The two women obliterated the horde of Octarians that had charged at them in one hit, a torrential wave of green splashing out through the air as their bodies were destroyed. The ink that was launched towards them didn't faze them one bit, leaving mere stains on their clothing and skin. One of the larger Octolings dropped her weapon and ran at them as they landed, the impact sending out a shockwave that tore through anyone that was unlucky enough to be too close. The attacking Octoling screeched as she reached out to grab the blue-haired one, her target reacting in an instant and clasping their hands together, the two of them glaring right into each other's eyes as they struggled against each other's force – the blue woman seemed mildly surprised at the strength of the Octoling, the green-skinned woman planting her feet firmly in the ground and pushing against her foe with all her might, the black liquid seeping out of her mouth from between her teeth.

A soft blue flame began to surround the blue woman until it suddenly spiked up, her green eyes sparkling with power as she released a primal scream that echoed throughout every corner of the Metro. The Octoling released a painful screech as its arms were torn clean off, black blood spurting out of the stumps where her arms used to be. The large Inkling dropped the arms by her sides before driving her fist straight through the Octoling, who stood there in shock for a moment, totally frozen, until the fist in her torso was retracted and she fell over with a thud.

Meanwhile, the taller and more slender of the duo had been dispatching their attackers with ease, often only needing to hit them once before they were either obliterated or fell over dead, often smashed into two pieces by the woman's incredibly powerful legs. The whole battle seemed to last only a few seconds, corpses and body parts littered about the area until only a single Octoling remained. Throwing off her metallic plating, she pointed to the tall, slender woman who stepped forward, lightly gesturing for the other one to go check on Delta.

"You gonna be alright? You know their bosses are strong." The blue woman asked her, only for the taller one to simply laugh in response "Alright, sis, but don't get bitten." She quickly made her way over to Delta, squatting down by her "Hey, young lady." She said softly and warmly, her smile putting Delta at ease, but her heart was still pounding in her chest, her breathing continuing to shake "Scared?" The woman asked, to which Delta only nodded "Yeah...this really isn't a place for a kid. We'll help ya out of here, I promise."

The Octoling and Inkling in the back charged at each other, exchanging heavy blows and throwing each other around, a torrent of red blood spurting from the tall woman's mouth as the Octoling slugged her straight in the face. Her lips curled, revealing her sharp fangs to her opponent, a guttural snarl coming from within her. She charged for the Octoling, swiftly pinning her under legs before putting her palm out only a few inches from their face, a red glow forming in front of her hand. The Octoling struggled under the woman's sturdy legs, only to find themselves totally stuck under her.

"Bon voyage!" The woman yelled before a tremendous red light and explosion filled the room, shaking it so much part of its were torn from their bolted down spots, any ink in the vicinity vaporized to nothingness. Once the smoke cleared, Delta could finally get a look at the devastation caused by that lone fight: there were no corpses left, presumably all disintegrated in the blast, the maze had been totally levelled for a good few meters, exposing wiring other things usually hidden away. The woman lowered her arm, her trousers coated in the remains of her victim. She slowly got up and yawned, stretching her arms above her. As she turned around, Delta took the chance to fully take in her appearance. She was tall, had orange hair which was swept mostly to the left of her face and a crown of tentacles at the top of her head which lead into an incredibly long ponytail. She wore a black vest that exposed most of her upper body, along with...whatever those big things on her chest were, two belts that crossed over, grey trousers and white boots. Her eyes matched the woman by her side, the both of them looking at Delta, perplexed and concerned.

"Ix, can you come here for a second?" She asked, Ix standing up and walking over to her sister. Ix, as this other woman was called, had messy blue hair, matching green eyes to the other woman and wore a jacket that went down to her shoulders with a dirty "white" vest underneath. Her legs were covered by black and white striped tights, although a lot of her skin was exposed by large holes torn in them, and red boots on her feet. Delta couldn't hear a word of what they were muttering to each other, only knowing that they were occasionally glancing in her direction before practically pressing their faces together to communicate with how quiet they were being. Delta said not a word, just watching the two massive women in silence. She then went and picked up her rifle, looking it over. It didn't seem to be broken, but still definitely needed whatever it was she was firing put back in it. A few minutes passed, Ix and her sister still quiet and Delta just lay against a piece of metal that had been torn up from the ground, ever so slowly catching her breath. A sudden incredibly loud CLAP made her whole body jolt, the tall woman's heavy footsteps approaching her "So, kid, what's your name?" She and Ix squatted down to her level, Delta sitting up slightly.

"Delta." She responded, brushing her hair aside.

The tall woman smiled "It's nice to meet you, Delta. My name's Rem, and this," She gestured to Ix "Is my sister, Ix."

Delta's response was just a silent wave.

"So..." Rem adjusted her vest, flipping up the collar "Where are you from?"

"...Here." Delta replied.

Ix blinked, titling her head "Whaddya mean?" She questioned, leaning forward slightly.

Delta looked around for a moment "I woke up in this place. And then someone called Marcus found me and-"

Rem held her finger up, silencing Delta "I hate to interrupt you, but we're going to have to get outta here, like, right now. We figured out a time limit for when they drop new troops in these places – we stay in here when they drop in again and we're dead meat."

Delta just nodded, quickly getting up to her feet as Rem and Ix stood up straight, Ix nudging Rem with her elbow "It's a good thing you didn't vaporize the exit, else we'd really be in trouble." She looked over the mildly burned stairway, Rem just giving her a bored look before walking ahead.

The Station, a few minutes later

Finally returning to the light of the station, Delta let out a sigh as the tension even being in one of those room brought to her faded away. Rem stood close to the edge of the platform, looking down the tunnel, then strutted over to the other side, letting out a groan when she saw no lights, nor heard any howling winds approaching "Looks like they're going to be a while."

"Shit..." Ix grumbled "I'm covered in this gunk, they should hurry up." She tried wiping off the gunk and ink she had stuck on her skin, only to spread it further along her arms "Ugh..."

Delta, however, was quietly looking around the station, trying to find the thing she felt staring at her before she had first descended the stairs, but the only red she found was the blood that shone in the light of the lone flickering lamp that hung from the ceiling of the station.

"Hey, Delta," Ix spoke as she approached the young Octoling "Earlier you said you met a guy named Marcus...right?"

Delta nodded.

"So you're the one he mentioned….did he say anything about being with other people?"

"Mhm," Delta nodded "He mentioned he had some friends out looking for things..."

Ix smiled, crossing her arms "Well, how 'bout that."

A good while passed of the three females simply waiting for their train. On the odd occasion a harrowing sound would echo through the tunnels, be it the screams of the victims of this hellish realm or the screeching of the many trains that populated the tunnels. The screams sent chills down Delta's spine, how Rem and Ix didn't seem to react to this at all perplexed her entirely.

An eternity seemed to pass before a train finally pulled into the station, Delta scrambling up to her feet from her position of lying down on the tile floor, Rem and Ix almost immediately springing up from the bench they were sat on, having been leaning against one another.

The metallic coaches hissed as they came to a stop, a second of silence passing before the doors slid open, only for no one to exactly spill out of the train, only 2 eels slithering out. Rem, Ix and Delta quickly made their way on, Delta immediately sitting on the closest seat to the door whilst Rem and Ix stood in the middle of the carriage, both of them facing different gangways that lead into their carriage. More minutes of silence passed until the train finally took off into the shadows once more, eventually coming out into another misty expanse, filled with floating devices of which Delta didn't know how to comprehend.

"Well I'll be, you actually did it!" Marcus' voice came from the end of the carriage, Delta's head quickly turning to look at him. Rem and Ix loosened their stances as their friend approached, carrying a bag over his shoulder, C.Q Cumber trailing behind him "You're real tough, kid."

A smile instinctively crept over Delta's lips as she brushed her tentacle hair aside once again, "Huhuha," she sheepishly laughed "thank you."

Marcus' eyes went to Rem and Ix, greeting them with a simple nod "I see you ran into Rem and Ix...how convenient was that, eh?"

Ix smirked, smiling proudly "I'd say we ran into each other at good time, she was surrounded by a buncha Octarians, but we kicked their asses and saved her!"

Rem chuckled "I guess ya could say it was good timing, yeah."

"Well," Marcus put the bag on the floor, shrugging "At least you're all safe." And it was then he noticed just how messy all three of them were, especially Rem and Ix "Well, I should hope the showers are working today."

Rem grinned and scratched the back of her head, just laughing as a reply.

"So," Marcus turned his attention to Delta "Anything happen?"

Delta nodded, recalling the events of her time in the hellscape below them to Marcus, how she'd found her way through the maze, the fight on the rails and the encounter with the Twisted "And when it exploded...the weird black good was alive, and it had eyes...then it just ran off..."

"Wait, wait, wait." C.Q Cumber interrupted as he jumped up to the armrest on Delta's seat "A black goo with eyes? Is that what you said?"

"Yeah." Delta nodded.

Rem, Ix and Marcus exchanged uneasy looks, C.Q Cumber looking down and releasing a low "My god...he's still alive."

"He?" Delta questioned "What are you talking about?"

C.Q Cumber cleared his throat "See, kid, for as long as I can remember working here, there's been this...thing in here. Long ago, in some other realm, a bunch of scientists were trying to make a bio-weapon to win a war, but instead they ended up making...the Inkblot Disease. It's some kind of virus that assimilates its prey into this hivemind of its own. But even then, it's part of this larger hivemind. From the notes we've found that fall into here, each part is called a Cephamalgamation. We've confirmed that this one in the Metro is the only one in this Universe, but how it got here...we still don't know, and that was 50 years ago."

Delta was silent for a good few seconds after C.Q Cumber stopped talking until she got out the question "How many people has it absorbed?"

"Millions is my guess." C.Q Cumber responded "Johnny isn't one to take prisoners. Once he's found you, you're part of him."

Delta blinked "But he ran away from me."

That collectively caused all four of the adults to gasp, Rem having a hint of actually being impressed hidden in her look of shock "You scared off Johnny!?"

Delta nodded "I...already said he ran away from me. Were you not listening?"

"Guess not," Marcus put his hands on his hips "I guess the whole fact you encountered Johnny put us too bewildered to hear you say that."

Ix took a step closer "How did you do it? We've ran into Johnny a few times before, and we had to fight our way out. He almost got Rem at one point, too."

Rem gagged at the mention of that "I can still taste him..."

"He was part of the monster...I guess me destroying it scared him? Did he ever control something when you fought him?"

"No." Rem shook her head "He took us raw."

C.Q Cumber hummed "He's getting smarter, this isn't good."

"But when he ran off," Delta reached into her pocket "This thing appeared."

The blinding blue light of the stone Delta had procured earlier filled the cabin, Delta somehow not needing to shield her eyes this time, but everyone else immediately recoiled from it for a good while until they felt the light start to fade away, cautiously lowering their arms and returning their gaze to Delta and the stone, Marcus' jaw falling open when he saw exactly what Delta had hovering above her palm "Holy fucking shit, kid – you found one of the gems."

"T-That's what this is?" Delta asked "I...didn't think of it like that."

C.Q Cumber stared at the stone, utterly enamoured by its shimmering glory "If I'm right, that's the Soul Gem."

Rem and Ix stood in the back, silently watching the conversation unfold, occasionally exchanging a small mutter between themselves.

"The books were a bit old, so they were washed out but just- wow, kid, that's impressive. And in your first few hours here, too." C.Q Cumber said proudly, one of his spikes lengthening out and tapping Delta on the back.

Delta smiled proudly, only to be interrupted by a long yawn, her eyelids going half shut the moment it ended "There's something else, but...so..." Her eyes suddenly closed completely, her arm going limp. Marcus swiped up the gem before it hit the ground, looking into its sparkling interior.

"Ya did good, kid." He smiled as he lay the young Octoling out across the seats "Ya did good." He held the gem out to Rem "It's best you hold onto this. If anyone wants to get their hands on, they'll have to go straight through you."

Rem gently took the gem, both she and Ix staring at it for a moment before Rem stuffed it into the pocket dimension between her breasts.

"Oh, by the way, Rem, Ix." C.Q Cumber spoke up, slithering towards the big sisters "Something came in for ya earlier." He handed them a walkie-talkie, Rem shrugging and flicking it on.

"What-"

"YO IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME YOU GOT THIS!"

That voice didn't exactly make Rem and Ix happy. None other than Pearl from Off the Hook.

"Pearlie, don't be so loud, they might be on a train..." Marina spoke in the background.

The plastic cracked under Rem's grip, she immediately turned around sticking one leg into the air and holding the walkie-talkie behind her "IRRELEVANT TRASH!" She screamed at the top of her lungs as she hurled the device with all her might down the train, it sailed through every carriage until it smashed through the door to the cabin at the very end and straight through the metal exterior, continuing on for a while before it began to fall into the abyss below.

"YO, WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON OVER THERE!?" Pearl's voice echoed into the darkness, silenced as it smashed into a layer of rock. Among the shadows, thousands of pairs of eyes opened at once, all staring at the remnants of the handheld comms device...