Chapter 2
Agent 4
After being pushed through the pipe of rushing water for what seemed like tens of minutes (thank goodness it was freshwater and not sea water, otherwise it would have been lethal for him), he was pushed up and through a second grate.
"Whaaaaaaa! Whoa..!" He yelled as he transformed back into Inkling form and landed on the grate. "Wh- Where… am I?"
He couldn't believe what he was looking at. It looked like he was on some kind of big floating outpost within a massive canyon. The rock formations around the edges of the canyon were strangely tentacle-shaped. He certainly wasn't in Inkopolis anymore. Actually, he could see the skyline of the city in the distance. Just how far had that pipe taken him?
"Ah, looks like you decided to follow me after all." The girl with the soft-yet-serious voice was standing in front of him now, back to him.
"Who… are you..? Where are we…?" He was beyond confused at this point.
"Well, if you're all done gawking at the scenery, I'll tell you. First things first though…" She put her parasol over her shoulder and turned around.
"W…W..Wait! You're…!?"
"Yup... I am who you think I am. Let's just get that out of the way first. It's me, Marie of the Squid Sisters. Ya know…" She held up her hands then turned her palms downward, striking her signature pose.
"Stay freeesh!" She said the same way she used to say it when she was on Inkopolis news.
"B-But…But… how?! Why?!" He couldn't even get his words straight. The shock of seeing a superstar like Marie all the way out here was completely beyond his comprehension.
"Whoa there, Kid. Calm down, I know you must be totally starstruck, but I'm gonna need you to cool it. This is important."
"Yeah… yeah ok… Wh-Why am I here..? Why did you want me to follow you here?" Trying to calm himself down after meeting one of his idols was understandably difficult.
"That's better. Now, the reason I brought you here is... Um... Well, at risk of sounding like my Gramps... The Octarians are coming."
"The Octarians? Like... the guys who lost the Great Turf War…? What do you mean?"
"Well, you know about the Great Zapfish?"
"Oh yeah, I saw something on the news, it disappeared from the top of the Deca Tower, right?" He remembered hearing about it from Off the Hook earlier that day.
"They stole it. I know that for a fact. You see… while I am a total superstar most of the time… I am also Agent 2 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon."
"The New Squidbeak Splatoon? Wait, Squidbeak Splatoon… I think I heard about that in school one time… weren't they from the great turf war..? That was like.. a hundred years ago.."
"That's right. And their leader, Cap'n Cuttlefish, is mine and Callie's grandfather."
This new information left the young inkling, again, completely dumbfounded. What were the odds that The Squid Sisters had connections to the legendary Squidbeak Splatoon?
"This… is a lot to take in… so, where do I come in with all this?"
"Right, right… Well, with me having to stay here and guard Cuttlefish Cabin… Callie being MIA... and with Gramps and our other agent off Cod-knows-where… It looks like I'm in need of some assistance…." Her goldenrod eyes slowly made their way to his aquamarine ones.
"You don't mean…"
"I need someone to go after the Octarians and steal back the Great Zapfish, as well as the other Zapfish. What do you say? Want to be our Agent 4?" She asked that as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
"But... Why me? There are tons of pro ink battlers in Inkopolis Square alone... you saw for yourself, I'm not all that great…" He was honored to be chosen, but the self-doubt began to creep back into his mind.
"Well, you're the only one who even seemed to notice me standing there."
"That's... not the most sound of logic…"
"Lemme put it like this. If you take the job and do it right, it'll be great training for turf wars. Nothing like learning under pressure, right? Well… lots of pressure. Seriously, you could die."
For some strange reason, he was actually thinking of taking the job.
If I complete this mission… I'll be well on my way to being a pro ink battler… If I don't… well… let's not think of that.
After some less-than-careful consideration and a little self-argument, he came to his decision.
"Marie… You got yourself an Agent 4." Giving her a thumbs-up and a wink to show some faux confidence, he accepted his new title of Agent 4.
"Sweet." She gave him a small smile.
"So.. Where do I start?" the newly dubbed Agent 4 pulled out his splattershot Jr and readied for battle.
"Cool it there, squiddo. Let's get you properly equipped first." She chuckled slightly before reaching over to the small table next to her and grabbing a fluorescent yellow bundle.
"This is your hero hoodie. Specially made to repel Octarian ink." She passed him the hoodie, which had a set of glowing headphones wrapped inside. "Also a set of hero headphones."
"Fresh…" Agent 4 exclaimed as he slipped his normal noise-canceling headphones and pulled the Fluorescent hoodie over his head. "It fits perfectly! How'd you know my size?"
"Lucky guess. Here. A proper set of hero boots, and a real weapon."
He slipped off his high-tops and stepped into his new boots while examining his new weapon
"Real weapon..? This looks more like half of a weapon." The Hero Shot had a very thin stock and almost no space to store ink.
"Well, it may need an upgrade or two, but trust me, its leagues better for splatting than that toy gun you've been using… seriously, how did you expect to do well with that thing?"
"Hey! It's not a bad weapon, it's just better suited for turf coverage!"
"Suuure… keep telling yourself that, Agent 4. Anywho, see that big kettle over there?" She pointed through an opening in the back wall that led to the rest of the large open area. "That's where you need to go."
"Wait… a kettle? That's where the Octarians are hiding the Great Zapfish?"
"Well it's gonna be awhile until we can get to the Great Zapfish. I think they have it all the way down in their HQ. Allllll the way down there." She directed his attention over the side of the floating platform and down to the very bottom of the massive canyon. At the bottom of the canyon was a huge pool of purple liquid with a series of platforms floating just above it. "That's Cephilon HQ down there. Well, at least part of it. Most of it is underground."
"Going out on a limb here… but can't I just superjump down there and take it?"
"I mean, if you want to abandon all the other zapfish and die, sure. Go ahead." Marie said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Yeah… Right. Sorry."
"In order to make our way down there, we'll need to get some smaller zapfish back from the Octarians. That's why you need to go into the kettles."
"But… Why kettles?" His curiosity was getting the better of him.
"Do I look like an Octarian to you? I don't know." She grumbled, voice filled with annoyance.
"Sorry… so uh... Where do the kettles lead..?" He stammered out.
"You really ask a lot of questions, Agent 4… just jump in, you'll find out when you get there." Marie said, pointing her parasol at the first open kettle.
"Go on, go tear those octarians limb from limb from limb from limb from limb from—Well…you get the picture."
"Right... ok, here I go…" He was nervous to say the very least. He washed out of his first turf war match, how was he gonna fare against Octarians? He wasn't even sure if he was even doing this for the right reasons in the first place. Sure, he cared about finding the Great Zapfish and saving Inkopolis, but what he really wanted out of this was to become more skilled as an ink battler. Maybe even earn some fame for his exploits.
Not exactly the most noble of reasons, but as long as he got it done, did it really matter that much why he was doing it?
I'll be fine… it's not like I'm completely hopeless in an ink battle… those guys I faced earlier were just crazy good... I can handle this…
He seemed to talk to himself a lot these days. He made a mental note to stop doing that so much, as he walked over to the rusty kettle on the ground.
"Creepy... well… here I go…" Shifting into his squid form, he slipped through the grate and fell into the darkness.
"Whooooa…! How far down does this gooooo?!" He yelled out as he fell through the old pipe, occasionally twisting and turning in different directions as he went.
"Calm down, Agent 4. You're almost there…"
"Marie..?!" He responded to the calm voice in his ear.
"What did you think the headphones were for? I'm not just throwing you into this with no support. Heads up, you're landing, stay a squid for just a bit longer…"
Just as she said, the pipe opened up into a massive underground dome.
Agent 4 was too busy marveling at what was in front of him to even notice that he was free falling towards the roof of one of the many buildings in the area.
"It's like part of a city down here… like a slice taken right out of Inkopolis…"
"This is an octodome. Where the Octarians live. Look alive, spawn pad."
"Huh? Spawn pa-?" His sentence was cut off by a sudden landing in the pool of light blue ink on a spawn pad. After a moment he emerged from the ink, his hair now the same light blue as the spawn pad.
"What? Why are there spawn pads with our ink here?"
"They aren't supposed to be there. My grandpa set them up all over Octo Canyon in secret, just in case we needed them. Careful though, they only have enough energy to revive you so many times. Try your best not to get splatted too many times, ok Agent 4?"
He may have agreed to do this with confidence while above ground, but just seeing the spawn pad below his feet and hearing Marie tell him point-blank made it feel real. If he screwed up too many times here, he was finished. Dead. Gone forever.
"Hey. Agent 4? You still with me?"
"Uh... Y-yeah… sorry, Marie." Thank goodness he had Marie said somthing, otherwise he might have stood there for tens of minutes just spacing out.
"If you're super worried about this, don't be. I'll be right here to talk you through this early stuff. Just go forward to that launchpad, get to the first area."
He wasn't entirely sure if that was supposed to be comforting or sarcastic. Maybe both, based on her tone. Either way, it was enough to shake him from his trance and get him to run towards said launchpad, launching himself off towards a rectangular area covered in purple ink.
"You know the drill, cover the area in your ink so you can move better. Watch out for any Octarians hiding in the ink."
"Roger that."
Upon firing his hero shot at the enemy ink, he realized just how bad the fire rate the incomplete weapon had.
Really…? Man, this thing REALLY needs an upgrade…
The low fire rate was more of an inconvenience than anything, so covering the purple ink and advancing forward wasn't too painful. What was painful was the large bullet of ink that hit him in the chest soon after.
"Ow…!"
"Watch it! There's an Octotrooper over there!"
Agent 4 looked in front of him to see what looked like a severed tentacle with beady green eyes, a mouth, and stubby little legs. He probably would have laughed if his chest didn't hurt so much, so he dove into his ink and swam back a little bit, recovering from the hit.
"They aren't too tough, so just jump out and splat it!"
"You got it, Haaa!" Agent 4 yelled as he jumped out, fired his weapon, and splatted the Octotrooper before it even knew what hit it.
"…Kinda dramatic for just a little Octotrooper, don't you think, Agent 4?" Marie commented about his battle cry.
"It… hypes me up, ok?" he tried to defend himself as he swam onward. The next area was already covered in his ink color, but he didn't pay it much mind. It just made the next encounter with the Octarians that much easier. Which was good, considering there was another octotrooper with a thick shield protecting it right in the center of the ring of light blue.
"Watch that shielded Octotrooper, just throw a bomb to distract it, then fire away once it turns."
"Really? That works? Seems a little too simple…"
He tried the simple strategy, and to his surprise, it worked. He threw a bomb past it, hid in his ink, and then fired his weapon at the exposed Octarian, splatting it in a few shots. Upon its defeat, a launchpad appeared in its place.
"Octotroopers aren't the brightest crayons in the box, so it's pretty easy to mess with them. C'mon, on to the next area."
Maybe his previous nervousness was over nothing. Maybe he really can do this after all.
The next area of the Octodome was made of a grate overlooking 3 octotroopers circling around in a pool of their own ink.
"Remember, you can shoot through grates." Said Marie, giving him some more advice.
He was able to make short work of the 3 Octotroopers after learning that they were barely even able to put up a fight against him, even with his sub-par weapon.
"Ngyes! 3 more down!"
"Hmm… Not bad Agent 4." Marie remarked, the slighted bit of hopefulness present in her voice. "Now just head on around that corner. Careful, there could be more hiding."
With a nod, he rounded the corner to find that she was exactly right about the hidden octarians, and thanks to her warning he was able to dispose of it quickly before running around the next corner.
"Wait, Agent 4, Watch out!"
"Whoa..!
Upon running around the next corner, he was met with a group of 5 Octotroopers standing over him on a pyramid-like stack of boxes. All of them fired on him at the same moment he noticed them. He was able to dodge 2 of the shots, but the other 3 all hit their mark, causing the outer part of his armor to explode into light blue ink.
"Agh!" Agent 4 cried out in pain.
"Don't panic! Just jump back into your ink and fall back, you'll be ok!"
"Ugh… Yeah, OK…" He was able to follow her instructions and get back around the corner before they fired another volley at him, giving him a few moments to catch his breath.
"Ow… The ink in turf wars hurts, but this Octo ink is on a whole other level…" He could feel his armor starting to recover as the burning pain began to fade away.
"Yeah, I hear that they mix something into their ink to make it more effective… Looks like you're about healed up." As she said, the outer part of his armor returned, fully regenerated. "Try breaking the boxes with a splat bomb, the fall could disorient the Octotroopers, and if they fall into a pool of your ink, then you'll limit their movement as well."
"What if they all shoot at me at once again…?"
"Well, this time you'll see it coming, so you can get out of the way easier."
Just as she said, the octotroopers fired another volley of shots at him just as he rounded the corner, however this time he was able to dodge every shot and counterattack. Doing as Marie taught him, he threw a splat bomb at the boxes underneath them first to disorient them, then picked them off one by one, catching a few of them in his ink before doing so.
"Nice job, Agent 4. A little rough around the edges, but I think you might be starting to get it." Said Marie, with a hint of pride in her voice as the next launchpad appeared before him.
"These launchpads are pretty convenient. Did your grandpa put them here too?"
"I dunno. Just get on it and move on to the next part."
The next area was much simpler than the last one, just a long pathway covered in octo ink with 2 Octotroopers at the end circling around some kind of metal casing.
"What's that thing they're guarding?"
"It looks like a vault… Probably has the next launchpad in it, if I had to guess. Take out the guards and see if you can find a key"
"Roger that!" Agent 4 said with a confident smirk.
The 2 unaware Octotroopers were no match for him. He took down one before they even noticed him, and the other after dodging the one shot it was able to get off.
"That was easy! But uhh… No key. Now what?"
He could almost hear Marie roll her eyes at that.
"Go find it. It has to be around there somewhere, otherwise you're kinda stuck."
The area in front of him was shaped like a 'T', with him standing at the top, with passages extending out to his right and left.
"Uhhh.. Left first then!" 4 said, electing to choose the same direction as his dominant hand.
This turned out to be a rather terrible decision, as almost as soon as he slipped through the grate and into the storage area inside, he was ambushed by three Octotroopers jumping out of some of the storage boxes. Although they got the jump on him, he was able to deal with them and escape the area without getting himself killed.
"That could have gone better…" 4 said as he shook the burning Octo ink off of him.
"It certainly could have… Try the other path, and pay attention to what you're doing this time, you don't want to get ambushed again."
He got ambushed again. Although, after defeating all of the Octotroopers this time, He was left with a large key.
"Alright! That's gotta be it!" He exclaimed excitedly as he grabbed the key and ran back over to the vault.
Marie's assumption of the contents of the vault was right on the money, as the vault opened to reveal a launchpad, which Agent 4 quickly used to get to the next area.
"Ok this next part is a bit of a gauntlet. Just use the cover well, and try not to get overwhelmed, okay?"
Carefully making his way through the long, narrow section was a lot easier said than done, as there were Octotroopers around every corner, but he was somehow able to worm his way through without alerting too many of them at a time. Although it would have gone marginally worse if he hadn't picked up some extra armor from one of the boxes around the starting area, since he ended up losing it to an Octotrooper that snuck up behind him. After using the same strategy as earlier to take out an elevated shielded Octotrooper, he reaches the next launchpad.
"Oh hey, you're still alive. This crazy plan might just work after all."
"Still alive? did you think i was gonna get killed back there?" 4 questioned, slightly miffed that she apparently didn't have much confidence in him.
"Maybe. Just keep going, you're close to the zapfish." Marie retorted, dismissively.
The next section was much easier than the last, only forcing him to navigate a few corners and take down a few Octotroopers. Nothing he hadn't already done earlier. Upon launching to the next area, he saw a problem.
"Hoooly carp… that's a lot of Octotroopers…"
He counted at least 15 of them, 5 circling around a vault on the platform below him, and 10 more on an adjacent platform doing the same. By no means an army, but still a lot for him to handle on his own with no apparent means of cover, aside from the 4 vaults they were circling.
"Hmm… this calls for more drastic measures.. Check your hoodie pocket. I left something special in there for you."
4 did just that, pulling out what looked like a can of food.
"Marie, how is a snack gonna help me with this…?"
"Moron… Read the can."
"Oh uhhh… Wait.. Tenta missiles?"
"Yep, that's a canned special attack. Open it up to use it."
Sure enough, upon pulling the tab and opening the can, special attack power flowed into him, making the tentacles on his head glow with power. Just like in a normal ink battle, a special attack was ready.
"Whoa..! it worked!"
"Of course it worked, now splat those tentafools!"
"Roger that!"
Agent 4 was excited. Back home in the small ink battle league they had, they didn't have special weapons, and even the special weapon he had on his splattershot jr was ink armor, which wasn't exactly flashy.
"Boo-yah!" He exclaimed as he locked onto 5 of the Octarian guards and fired the missiles. It was just as fun to use as it looked on TV.
"Heh.. now I can land down there safely!" 4 said to himself, discarding the 2 empty missile racks in the pool of his ink.
"That was the plan… Hey, one of them dropped a key to that vault they were circling."
"Another launchpad maybe?"
Taking the key and unlocking the vault, he could see that it was not a launch pad. No, it was another canned special.
"Oohh! Score!" He exclaimed while picking it up. "And it's another Tenta missile launcher! Convenient!"
He elected to use it immediately, in order to make things more manageable on the other platform. 5 octotroopers are much easier the deal with than 10. The last 5 were even all bunched together, so they could be taken out with just a well placed splat bomb and a few shots from his Hero shot. After the last one had been splatted, Agent 4 noticed all the keys laying around.
"Alright! More loot!" He said excitedly as he picked up all the discarded keys.
Inside two of the vaults were packs of power eggs, which Marie told him to keep for later. He didn't ask why. Inside the last, was the launch pad.
"What's next? After all of that, I'm super pumped!" It was true, after firing twin missile launchers twice like that, it was hard for him not to feel all hyped up. He felt like he could do a standing backflip right then and there.
"Well, use that launch pad and find out." Marie said, her voice going flat once again.
This launchpad took him to a small platform leading forward, with some sort of lightbulb-like cage holding a small glowing catfish with curly barbels.
"Is that..?"
"Yep, that's the zapfish of this octodome. Good job finding it, Agent 4."
"This is it? I can just take it? No weird traps or ambushes or anything?" Agent 4 said warily, having already had enough of being ambushed and surprised for that day.
"Not if you hurry up and take the zapfish. Y'know, before the octos have a chance to find and catch you…"
"Right, right.. got it."
Using a splat bomb, he broke the clear barrier around the electric catfish and gently grabbed it from it's former prison.
"I gotcha, little guy. let's go home." Just then, a thought dawned on him.
"Uhhh Marie…? How do I get out of here?"
"Just superjump. You should be able to get back to the kettle that way."
"But I fell for a super long time.. I'm just gonna superjump all that way?"
"Yep. Now get back here now. It's getting dark out."
"Ok.. if you say so.."
Focusing on where he wanted to go, he clutched the little zapfish close, crouched into his squid form, and rocketed skyward on a stream of light blue ink. He wasn't really paying attention to where he was going, or for how long he was flying, but the next thing he knew, he was climbing though the kettle grate and into Tentakeel Outpost.
"Whew.. That was awesome… guess I made it back then." He breathed a quick sigh of relief that he wasn't just reduced to a light blue stain on the octodome ceiling.
"Of course you did, I told you it would work, right?"
He hadn't even noticed Marie walking up to him, despite her parasol and yukata making her very hard to miss. She was wearing the same unreadable expression as when she first met him earlier that day.
"I see you got the zapfish back safely, glad you didn't manage to lose it on the way back or something…"
"Yeah, got him back safe and sound! Now I'm ready for the next mission!"
After that first one successful mission, he was more than eager to get back out there.
That was kinda rough, but I know if I just keep at it, I'll be an awesome ink battler in no ti-
"Absolutely not" Marie's voice cut right through his thoughts.
"...Huh? Why not?"
"Are you blind or something..? It's night…"
Taking a quick look around, he could clearly see that it is, in fact, nighttime.
"So…?"
"So you need to get some sleep. Fighting while sleepy will get you killed, and you're no use to me or Inkopolis if you die out there."
Sure, he was a bit tired. Spending the day traveling, embarrassing yourself in an ink battle, and trying to save the city will do that to you, but he still felt he had a little energy to spare.
"I'm not all that tired… I had a nap on the bus ride here." He still had a small crick in his neck from the awkward position he slept in on that ride.
"Well, I'M tired. And there's no way you're going out again without me being there to watch your back. So we're calling it quits for tonight"
"Awww, you care about my wellbeing afterall…" He teased.
"I just don't feel like finding an Agent 5 right now." She said plainly. "Just go to bed, ok? You'll thank me later."
"Well… The thing about that is… I don't have a place to stay. Even with what I have, it's not enough to stay in a hotel.. actually that's kinda what I was worrying about when you found me…"
"Huh? Don't worry about it, I was gonna offer you a room at Cuttlefish cabin either way. It's more convenient for me to keep you close right now anyway."
"Wait, you'll let me stay here? Just like that? Why?"
This made Marie raise an eyebrow.
"Why? I just told you, idiot. 'Cause it's more convenient for me to keep you close for right now. It's gonna take awhile to get all of the zapfish back… especially the Great Zapfish."
While he didn't appreciate being called an idiot, he was grateful for being given a place to stay for a bit.
"Well.. I appreciate it. Thanks Marie."
"Eh, don't mention it. Just go get some rest. I'm waking you up bright and early tomorrow… well… As early as I feel like getting up anyway."
Agent 4 absolutely hated getting out of bed before noon. It reminded him too much of school. But if it meant he got to go back out there and search for the zapfish, he could tolerate an early morning or five.
And with that, Marie showed him to his room. Well, calling it a "room" might have been a bit generous. It was pretty much just a closet in the back of the cabin with a bed inside. The bed took up ninety percent of the floorspace, but it looked comfortable enough.
"Well, this is it. Night." Marie said, giving an offhanded wave before walking towards the grate back to Inkopolis.
"Thanks again… Night Marie."
After shedding his hero hoodie and hanging it up on a hook on the door, he kicked off his boots and pulled his hair-tie out, letting his longer back tentacles fall down his back.
"Ahh… that feels better…" Guess he was more tired that he thought, since he let out a big yawn.
Laying back in the worn bed caused the entire room to creak, as did any amount of movement as he tried to get comfortable. Falling asleep would have been a challenge if it weren't for his music. He swapped his fancy hero headphones for his worn out, hand-me-down noise-cancelers he got from his older brother. They felt nicer. Switching on his relaxation playlist, he drifted off to sleep with thoughts of home and the task ahead of him flowing through his mind.
Uuuugh.. this one took a bit of revising. The next one looks like it will be the same story. Well, hating my older work just means that I'm improving, right? Christ, I hope so.
I have no real schedule in mind for the release of these chapters, soooo I'll just be rolling them out as I finish revising them. After chapter 5, things are gonna slow down if not discontinue altogether as that's the last chapter I have in reserve. Still now idea if I'm gonna keep going past that or not.
Until we meet again
~Ghost
