Forgotten Knowledge

There was a platform suspended in midair, surrounded from all around by empty space. Next to the platform, lay a set of train tracks that has accumulated a layer of rust that shook in frequency as seconds passed. Moments later, an express train shot past the floating platform atop the tracks in breakneck speeds, eventually passing by and disappearing into the darkness.

Chris watched as the train passed by him, sighing as the trundling noise it made disappeared into nothingness. That was probably… what… the fifth train since he arrived? He was starting to get impatient.
The inkling turned round on the bench he sat on, towards the fissure on the wall behind him. By some oddity, the crack he crawled into had led to this train platform out of nowhere, and so far not a single train that's passed through here had even stopped once. He had entertained the notion of stepping out onto the tracks himself to see where it lead, but thought better of it when the thought of a ten-ton train barreling right towards him crossed his mind.
Chis shook his head, laughing to himself. Cobalt would've undoubtedly done exactly that if it meant getting to the destination faster.

"Yes, I suppose he would." A voice replied to the right of Chris. Turning his head, he was met with the sight of another inkling about his height, sporting a similar shade of green akin to his own tentacle color.

Chris stared at the inkling before him for a few seconds, before turning his sights back to the train tracks. "Huh. I never thought that even after all this time I'd be seeing you again."

"Oh come on. Not even a 'Nice to meet you again, Jensen'?" The other inkling laughed, flailing his arms wide. "I'm pretty sure you know THIS was bound to happen."

"Yes, I suppose you're right." A lightbulb flickered, and now Jensen was leaning on a pole with weathered advertisements just within Chris's peripheral vision. "Still, I don't really need you reminding me that there's no one else around right now."

"Ah, don't be so hard on yourself. You do REALIZE that the circumstances were beyond your control." Chris watched as Jensen danced around the pole, hanging precariously off the pole with one arm and leaning towards the tracks. "That Eliza girl sure had you beat, didn't she? Feeling a little…jealous?"

"…" Chris ignored him, and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. In the corner of his vision, he could see Jensen prancing about on the ceiling, absentmindedly doing cartwheels on the spot.

"Well, whatever. I noticed that you've been giving second glances towards a certain someone…" Jensen casually remarked, doing cartwheels with his limbs adhered to the roof, "You really know how to pick 'em, huh? A silent lil' wallflower, just like when you were a lil' squirt. Maybe you oughta make a move on her before someone else does, girls like her only come once in a blue moon, ya know!"

Chris immediately turned to look straight at Jensen, somewhat irritated by the remark.
"What would YOU know about romance?" He scoffed, looking back down towards the tracks. Chris could see Jensen next to the pole again, reading the advertisements with a look of interest. "Besides… you know I can't exactly just tell her directly about what I feel. I mean, you of all people know that I'm…well…"

"Insane? A few screws loose? Off your rocker? I got a few more similes, if you want to hear 'em." Jensen was back next to him, listening to music from a set of headphones. "Well, you keep up the façade quite well in front of everyone else, if you ask me. No one'll ever know you're seeing things that aren't really there."

"Pfft. I'm not asking for your opinion."

Jensen simply shrugged, and patted Chris on the back. "Well, I tried. But still, give it some thought for your dear old bro, wouldya?"

Chris didn't reply to him. Another train was approaching, but this one was slowing down, eventually coming to a full stop in front of him. The doors opened, revealing a completely empty carriage within.
"Now arriving at: Middle of Nowhere Station. Next stop: the Grand Library." An electronic female voice blared from inside the train. "Please mind the gap when boarding and alighting."

With a sigh, Chris got up from the bench, and looked around. The train platform was completely deserted.

"Well, I might as well just get moving." He said to himself. Walking inside the train, he sat down at the nearest seat and stretched his muscles as the train doors closed, the vehicle rushing into the darkness.

Chris watched as the scenery rolled past the train. It was mostly darkness with the faint silhouette of rocks flying past, while on occasion he caught a glimpse of lampposts suspended in thin air merely by flashes of light darting past the windows.
Looking around the train itself, he noticed that he was the only passenger. The other benches were empty, minus a couple piles of trash that undoubtedly nobody was around to take care of. Some of the seats were even covered in messy graffiti, the scribbles completely indecipherable to him.

The inkling fidgeted slightly in his seat. It was rather unsettling to be riding a train all by himself with no other passengers in sight. It was very likely that this train had no driver either and was being run by some manner of automated system.

"Hey, anyone there pickin' this up?" A familiar voice Chris recognized as Captain Cuttlefish blared through his headset. "If ya can, say "Captain Cuttlefish crunches countless crabby cakes" three times really quickly!"
Tapping his headset, Chris responded. "Seriously? Whatever happened to a simple 'Aye'?"
"Well, ya never know when it comes to rogue Octarians, bucko!" Cuttlefish replied, "For all I know, you could be someone impersonating one of my Agents, ya know! But I know for certain they are absolutely horrid when it comes to tongue twisters!"
"'She sells sea shells by the sea shore'." Chris could hear Octavio drawl in the background in one breath. "There. That's another one of your crackpot theories down the drain."
There was the sound of a bang that sounded like bamboo striking solid ground, and the sound of an exasperated groan passed through Chris's headset. "CURSES! Back to the drawing board, methinks."

Chris shook his head, silently laughing to himself. "Well, greetings aside, I don't suppose you know where I am, right? I'm currently in this train that's leading to this…Grand Library. Any ideas?"
"Hmm…" Cuttlefish mused, "Well I know nothin' about such a place in Octo Valley, but I'd imagine Octavio would know more about it. Do ya, old friend?"
"Well, I would normally leave it to Eliza for explanations, but I suppose while I'm here…" Octavio replied. Chris could then hear shuffling as the aged octopus walked up to the microphone himself. "Ahem… Is this thing on? Anyway…"
"Go on. Fill me in here." Chris listened intently, withdrawing a notepad from his backpack.
"A'ight. The Grand Library used to be where all our knowledge was stored. Old literature, weapon design plans, sick tunes, you name it. Back in its heyday, that place also doubled as an archive to store artifacts whenever we dig up something interesting, but I'm not certain if any of it survived after that earthquake."
"Well, my Agents did find these old bits of paper with some of it written in gobbledegook they can't read in the slightest scattered all around the Valley." Cuttlefish remarked, "I'd imagine those were from the Grand Library you mentioned?"
"Could be. They could've been scattered all about thanks to that earthquake, or some of it could've been bought up here by the initial wave of survivors we rescued. Either way, they most likely originated from where you're now headed, Chris."

"This is certainly interesting to hear." Chris said, putting away his notepad. "If I could find anything that might possibly correlate with our quest, I don't suppose you could let me keep 'em?"
"Well, it'd certainly be better than having 'em rot in someplace that no one's ever gonna hang round in a long while. You have my permission to take whatever you want as far as I'm concerned."
"Alright then. Thanks, Octavio." Chris perked up slightly as another though passed his mind. "Wait. How am I supposed to get to Smokestack from there?"
"I can answer this for you, Lord Octavio." Another familiar voice replied which Chris recognized as Eliza's voice. "The archives which milord mentioned are an intricate array of corridors within a large basement warehouse, housing the artifacts which we have found over the ages. Storage is simple because the majority we have found consists of paper scraps, but certain artifacts are much harder to preserve due to their unusual nature. Some time ago, the Grand Library was connected to Smokestack in the hopes that the additional energy could be used to improve the efficiency that this preservation can be maintained. A maintenance tunnel that links all the energy cables from Smokestack could be found in the deepest reaches of the archives."

Octavio coughed as unconvincingly as he could, before replying. "Yes, thanks for the explanation, Eliza. Erm… how long have you been listening in, anyway?"
"Ever since Chris began the discussion with you, Milord. It was your orders to make sure that I aid them to the best of my ability, yes? I am simply doing as you have told me by being their guide in Sector 0."
"Ugh… right, right. Don't push yourself too hard, Eliza. I'll be guiding this inkling myself, so just focus on the others."
"As you wish, Lord Octavio." There was a slight crackle as Eliza disconnected from the transmission.
"Ach, that lass seems like a bit of a nosy one." Captain Cuttlefish remarked.
"Pfft. You're telling me."

Chris felt a slight force tug at his body as the train began to slow down. Looking out of the nearby door, he noticed the train coming to a stop next to another station as it screeched to a halt. His gaze lazily drifting above the door, he noticed a train map that by some unexplained reason only displayed two stops: the Grand Library, and the Middle of Nowhere.
"Hmph. Wonder what was the point of all those trains that passed by, anyway?" He asked himself. "… Whatever. This certainly looks like my stop."

As the train came to a complete halt and Chris stepped out into the deserted platform, he failed to notice a presence staring at him from a distant building. With a huff, the figure disappeared into the darkness, the sound of clanking metal boots barely audible within the blackness.

Walking along the sidewalk of a street that has been pockmarked by fissures on the ground, Chris stopped to soak in his surroundings. The buildings looming all around him felt reminiscent of the less bustling streets back in Inkopolis. The inkling remembered that there were moments when he and Cobalt used to walk down streets like this at the dead of night, returning home after a long hard day of Turf Wars. During that time of night, there used to be barely anyone around on the streets, if there was anyone around at all. Even with Cobalt by his side, Chris always felt this slight pang of loneliness while they walked home.
But now that he was actually alone since as long as he had remembered, the sight of the forlorn streets stretching far into the distance with no light source to guide his path seems to have made that feeling come back with full force, and the creeping vines hanging off of signs above him as well as layers of gunk that heavily coated the windows around him served to accentuate this feeling.
However, there was a massive building in the far distance that he presumed was the Grand Library, which despite the passage of time still somehow shone with a bright light that can be seen from afar. Using the light as a guide, Chris has been making progress down the quiet streets, though he can't deny it was a rather dull experience.

With a weary sigh, Chris began to twiddle with his headset, eventually finding the button that allowed him to make a call. After listening to a few crackles of static, a voice he recognized as Captain Cuttlefish picked up the call.
"Ahoy, squiddo! Whaddya need?" the elderly inkling said, "Just ask me anything you want! Except if it involves delivering crabby cakes, I'm not sharing any!"
"I…" Chris hesitated for a moment before speaking up. "I just feel like having a chat."
"Oho? This is certainly unexpected. Well I am used to listening to my grand-kids talking about their lil' frustrations every so often, I'm sure they wouldn't mind me wasting a bit of time yammerin' with ya."

"Thanks." As Chris rounded a corner onto another ruined street, he pondered for a moment on what to talk about. "Well… What's your relationship with Octavio, anyway?"
"That's an oddly personal question yer asking me here, lad." Cuttlefish replied. "Why?"
"Octavio already told us about his relationship with you. I just thought I could get your side of the story."
"Hmm… Well, I might as well start from the beginning." The old war veteran cleared his throat before he began. "This was right back before I believe when Inkopolis was that grand of a city with all those skyscrapers, methinks. When I was only a few years older than ye at the time, there used to be this huge stretch o' land that stretched from Inkopolis all the way to the island that in the future became Octo Valley."
"The two places used to be connected?" Chris asked, curious. "That's interesting."
"Yes, but back then Octarians also lived in Inkopolis. There also used to be this extension of the ol' city that covered the landmass." Cuttlefish coughed slightly before continuing. "Around th' time, I was only a lowly Private that did construction work on the extension alongside a workforce of… about two hundred fellows, I'd say. I think Octavio was among them, he was physically one of the strongest Octolings I've ever met, so he did a lot of heavy lifting."

Chris stopped in his tracks briefly as he just processed what Captain Cuttlefish just said. "Hold up… Octavio's… an Octoling? I didn't really think he's anything more than a normal octopus!"
"Ah, well I think old age must've gotten to 'im. Transforming takes a lot outta him nowadays, reckon it must've been all that heavy work finally catching up with the fellah! But I'm rambling now… I recall that when we met each other we became fast friends. We used to have a few drinks with one another after a good hard day's worth of manual labor, talkin' about all sorts of things. Thinkin' back, we often shared our plans for the future. Yours truly becoming a Captain… Octavio talking about becoming a musician…"
"I don't suppose Octavio also mentioned raising an Amazonian band of badasses, was there?" Chris remarked with a mischievous smirk.
There was a bang as Cuttlefish rammed his walking stick on the floor, cackling with laughter. "Oh fer…That eight-limbed blabbermouth! I told 'im not to divulge that ta anyone!"
"Whoops." DJ Octavio idly replied in the background.

After a few minutes of squabbling, Cuttlefish went back to the microphone, slightly panting from the laughter.
"Well, that was pretty much the gist of it. We go to work, we have a little chat afterwards, those were pretty much the halcyon days. But… those good days didn't really last forever." Chris could hear Cuttlefish audibly sigh towards the microphone. "One night, there was a sudden freak storm. No one saw it coming, and by sunrise, everything we had worked for has been sunk into the ocean. It didn't take long for fingers to start pointing at each other on whom to take the blame, and tensions ran high."
"I guess the Great Turf War started shortly after that, then?" Chris asked.
"Not exactly, but it was pretty much the catalyst of the whole thing. With the landmass sunk like that, everyone in Inkopolis was arguin' over on how to divide up the remaining land. Inklings and Octarians in particular got all fired up about the debate, I recall. I certainly don't blame 'em for being frightened, what with the ocean being a huge puddle of liquid death for both of our races and all that…
Soon, a majority of Inkopolis voted to send the Octarians into exile. I reckon there were some blaming the engineers for the landmass being sunk, but I think the real reason was that the Octarians in particular numbered the highest among the population in Inkopolis, and everyone else reckoned that without 'em they'd have enough rooms for themselves. In the end, I couldn't do anything but watch as Octavio and his fellow Octarians sailed off into the island in the distance to fend for themselves. But… that wasn't the last I've seen of them. Only a few months later, Octavio returned…with an entire invasion force. That's pretty much how the whole fiasco with the Great Turf War started."

Chris nodded knowingly. "So, that's it then, huh? To think that if the storm never happened…"
"Aye. I'm not really a religious person, but that incident makes me think back to those old scriptures talkin' about the Shinin' Serpent. Perhaps they might be-"

Captain Cuttlefish suddenly paused mid-sentence. There was a faint beeping noise that Chris could barely hear coming from the other end of the transmission.
"'ey! This ol' console here seems to be picking up a signal, just ahead of ya!" Cuttlefish exclaimed, "Whaddya seein' over there?"

Chris looked up from the floor, realizing that the Grand Library is only a few meters in front of him, the entrance atop a long flight of stairs. The blinding light coming from the building at close proximity is causing his eyes to itch.
"I seem to have reached the library. What gives?" He looked around slightly in unease.

"By my tentacles, this shouldn't be pickin' up signals." The elderly captain muttered under his breath. "Not unless…" Chris could hear a sharp intake of breath as the captain gasped.

"What is it?"

"AGENTS! There are two agents just ahead of your position, and this here's pickin' up a distress signal! You better hurry on ahead and rendezvous with 'em, pronto!"

Without wasting another word, Chris immediately ran ahead up the flight of stairs, and into the double doors beyond.

As Chris dashed past the steel-lined double doors, he could see a figure running straight towards him.
"WAIT!" The figure yelled. "Quick, hold the door! HOLD THE DOOR!"

Chris quickly spun around, but the doors behind him swung shut with a loud crash in a matter of moments before he could react. To his dismay, he realized that the handles on the other side of the door had long since rusted off, and whatever emergency releasing mechanism that operated the doors seems to have been fried as well.
He was effectively trapped.
"Oh…. No, NO NO!" The figure collapsed onto the floor, banging their fists on the floor in frustration. "You freaking idiot! That was our only way out!"

"Um…" Chris turned to face the figure on the floor awkwardly, looking down with an apologetic expression. Upon close examination, the figure turned out to be an orange-tentacled male inkling wearing Agent garb, though judging by the layer of dirt and dust on his gear he must've been stuck down here for quite a while.
The Agent looked up at the inkling before him, blinking in disbelief. "You're… you're not an Agent. What… what's going on?"
"I was sent down here on a mission." Chris replied, offering a hand to help up the Agent, which the latter accepted. "If it's any consolation, help's on the way once I'm done here. Name's Chris, by the way."
"Well you're certainly doing a bang-up job so far." The Agent replied sarcastically. "Name's J- erm, Agent 467. My companion, Agent 468, is just up ahead." As he said so, he motioned towards the darkened hallway to the left of him.

"Alright then. Lead the way." Chris replied, following the Agent closely as they walked into the hallway.

As the duo walked down the hallway, Chris took the time to examine his surroundings. Despite the worn down appearance of the walls around him, they still somehow preserved an air of antiquity. Hung on the walls were picture frames of various levels of wear and tear, some of the relatively intact ones displaying posters and advertisements, though strangely enough a couple appear to be far older than the others and written in a language he can't seem to comprehend.
"Say…" He said, turning to look at the Agent in front of him. "Have we…met before? I could've sworn I've seen you somewhere else."
"Hmm…" The Agent turned to look back at Chris, before shrugging. "Well if I did, I really don't remember. There are a lot of inklings out there that look similar to me, it's probably just a coincidence."
"I'll… take your word for it." Though Chris still remained somewhat skeptical.

"Hey, man!" Chris could hear someone call out from up ahead. "Did you find anything that could get us outta this jam? If I have to stay down here any longer, I swear…"
"No, but I did find someone that ended up here just like we did!" Agent 467 shouted back, motioning Chris to step forth. "He did say that help's on the way though…"
"Did he, now?" The other Agent's voice echoed down the corridor, "Hey, other guy! C'mere, and we'll talk properly!"

Entering the room at the very end of the hallway, Chris was mildly shocked by the sight that met him: a cafeteria area with half the hall occupied by what looks to be a preposterous amount of canned soup. At the very center of the room, another Agent with lime green tentacles was warming himself by a makeshift bonfire while emptying the contents of an opened can into a boiling pot situated above it, stirring the mixture with a soup ladle.
"Woah." Chris could only manage to say, staring at the pile.
"Haha, tell me about it." The Agent by the bonfire replied, chuckling. "We were lucky to have found this stockpile right here, I'll be honest. If we didn't, we'd be dried squid before anyone noticed we're missing. Say… you wouldn't happen to have bought any food with you, wouldya?"
"Well, I did bring this sandwich with me for dinner." Chris rummaged through his backpack, withdrawing the sandwich in question. "Why'd you ask?"
"Oh, thank the gods! You wouldn't mind sharing that with us?" The other Agent said, staring at the bubbling pot with disdain. "Two weeks of nothing but soup really puts being able to eat fast food every day into perspective, ya know?"
"Ah…" Chris immediately didn't need to let them explain any further. "I understand. You can have the whole thing with your friend over there, I'll just have the soup."

As Chris sat down next to the campfire along with the Agent accompanying him, he watched as the two Agents began exchanging banter among themselves as they excitedly shared the sandwich Chris gave them. A moment of realization dawned on the inkling as it occurred to him why these two Agents seemed unusually familiar.
"Hey, um…"
"Hmm? Wha' is it?" Agent 467 replied, turning towards Chris while still taking a bite out of his portion of the sandwich.
"…you two wouldn't happen to know Katelyn, would you? I swear I've seen the two of you from somewhere…"

The orange tentacled Agent did a double take in the middle of swallowing a mouthful of bread, almost choking on it.
"W-what?!" The Agent sputtered. "You're acquainted with Katie? Tell me, is she doing alright?"
"She's doing fine." Chris replied. "But more to the point, I distinctively remember seeing the two of you alongside Katelyn at one point, but where?"
"What's he going on about-" The other Agent began, before realization also dawned on him. "Oh wait a minute… I REMEMBER! John, remember that team during the Splatfest that utterly wrecked us? That one match we played together with Mei-Lin?"
"Hey, you're right! You're that guy with the Dual Squelcher, weren't you?" The Agent named John replied, turning to Chris. "I vaguely remember you talking to your team before that match started…I think."
"Yep, that's me all right." Chris took out the gun in his bag to show to the Agents in front of him.

"Welp, not much point concealing our actual identities if you already know who we are." The other Agent said, also turning to Chris. "My name's Mark, and that over there is John. We're good friends with Katelyn. Assuming she doesn't overexert us, that is…"
"Chris." The inkling introduced himself. "So why exactly are the two of you down here?"
The Agent named Mark sighed as he looked down at his half of the sandwich. "Well, after… THAT… thing with the Altar happened, me and John were kinda down on the whole incident. That was when Jessie approached us and told us about this whole Agent program."
"Jessie?" Chris tilted his head slightly, in a confused manner.
"Another one of Katelyn's friends. That girl gets around, in case you haven't noticed." John clarified, "Thing is, we always thought that her part-time job was something mundane like moving stock around in Walleye Warehouse or something similar, but we didn't expect her to be actually fighting Octarians when we weren't seeing her around. Anyway, Jessie tells us all about this place where we can fight it out all we want, and sent us to that old coot. I'm sure you've met him, nothing gets in and out of Octo Valley without that soldier noticing it."

"Actually I'm pretty sure he's just overly paranoid." Mark added, turning to John with a look of amusement before looking back at Chris. "So Captain Cuttlefish gave us the designations 467 and 468, and sent us through these Octarian domes to retrieve stolen Zapfish. But if I'm honest…" The faint smile on the inkling's face briefly faded as a doubtful frown replaced it. "…fighting these Octarians just wasn't the same as playing in Turf Wars. Maybe I've known that all along, I just don't want to admit it…"

"Come to think of it, we never really did tell Katie where we've vanished off to." John finished off his portion of the sandwich, and stared into the distance. "Knowing her, she'd be worried sick about us."
"Yeah, you're right. Wonder how she's coping with our disappearance, anyway?"
"Ehh…" Chris awkwardly mumbled, looking elsewhere. He didn't have the heart to tell the two inklings in front of him that Katelyn had almost murdered Cobalt in a fit of fury as a result of the accumulated stress.

"But more to the point, we got bored of fighting Octarians day in and day out to retrieve any Zapfish they've stolen." Mark eventually continued after a moment of silence, "So we decided to do some exploring. You gotta admit, this place is just built for adventure."
"Actually, I think the exploration was more YOUR idea than mine…" John mumbled.
"Yeah…you're right. But we eventually caught wind of a part of Octo Valley that was closed off from the rest of the complex, so we decided to come here with directions that some of the local Octarians gave us. Though it never occurred to me that it would be a one-way trip…"
"Well they DID warn us not to go there." John added, rubbing the back of his head. "That was kinda our fault for not listening."

"But what about your headsets though?" Chris asked, "Shouldn't you be able to contact Captain Cuttlefish and ask for help?"
"That's the thing!" John exclaimed, "The moment we set foot in here, something heavily muffled our broadcast signal, so we can't ask for help! We couldn't do anything but activate the emergency beacon and hope that someone comes along to pick us up. But no one showed up at all for two weeks… until you came along."
"Hmm…" Chris mused, tapping the call button on his headset. Sure enough, all he could hear was static. "That's not good. Could it be a signal jammer? The two of you have been in here for a while, shouldn't one of you have found something, at least?"
"As far as I know, there IS this one stairway that led down, but it's been blocked off by some coded door." John replied, "Besides, we were trying to find ways to get outta here, not to go even deeper into the building!"

"Actually… down is exactly where I want to go towards." Chris said, "Could the combination to the door be inscribed somewhere in this library?"
John simply shrugged. "I 'unno. Still, it might be worth a shot. If you're right and there's a signal jammer down there, we'll need to take care of that first before even considering a way out."
"But before that though…" Mark finished off his portion of the sandwich, and yawned. "Perhaps… we should get some rest first. Man, it's so easy to lose track of time without any sunlight…"

Chris reached into his pocket and took out his phone. To his surprise, it was close to midnight according to the clock.
"I second that notion." Chris said, putting the phone back into his pocket. "I'll just help you two clean this up. You two go on ahead and get some rest."
"Roger that." John replied, finding a nearby corner in the room to curl up in, and falling asleep almost instantly.
"Mmhmm." Mark briefly followed suit, deciding to sleep next to the pile of cans.

As Chris watched the two snore away their tiredness, his attention turned to the dying embers of the campfire, with the pot of still bubbling soup suspended above it. Realizing he's completely forgotten to eat anything, he took the ladle out of the pot and drank a mouthful of the soup.

Immediately afterwards, he cringed from the taste in his mouth.
"Urgh! Tomato and Brussels sprouts soup? Now I REALLY feel sorry for them!"

AN: Well, first of all, I'm sorry this took so long to come out. Exams can be a nightmare to behold. Secondly, HOLY CRAP these chapters are getting long! This one broke the 5000 word mark, and I foresee them just getting even longer if this keeps up! Well, I'm pretty sure I earned it...
I gotta admit though, exams weren't the only reason it took this long. Chris is a character I find hard to work with because he's so... generic? It's like trying to squeeze taste out of rice soup. Granted, it is entirely possible to make delicious rice soup if the stock is spiced, but I'm kinda going off topic.