw's flanks, leaving her fists free to punch the creature in the head, breaking bones and turning what few brains it had to jelly.
Remembering how she'd gutted fish during several cooking shows, Marie used her hooks to slice the creature's belly open, and Vella came spilling out along with the rest of its guts, sputtering out a whole dictionary of Octarian curses.
Marie then hurled the corpse into the Salmonid horde, crushing a dozen of them and disrupting their attack, but the situation was getting bad as even the Hallar were being forced to fall back. She needed to get in there, she needed to fight.
Marie looked around for something –anything she could use for a weapon. In the corner, half submerged in seawater, she found a collection of steel eels, serpent-like contraptions the Salmonids used.
Marie ran over and grabbed both of them by the tail. They were lighter than she expected but the heads were as heavy as they looked. Good.
Marie ran back, her legs kicking up large waves of water, and waded into the densest part of the horde, raising her makeshift weapons and swinging them in long arcs that sent dozens of smashed and broken Salmonids flying. She waded in deeper and deeper, undaunted by their numbers. A maw tried foolishly to bite her only to have its head kicked in. A naked steelhead tried to come at her from behind, only to be smacked by her tentacles.
Marie's attack had the desired effect, making a large hole in the Salmonid tide and disrupting their attack along the whole front. The assault force was able to rally and the resistance against the Salmonids stiffened considerably.
The giant Hallar were able to recover, and though one of them was nursing a broken arm, they too waded into the Salmonid horde, swinging their staves and particularly targeting the larger salmonids, cracking the heads of maws and the naked steelheads.
The Salmonid Queen roared and thrashed its head about.
"No! Nothing as strong as me. I am queen! I am strongest! Biggest! You are not as big as me!"
The Queen's tendrils began picking up chunks of debris and hurling it in their direction – at Marie in particular. Marie was forced to drop her makeshift weapons and put up her arms in defence, the chunks of concrete battering and bruising her, sharp stones cutting her outfit and lacerating her skin.
The beast inside her began to move. This pelting of bits of debris… it triggered something, an old memory, the memory of being under a merciless barrage of stones, bruising, cutting.
The beast inside her reared up. Already stirred by the desperate situation it was more easily awoken. It seemed to say, "not again. Can't let it happen again."
The barrage suddenly became background noise to Marie. The repressed memory, regret, rising to the surface and the beast took up her entire consciousness.
Can't let it happen again. Won't let it happen again! Can't let Callie get hurt again.
Have to stop the stones. Need to save everyone. This Salmonid is the enemy, no need to hold back, no need to worry about consequences.
Marie realised that she and the beast inside her were echoing one another.
No, not echoing one another. I've always known that the beast was me, I just never liked to think about it that way, I was always ashamed of it. But who cares about consequences at this point? I'm fed up with appearances and doing what's proper. I have no reason to hold back anymore! It's time to go all out and show this freak of nature what a real apex predator is!
In that moment, she and the beast ceased to be perceived as separate entities and they both became Marie Sansea.
Marie caught one of the flying chunks of debris in mid-air and drew back her arm to hurl it back, not directly at the Queen, but the ceiling above it.
It smacked against the concrete and earth above, causing much larger chunks to fall down and collapsing what remained of the ceiling on that side of the chamber, bringing it down on the Salmonid Queen.
The Queen howled and screeched as heavy debris rained down on it, flailing its mane of tentacles to try and ward off some of the falling chunks. That ended the bombardment of stones and Marie was free to move.
The chamber became filled with molten-red light, emanating from Marie's mantle which now resembled fresh, hot magma as it roiled and glowed. Her eyes were now perpendicular slits and focused almost entirely on the Salmonid Queen.
Marie let out a roar that shook the chamber anew and the Salmonids instantly ceased their attack, suddenly afraid.
Marie retrieved her battered steel eels and charged directly at the Queen, swinging them side to side, carving a path through the Salmonid horde in a tidal wave of destruction. Eventually, however, they broke, unable to take the horrendous pounding Marie was subjecting them to, so she grabbed a nearby steelhead and began swinging it by the tail, bludgeoning any Salmonid foolish enough to get in her way, carving a path of devastation and death that left nothing but blood and floating bits of mutant fish in her wake.
The Queen saw her advance and began to charge her as well. Marie spun around and hurled her now very dead and mangled fish club at it. The queen caught the steelhead in its mouth and swallowed it, as if mocking her, but Marie was not in the frame of mind to notice or care about this little detail.
Marie tried throwing a punch but the Queen moved its head to the side and tried to bite her. Marie stepped back just in time and wrapped her arms around the Queen's muzzle holding its mouth shut. The queen responded by lashing out with her mane of tendrils, each one covered with sharp, serrated spikes that slashed at Marie's skin, causing her to cry out and fall back.
"Can't beat me. Too small, too weak! I am strongest!"
Marie hissed loudly and in a raspy voice she replied, "I'm more than size."
As if to argue this, the Queen tried to bludgeon Marie with a swing of its head but Marie dodged it and replied with a kick to the Queen's flank, sending it sprawling onto its side. It coughed and its eyes bulged larger, shocked at Marie's strength
Marie tried attacking again, only for that pesky mane of tentacles to lash out at her. Cutting her again before she got away.
Marie gritted her beak and ignored the pain or the thought of her cuts getting infected by the Salmonid's toxic ooze. Those tentacles were in the way, she needed to destroy them.
The Queen, obviously in pain, managed to get up and lashed out at her with all the tentacles at once, but this time, rather than dodging, Marie' moved forward and wrapped her arms around all but two of them. She gritted her beak through the pain while their serrated teeth cut into her skin as they tried to struggle out of her grasp. The lowermost tentacle lashed out at her legs, and Marie had to use the tentacles at the back of her head to keep the top one at bay.
The Queen screeched in surprise and confusion and Marie grinned wickedly. "You're not the only one with tentacles. Her hooks emerged again from her primary tentacles. She hooked them under the Queen's tentacles, now tense but constrained, and pulled upwards.
The Queen thrashed and screamed as the hooks' sharp inner arcs gradually sliced through one tentacle and then another, working their way up. The threshing made Marie's injuries even worse, carving her skin up like holiday meat, but she ignored it, fighting through the pain until she could slice them all up.
The Queen tried to fight back, yanking Marie forward to bite her face but Marie brought up her knee, connecting with the underside of the Queen's jaw, and there was a loud crack. Again, the queen thrashed and screamed with pain, which only aggravated her new injury, which made her thrash about even more. The thrashing hurt but it also helped Marie's hooks do their work, finally slicing through the last of the tentacles and letting Marie drop them to the ground.
The Queen saw her approach again, the arrogance in those bulging yellow eyes gone, replaced with utter terror.
"Suddenly a loss for words?" Marie sneered through a savage, predatory smile.
She lunged at the Queen who tried to bite at her, but Marie deflected the attack and worked her way around to the Queen's back. She grabbed its two remaining tentacles and swiftly cut them, but the Queen managed to slam Marie with the side of its head, sending her sprawling back.
Now it was the Queen who lunged and Marie was forced to block the strike, grabbing upper and lower jaw to keep it from snapping down at her. The Queen tried lashing out with her toxic tongue but Marie managed to hold it far enough away that it couldn't hit her face, but it did strike her arms and it burned like acid.
Marie cried out and reason left her, replaced with instinct and the instinct to survive. She wrenched the Queen's jaw aside, ducked underneath and grabbed onto her back. Its obsidian black scales were tough but Marie was undaunted. She opened her mouth and bit down on the back of the Queen's neck, her powerful beak breaking through the thick scaly hide with hardly an issue.
The Queen screamed and thrashed and then let out a high-pitched sound it hadn't made before as Marie tore a large hunk of bloody flesh out and spat it on the ground, blood gushing from the open wound. Marie bit down again, tearing at the muscle and skin, and reaching out with her hooks to slice at the creature's throat.
The struggle absorbed the entirety of Marie's mind, the only other thing was the mental screams of the Queen. "Agony, agony, agony," over and over again, endlessly as it cried out and thrashed about madly. And then, there was a terrible crash as it thrashed its head against a protruding steel support beam, and the voice battering Marie's mind suddenly went silent.
Without its constant screaming or the sounds of their struggle, Marie, for a moment, thought she'd gone deaf. Indeed, she couldn't hear anything except for the sounds of her own panting and the occasional structural groan as she lay immobile and exhausted.
No! Get up! We're in a combat zone! Can't stay vulnerable! Have to keep fighting or get to safety!
Marie let out a hiss and forced herself to stand up. Her clothes were badly torn, her sleeves shredded to ribbons, exposing the bloody mess of her arms, mixed with some of the toxic Salmonid green. She would need to clean those wounds, and quickly.
"Marie!"
One of her giant Hallar guards came over to her and helped her up, horrified by the state of her.
"We must get you to a healer!"
Marie grunted. "Fight's not over. Worry about it later."
"It is over."
Marie blinked and looked out over the battlefield. Every Salmonid that she could still see was either dead or dying. The militia, NSF, and IS officers were all starting to carefully pick through the bodies as they made their way to her while the hallar tended to the wounded and evacuated them. Among them was the Grand Master, nursing a broken arm.
"While you were fighting that monster, the Salmonids were almost paralyzed. We struck them then and managed to get them all before they could recover."
"Is it over then?" She asked.
"We're still going to have to thoroughly check the rest of this place to make sure," one of the NSF officers said, warily. "But, I can't imagine we'll find much that hasn't collapsed. The lab is still intact though, fortunately. Most of our evidence is going to be coming from that."
Marie flashed green. "Then, if you don't mind, I'll retire from the battlefield for now."
Marie let her guards lead her out. And as the adrenaline and hysterical strength started to ebb, she hoped that Callie and the Guard wouldn't be facing anything as terrible as that.
And maybe when all this is over, we can finally achieve peace.
Author's Notes:
This chapter was written before the later Splatoon 3 trailers appeared so I didn't know about the Chozuna/King Salmonid when I wrote this, but I like to think I came up with something scarier. The inspiration for the general shape of the Salmonid Queen was based on Perfect Chaos from Sonic Adventure, but I'm sure whatever you imagined in your minds was even better than that. What do you think of the battles so far? Do you think the Guard and the Octarians are doing well enough? What about the Inkopolis forces? What do you think of the idea of converting the frying pans into makeshift shields? Does it sound stupid or do you think it could work? Let me know your thoughts.