It had been a week since everything had transpired. The agents of Special Squid Services had captured the cultist Violet. Today, Maize was half asleep in the living room of his own home at one in the morning, and right beside him on the coffee table was the very egg that had the blue patterns on it. Maize was in his pajamas, which were blank white, but had a power star on the front of his shirt.
"Alright… I'm very close to conceding now…" Maize muttered as he fell off the couch. He had tried nearly everything he could think of to hatch this egg. He had wrapped it in a heating blanket and set it to max. He had sat on it for an hour before that hurt too much to stand. He tried just keeping it comfortable on pillows for a day, but that did not work. Maize otherwise carried the egg everywhere he went to; turf wars, on missions with friends, or whenever he was simply running errands.
"Maize, are you alright?" he heard from the hallway. He turned to see ECO, who was wearing purple pajamas that had random flower patterns on it. Her cortex light was blue out of concern for her friend. So had been staying every other night and coming over to visit and make sure he was not in any danger. So far no more of the cultists who desperately wanted to be human had attempted anything shifty for the egg. He pulled himself back up onto the couch.
"Yeah… still trying to get this little guy to hatch," Maize nodded, tapping a finger on the egg. The usual problem of the egg instilling fear into those that touched it had begun to vanish for the yellow squid, mostly because he handled it all the time and lately had rarely let it out of his touch. ECO sighed, having had repaired his splatterscope the other day, which was now lying by the front door along with her slather blaster, and their two ink tanks. Every night the mechanical octoling stayed, she was given the only bed in the home. It made her feel bad how often he slept on the couch because of her.
"You can have your bed tonight, if you want," ECO offered, coming over to him and sitting down beside him on the couch. The room was entirely dark, besides a nightlight that was in the shape of a seashell that was on the side of a wall. When Agent 5 asked him why he had a nightlight for his age, all Agent 3 told her was to not judge him over it.
"Uh-uh. You're the guest. You need your rest anyway, considering how often you're on guard lately," Maize retorted, appreciative of his close friend playing bodyguard, but he understood her concern. Callie and Marie had been keeping a lot more contact with their grandfather. Fallow had mysteriously vanished, claiming she wanted to prepare for the worst in case, which was odd to Maize, but he knew his sister would do anything to help out if she could. He knew she will be fine.
"…what are you going to do to it next?" ECO asked as the two just sat quietly. It was a full moon tonight, and it did look pretty, especially surrounded by all the stars in the night sky. Inkopolis did not really have much light pollution, so the night sky was beautiful to watch.
"…I'unno. Paint it in ink?" Maize joked. He had still been thinking hard on this whole deal with ECO. He was considering whether or not to start a relationship with her. The more he thought about the two of them, the more his thoughts drifted to Marie. He wondered what ECO had been telling Octoronia each time she was out all night, if she told her sister anything at all. ECO seemed to gain a small smile from hearing him say that.
"That actually sounds like a good idea," ECO giggled. Maize quirked an eyebrow, grabbing his glasses off the nearby table and putting them on his face. He sat up, seeing her go over and grab their two ink tanks. She brought them over and set them on the table beside the egg. She opened the tops off the ink tanks, seeing the respective yellow and purple ink within it. He watched her dip a few fingers into her ink tank.
"Oh, wow… I haven't done this since I was a tiny squirt!" Maize exclaimed, understanding ECO's idea of finger painting, and for some reason, the mere thought of doing this sent the inner young squid inside him, with a spark of insane joy. Maize dunked his entire hand into the yellow ink, his robotic friend surprised by it. She knew there was going to be a mess to clean up. The two took the purple and yellow ink, beginning to use their hands to paint the rock of an egg, covering it in various shapes and patterns.
"Huh?" Maize quirked an eyebrow. He could have sworn he saw the blue parts of the egg change color. It strangely went from blue to yellow to purple marks.
"Did you see that?" he asked. ECO looked confused, but then she had a grin, throwing some of the ink on her hand at him. Some of it splattered onto the side of his face, and it barely stung. He began laughing before returning the favor, tossing yellow ink at her with his hand.
"Consider this a mini turf war!" Maize laughed as the two were using only their hands to throw ink. It was a lot of fun. ECO had taken cover behind the kitchen counter with her purple ink tank, tossing as much as she could back, splattering the carpet and the table. They ignored the egg, leaving it covered in ink paint. Maize threw another blob of ink, watching it splash onto his wall. At this point the yellow squid had given up caring about his home's cleanliness. He could clean the ink out later, with the right tools. He tossed another ball of the yellow ink, and some of it hit ECO's metallic tentacles
"Hah! Lucky shot!" ECO laughed. But as the two continued playing, the egg on the table was slowly beginning to shake a little. Cracks ripped from the top of the stone, running down the entire egg itself. As a short time passed, the egg began to break and crack, bits and pieces falling off and clattering onto the ink covered floor as its colors changed to blank grey.
"Hey, hold on a sec!" Maize called out to stop the mini turf war. When he turned around, he noticed the scrambled egg. Shards of it were on the floor and on his coffee table, aside from the lower half of the egg. When he looked inside it, there were three red spheres in it that seemed to resemble ruby crystals.
"Did we break it?" ECO asked while coming out from behind her defense. The two were both covered in yellow and purple ink. Maize knew this whole place was a mess, but he did not mind. He could clean the ink out later. He picked up the three ruby spheres in confusion.
"I don't think so… but I sure don't see a squishie in this egg," the yellow squid said, wondering if all this egg housed were these gems. If so, he saw no reason why those cultists would want it, though as he held the three in his hand, something suddenly grabbed his hand and wrapped around it, looking like a bubble of water.
"Gah! Wh-what is this?!" Agent 3 fell back in shock as the three ruby spheres got taken from his grasp before his hand was released. ECO and Maize looked at what had done that. It looked to have come from under the sofa.
"Let's find out," ECO hummed, grabbing the couch and flipping it upwards. He forgot how strong she was, but he sighed. Another mess he was going to have to clean up. However, what the two saw under the couch was puzzling. There was a very tiny creature there, which looked like a squid, but made completely out of water. The three ruby gems were inside its body, one in its chest and the other two in its arms.
"Hey! There was a squishie in there!" Maize exclaimed, picking up the tiny squid. As he held it, it felt like he was holding his hands under the faucet of a sink. He was amazed that there was no water spilling onto the floor.
"Maize… I don't think squishies are born with limbs," ECO reminded him. This thing looked like a mini inkling that was just lacking the long tentacle hair, and it seemed able to stretch and move its body a lot more than a usual squishie, and it did have arms and legs. In fact it did not even look like a normal squishie. At least it did not seem to care about being held by him.
"So… what do we do with him?" Maize asked, the robotic octoling seeing the ruby spheres just floating harmlessly within the watery squid's body. When the yellow inkling tried to poke at one, his hand just got forced out. His mechanical friend tried to think up what to do with it.
"Uh… I have no idea what water squids require," ECO stated, but then they were starting to notice that the water squid creature had an odd light glow around it, as if those ruby spheres within it were emanating light-like life.
"Maybe Fulvous would know?" Maize suggested. His robotic friend saw no reason to not try and call Agent 7 up. They had to inform the others anyway, but it was safe to assume everyone else was fast asleep. This week had been quite tiring, considering all the missions that had been done throughout the week. It was around two in the morning, but this was all too important to ignore. They had to try and get in contact with someone to try and figure out what was going on with this weird thing. Maize was happy that the creature did not fill him with fear like the egg did to everyone. That was a huge improvement.
At Octo Valley, Captain Cuttlefish had been doing his best to stay on guard. It was very late, yet the darkness was not much to the elder. He napped randomly throughout the day, so it was rare that he was out of energy. There were two lanterns lit with small fires burning within them, dangling from ropes attached to pipes, illuminating a tiny area.
"Nooo… no more… I want to sleep," Violet's groggy voice whined.
"Eh? Come on, squiddo. You've beaten me nine times in a row. Why would ya stop a win streak?" Captain Cuttlefish responded.
"For the twentieth time, I am not a squid!" Violet screamed before falling out of his chair again. That was probably the twentieth time in the last few hours that this also happened. Being unable to move his feet at all or his arms did limit his movement.
"Well, consider this our method of torture until you talk," DJ Octavio commented from his snow globe. When he suggested sleep deprivation for their torture method, he did not anticipate another long session of board games to be the main way to keep him awake, but it seemed to be working. That and how Captain Cuttlefish had a collection of his old stories in heart and mind to share. The old octopi wanted to cause nothing but harm to Violet, of course, and the elder squid wanted to just try and make him comfy and hope he warmed up overtime. However, neither route had worked so far.
"Hm?" Captain Cuttlefish quirked an eyebrow as huge lights suddenly flicked on and all focused on the three of them. This seemed to irritate Violet even more for half a minute. However he had a big grin afterwards.
"What is the meaning of this?" DJ Octavio growled. They could then notice a few odd figures surrounding the leveled platforms, high or low. The familiar white and black robes were intimidating. Captain Cuttlefish hit speed dial on his cellphone before jamming it into a drawer under the table where their checkers board sat. They all were armed it appeared.
"It has begun. Someone has saved us a lot of trouble. We're here for the start to the revival of the old world," one voice specifically spoke up from high up. They could see someone standing tall, who looked to have a position of authority in the worshipers. He was wearing an entire grey robe that had various colors on it in different patterns, and he had a pair of octoling goggles on his eyes. His cloak was down, exposing his face. It looked like just a regular grey haired inkling whose tentacles and big teeth were also removed. He looked all too happy for tonight's hour.
"Si-sir Taupe! It's an honor to be in your presence!" Violet happily greeted the leader of this cult. But Taupe raised his hand up as if to order silence.
"Silence, brother. We're aware that you failed our master and allowed our fellows to be splattered with little care… forgiveness is a hard thing to force. You will be taken to the facility after we're done," Taupe retorted, sounding merciless, or at the very least, uncaring.
"So whadd'ya want with us then, squiddy? If ya ain't here for your little friend, then what?" the elder squid requested. He was going to be civil about this if he could. After all, the group of worshipers seemed very polite about announcing themselves before attacking, as though they preferred to speak first. But then again, that might be a side effect of his old age wanting to hope that the next generation was getting better by the day.
"…Old man, you may enjoy insulting us. But we are aware of your little group, the Special Squid Services. Many rumors about them have flooded throughout Mollusk Metropolis and Inkopolis," Taupe claimed. Those two names, squiddy or squiddo, were apparently a major offensive term to the cult that desired to be human.
"We are aware of five of the agents, who are members of this group of fools pretending to be heroes. One of which has been apprehended from Mollusk Metropolis already," the leader of this group of followers declared. Captain Cuttlefish grew a glare so furious that it could rival DJ Octavio's. Imagining his grandsquids in danger, or his great grandsquid being threatened, drove him over the edge. Violet seemed upset to know he was being sacked from the cult.
"Well, Octavio… you think you're up to trying to fight?" Captain Cuttlefish asked. The angry octopus nodded, agreeing. He was not going to sit idly by and let these insane lunatics go on a murderous rampage, if that was what they intended to do.
"Certainly!" Octavio agreed. He watched Captain Cuttlefish raise his cane up, tapping on both sides of the snow globe before he tapped the top of it, watching it begin cracking, until the glass shattered. Only Captain Cuttlefish knew the way to break the snow globe, and this was unfortunately a forced time. Once the snow globe was broken, the water poured out onto the ground, DJ Octavio did something he rarely did before he had been captured.
"Father Time has been a lot kinder to me than he has been to you," DJ Octavio changed from his octopus form, growing taller and changing into his human form. He was wearing his usual gold samurai helmet, and he was dawning a red Japanese garb with white sleeves. He had a slight beard, with a small wasabi stick in his mouth like it was a toothpick, his arms had the same green scars on them. Octavio disliked changing into his human form for some unknown reason, but now was the time to do it whether he liked it or not. He got ready, seeing Taupe glare down at them. Both Octavio and Captain Cuttlefish they were about to be in a huge fight, but they both knew that chances of winning were narrowly slim.