Everyone was breathing hard. Even Cap'n Cuttlefish, who hadn't been present for Spyke's vicious assault, had heard and seen what was happening through Orange's headset. Nervous chuckling came out of Orange's mouth, echoing down the tunnel and layering over the other echoes to make a dissonant, frightening screech. Orange ran and leapt down the passageway in a state of adrenaline-fueled euphoria. Yes! We have what we need, and got away safely! However, upon exiting from the tunnel to where Cap'n Cuttlefish was waiting, his excitement was immediately suppressed.
"Do ya realize what ya just did, boy?" Cap'n Cuttlefish addressed Orange in a quiet and dangerous voice, like he was teetering on the brink of exploding. "Do ya realize what position yer stunt just put us in? We aren't goin' ta be able to go back there as long as that Spyke character's hangin' out there! He'll maul us soon as we step a foot up there!" Cap'n Cuttlefish's words dropped like rocks, each individually hitting Orange until he was crushed under the weight of realization.
Oh no, what have I done? We'll have to stay here forever! Orange made a mental cry of anguish. He hung his head in shame. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea this would happen. Do you think we'll ever be able to go back?"
"I don't know, boy. But we have other stuff to do now. We've got our clue, now to follow it up."
"Do you know what it means? I've never heard of a cryo thingy," Pink queried.
"Me neither," Orange chimed in.
"I think I could have something that'll help ya," Cap'n Cuttlefish said as he produced a stack of old papers from a worn chest next to him. "Agent 3 gathered some of these from places throughout old Octarian bases, and I mixed in some other papers. I think I remember some mention of a cryo chamber. You guys sort through these to find clues."
Resigned to a boring and tedious task, Orange sighed and settled down on the ground by the pile of papers.
IIIII
Papers lay scattered on the ground around two frustrated and annoyed inklings. Orange had tried giving up and secretly escaping several times when he thought Cap'n Cuttlefish had gone into his hut where he had kept the chest, but was always thwarted by a reproachful glare from around a corner of the hut or through a window. Orange sighed and stretched his legs, which had been painfully folded underneath him for what had felt like hours.
"Oh, stop whining," Pink voiced, seemingly reading Orange's mind. "You've only been here for 30 minutes, and working for less than half of that."
"Hey, I have too been working! Look at all the work I've done!" Orange argued, gesturing at a papers on the ground.
"What of that did YOU do? Not that one," Pink pointed at a paper with a black and white photo attached to it, "or that one, or any of those. Take those ones out, and you have how many?"
Orange realized with humiliation that he could count the sheets Pink hadn't pointed out on one hand. "Well…" Orange trailed off, unable to come up with a proper retort in the face of facts. "You haven't found what we're looking for either! Therefore, we're even on amounts of work!"
Pink shook her head at Orange's highly flawed logic. "And for your information, I have found plenty. There's a page pulled out of an engineering book or something. 'Sciences surrounding cryo chambers, or extremely cold devices capable of putting a being into a deep sleep allowing it to hibernate for many years, were quite slow until a human development right before their extinction. This advancement allowed a mysterious reaction to take place and create massive amounts of energy in a small area.' The article goes onto the next page which I can't find there, but I think that's enough. The Octarians must be trying to get unlimited power!"
"Hmm…" Orange pondered Pink's revelation. "I found something that could go with that. They're blueprints for massive vehicles covered in weaponry. Some notes taped to the page mention the massive energy needs. Maybe they're trying to make those!"
"Let's go tell Cap'n Cuttlefish. He'll want to know."
"Yeah, probably." Orange picked up the yellowed papers from their spot on the grass that had been pressed down by the weight of stacks of notes and pages and set them on top of the sheets he had found, carefully clutching them to protect the precious information from any sudden gusts of wind (despite there not being any in Octo Valley for as long as Orange had been there). He peeked around the corner of Cap'n Cuttlefish's hut, and knocked quickly on the metal siding when he didn't see any sign of Cap'n Cuttlefish outside. Orange heard some whispering coming out of the hut, followed by a chuckle and Cap'n Cuttlefish's voice.
"Just one moment, I'll be out there with ya." A clattering followed, and Orange jumped back as several cans and a strangely shaped metal pipe fell in front of him, nearly landing on his toes. "Oh, sorry, sorry." Cap'n Cuttlefish appeared, holding his hat and rubbing his head as if some of the items had bounced off his head on their way to Orange's feet. "You found somethin'?"
Orange held out the pages in front of them, and they were eagerly taken from his hand. "These seem to be connected. Pink found a page talking about how a cryo chamber could make endless energy, but I really completed the story. Those seem to be blueprints for massive Octarian weaponized vehicles! Now, with boundless energy…" Orange continued, emphasizing his accomplishments.
"Woah woah woah, slow down. What was that about the energy?"
Orange sighed, resigned to having to bring up Pink's accomplishments. "The humans made some advancement allowing for a reaction that made lots of money. But back to the machines, if the Octarians had enough energy to power them…"
Cap'n Cuttlefish stopped Orange again. "Wait, yer tellin' me that the Octarians could have endless power? Uh oh…"
"Why's that so important? Without the vehicles, the energy is useless."
"Except maybe, it isn't. The last time the Octarians attacked, they were trying to get energy there. They took the Great Zapfish from Inkopolis and held it captive. I thought they were just trying to electrically starve us out, but then… they kidnapped me."
Orange gasped at this news. He hadn't known that had happened to the friendly Cap'n Cuttlefish, and listened with rapt attention as the story continued.
"I saw all kinds of things. More Octarians I would every have imagined could exist. But besides just manpower, I saw massive machines. Ones like the vehicles shown in these blueprints."
"Wait, so you mean that the Octarians may already have the vehicles, they only need the energy? And now they might have it as well?"
"Unfortunately, yes. I was thinking about it earlier, but this solidifies my fears." Cap'n Cuttlefish paused for a moment and looked like he was deeply pondering something. "I'm going to need to call in some of my previous agents."
"Other agents?"
"Yeah. They had worked with Agent 3. They've been begging to come help and look for their friend, but I tried to protect them. It's only a matter of time until the Octarians figure out how to use that energy, and we can't let them do that."
Orange tried to absorb the information. He knew that he should feel relieved that he and Pink would be getting some help, but instead he felt a slight prick of anger within him. What is he suggesting? That we aren't good enough to figure this out ourselves? I'll show him, I'll figure this out without any help from the other agents! However, all Orange said was, "Ok, I suppose some help could make this go quicker." He then walked away, still internally fuming.
IIIII
Orange was unable to sleep despite it being late at night. He and Pink were forced to sleep outside under a small roof that Cap'n Cuttlefish put un using some scrap metal he found lying around, all the while throwing angry glares at Orange and muttering things like, "if only you hadn't screwed it all up, you could be back home right now." Orange felt conflicted. On one hand he had made it incredibly dangerous to return to Inkopolis, but he also had gotten the information that led to discovering the Octarians' plan and was very happy for it. However, as he grew increasingly sore from the hard ground barely cushioned by the few blankets underneath him and Pink, his mind started leaning towards the unhappy side of his dilemma. Trying to get to sleep Orange rolled over for what seemed like the hundredth time that night and found himself staring up at the moon, his head poking out from the side of the thrown-together shelter.
For some strange reason, at that exact moment a memory came rushing in to Orange's mind. It was when he was about seven years old and had been in nearly the exact same situation, except in his comfortable room. At that time his family had been living in a house further away from the Inkopolis main square, in a suburb about a mile or so away. Orange was too young to participate in turf wars then and his parents had to work anyways so the location didn't bother him. What did bother him, though, were the large skyscrapers that obstructed him view of the moon every night at bed time. One night, when he wasn't able to sleep, he glanced out his window and saw that the moon was now hovering over the skyscrapers rather than blocked as he had always seen before. His young mind racing for an explanation, Orange concluded that the moon must be a giant vehicle driving across the sky. Returning to his current predicament, he realized that he might actually be fighting a giant tank or plane or something else similar to the moon-car he had imagined. The thought filled him with dread, only making his sleeplessness worse.
Careful not to wake Pink or Cap'n Cuttlefish, Orange climbed out of the little sandwich of blankets he was in and stood up. A quick stretch got blood flowing to all of his limbs again, and he started walking, not to any specific place, just to get some fresh air. He glanced up at the sky again, admiring the stars. They were so bright in Octo Valley, unlike Inkopolis where the constant Turf Wars required bright lights to be on all night preventing the stars from being seen. Coming to a ledge, Orange sat down and dangled his legs off of the side. The floor of the valley was barely visible far below them in the dim light. Heavy fog swirled around in places and seemed to make giant creatures galloping aimlessly across the ground. I wonder if anything lives down there, Orange thought. A sudden rush of adrenaline filled him and he resolved to go explore the valley floor.
However, to do that Orange would need to get down there. The big mountains loomed all around him, offering passage down if only he could get to them. However, no paths existed between the floating platforms of the structures he was on and the mountains, forcing Orange to think of something different. He tossed a small rock sitting near him down into the fog trying to gauge the distance down, but never heard it land. He then recalled a stunt he had seen on television once, a while ago. Using a sheet of metal and a couple sticks an inkling had created a sort of hang glider, flying from the top of a tall building to the ground 50 stories below safely. A quick glance over to Cap'n Cuttlefish's hut revealed both of these requirements sitting there. He'll never miss them, there's stuff like this sitting all over the place, Orange though, trying to justify him stealing the items. He quickly gathered his selected materials, attached the sticks for him to hold in with some bits of rope, and readied himself to start his flight by carrying the glider to the highest part of the platform, a small tower right on the edge.
As soon as he jumped off the platform Orange knew the TV show had lied. The handles were difficult to hang on to and the contraption, rather than floating easily like he had expected, buckled and shook as it fell at a steep angle. He would have yelled as he fell but fear caught the sound in his throat and he immediately regretted his decision. Desperately trying to gain control of the makeshift glide, Orange tried rotating the handles backwards to pull up the descent, but instead it just started acting like a really ineffective parachute, causing him to just fall straight down at nearly the same breakneck pace. The air made a mighty SWOOSH as it sped past Orange and the gigantic sheet of metal. He felt his arms nearly pull out of their sockets as he tried to retain his grip on the glider. Little drops of water stung his face as the layer of fog engulfed the terrified inkling, signaling the coming ground.
Twisting his body Orange climbed on top of the speeding metal, planning to try jumping up and propelling himself upwards to slow his speed right before crashing in to the surface. Breaking through the clouds Orange saw the floor of the valley, much closer than he expected it to be. He tensed his legs quickly and push down with all of the force he could. Unfortunately, due to physics he didn't move up at all, the glider just got pushed down. It crashed on a rock with a huge crashing sounds not unlike a giant gong being hit by the strongest person ever. Orange had a brief second to let out a little squeaking sound before he fell in to some bushes and blacked out.