Maize and Marie had quickly made their way to the main plaza, caring little for the rain. The plaza was a bit more relaxed for this time of the day. It was odd, but the heavy rain could have just turned a lot off from playing in turf wars. The two agents approached the pipe to Octo Valley.
"Do you think something happened in Mollusk Metropolis?" Agent 3 wondered aloud, wanting to know what she thought could be going on.
"With gramps, anything is possible," Agent 2 shrugged before she stepped onto the pipe and changed into a small white squid, falling between the bars. He followed shortly behind her, changing into his yellow squid form. Both of them fell into the pipes toward Octo Valley.
When they both arrived to Octo Valley, they approached the usual location where their captain was. They found Captain Cuttlefish talking to DJ Octavio, only the old squid still was the one mainly doing the most of the talking like usual, and they both seemed to be in an equal amount of distress.
"Hi cap'n! What's going on?" Maize greeted their captain, seeing the two turn to face them.
"Squiddos! Oh, thank goodness you came… my, you two are soaking wet," Captain Cuttlefish spoke, Marie not wanting to talk about what she and her close friend had just discussed earlier, and instead focus on the task at hand.
"Nice to see you too, gramps. What's going on?" Marie responded sarcastically, worried that her grandfather had gotten into some kind of trouble once more.
"Do you have a mission for us, cap'n?" Maize requested, wanting to know right away if they had a mission. Agent 2 made note that he looked excited enough to shake the water off himself like a dog.
"No, squiddos. I have no mission for you. My friend here on the other hand does," Captain Cuttlefish motioned a hand toward the angry octopus in the snow globe. His usual intense hatred in his glare was not there today which was odd.
"He is telling the truth," DJ Octavio spoke. This was the first time they heard him talk ever since they fought him all that time ago. It shocked both of the inklings. They got up close to the snow globe, acting surprised like the octopus was a pet taught how to talk.
"Wow! You can talk! I was startin' to think you could only speak when music was playing…" Maize confessed in theory. That was probably the best reason for why the former octarian leader could not talk, but it turned out that his anger and hatred was that strong indeed to keep his lips sealed all this time.
"Silence, you idiot! This is a huge deal of utmost importance! I fear many lives are in danger… not just for Mollusk Metropolis, but for Inkopolis as well!" DJ Octavio exclaimed about this mission's threat. He had tried to break out of the snow globe hundreds of times in the course of a week when he saw the first signs that something bad was starting, and after a lot of coercing, he finally spoke to Captain Cuttlefish.
"Lives in danger? What can be that big of a threat?" Marie skeptically requested him to continue. She was highly doubting the truth of his words. This octopus specifically had a huge hatred for the agents.
"I… I do not know exactly! I only know of their followers! Their worshipers, I thought they were nothing but mythology. When my former soldiers were reporting sightings of the followers, they claim they confiscated a very important item from one. Please, you must go to my emergency hideaway," DJ Octavio continued his explanation. Maize had no idea how to take it. The octopus had some object important to these worshipers of some highly dangerous unknown entity. If something existed that could kill so many that had hundreds of followers and worshipers that were working in the shadows for so long, then they definitely had to do something about it.
"Yeah… your hideaway, the one that's probably rigged with traps?" Marie responded. It sounded too insane. Captain Cuttlefish and the agents had tried to find DJ Octavio's hideouts in hopes of finding more sunken scrolls, but to no avail. She felt her dear friend's hand on her shoulder.
"Marie, this is DJ Octavio. He has a lot simpler tricks he could use to kill us, and I don't think this octopus would ever show fear as an act," Maize declared his reasoning for why he believed the former enemy of theirs. They only referred to him as former since they had him captured.
"She is not wrong. I do have several traps set up at the hideaway, including one to protect any important treasure my army discovered. The important item these worshipers might want is in there. I have been afraid all these years of them stealing it for some reason. All that thing did was fill me with fear just with holding it," Octavio continued while twirling his wasabi sticks. He never understood why, but he was afraid all this time. That his army was not wrong that these worshipers of this unknown entity were working on something big, but all of his former army had been afraid of losing their lives as well.
"Squiddos, I know you don't feel safe, but the truth is my friend here is trusting a mission to the Special Squid Services. And what is it we do as agents?" Captain Cuttlefish waited to hear his two agents repeat the Special Squid Services' goal.
"To help out any squid in trouble…" Marie groaned.
"No matter what we have to do!" Maize finished for her. Captain Cuttlefish looked quite proud to have the two as agents.
"Squiddos, I already got his old hideaway marked down on a map. It's in Mollusk Metropolis, but I implore you to be careful. You're gonna need back up for this," Captain Cuttlefish handed over a small map. Maize happily took it, acting like the seriousness of this mission had not sunk in.
"Just one more thing. Octavio, you said you ignored this and only your army noticed. What happened recently that made you notice?" Marie requested to know what made him start believing these odd followers' were real and active once more.
"…when everyone was gone, even your old squid here… something tossed the blanket on my snow globe, but I was able to see a glimpse of them! They were covering all eyes to get a small group through…" DJ Octavio insisted what he saw was true. Others had invaded Octo Valley and knew of its whereabouts. Anyone could wander in on accident, and now that the octarian army was dealt with, there was minimal reason to care about guarding the valley, but it was concerning that someone would go out of their way to make it by unnoticed.
"Whatever this important item is, we'll make sure is safe, Octavio! I promise that," Maize grinned. Marie did not know whether to show immense respect that he was able to treat their old enemy like an average octopus, or find it awkward and start to doubt the sanity of DJ Octavio, considering that he was as old as Captain Cuttlefish.
"…Thank you, young one… at least I can be happy knowing that I was defeated by squids with such spirit," DJ Octavio bowed the best he could in his snow globe. Maize happily bowed back.
"Hey, gramps. Do you have any weapons lying around I can use? I need something that is not a charger if we're going in blind," Marie requested. Her grandfather nodded, reaching under one of his many piles of boxes that were the items that fell into Octo Valley that he then gathered. He grabbed one before tossing out something randomly behind him. She caught it and looked it over. It was a small weapon, orange and white in color. It was a Luna blaster, nothing fancy and with not the best range, but it could pack quite the punch. She was handed an ink tank filled with green ink, which she then tossed it over her shoulders and onto her back, before putting the Luna blaster on her side. Maize got his black helmet to hide his one tentacle. Marie's hat was doing a good enough job of hiding hers.
"Good luck, squiddos!" Captain Cuttlefish bid the two, watching them hurry off so they could head through the long pipe to get into Mollusk Metropolis.
"Shouldn't we call the others?" Marie asked Agent 3 as they were beginning to walk through the pipe to Mollusk Metropolis. She saw him holding his cellphone.
"Err… well, I don't want Bondi anywhere near Octo Valley right now if it's really this dangerous… I don't even have Fulvous's phone number, and Fallow would just end up getting lost…" the more Maize muttered. It seemed pointless to even attempt to ring the other agents, as there were only a few in Mollusk Metropolis that were in easy access to be contacted. He dialed up the phone number of their favorite inventor octoling.
Octoronia was in her usual workshop, in her home garage. Tools were everywhere. The place looked like a mess with the poor lighting. She was and working on something, wielding a blowtorch and having her eyes covered with googles. That was until she heard her cellphone begin ringing. She stopped the fire from her torch and raised her goggles off her head, hitting a button and setting it on speaker.
"I'm working on something important so you have five minutes. Talk!" Octoronia called out, going over to the wall where a long and complex set of blueprints were dangling off of carelessly, with only pushpins and duct tape holding them up.
"Octoronia! Hey, sorry to bug you, but me and Marie need help," Maize's voice chimed out. She seemed to cheer up a lot more to know it was one of her friends instead of just another bothersome phone call from someone wanting to purposely eat up her time.
"What's going on?" Octoronia chirped, grabbing an oddly modified buzz saw off her workbench and resting it nearby her newest project. She saw ECO enter the workshop, looking confused.
"It's something that could be a huge problem. We need help investigating a location in case we're not alone there. All I know is we're going to need backup. Are you or ECO any good at detecting traps?" Maize chuckled nervously, aware that the question might come off ridiculous to her. Just because she was an inventor did not mean she was adept at detecting any form of technology and trap.
"What kind of traps? Explosives? Barbed wire? Saltwater?" she requested him to go deeper if he knew more.
"Uhh… all I know is they're going to possibly be traps left by the former octarian army. Does that give you any idea?" Maize explained the best he could. Almost instantly he heard a loud clattering in the background of the phone call.
"Oh dear… not another harvest," ECO sighed, holding her head, irritated. She was happy to hear Maize needed their help, but the things her sister had planned to do during this mission was going to be a bit frustrating.
"I got just the thing, Maize! Where do you want us to meet up at?" Octoronia eagerly requested. Her metallic sister sighed, aware she had to get ready, to going over and beginning to fiddle with the machines in the workshop.
"Err, Sunken Avenue on 9th and Eastern Street," Marie read aloud from the map, trying to view it to get an idea where the two were going, and had little to nil idea. Captain Cuttlefish had an unsteady hand, so that made this all the more unsure.
"We'll be there. Just be prepared for an over excited octoling," ECO agreed before hanging up. She looked over to her sibling.
"Do we really have to harvest more energy? We have exhausted a lot of our research for the material. We could make millions of tokens off them," ECO requested to not waste their time on the apparent energy harvesting and just prioritize helping their friends more. Tokens were just what octarians called coins.
"A true researcher knows no meaning to the word exhausted!" Octoronia gleefully replied.
"We're not researchers! We're inventors! Dad was the researcher…" ECO reminded, thinking this was going to be a long day. Bringing up their father depressed them both immensely, but they had to be there as agents to back up the others, and the mechanical octoling seemed more concerned for Maize than anything else. That same purple chest light shined, much to her sibling's frustration. This crush ECO had on the yellow inkling was going to be something he had to address, which Octoronia had tried and failed to do.
"Please don't bring up dad. Let's just hurry up, we got no time to lose," Octoronia flatly ordered. ECO nodded, aware that it was a delicate topic more so for her sister than the robot herself. She continued to help get ready so they could leave and meet up with the other agents.
It had taken another hour for Maize and Marie to arrive to Sunken Avenue. When the two arrived, they could see that this was a greatly abandoned home. The windows were all busted and encased in vines. The usual nature of Mollusk Metropolis that normally made things more beautiful seemed to be just a terror to this home, tearing apart the outside and then the interior.
"…and this is Octavio's emergency hideaway?" Marie asked, turning to Agent 3. It seemed very horrible for the hideout of a former army leader. She wondered if this was just the term lay low being taken very seriously.
"This is where the map took us, so either the cap'n messed up or we're just missing something," Maize claimed, scratching his head, trying to figure it out. There had to be something more to this than they were seeing.
"Sorry we're late!" they suddenly heard, seeing Octoronia and ECO approaching. They were glad to see Agents 4 and 5. However they both seemed to have odd machines on their backs, aside from the usual ink tanks filled with purple ink and their slather blasters on their sides. The machines they carried looked like smaller metal and plastic barrels, with strange vacuum devices on the side.
"Hi… uh, what are those?" Maize questioned, concerned. He was presuming it was acid out of fear.
"They're containment units," ECO unenthusiastically said, her chest light glowing red in irritation to be carrying these containers.
"Well, whatever they're for, it doesn't matter. We seem to have the wrong area," Marie claimed, wanting to try and head back to double check on the information from DJ Octavio and Captain Cuttlefish to make sure they would not get lost. Maize was starting to notice a more tiring feeling with each passing hour, and it was starting to worry him. Amaranth's medicine had done something to him, but he was hoping he could fight it off.
"Wait. We should at least check it out before we go back all that way," Maize insisted they press further. Marie sighed, not seeing any reason not to.
"All octarian army traps were powered by an odd energy supply, and I brought just the thing to find that kind of energy," Octoronia pulled out a device that resembled a small pocket watch, tossing it to Maize. The yellow inkling opened it confusedly, seeing a monitor on the top part, and a pad of buttons on the bottom.
"How does it work?" Maize asked. After he had already hit four different buttons, he heard a light beep, seeing the screen flicker on. Just a virtual compass appeared on it.
"…you wasted time making a device that made a compass to find this energy? Couldn't you have just made a compass to do the same thing?" Marie had to admit it was dumb to her as the four were nearing the damaged two story home.
"I didn't make it. All I did was repair it," Octoronia retorted, seeing one of the busted windows with some glass still left in it. She raised her leg up and started kicking out the glass. Once cleared out, she climbed on through into the darkness of the living room.
"It was our father's device. It's a bit touchy for her, but shortly after the octarian army was made, he was requested to try and find a suitable source of power for all their devices," ECO started. Marie had little care. She had tolerated the octarian army long enough. If DJ Octavio had not made this out to be such a huge life threatening matter of the utmost importance, she would presume he was trying to get them killed.
"Then they found out about the great zapfish… right?" Maize guessed what happened next. The metallic octoling nodded.
"All the baby zapfish and the great one… Infinite sources of power that worked a lot better than father's did. The only difference was how plentiful they both were. Father's energy could be made easily with little cost, but they aren't the strongest. The zapfish, on the other hand, have a limited number of their species, but supply a lot more strength to their power, so once they decided to use the more powerful source, they tossed dad out of the researchers of the army," ECO continued while she was climbing through the window, helping the yellow squid inside. He had somewhat forgotten about the crush she had on him, but he doubted she had simply gotten over it.
"All because his energy source was not as strong?" Maize found it a bit insane to imagine how easily the researcher got booted out of the army, all because he messed up. DJ Octavio used to run a tighter crew than he did when the agents came along to halt him.
"Of course. That was how the octarian army functioned. So he became desperate to prove that it was better, and… well, he wound up killing himself in the process. When an invention of his went haywire and absorbed too much energy… it exploded," ECO finished her explanation. It seemed to hurt Octoronia a lot more than her mechanical sibling.
"Oh… I'm so sorry," Maize apologized. He could not claim what it felt like to lose a loved one to death. He only had lost his mother due to her running away from home one night, and his father was facing a couple of life sentences in prison.
"That's how Octoronia began to get more serious than ever about her inventions. She wanted to make sure nothing like that would occur for any other octopi," ECO claimed. Her sister was not the biggest inventor around and had only recently started to get better. ECO had received quite a few upgrades since then, and was glad to help the inventor octoling with everything she created.
"…if that's what she wants to do, then sure. Whatever the motivation is, just know if you ever have a problem, just ring me up, and I promise to be there as fast as I can," Maize reassured as the two entered a completely empty living room. The floor was brittle and damaged, and covered in at least twelve layers of dust.
"…thank you so much!" ECO suddenly hugged him. Maize saw her purple chest light. He never expected that reaction. He wondered if having someone to rely on was really that important to her.
"Hey! You two find anything?" Marie's voice rung out from another room. Their embrace broke, Maize looking down at the virtual compass, which was pointing left. He just followed it along, he and ECO entering into an old hallway that was connected to the front door, and the stairwell that had long since rotted away and was far too unsafe to climb. They found Marie there who was looking in one of the closets.
"Not yet. Anything in there?" Maize asked. The Squid Sister shook her head.
"Not unless you want mushrooms" the white squid joked. Inside the closer, the floor had been torn out, and now had huge red mushrooms with white spots all over them. They were amazingly big in size.
"If they are safe for consumption, then perhaps you should try one?" ECO giggled in suggestion. Maize groaned. It seemed like his friends wanted to poison him lately, but he couldn't deny that the shrooms were strange to him. He just closed the closet door back, the virtual compass now pointing straight ahead down the hall.
"The kitchen's all full of spiders! Like, giant spiders!" Octoronia called out with the sound of faint squishing noises. They saw the inventor octoling come out from the kitchen, covered in spider webs that she was desperately trying to brush off.
"Try and avoid anything growing or nesting in this house, alright?" Maize requested from all of his friends. They all agreed and continued to follow behind the yellow squid. He followed the digital compass, finding it hard to follow, but it did lead them to a door at the back of the home that had nothing but an eerie atmosphere to it.
"Wow… this is locked tight," ECO commented, looking at the door. Part of the doorframe had been busted, as well as part of the door itself, with holes on them. Chains were connecting through the holes together, keeping the door tight shut, with five different locks. Two locks required keys, another two required specific four digit codes, and the last one looked like a very advanced finger print scanner.
"Whoa… I don't think we're going to be opening it anytime soon," Octoronia said. There was no way they could find two codes, two keys, and somehow a fingerprint within this entire abandoned home, and if this was DJ Octavio's hideaway, only he might know, but he sure did not inform any of the Special Squid Services of this. Maize, however, had an idea.
"Hold on'a sec. This house is old, and it's somewhat settling… that means…" Maize grinned, speaking out his thought process. This home was beginning to fall apart due to the long period of time it had been left unattended, and all the rain, and tree roots and vines growing throughout it, was also damaging the home.
"Wait, don't tell me you're going to…" Marie watched Agent 3 take a few steps back before he darted at the door, jumping at it and throwing the strongest kick he could. They heard the loud splintering and cracking of the door, watching the wood break in half as their friend fell into the stairwell below, his screaming echoing loudly behind him. Marie sighed in annoyance.
"I hope he did not dislocate his shoulder again," ECO commented before beginning to climb down the stairs into the basement. Octoronia and Marie followed behind her, trying to be careful with the broken shards of the door scattered on each step.
"Maize! Are you alright?!" Marie called out. It was creepy how dark it was down here. ECO grabbed three of her fingers on her right hand, pulling them back. A few lights shot out from them. Her fingers acted like miniature flashlights. She had a few items that could be useful in emergencies, but not much otherwise.
"Ohhh… actually, I don't feel anything," Maize spoke up. Oddly enough he felt no pain. He did not feel hot or cold. He couldn't even feel the sensation of his hands touching the ground. As worried as he was getting, he just tried to brush it off, thinking his body still was processing Amaranth's medicine. His friends were relieved he was alright though, they could see that this basement was completely empty. The digital compass lay nearby on the ground, Marie picking it up and reading it. It was pointing straight ahead.
"Hey, shine those lights over here," Agent 2 requested. ECO nodded, aiming her hand lights toward where she was ordered. The group could see a metal hatch on the floor. It looked heavy, but thankfully it was not locked by five chains like the door that they had just busted through.
"Come on, all together now," Maize ordered. They could open it easily if they worked together. The four of them all grabbed one part of the hatch each before they put all their strength into trying to pull it open slowly. Surely enough, the rusty hatch began to creak open. When they flipped it upwards, it flopped hard onto the concrete ground. It broke off the latches that had been keeping it shut.
"…I can't see the bottom," ECO fearfully said, her chest light tinted blue. There was a long ladder in the hatch and it led into a deep and dark pit. It just kept going. They all knew they had to go inside.
"This is the hideaway. Keep calm and don't panic, but be careful," Maize said, fixing his glasses since they got quite ruffled from the fall.
"I'm scared of heights," Marie simply stated. Her dear friend had no idea how to handle that as Octoronia already made her way down the ladder, wanting to find these traps immediately.
"Hey, don't worry. You can go after ECO, and I'll come next. That way, if you fall, you won't fall alone!" Maize offered. Marie had no idea how he managed to be reassuring while sounding like the biggest moron she had ever heard in a while. The Squid Sister let ECO go first, and then she climbed in after her. Maize happily climbed down the ladder after them, hoping that they could find this very important item fast with no trouble, but the yellow squid highly doubted his luck on the matter of getting out calmly.