Fortitude of the Underdog
Chris stared at the encyclopedia in his hands for a few moments, turning the object in his hands while examining the heavily weathered cover before opening it. To his surprise, the contents of the book scattered all over the floor before him, the pages having deteriorated to nothing but scraps of indecipherable paper.
"Ugh… this one's also useless." He grumbled under his breath. Tossing what remained of the book behind him, he turned to watch it land on top of a growing mound of what was once undoubtedly valued literature, now reduced to dust and paper scraps.
It has been hours since Chris agreed to split up with John and Mark so they could scour the Grand Library faster, what with the urgency of the mission at hand. Even going their separate ways was not enough to mitigate the time needed to search for a way into the archives, however.
What certainly doesn't help either was the state of the building itself. There doesn't appear to be anyone maintaining the Grand Library, and as a result much of the structure has deteriorated heavily. Chris remembered various instances during his romp from one bookshelf to the next where the concrete floor creaked ominously as he walked past and even one instance where a stair he stood on outright collapsed. It was probably for the best that inklings have a knack of surviving falls from high altitudes, or he would've been reduced to a mess of mangled limbs right then and there.
On top of that, the absence of any library staff also meant that time has taken its toll on the books themselves. If the books didn't outright disintegrate into scraps when Chris opened them, they were either coated in damp mold or for a curious few were badly burnt. Any hope of being able to salvage any of the knowledge the octarians amassed in the course of centuries has so far proved fruitless.
"Just makes you want to give up, doesn't it?" A familiar voice remarked. Glancing upwards, Chris noticed Jensen perched on top of a bookshelf, seemingly absorbed by a book he was reading.
"…" Chris ignored the inkling, moving down another row and examining the spines of the books before him.
"I mean, who knows what all this once was?" Jensen continued, lobbing the book aside. The object didn't make a sound as it landed. "I could take a guess. Classic literature, scientific notes, design plans… Maybe even medical journals."
"Nnngh…" Still trying to ignore the other inkling, Chris tried to carefully withdraw one of the books before him from the shelf, but to his surprise the entire row of books fell apart into sawdust the moment he touched it. Mumbling obscenities under his breath, he moved to an adjacent bookshelf.
"Not much to find here now, really." Jensen was now lying down on a shelf above Chris, his right arm dangling freely. "I mean, unless you're a connoisseur of the various smells of rotten wood."
"Jensen, you're not really helping here." Chris grumbled, recoiling as he swore the book he was about to remove actually growled at him. "Just pipe down, alright?"
A light fixture flickered, and now Jensen was sitting on top of a nearby glass case. "Well, I gotta keep you occupied somehow." He replied. "It's not good to keep your mind unoccupied for too long, it'll fall apart from disuse!"
"It's not good either for those two Agents to come along and hear me talking to myself." Chris retorted, "Keep it to-"
Chris paused midsentence. While it didn't catch his eye earlier, the glass case that Jensen was perched on was seemingly undamaged. Walking away from the bookshelf, the inkling stepped up to the case to examine the contents.
"Hmm, what's up bro?" Jensen asked, hopping off the glass case. "Did something catch your interest?"
"I… suppose you can say that." Chris replied. Inside the case, there was a leather bound book with gold trimmings, the title 'Compendium of Octarian Legends: Volume 1' emblazoned in fuchsia on the cover. In stark contrast to the other books nearby, this one appears to be in pristine condition. Interested, Chris began rummaging the case for the locking mechanism.
"You know, there's always the direct approach…" Jensen suggested.
"I'd rather not." Chris declined. "Breaking the glass would be something that Cobalt would do… Besides, that would ruin the only book in here that's not going to immediately fall apart on me."
"Heh, you got a point there."
It didn't take long for Chris to find the locking mechanism, which graciously was only a simple button latch without any visible lock. One click later, the glass case swung open, revealing the thick book inside.
"Hmm…" Picking up the book, Chris placed it onto a nearby reading desk, before sitting down and flicking through a few of the pages.
The book proved to be less useful than he had expected. Much of the info was unrelated to the task at hand, though perhaps in some other circumstance Chris would've been interested in perusing through a couple of the entries. There was however, one particular page that caught his interest:
"…though many claim that the tale of Paradise Lost was the first written legend, an opinion supported by Octoangelo, the one that painted the famous artwork associated with it, this is not true. There is a much older legend that preludes Paradise Lost by at least 7 centuries that is not as prevalent, due to the fact that rather than being in any written record it is passed down by word of mouth. Much like any legend passed down in this fashion, the details vary from storyteller to storyteller as it is told. There is, however, a chilling passage that stays consistent with every telling:
As the serpent danced, the sky howled in fury,
The ground fractured, swallowing cities,
Baptized in flame, the land set alight,
Waves swept forth, as the creature sang.
'Come on down, come on down,' the Jörmungadr cried.
'May your luminescence bring forth the tides.'
And within an instant, the earth vanished.
None were spared, but the rubble left behind.
The 'Ballad of the Jörmungadr', as it was called, was the center of various disputes when it came to the origins of the legend, specifically why that part stays consistent despite the countless times it was repeated again and again and deviates wildly over the passage of time. Some say that those that tell the legend are cursed to never deviate from this passage, serving as a warning to future generations."
"Well, Octarians certainly sucked at poetry." Jensen remarked, reading over Chris's shoulder. "Seems all rather dumb, don't you say?"
"Now you're beginning to sound like Cobalt." Chris replied, closing the book. "Don't do that, please."
"HEY!" A voice called out from behind Chris. "Did you find anything useful?"
Chris turned around. In the distance, he could see John running up towards him from a flight of stairs.
"Whew… Sure are a lot of stairs in this place." The Agent paused for breath, befoe looking around curiously. "Say, who were you talking to earlier? I thought I heard you speaking…"
"Oh." Chris replied flatly. A few sharp glances around the general vicinity confirmed that he and John are the only ones in the room right now. "I was talking to myself."
A puzzled expression formed on John's face. "Yourself?"
"Venting my frustrations, mostly. All the books on this floor are busted. Well…" Chris held up the intact book in his hands, before stuffing it in his backpack. "Aside from this one."
"Well if you're not occupied with playing the librarian, I could use your help." John replied, motioning towards the stairway, "Mark found something, think it's a door, but it's been blocked off by a boulder."
"A boulder?" Chris repeated, perplexed.
"Yeah… well you saw how much of a mess this place is. Come on, an extra set of limbs never hurts."
"Alright then. Lead the way."
Without another word, John ran across the room and back down the stairway, with Chris following suit. As the two inklings went down the stairs and disappeared from view, neither of them noticed a strange haze floating above one of the bookshelves. With a fizzle of electricity, the haze began to materialize into a bipedal form as a camouflage system deactivated, revealing a black-painted octoball in a suit of two-legged power armor with disproportionately large mechanical fists and boots the same size as the octarian himself pressed flatly on the shelf.
A fist floated off the wood, tapping the side of the armor as the unusual octoball activated a recording device.
"Mission Log: 035-21:" the octarian intoned, "Tracking the inkling that has invaded the Great Library district has led me to another within the actual building, and their most recent conversation hint at a possible third intruder in this location. From my vantage point, I see that both targets are armed with ink weapons."
The octoball paused to think for a few seconds, before continuing. "A direct approach would be ill-advised. I shall stay out of view for now and observe their actions from a safe location for the time being, until an opportunity presents itself for a capture. Clarence, out."
The octarian named Clarence shut off the recording device, before he once again shimmered out of the visible spectrum. The invisible octoball hopped from bookshelf to bookshelf, going after Chris and company from the shadows.
As Chris followed John down a series of corridors, he could hear the sound of exertion echoing off the walls. Rounding a corner, he spotted Mark, the inkling desperately trying to shove a large boulder at least twice his size out of the way of a barely visible door frame. A glance at the ceiling, or rather the gaping hole that used to be the ceiling was more than enough to answer the question of where the rock even came from.
"You two sure took your time, didn't ya? Whew…" Mark panted, leaning onto the offending blockage in question for a quick rest. "This blasted thing just isn't cooperating."
"Did you seriously try to budge that rock out of the way by yourself while I was away?" John asked, walking up to his friend with a concerned expression. "I tried pushing that with you and we ended up only tilting the damn thing slightly. What were you even trying to accomplish?"
"It was worth a shot." Mark laughed.
"Never mind that," Chris interjected. "What's so important about this room that you'd try to do all that just to get in?"
"See for yourself." Mark replied, pointing at a plaque on the side of the door frame.
Following the direction Mark pointed at, Chris turned to look at the inscription on the plaque. The words 'Administrator's Office' were inscribed on the brass.
"Interesting…" The inkling muttered. "I suppose it would be worth checking if somebody left the codes scrawled in that room."
"My thoughts exactly." Mark replied, finally catching his breath. "C'mon, help me out here."
With a nod, Chris and John both walked up to the obstruction, putting their hands onto the boulder as Mark did the same.
"Alright, on the count of three!" Mark shouted, leaning towards the boulder. "One… two… THREE!"
With all the strength he could muster, Chris concentrated all his weight towards the rock, gritting his teeth in effort as he pushed as hard as he can. John was correct, even with three inklings working together the object barely budged. Slowly but surely however, the rock began to move inch by inch, until the door to the office was fully visible. With a cry of effort, Chris and the others gave the boulder one last shove, the object falling onto its side with a loud crash.
Panting heavily, Chris leaned towards a nearby wall as he shook his cramped arms loose. Close by, John and Mark had collapsed into an exhausted heap, the Agents hyperventilating while quivering all over.
"H-hey. You two okay there?" Chris asked, concerned.
"I can't feel my arms. Or my legs. Or anything below my neck, come to think of it…" Mark groaned. "What do YOU think?"
"Oh, don't be so dramatic…" John mumbled, barely able to move. "Pretty much the same over here though… How are you still able to stand like that?"
"To be fair, I think I'd be on the floor with you two if this wall wasn't here." Chris replied, sliding slightly down the wall as he said so. "Though I suppose if you had to babysit a Turf War partner that refused to co-operate with you for years, it's a bit easier to endure manual labor in general."
"I'm not really sure if that's something to be proud of…" John remarked, before faceplanting onto the wooden floor.
Chris shook his head, chuckling as he sat down onto the floor himself. "…no. No it isn't."
After several minutes of recuperation, Chris is now standing again alongside the two Agents, facing the now unobstructed door into the administrator's office. While his arms still felt sore, he now had enough strength to lift a hand onto the doorknob.
"C'mon. Let's not waste any time." He said, before opening the door and advancing into the room beyond, with the two Agents in tow.
Compared to the rest of the building, the administrator's office seemed to have fared significantly better than the rest of the deteriorating structure. In fact, aside from a few small tears in the steel that was lining the walls, it was more or less completely intact, the room barely lit by a weak fluorescent light mounted on the ceiling.
As the trio stepped further inward, Chris was met with a blast of dust and dry air, the combination irritating his throat.
"O-oh man.*cough*" John choked, coughing out a couple motes of dust. "What's with this room?"
"This room..." Chris turned back to look at the door behind them, upon closer examination noticing a thick rubber seal lining the frame. "It's not just an office…"
"Look!" Mark exclaimed, pointing at a terminal across the room. "A computer!"
Jogging up to the desktop computer, Mark began rummaging around the desk, before successfully activating the terminal. "Yes! It still works! I'm in!"
"Really?! Wait…" John abruptly paused mid-celebration. "It didn't ask for a password?"
"No, it just let me in straight away." Mark said, examining the monitor. "That's good though, right? C'mon, the codes to this place have got to be in here somewhere…"
"Let me help!" John ran up next to Mark, scanning the screen. "Hmm… that's just a bunch of video files. What about the rest of the hard drive?"
Hearing the request, Mark began searching the rest of the computer with a couple of mouse clicks. "I'm on it."
As the Agents busied themselves with the terminal, Chris wandered idly around the office, a thought occurring to him that he was unable to shake off. Stepping around the room, he examined the walls closely, noticing the thickness of the steel paneling as well as the reinforced girders supporting the corners.
"Hmm… why build an office like this…?" Chris mumbled.
It was then that his feet brush up onto something on the floor. Looking down instinctively, the inkling's eyes widened in shock.
"U-umm… guys?!" Chris shouted, stepping backwards. "There's… there's…!"
John and Mark looked down at where Chris was staring, and both simultaneously let out a shocked yell as they recoiled on the spot. Lying next to a trophy cabinet situated in a dark corner, there was an octotrooper, or at least what was left of him. Having obviously dried out, the octotrooper's carcass has shriveled up into a small bundle, his eyes flattened from dehydration, his mouth agape as if he was frozen while trying to inhale one last breath, and his skin discolored from the passage of time into a sickly brown pallor.
"Oogh…" John groaned, averting his eyes from the unsettling sight as he grasped his mouth. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
"He's… oh man. He's been mummified." Mark stepped up to the body for a closer look. "Reckon he's been stuck here for a LONG time."
"I-I didn't sign up for this! I... Ugh, gimme a sec, I think I need to…" With a sickened grumble, John ran around the desk and straight out of the office, looking slightly paler than usual.
Backing away from the dried octotrooper, Chris tried to calm his frantic thoughts as he turned elsewhere. Trying hard not to pay attention to the retching noises emitting from outside the office, he went up to the computer himself and began scanning the monitor for objects of interest.
"Mark, did you manage to find anything important?" Chris asked, "There's only one folder here."
"…don't think so." The Agent replied as he stopped examining the body, "Everything else has been wiped clean, as far as I can tell."
"Hmm…" Opening the folder, he examined the first file on the list, titled 'diary01'. "This… this is some kind of recording."
As Chris clicked on the file, a video player popped up, filling the entire monitor. On screen, there was a singular octarian located right where the inkling now stood, staring straight at a camera on the monitor and speaking in a tired tone.
"Day one. Well… day one since the whole place shook and I'm trapped in here, at least." The octarian began to speak, "As per the emergency protocol, I've set up a video diary. 'In the event of a catastrophic failure, you must set up a personal record with the resources available to you, so as to prevent future occurrences.' Something along the lines of that… I guess."
Letting out a sigh as he looked around, the octarian continued his speech. "So… let's start with the introductions. My name is Tyrone, and my job is to manage the workings in the Grand Library. I think the official title was… Chief Librarian? Yeah… something along the lines of that."
Glancing offscreen in the direction of the door, the octarian named Tyrone frowned slightly. "As for my current situation… When the place shook, I heard a loud crash just outside my office. I tried the door some time earlier, but I am unable to open it. Reckon something's fallen in front of the door and blocked it. I'm fortunate that the office is built to withstand any possible tremors, or I reckon the ceiling would've fallen on top of me already."
"As for what I plan to do…" The octarian concluded, "I'll go check on the comms once I finish this message. If nothing comes up, I might be in this for the long haul, so I'll try and make this place as comfy as I can. Tyrone, out."
Now most certainly interested, Chris tried the next video on the list. Once again, Tyrone showed up on the monitor, though this time he seemed slightly distressed.
"Day 2… I tried the comms. All I got was static." The octarian let out a sigh. "Completely forgot. We've set up that signal jammer downstairs to… Oh right, I shouldn't be mentioning classified information, in case the inklings get their hands on it."
In the background, there was a distant scream of straining metal followed by a crash which shook the camera. Tyrone briefly glanced at the source of the noise, perturbed. "…that's the fourteenth time I heard something fall apart today. The engineers would've gotten onto it long before that, so it is very likely that I may be alone here. I dread to think what has happened to my co-workers, as well as the rest of the library. If the quake was strong enough to have caused this much damage to the entire facility, I suspect that the rest of Octo Valley must have felt the effects as well."
"In any case, it would seem that I would have to assume that no one is coming. I'll see what I can come up with. Tyrone, out." With a click, the video ended.
"Anything interesting?" Mark asked, walking up next to Chris.
"Looks like my guess was correct." The inkling replied. "There IS a signal jammer in the basement. If we're calling for help, we'll need the code to the basement lock."
"Reckon this guy knows the code?" Mark asked, before his face fell as he glanced at the body in the corner. "Oh…umm…"
"We'll just have to hope." Chris said, clicking on the next file on the list.
"…Nobody's out there." Tyrone began, neglecting to mention the day this time. "I've tried everything. Banging at the door, screaming as loudly as I could… even took a few swings at the door. Should've known the door's also solid steel. Starting to think… I might be the only one left."
Pausing for thought, the octarian stared anxiously offscreen. "If… if I am the only one left... I must enact the Borealis protocol. But… if I do that… everything will be erased. There will be no records left. If there are survivors out there…"
The octarian shook his head. "No, no. I have to wait. I have to hold out hope that someone will come along and rescue me. I can't delete these records, that will go against everything I know as a librarian. There's nothing I can do now… but wait."
"Well. That's grim." Mark flatly remarked as the video abruptly cut off.
"What about the next one?" Chris said, going down the list. To his surprise, the video began with a loud yell.
"SOMEONE! ANYONE!" A hysterical Tyrone cried, "I'M STILL HERE! RESCUE ME! PLEASE! Ple-he-hese…."
The rest of the video was mainly filled with stifled sobbing as the octarian flattened himself on the desk.
"Let's… let's just skip to the last one." Chris said, mildly disturbed. Scrolling down through the list, he reached the last one, strangely labelled 'README'. While part of him didn't want to open the video, he clicked on it anyway.
"This is Tyrone. The last octarian alive on Earth." The octarian began, a tired and slightly insane glint in his eyes. "I speak now, as the last of my kind. It has been two weeks ago that I have enacted the Borealis protocol and purged all info available on this terminal, but I do not wish to be rid of this diary. I do not care who hears this anymore, yes, not even any inklings mad enough to come down to these ruins. But to anyone willing to listen…"
Tyrone hesitated for a moment. "…in this library, we housed an anomaly, down in the basement. Locked behind a coded door… 491752 was the combination I think. It has seized one of our octomissile robots, and we've kept it sealed with a communications scrambler. If you must, dear listener, see for yourself, do NOT for whatever reason disengage it. I…I do not wish to bear the burden of this secret with me."
There was a pause as Tyrone sniffled, a tear running down his body.
"...I recall an ancient ritual, once detailed on one of the books in this library." The octarian continued. "One which drains one's body of fluids, thus allowing their body to be preserved, to one day possibly be bought back. I shall now… now perform this ritual upon myself. Dear listener… if you find my remains, pour water on my dried carcass, bring me back from the dead. I… I do not wish the octarian legacy to end with me. This is Tyrone, signing off… Goodbye."
With that, the octarian on-screen switched off the camera, and the video ended.
"…" Chris was at a loss for words. Staring at the blank monitor for what seemed like a few minutes, he could feel a sense of pity growing in his chest for the dried octotrooper in the corner of the room.
"…well, at least we got the code." Mark eventually said, preparing to leave the office. "I'll get John. He should be fine by now, c'mon."
As the Agent left the office, Chris turned his attention towards the dried carcass. Withdrawing a canteen from his backpack, he upturned the container and emptied a small stream of water from it, splashing it over the body. Kneeling down, he waited for any sort of reaction.
A few seconds passed. Then a minute. Then two. Nothing happened, not even a miraculous revival. Bowing his head and closing his eyes, Chris silently grieved for the dead octarian before him.
"Rest in peace… Tyrone." He thought. "I may not know you… but I wish that wherever you are, it is better than here."
"HEY, CHRIS! Hurry up, or we'll leave you behind!" Mark's voice issued from outside the office.
"Yeah, I'm coming! Be there in a few seconds!" Chris shouted back. With one last glance at the motionless body, he ran out of the office after the Agents, not looking back.
"So, do you remember the code?"
"Yeah. I'm sure I have it scribbled down somewhere…"
Having traversed the crumbling floors of the Grand Library, Chris and the two Agents have managed to locate the stairway to the basement. True to John's word, there was a large metal door with a six tumbler combination lock right in the way. At odds with the rest of the facility, the stainless steel and the heavy piston locks on the door seemed to belong to a high-security bank as opposed to a library.
"Okay, got it right here." Mark said, taking out a notepad with the combination lock written on it. "John, you sure you want to come along? You still look a little pale…"
"*urlp*…don't worry about me." John groaned, wiping a dollop of ambiguous fluid from his mouth as he walked up to the door. "I'll be fine once we get out of this blasted place for good."
"If you say so. Alright, the first number is '4'..." Mark read, watching as John climbed up one of the pistons to turn the dials. "You sure you could reach the tumblers? Oh, that answers my question…"
As the Agents busied themselves with the combination lock, Chris's thoughts wandered to Tyrone's final words. Particularly the part that concerned the 'anomaly' within the basement.
"And here we have a door like this…" Chris mused, "It doesn't look as old as the rest of the library, so it must've been built in long after the building was finished… Are we making a mistake by opening it?"
"…and the last number is… 2." Mark concluded. As John shunted the last tumbler into place, he hopped back down from the piston, pulling on a large door handle on the way down.
The sound of grinding metal filled the air as the locks on the door disengaged themselves. Gears spun, pistons hissed, and before long, the door swung open on its hinges inwards, revealing a dark stairway that led down before them.
"Alright, the door's open!" John exclaimed happily. "C'mon Mark, let's go down there and-"
"That's far enough, inklings."
Alarmed, Chris spun round at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, and was shocked to be met by the sight of a serrated harpoon at least twice his size pointed straight at him, the tip entirely coated with dripped fuchsia ink. Realizing the situation at hand, Chris raised his arms slowly in surrender, as the Agents that also noticed the absurdly sized weapon did the same.
"Who…who are you?" Chris asked, trying hard not to pay attention at the sharpened tip just an inch away from his face, and focusing on the unusual wielder of the weapon on the other end. "What do you want with us?"
The odd-looking octoball retracted the harpoon that was uncomfortably close to Chris's face, though he was no less alert. "My name is Clarence of the Under-Sea-Dogs. On behalf of the octarian race, I am capturing you and your two fellow invaders. Slide your weapons over here, kneel down, and put your hands behind your head. If not, I'm itching to test the effectiveness of ink-coated blades through inkling flesh, if you get my meaning."
"Okay, okay! We get the idea!" John shouted, complying with Clarence's request and nervously relinquishing his Hero Shot before kneeling down. Seeing this, Mark and Chris mirrored his actions, reluctantly letting go of their armaments.
"Clever choice." Clarence smiled triumphantly, scooping up all their weapons with one oversized fist before finally lowering his harpoon completely. "Now, I'd like the three of you to stay that way, while I have a talk with some friends of mine."
Chris and the two Agents exchanged looks as Clarence began fiddling with an unseen device, speaking through what seemed like a mounted radio receiver.
"This is Clarence, I've managed to capture one of the inklings that have invaded Sector 0, alongside two Agents. I need a location to rendezvous. Respond."
There was a burst of static. Raising an eyebrow, the octoball tried again. "…Heather? Morgan? Can you read me? This is Clarence. Hello?"
Same result. Turning a dial, he tried another channel. "Hello? Is any octarian receiver nearby? This is Clarence. Hello? Hello?"
All he got was more static. Already losing his patience, he stopped fiddling with the radio, before stamping his foot in frustration, the impact causing a loud *clang*. "GAH! Why isn't it working?!"
"Think we should tell 'em?" Mark asked flatly, albeit slightly amused.
"Don't look at me!" John replied unnervingly. "Chris, you better do it."
"Wait, me?" Chris asked, eyeing the two with a surprised expression.
"Alright!" Clarence yelled, brandishing his harpoon once again at the inklings. "What sort of inkling trickery is this?! I cannot contact anyone!"
"WAAH! W-we didn't do anything!" John cried, leaning back slightly in panic. "I was actually hoping you'd know a way out!"
The octoball lowered his spear by a fraction. "…excuse me?"
"He's right." Chris calmly said. "These two Agents did not mean to intrude upon the library willingly, at least for this long. The doors and windows in this building have been sealed shut, trapping all of us in here. We believe whatever is also causing communications to be disabled like this is caused by a signal jammer in the basement. We only now decided to go in there to disable it and seek potential assistance when you showed up."
"No...exits, you say." Clarence asked, narrowing his eye in suspicion.
"Yeah man. What he said." Mark replied. "Me and my friend's been stuck here for two weeks! If there was a way outta here, we'd have left by now!"
Contemplating the inkling's words for a few moments, Clarence paced around on the spot, not taking his singular eye off of them at any moment. Eventually, he finished his train of thought, and approached the group.
"…very well. All of you, on your feet." Clarance growled begrudgingly, motioning the three inklings to stand up with his harpoon. "If you speak the truth, and there is indeed a signal jammer in the basement, lead me to the device, and deactivate it. You, the one not in Agent garb, take point."
"If you say so…" Chris replied, not willing to argue with the one pointing a sharp object at him. Still keeping his hands behind his head, he turned round and marched down the unlit stairwell with the two Agents in tow, along with Clarence in the back doing threatening motions with his harpoon.
"Hrrrm…"
Several layers of rock above the Grand Library, a couple of meters away from the buried entrance to Sector 0, Captain Cuttlefish twiddled with dials and buttons on a console before him. Hearing the quiet hiss of static from the machine, the aged squid groaned audibly.
"Gah! Stupid machine!" Cuttlefish yelled, banging a fist onto the console.
"Still trying to make contact with Chris and the other agents?" A voice asked. Turning round, the elderly squid can see DJ Octavio approaching him. "I don't think you'd wanna bother. I did tell you about that jammer we've got down there where he is, remember?"
"Sorry, what was that, old friend?! I didn't quite catch that!" Cuttlefish replied loudly. Not too far from their position, a large crowd consisting of Agents and octarians alike were ferrying supplies to and fro, support pylons going up in and around the breach. The sounds of loud banging and welding noises were thick in the air.
"I said- Eh, forget it." Octavio grumbled, before fiddling with the controls on the communications console himself. "Let me give it a go, old timer. I know this thing better than you do."
Several moments passed as the two war veterans tried to get the machine to operate. At one point, a Flooder robot trundled past, ferrying a stack of steel girders atop its flat surface, while two Agents and an Octoling escorted the supplies.
"I won't lie and say I'm not worried." Cuttlefish said, watching a blank screen on the console. "Chris walks into that building with those distress signals pinging back, and then he just disappears right off the map. Urgh… I wish I could do something for them."
"I understand what you're feeling." Octavio assured. "We've both seen comrades come and go. We'll just have to wait here and have faith that inking and those two Agents of yours make it out in one piece."
The elderly inkling nodded in agreement. "Mmhmm."
"I do wonder though…" Octavio muttered to himself. "I think we set up that jammer there for a particularly urgent reason. But I just can't remember why…"
"Well, for the sake of Chris and my two missing agents, I pray they never find out." Captain Cuttlefish replied, his eyes narrowing at the entrance to Sector 0.
As the aged octopus began pondering what matter of urgency was involved with the library, a certain pair of pop stars emerged from a set of scaffolding just above the communications device, both looking thoroughly exhausted.
"Alright Gramps." Marie said, "We've done our shift, it's our turn on the comms now."
"Why do we have to pitch in too, anyway?!" Callie moaned, massaging a stiff shoulder. "Having to do all that moving around and piling up stuff was why we quit the warehouse job in the first place!"
"Now, now. We all know that this construction is critical to the operation! If we're going to pull our friends out of that hellhole, we need to do this as quickly as possible! I need all hands on deck, yes even the two of you!" Captain Cuttlefish explained, before turning back at the console with a barely concealed grin. "Plus, it builds character!"
"Funny how every time we 'build character', Gramps saves up on labor costs…" Callie grumbled under her breath.
It was then that Marie noticed DJ Octavio, deep in thought. Curious, she walked up to him.
"What's up?" She asked, "Something important?"
"…Yes." Octavio replied, his eyes squinting in concentration. "The Library… I certainly recall something of great urgency there. But I just cannot remember what…"
"What, having a case of the olds there?" Marie smirked. "Forget about some evil rampaging Octoweapon tucked away in Octo Valley or something?"
"No, that's not-"
Suddenly, Octavio's eyes snapped open. With a speed that seemed impossible to achieve with eight tentacles, the aged octopus ran up to the console, nudging Captain Cuttlefish out of the way as he frantically pressed a seemingly random selection of buttons.
"WOAH! Easy there!" Callie exclaimed, supporting her grandfather. "What's gotten into you?!"
Soon, a stream of information showed up on the console. Watching the trail of data scroll down the monitor, the octopus seemed to age a few more years on the spot.
"No, it can't be. That thing… it's still down there?" Octavio muttered to himself, seeming absorbed in his own thoughts. "Oh man, this isn't good. Not good at all."
"Hey, Earth to Octavio!" Marie shouted, "What are you talking about? What 'thing'?"
"The details will have to wait!" Octavio yelled. "Those three inklings are in some serious deep water!"
Marie recoiled, a look of confusion on her face. "What?"
Quite unlike the decrepit state of the floors above it, the archives situated in the basement were a sight to behold, seemingly untouched by the quake that tore through the rest of the building. Two stories in height, a series of floodlights illuminate a mazelike formation of wooden and steel crates piled all the way up to the ceiling, each and every last one labelled with a name and a brief description of their contents. Seeing the sight of countless artifacts stored in numerous containers before him, Chris could easily imagine himself spending time in the archives, pouring over the contents with an almost childlike curiosity.
Except of course, his current circumstances meant he had to begrudgingly shelve that desire for the time being. Mainly due to a certain angry octarian not too far behind him.
"This place is large. Too large for a singular group. It will take much more time than necessary to search this place, but I can't let these prisoners out of my sight..." The angry octarian in question muttered to himself. "No matter… I am a resourceful octoball, I'm sure I can think of something…"
As Clarence lowered his harpoon slightly and closed his solitary eye in thought, the Agents exchanged worried looks with one another.
"What should he do?" Mark whispered in hushed tones. "This guy seems like he means business."
"We need to lose this guy somehow!" John exclaimed as quietly as he could. "Chris, what do you think?"
"Well…" Chris thought for a while, before looking at the Agents. "If Eliza was correct, I should be able to advance down to my destination from somewhere on this floor. Can't go any further with this octoball breathing down our necks though…"
"Who's Eliza?" Mark asked, curious.
"Long story." Chris replied flatly. "But for now, I'd reckon that we'll just go along with what Clarence tells us to do. As of this moment, we're all after the same thing: turning off that signal jammer. I'll think of something when the time comes."
The Agents nodded to one another. "Sounds like a plan."
Their exploration led them to one side of the basement, this one filled with lit displays of various plants, as well as a few skeletal remains of animals. Each one had a small plaque with the same labelling as the crates in the archives, detailing their name and a description involving their origins.
Silently passing by the rows of displays, Chris eventually noticed movement in one of the displays. A sideways glance elicited a feeling of curiosity as he noticed a patch of flowers with a small beehive in the middle inside, the insects somehow still diligently working despite their confinement. A lone drone flew close to the casing, harmlessly bouncing off of a purple forcefield apparently lining the inside of it.
"So that's why this place needed power." Chris thought to himself. "Containment field, huh? These octarians are smart."
It was then he noticed a trail of wire leading from the display case down onto the floor, which bundled with a series of other wires that lead through their current corridor and round a corner. Seeing this, a brainwave occurred in the inkling's mind.
"Hey, Clarence is it?" Chris asked, turning round.
The octoball in question snapped out of his stupor, glaring suspiciously at the inkling as he raised his harpoon. "Grr… Don't address me by name. Speak quickly."
"I think I might've found a lead." Chris replied, pointing to the wires in the floor. "These display cases are still powered, I'd say it's a safe assumption that those wires must all be hooked up to a power grid. We find that, we should be able to find the controls to the signal jammer."
The octoball simply grunted, looking away as he lowered his weapon. Taking it as a sign of acknowledgement, Chris motioned Mark and John to follow, as he retraced the power cables back to their source.
The trail was not as long as Chris had perceived, despite the numerous twists and turns as the four navigated through the collection of crates, their progress marked by more and more wires joining the trail.
As they approached their assumed goal, however, a strange sound crackled through Chris's headset.
"*kzzzt…ERROR… DIRECTIONAL INPUT… *zzzt*"
"…did you hear that?" Mark spoke up. He had one hand on his own headset.
"Huh? I didn't hear anything." John replied, checking his own in confusion.
"…C-COMPROMISED...*bzzzrt* ENTITY-ENTITIES APPROACHING. IDENTIFYING: 4… *kzzzrt* 1… 3… NULL…"
"I'm hearing it too." Chris clarified. "We're getting close to something."
His fingers gripped tight over his headset. While Chris decided against voicing his concern, a nagging worry began haunting his mind.
"This…this must be the anomaly." Chris thought to himself. "We might be getting closer to it... Why's there this sense of dread I'm feeling…?"
It didn't take long for him to find out. Rounding a corner, the group was met with a haunting sight. Sitting motionless in the center of a large clearing, a partially deactivated missile-like robot was laying flat on its side. But part of the robot's structure appears to have had been in the middle of being absorbed into a strange oblong device embedded in the creature's back, a machine that not only stayed unnaturally pristine and white despite years of inactivity compared to the half-rusted robot it was jammed into, there was also a strange emblem depicting a chess piece marked right in the middle. Along with the robot, a serpentine tail of loose metal objects was attached to the device via an unsettling collection of wires.
To make matters worse, the area showed signs of a struggle. Crates were broken, the more fragile ones smashed and its contents strewn all over the floor. A hastily constructed skeletal dome of plastic and wire was built over the strange wreckage, on top of it laying a device that seemed to be giving off a strange pinging noise.
"What…IS THAT?!" Chris exclaimed, in awe.
"I know what THAT one is," John replied, pointing at the rusted bot, "That's an Octomissile. Those are suicide bomber robots that explode into ink, pretty much the octarian's version of our Seekers. That thing stuck in its back though, you got me. It doesn't look octarian-made, that's for sure."
"But why is it here?" Mark asked, "More to the point, is that device up there the signal jammer?"
"I'm… starting to get second thoughts." Chris mumbled as his eyes trailed around the scene. Among the wreckage in the clearing, he could catch loose scraps of cloth, one of which had a tattered ID Card hanging off. Wherever the owner was, they were likely in no state to be around anymore. "Don't you think we should pursue a different-"
Suddenly, a harpoon sailed far over his head, embedding itself inside the pinging device. Turning round in alarm, Chris could see that Clarence has thrown his weapon, and was in the process of yanking it back with a chain connected to it.
"Might as well get it over with." The octoball grumbled, giving the harpoon chain a hearty tug as he yanked it back, taking with it the now sputtering device as it crashed onto the floor.
Immediately, Chris could hear a rush of chatter through his headset as the device coughed its last with one last spark. Noticing this, Chris pressed a hand over his ear to listen, along with Mark and John which are excitedly checking the communications.
"…calm yourself, friend! Here, I don't do this often, but I'm sure I got some crabby-" Captain Cuttlefish's voice issued through the receiver.
"Cuttlefish?" Chris spoke, "Hey, we've managed to shut down the signal jammer. Can you read us?"
"This is Agent 467! I've got Agent 468 with me here, too!" John exclaimed through his own headset. "Captain, send help! We're trapped down here!"
"CHRIS?! AGENTS 467 and 468?! Oh thank the gods, you're still alive!" Cuttlefish's voice sighed in relief, "But this is no time to celebrate, you have to get out of there at once! That's an order!"
"H-huh?" Mark stuttered, confused. "What do you mean?"
"The explanation can wait!" DJ Octavio's voice suddenly interrupted, "You've just shut off the containment on one of our most dangerous study targets! You can't fight it with what you have now, just find a place to hide!"
John was aghast. "Wait, what?!"
"I SAID, FIND A PLACE TO-"
Which was all Octavio could muster before a wail of unholy sound tore through the communication channel, causing all three inklings to momentarily throw their headsets off, even Clarence stumbled on the spot as his own equipment seemed to shriek in pain.
Before them, the strange device seemed to reactivate, as the chess piece emblem began to glow a piercing blue. To Chris's horror, the half-rusted octomissile shuddered violently, before being torn apart by an unseen force into countless metallic strings. The wires stretched all around it, attaching themselves onto anything that was even remotely metallic that was within reach. Seeing this, Clarence was barely able to grab his own weapon out of the way before a tendril consumed it.
Having attached itself to all the metal it could find, the growing machine began drawing them towards itself, upending piles and causing them to fall on top of it, whatever metallic also being assimilated. A form began taking shape. A worm-like body. A set of gun barrels. A viper-like head. As it built its own body, the 'tail' seemed to fully incorporate itself into the rest of the machine, smoothing out and changing into a pristine white shade.
The maelstrom of metal soon ceased. In place of the pile of metal, there was now a curling serpentine robot that seemed to move unnaturally smoothly, staring at its own body. Looking up from the gatling barrels that seemed to have formed its arms, the strange machine turned a glowing blue gaze towards the group of marine life before it. The robot's height was intimidating, towering above them by well over several meters.
"I…HAVE…AWAKENED…?" A voice came out of Chris's headset as the creature seemingly stared straight into his eyes. "WHAT…ARE…YOU."
Despite the lump of fear in Chris's throat, he tried to speak calmly towards the strange machine. "My…name is… Chris Tempest." He spoke defiantly.
"CHRIS…ONE OF THE FOUR…" The machine growled. "YES…IT IS AS HE SAID. I AWAKEN TODAY, BEFORE ONE OF THE CHOSEN. HE TRULY…SEES…FATE."
Chris winced in incomprehensible fear. Every word that issued from his headset seemed to weigh down on him like a ton of bricks. "Are…Are you… the Shining Serpent himself? That's impossible…"
"THE…SERPENT? NO…" The machine uncoiled, revealing the emblem on its chest. "I… AM A MERE… PAWN. I… AND HUNDREDS UPON THOUSANDS OF MY KIN…"
Abruptly, the Pawn seemed to spasm on the spot, its eyes flickering momentarily. Changing its gaze, it now stared at the multitude of wires in the clearing.
"POWER… INSUFFICIENT. IT IS NOT… ENOUGH." The monstrosity screeched. "I… MUST… FEED. FEED!"
Without warning, the Pawn opened its mouth, and bellowed ceiling-ward. As it did so, a discharge of electricity seemed to arc straight out of the wires, and into the gullet of the machine. With a whine, the entire basement plunged into darkness as an emergency klaxon sounded.
"Warning. Warning. Power failure detected in the archives." An automated voice sounded as the mechanical beast disappeared into the darkness. "Please restore power immediately."
"W-WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" John cried, fumbling in the dark. "Oh gods…. I don't wanna be here anymore, I wanna go home!"
"That creature… By that surge of power, that was at least three zapfish's worth of voltage the monster just swallowed in one go!" Clarence shouted. "We must not let this creature leave this basement at any cost! Octo Valley is in danger!"
Slacking one of his fists, the octoball lobbed the inkling's confiscated weapons back at their owners, the inklings picking them up with looks of bewilderment.
Mark spoke up in the middle of checking his Hero Shot. "Wait, why did you-"
"Defend yourselves!" Clarence interrupted, "I'll make this an exception for once. The immediate threat must be neutralized first!"
Without another word, the Under-Sea-Dogs member ran into the darkness, his form barely illuminated by the flashing alarms. As he disappeared, the three inklings turned towards each other.
"What should we do?!" Mark shouted over the klaxons, "How are we even going to fight against something like THAT?!"
"Are our weapons even going to do anything to that thing?!" John seemed moments away from hysterics. "Oh jeez… I really don't want to go like this!"
"I'm scared too." Chris replied. "But it looks like we'll just have to try and take that thing out here. Clarence is right, we can't risk letting that robot get out of Sector 0! C'mon, I think I know where it's going!"
His eyes fixated on the now thoroughly melted wires, the stench of burnt out copper in the air, Chris continued to follow the trail of wire this time in a run, with the two Agents running after him.
Soon, he finally found the source of the wiring: a gigantic heavily fortified gate with the wires trailing underneath it, which also seemed to have functioned as a transformer. Right in front of it, the monstrous machine was busy ramming itself headfirst into the reinforced binding, seemingly in a state of feeding frenzy.
"There it is." Chris whispered, hiding behind a crate. "I've been thinking, and I'm definitely sure our weapons won't work on that… whatever it is."
"Man, how are you still able to keep calm in all this?" Mark whispered back. "So you got an idea?"
"We tire it out. By the looks of it, that thing must run on a lot of juice. If we can keep the thing busy long enough, that thing should eventually run out of power and stop moving."
"…I don't like where this is going." John mumbled, putting the pieces together.
"What other choice do we have?" Chris said, "C'mon, there's three of us! We'll cover each other!"
Without wasting another second, Chris rushed out of cover, and aimed his Dual Squelcher at the creature's back, firing a salvo of ink. As expected, the ink plunked harmlessly off of the robot's armor, but it was enough to draw its attention. Spinning round with a metallic roar, the Pawn lunged straight at Chris, the inkling turning into squid form and leaping aside as it plowed headfirst to where he was mere seconds earlier, leaving a groove on the floor. Taking advantage of the commotion, the Agents ran out of their hiding place, past the robot's thrashing tail.
Having missed its target, the Pawn spun round with a fluidity that didn't seem possible for robots, preparing for another lunge. Taken by surprise, Chris retaliated by quickly lobbing a Splat Bomb into the creature's open mouth. It didn't have the intended effect however, as the creature caught the explosive, lobbing it straight at the Agents that had taken position not far away from Chris. Both were barely able to dive out of the way before the explosive went off, staining the ground in deep green.
"WOAH!" John yelled, "Watch it with those bombs, you could hurt us!"
"SORRY!" Chris hastily apologized as he painted a nearby wooden crate. Turning into squid form, he swan up the pyramid of containers, while the Pawn started violently nipping at the ripples caused by his ascent. Before the monster was able to get lucky however, Mark ran up behind the robot and squeezed the trigger on his Hero Shot for all its worth, coating its back in lime green. Agitated by the attack, the machine stretched its body upright, before falling backwards in an attempt to flatten the Agent with its weight. Noticing the danger, John quickly shoved Mark out of harm's way, before he was able to barely leap clear of the monstrosity's crushing weight.
Leaping off from the pile of crates, Chris joined Mark and John in encircling the Pawn as it curled back up in an offensive stance. Each time it prepared to lunge at an inkling, the other two began opening fire at its body, causing it to change its attention. For a few tense moments, they courted the monstrous bot in this manner, dodging away from the vicious attacks when necessary, and returning fire when they had the chance.
Despite their tactic however, the three inklings began showing signs of fatigue, as their escapes from the jaws of the Pawn because narrower and narrower. But just as Chris began to lose hope, a barely visible haze floated from atop a close-by pile of containers, materializing into Clarence as he dived down towards the mechanical beast's back, successfully stabbing it through the robot's emblem with his harpoon.
The creature let out a shriek of mechanized agony, but it still had some fight left. Thrashing on the spot, it attempted to dislodge Clarence from its back, as the octoball held on for dear life onto his harpoon. Seeing a window of opportunity, Chris lobbed yet another Splat Bomb. The serpentine creature was still able to catch it, but this time it was unable to toss the bomb away before it detonated, the kinetic force of the explosion knocking it into a daze. Taking the chance, Clarence yanked the harpoon out of the robot's back, before leaping straight onto its head, and plunging the serrated edge with all his might through the Pawn's skull.
With one last screech, the Pawn finally submitted, crashing down onto the concrete floor with a thunderous quake. As it fizzled its last, its blue eyes flickered once, before it dimmed to blackness.
"W... we did it?" John exclaimed, unable to contain his surprise. "We did it! It's dead!"
"Valiantly fought, inklings." Clarence complemented, yanking out his weapon from the robot's carcass. "Had you not been inklings, that's an instant inclusion to the octarian army's Elites right then and there."
"Thanks, man." Mark replied, before his smile faded. "Erm… you're not still going to capture us again, right?"
The octoball pondered the idea for a while, before he shook his head. "Perhaps… I shall let this intrusion slide for once. You three are free to go."
"Umm… Thanks…?" Chris replied.
"Don't get too complacent however." Clarence warned, looking at Chris in the eye. "Next time we meet, it will be as enemies. Goodbye." With that said, he shimmered out of the visible spectrum, and disappeared somewhere else.
"Well. That could've been better." John sighed. "But on the same note…"
"…could be worse." Mark finished. "So… what now?"
Chris's attention drifted towards the gate the Pawn was trying to destroy. A small hole has been made in the metal, revealing a small hatch beyond with wires trailing in. "I have to go. Gotta go meet some friends of mine."
"Is that so?" John said, "Alright then, gonna miss ya. It's been fun."
"Bye Chris!" Mark added, "Say hi to Katie for us, yeah?"
"Got it. See you around."
As Chris ran through the hole in the gate and disappeared down the hatch, the two Agents found a nearby crate, and sat down as they took a breather. While John crossed his arms and prepared to take a snooze, a dial tone rang through Mark's headset.
"Slippery bursting barnacles!" Captain Cuttlefish's voice exclaimed through the speakers. "That was some exemplary fighting there, 468!"
"Hardly." Mark replied, "If that octarian wasn't there, we'd be snake chow by now."
"Even so, that was great! Once we get you and 467 out of there, I'll treat you two some crabby cakes!"
"I'll pass on the offer, thanks." Mark paused for a moment, before continuing. "So…. would you like a report or anything while we wait?"
"Absolutely! Where did the two of you disappear off to for two weeks?"
"Alright then." Mark paused for breath, before he began his story. "So… there was this rumor we picked up on…"
AN: GOOD GRIEF! I might've gone a bit overboard with the words this time, there's over 9000 in here! (no, I'm not gonna say it...)
*ahem* Ignoring that, I'd like to take a moment to address the recent reviews. You guys do me proud, I gotta say it, but Anon Train here might've just set a new record. I already sent him a PM to thank him earlier, but this time, officially, cheers for the review. It's everything I could ever ask for.
So during the time that transpired between chapters, it's passed the anniversary of this story. It really has been a surprise that One Missed Call is still going, let alone that it's garnered so much intellectual attention. I couldn't be prouder. Well, unless one of the Splatoon devs happen to find this story, but the odds of that happening is practically astronomical. Still, I find it rather sad that all my fellow writers have seemingly disappeared, I'm currently the only one now that's still writing his story. I mean, aside from the ones that parrot the usual Turf War/Inklings versus Octarians verse.