Maize's head was throbbing in pain. Everything was blurry and dark. He groaned in pain, rubbing his head sorely. When his vision adjusted he noticed a bunch of cracks on the left lens of his glasses that made it hard to see out of it, but his right lens was alright. The yellow inkling surveyed a small cave around him, where the only light was illuminating through the rusted bars. This cave seemed supported by just a few pillars that were not reassuring at all. It felt like it would collapse at any second if he wasn't careful.
"Where am I?" Maize muttered. His back was hurting a lot, as well as his face. It was all bruised and cut up. He had one black eye, but the swelling had gone down a lot. He had been unconscious for a couple of hours. Suddenly he could then hear a faint crying sound.
"You're in their holding facility, boy," a familiar voice rung out. Maize turned around to see DJ Octavio sitting against the wall, his helmet partially damaged and his garb dirtied from the brawl he had been in. He was still in his human form, as he had no choice but to remain that way.
"DJ Octavio?! Wow… you're actually not in your octopus form," Maize said, amazed. He had seen one sunken sea scroll that depicted Captain Cuttlefish and Octavio together, but he never imagined he would get to see the old octopus in his human form at all. Nearby was where the crying was coming from. It was Violet, who was no longer in his cultist robes.
"What happened?" Agent 3 added, wanting to know what had happened to their elders. He was worried about Captain Cuttlefish and all of his friends, so much so that it was plaguing his brain with worry.
"We were attacked by Taupe and his crew. Cuttlefish and I stood our ground as long as we could, but… our defeat was inevitable. Thankfully they seem to obey the rules of war," DJ Octavio exclaimed. He was referring to one of the old rules of war, which was to never hurt an elder who could not fight back. He and Cuttlefish were knocked out, but they took complete mercy on them. The yellow squid looked over to the non-tentacled purple inkling who was still crying.
"I-I gave up… I gave up everything for them… Why did I do it?!" Violet sobbed. DJ Octavio was getting very annoyed. He had been tolerating this crying for hours on end ever since he realized he was no longer going to be turned human by the cult, as he was intentionally promised when he first joined.
"…because… you decided to hide from the problems in your life?" Maize guessed. Violet looked up at him. It seemed like he hit the nail right on the head with that comment. The purple squid sniffled, nodding.
"You tried to run away from whatever your problems were, and all you did was get yourself tossed into the mess you helped create," Maize continued. He was understandably angry with Violet, but he was trying to reason with him. Whatever had been going on in the purple squid's life was bad enough that he was desperate to lose his squid properties in a delusional belief that it would somehow help.
"…yeah… I've had cancer for the last three years. It keeps coming back and going. Every time I thought I was better, in a couple months it would just reappear. My insides are a mess at this time around. When I met Taupe, he was so reassuring and strong… all these sunken sea scrolls he showed me promised a better life if I did all these things for him," Violet explained how he became a member of the cult and what he wanted gone from his old life, which would be the inevitable end of his short life. Maize felt bad for being hard to the purple squid, but he was aware they weren't going to get anywhere with pleading at this point.
"Sorry, wait… Sunken sea scrolls, you said?" Maize focused on that part more than anything. He didn't want to be insensitive, but Agent 3 presumed he had gathered all of the sunken sea scrolls while he was fighting against DJ Octavio's army.
"Err… yes. Taupe had an entire book dedicated to Abrailopsis Morisii. It depicted how this creature destroyed the world once, and how it could restore it just as easily…" Violet described. The yellow squid shook his head, looking to the samurai clothed DJ. They both thought the same thing right now, that it was indeed impossible.
"Sorry, squiddo… oh no, I'm starting to talk like him," Octavio groaned. Captain Cuttlefish's choice of language was now starting to rub off on him. He decided to continue his point.
"The sunken sea scrolls are an item impossible to replicate. There are thirty-two in all, and those are just bits and pieces of what was once a bigger collection. All other known sea scrolls were accidentally destroyed in the great turf war toward the end of it," DJ Octavio elaborated. It was safe to assume this was the clever lie that Taupe created to gather all of these poor misguided inklings and octolings into obeying him. It was a sad truth. The artist who painted some of those sea scrolls had died during the great turf war, which was sadly one of many unfortunate casualties for both sides.
"…I can help you guys," Violet stated in anger as he wiped away his tears from his face.
"Finally, the kid has some courage," Octavio said. All that Violet had done was cry hysterically shattered by his former fellow worshipers.
"I'm not a kid. I'm a squid," the purple inkling reminded as he approached the cell door. The other two prisoners looked to the sides. Further down each hall was a dual line of other prison cells, with an unknown number of squids and octarians held captive.
"Shove me through the bars, and I promise I can get them all open," Violet insisted. Maize gave a grin to him.
"Thanks. Glad you've come to your senses," Maize thanked him as the purple inkling changed into his squid form. He was unable to move with neither of his tentacles intact. He looked slightly weird, in fact. The yellow squid picked him up and pushed him right through the bars. They had to be careful, or else they might have guards attack them, but thankfully the guards seemed to be absent for some odd reason. It left an eerie atmosphere surrounding them all.
"Ow! Thanks for being gentle…" Violet sarcastically claimed as he changed back to his inkling form. Now he was outside of the bars with a new determination inside of him. They saw him go over out of their sight briefly.
"I swear if he abandoned us…" Octavio growled.
"Nah, don't worry… He made a promise," Maize reassured, though this did not seem to reassure the old octarian as much as it did him. They could hear the sounds of clattering before they saw Violet reappear, holding three sets of keys. He began to fiddle with them one at a time, trying to unlock the cell. At last, the eighth key did the job, and the lock clattered to the ground.
"The guards are all gone…! Start unlocking these," Violet grinned, tossing Maize and DJ Octavio separate sets of keys, both hoping that they had a master key somewhere amongst the hundreds of different keys. The three of them immediately went to work, unlocking all of the cell doors. Each one unlocked a cell and released three more people who would then happily make their escape.
"Guys! Are you in here?!" Maize called out through the hall of cells as he unlocked another cell, seeing two octolings and an inkling climb out of the prison cake, thanking him before they went to gather with the other escaped prisoners.
"Maize? We're down here!" Callie's voice rung out. Maize ran down a few cells. He had a burst of relief to see Callie, who stood behind the bars, holding a sleeping Bondi in her arms.
"Hang on, I'll get you out in a second," Maize insisted, glad to see them unharmed. He began to try one key at a time to try and unlock the cell immediately.
"Oh, good. You have the keys… I was beginning to get worried I'd have to use this," Octoronia's voice spoke up as she approached the bars. It was just the three of them in this prison cell. She was holding an odd device that looked to be fashioned from their two cellphones with a big button on the side.
"Is that a bomb?!" Callie gulped, holding her squishie close to her chest. She had only given the inventor octoling her cellphone out of trust that she would be able to find some way to break the lock with it, but she had not been informed of it being made into an explosive. They had no cellphone reception down here anyway.
"Hey, only being here an hour, and you were afraid we'd starve…" Octoronia retorted with a devious smirk. When the cell door finally opened she tossed the bomb to Maize. He caught it in a panic.
"Thank you so much," Callie wrapped one arm around Maize. He chuckled, glad to see her so happy. When the embrace ended, the black squid girl pointed to the next cell.
"I watched them put Marie and ECO in there. I think they're both asleep," Callie claimed. Maize carefully slid the bomb into his pocket, able to guess how to activate it with that button, but he had a feeling it would come in handy.
"Callie, go group up with Violet and Octavio. We'll go get them," Maize pointed to the opposite end of the hall. Callie seemed confused when he mentioned Octavio, but she nodded, going off with Bondi in her arms, feeling horrible to bring the squishie into any danger like this. Octoronia set off with Maize to open the other cell which contained their friends.
"Jeez… if I had known we'd have to deal with this many locks, I'd have gotten my bad key machine before they captured me!" Octoronia groaned. Finally they unlocked the door with the fifth key. When they opened the cell door, they saw the deactivated ECO lying on the floor, and an asleep Marie nearby against the wall, just like her cousin guessed. Maize approached the white inkling and crouched down beside her.
"Hey, Marie… wake up," Maize said while shaking her slightly. Octoronia was trying to reactivate her mechanical sibling, the same way she had Agent 3 do it before by spinning the emotional cortex.
"Ugh…" Marie moaned as her eyes began to open. She saw her dear friend near her, and a smile beamed up on her. He held a hand out for her, and she happily put her hand in his, letting him help her up.
"Oh, thank goodness. I was worried they had done something to you…" Marie exclaimed in relief, though immediately looked embarrassed to have admitted her worries. Her close friend grinned, but she could not see his facial damage entirely well in the darkness.
"I promised I'd be there if you or Callie needed me," Maize gave a thumbs up. ECO was getting up, having been reactivated. When Octoronia helped her sister up, the two octarians saw Maize and Marie, and that odd aura of joy they both were emitting around each other.
"You alright?" Agent 4 asked her sister.
"Yeah… don't worry about me," Agent 5 nodded, reassuring that she was fine. The four of them stepped out of the cell. Maize looked around, and it seemed like they had opened every one of the cell doors, but there was no sign of Captain Cuttlefish anywhere.
"Maize… this one attacked me by the time I opened her cell," DJ Octavio spoke. Callie and Violet were right beside him, but Fulvous was on his back, throwing weak punches at his back. She had mistook the octopus as a member of the cultists. He seemed just mildly irritated by her weak assault, and Callie was unable to convince her otherwise.
"F-Fulvous, calm down. He's with us," Maize insisted. That seemed to get the orange squid off the elder octopus's back. The freed prisoners were making an effort to escape. No one doubted their reasoning for this at this point. The Squid Sisters wanted to leave, too, but both knew to confront this situation head on at this point.
"Alright… so what's the plan, boss?" Violet requested, facing Agent 3. The yellow inkling did not know how to feel about being treated like the leader of the Special Squid Services, but he guessed that the purple inkling would want to join once things calmed down.
"We gotta find the cap'n and take down Taupe. He's been lying to all these octolings and inklings. Whatever that water creature is, I don't want to see it with all those crystals," Maize described the plan, ready to head off with the other agents they had available. It still made him worry that his sister Fallow was nowhere to be seen.
"Uh, Octavio, could you please watch over Bondi for me?" Callie requested, not wanting to bring her son into a threatening situation. Oil was very lethal to squishies. She would be devastated if such a thing happened to him.
"Err… I suppose I can. My age makes me the weakest one here after all," DJ Octavio agreed. The black squid, handing over her sleeping son to the garbed octopus. And thus, the agents all headed off the other way, with Violet at the lead, so they could hopefully defuse this situation once and for all. Taupe had to be stopped, no matter the situation, and Maize was going to make sure that happened before any more lives were affected.