The group superjumped together out of the hole Mano created. They were all launched into something called the "Coccyx Phase". Mano might have had a Hydra Splatling on his side, but he knew better than to charge into enemy territory as heavily guarded as that. The six of them were completely silent upon landing on the rather narrow platform in front of the many, many new challenges that lay ahead of them until their escape.
They took care to stay submerged on the moving platforms, they swam as slowly as they could through the exposed ink, all of which being trivial tasks until they encountered two Twintacle Octotroopers shifting between being visible and invisible behind an inkrail pointing straight up. The group was suddenly nervous about this new challenge. Vai, like she usually did, took charge.
"Hey," she whispered as quietly as she could manage. "We've gotta go one at a time, okay? Let's try not to make a fuss here," she began, finally grabbing the attention of all of her participating teammates. "Nora, you go first. Sneak up in the ink right up to where it ends, wait for the Octotroopers to be hidden, and then at that moment, fly out of the ink and up the rail. Krahn will follow you, Mano will follow Krahn, and I'll go last. I'll see you all up there," Vai concluded, her gaze hard and determined. The other three nodded with a slight collective glance toward Nora.
She was nervous, naturally, but she tried her best to put on a brave face for everyone else. She smoothly did exactly as she was told, Krahn followed suit, and finally, it was Mano's turn. He looked back at Vai with uncertainty before his turn to take the plunge. Vai smiled softly under her mask and ushered him onward with a gentle nod. Mano sighed quietly and turned back around. It seemed he felt better after Vai's quiet reassurance. Mano did just as well as everyone else, and then of course, Vai finished off the line with her usual perfection.
Once she reached the top, her teammates congratulated her with warm smiles and encouraging eyes. Then, they awaited what was yet to come.
...
They all successfully snuck through the Coccyx Phase without a hitch, and then they arrived at the Villi Phase. Here, they were all able to acquire a splat bomb and an Octoshot; all except Mano, though, as he already had his Hydra Splatling. While they traversed the Belly Phase, Vai was able to pick up on the signal from the energy core powering the entire Deepsea Metro. She figured that the core would be their next destination at that rate, and she was definitely correct.
After leaping up and around countless security system lasers in the Intestinal Phase, it was time for them to enter the Diaphragm Phase; the Phase where Vai detected the energy core signal the best. She just knew it was somewhere either very near there or in there.
The four of them found an equipper with inkjets and got to work seeking out all of the required data points to release the energy core. Mano reluctantly left his Splatling by the equipper, not seeing much of a choice in this type of predicament. He kept a close eye on it, though. For whatever reason, he didn't want to let go of it just yet.
After all eight data points were collected and the energy core was released, Mano was sure to put the inkjet back and grab his splatling in its place. Krahn offered to hold him on the way to the launchpad, much to Mano's dismay, but he knew better than to decline after they all had made so much progress.
Next for the group was the Peristalsis Phase, where they were to guard the energy core from enemy ink and guide it to the power source area for the elevator up to the surface. It was a bit rough keeping it safe all the way there, but the checkpoints saved everyone's ass several times throughout this phase.
One thing that stood out to Vai, though, was the significant lack of communication from Iso. It had been days and days since he had said a word to her at all. She sometimes wondered if the ink got out of her system, but a wiser part of her doubted that. She also wondered if he would still be able to communicate with her even once she finally breached the surface...
Finally, finally, after the long awaited installation of the energy core, came the moment they had been waiting for for months now; the moment they could all superjump to the elevator to freedom together and rejoice in their boundless efforts together in the Spinal Phase. Once they hit the launchpad and landed on the floor of the elevator, they waited anxiously for its ascension. Once it lurched up and slowly started to rise, they all openly embraced one another, some even getting dangerously close to shedding tears of pure joy at their hard work paying off.
Then, it jerked to a stop. The four of them immediately began frantically searching for the source of the problem around the elevator, but they found none. Nora started to wail; Krahn started to tug at his afro harder than Vai has ever seen before. She knew things were getting sticky, but now, for the first time, she didn't have the slightest clue about how she was planning on handling it. Before she could contemplate anything else, a powerful booming voice rattled her skull and jolted her from her anxious trance.
The voice – only familiar to Vai – was coming from underneath the elevator, but it seemed to be ascending. It sounded like some kind of deep, almost empty chuckle. Vai felt her heart drop to her stomach at the sound of it. "No way...It just can't be," she thought desperately. A circular platform rose up from the ground and fit into the four friends' line of sight. A tall and menacing silhouette stood atop it. It appeared to be wielding a huge mutant Splat Roller, and it was wearing that devastatingly familiar enchanted hat.
"Mano, my dear son, what the hell are you doing in a place like this?" the blisteringly loud voice came from Iso Dunar, who was standing on that platform with his famed Kensa Dynamo in hand while he glowered down at the group. Mano was stunned into silence, not only by Iso Dunar in the flesh, but Iso Dunar in the flesh calling him his son. "W-what?" Mano croaked. His voice cracked. "Mano, my sweet, you heard me, didn't you?" Iso cooed at him. Vai was just as stunned as Mano; she had never heard his voice so soft and gentle. Despite this, it still had the same kind of emptiness Vai already had come to know.
Mano didn't answer his question. He just stood still, staring up at the octoling on the platform before him. "Come on now, that's no way to treat your father after he spent so long looking for you," Iso scolded Mano gently, almost playfully at a time like this. Mano let his frustration tip him over once again, and he let out a loud grunt of irritation. "W-what the hell? What are you t-talking about?" Mano sputtered. His eyes were pinpricks, and he looked like he was on the verge of shattering into a million betrayed and heartbroken little pieces.
Iso's expression melted into one of rage. "They took you from me," he suddenly snarled, glaring daggers down at the rest of those on the elevator. "They took you from me, and they made you forget me!" Iso bellowed, causing the ground to shake. Nora whimpered and stayed glued to Krahn's side as they both kept their eyes pinned to Iso. "T-that isn't true! Y-you don't have any proof! I'm a pure octoling born to pure octoling p-parents in the D-Deepsea Met-" "for Octavio's sake son, no. No you weren't born there, not in that fucking hellscape. You were born to my wife, Agent 4, and me, your father," Iso's voice was icy and calculating compared to Mano's shaky and frail voice.
"B-but," "Take a good look at yourself son," Iso cut him off before he could retort again. "Do you really think we couldn't possibly be related?" Mano's gaze fell to the floor after he observed his skin tone and took note of his eye color and his build, all similar, if not identical, to Iso's. "Pure octolings don't have pointy ears like that, son," Iso's tone was somewhat softer now, but it was still a cold stone dropped onto Mano's fragile glass sheet of a false reality.
Mano was stunned once again. "Y-you're...My father?" He finally squeaked again, tears nearly breaching his eyes. "Indeed I am, Mano Dolph Dunar," Iso smiled warmly at him. "But these blithering fools had to take you away from me...They took you away from my- no, your family," Iso hissed, clutching the handle of his Dynamo Roller. "W-wait, they didn't do anything, they're my friends!" Mano argued desperately, still excruciatingly vulnerable from his most recent discovery. "You're brainwashed, son. You don't know what's best for you, but I do," Iso growled menacingly.
Iso jumped up, weapon in hand, and flung a huge line of ink toward the assembled friends. All but Mano shrieked in terror and scattered for the sidelines. Mano looked desperate to calm the situation down and defend his friends at all costs, but he was just as aimless and devastated as everybody else. He held his Hydra Splatling close to his chest as violet ink streamed down on him. He wasn't sure if he was close to death, but he sure felt that way emotionally.
As Iso prepared himself for another vertical swing of his weapon aimed at his friends, Vai dashed in front of Mano to protect him from any more of the onslaught of enemy ink. Mano was nearly ready to accept death simply because he was so distraught emotionally, but Vai's heroism made him reconsider.
"I d-disabled respawn, y-you idiot...Move y-your ass," she stammered, panting as more enemy ink showered down on them. Krahn and Nora appeared to be hiding behind a block as best as they could while Vai was out in the open with Mano.
Iso cackled openly at Vai's grand entrance. "Vai Venci. Of course you knew my son all along, and you didn't say a word, did you?" the viscous ichor of hate dripped from those last two words of his clearer than they ever have for anything else he has ever said. He unleashed another wretched laugh before suddenly pausing and letting his Dynamo Roller slip from his fingers onto the ground by his boots. Vai's eyes widened at this odd gesture, but she didn't dare let her guard down.
"Surely, all of you have heard enough about me, huh?" Iso sounded as if he was starting a separate monologue now. He started to lift up into the air as he spoke, and all the others could do was watch wordlessly. "Well then, how about I really put on a fucking show for all of you shit-for-brains children?" he sneered, flinging up his right hand and harnessing an absurd amount of ink toward it, creating a spinning, writhing ball of ink begging to be unleashed on an unsuspecting victim. "You asked for it, taking one of the few things I truly loved away from me," his voice suddenly dropped to a menacing whisper. After this final sentence, a short pause followed, and an unnatural hollow grin cracked across his face. His pupils shrank, and he pulled his arm back and prepared to launch the ball of destruction directly at Vai first, now apparently caring very little for its effect on Mano.
Mano suddenly felt as if he snapped awake from a trance. He shoved past Vai, pushed her behind him, took a strong power stance, and directly faced forward to his father. Mano inhaled deeply, and with all of the grief he had ever felt in his life, he unleashed a special weapon of his own. "No!" A Killer Wail.
The beam of sound penetrated directly through the ink bomb and knocked Iso off of his feet while in midair, causing him to accidentally kick his Dynamo Roller off of the platform into the void below. This sudden miscalculation also caused Iso to topple forward and fall down onto the elevator below him with a sickeningly loud thud. He crashed into the floor and slid a few feet on the ground and got the wind knocked out of him for a few brief moments.
After Mano's mighty roar, he flopped to the ground, absolutely drop dead exhausted. Krahn and Nora hung back as they had already been doing, simply watching everything unfold. Vai rushed to Mano's aid first and checked up on him before she dared to think about Iso.
After a few dozen seconds, Iso heaved himself upward and started crawling toward Mano and Vai. He sputtered out some nonsense Vai couldn't understand while he trekked toward them ever so slowly. Once he got close enough, Vai shot up to her feet and pressed the nozzle of her Octoshot to his head, effectively pinning him to the ground.
"Give me one good reason to spare you," she said softly, her gaze bearing hate and disgust down on the husk of an octoling who was once great beneath her. Iso shakily lifted his head and allowed his hat to slip off of it onto the ground. He stared up at Vai with a strange kind of tenacity she had never seen before. "I'm going to die here anyway, and I'd rather die at my beloved lost son's hands than anyone else's in the entire world," he answered her question clearly and curtly. It almost sounded affectionate, but Vai rejected the notion. This creature has lost all feeling.
"F-father?" Mano croaked out to Iso, rubbing his head gently. "My son," Iso whispered back to him, emulating the same fragile feeling Mano was experiencing. They both seemed to bathe in the reunion in one another, and despite Vai's hate, she could never ruin this for Mano. She held up his head so he was facing Iso.
Tears started streaming down his face as he stared at the father he was forced to forget. "F-father, I'm s-so sorry...What have I d-done?" Mano sputtered, struggling to look at Iso's condition. Iso only smiled a gentle smile that seemed unfit for someone like him. "Everyone has their time one day, my dear," he assured softly. He reached out a shaking hand to brush tears from his face. "B-but you...Y-you're going to d-die here because of m-me," he whined, starting to tremble. "I n-never got to know y-you...Or, um, I j-just didn't g-get to remember," "It's okay, son. We're here now, aren't we?" Iso assured again, smiling even wider now at their closeness.
A moment or so of silence passed, but for once, it wasn't awkward; it was a peaceful silence. "Father," Mano prompted Iso again. Iso engaged only with his half-lidded eyes, which were continuing to close as his consciousness started to finally fade. "W-what was...Our l-life like?" his voice cracked and more tears cascaded down his face when he willed himself to ask such a question. Iso paused before answering, staring at the floor for a moment. He then smiled again and stared up at the sky as the elevator started to ascend once more. "Your mother was a lovely woman," he said.
