The Presidio was even more unsettling to be in than before. Maybe it was paranoia, but Michael started looking every which way as the team traveled through the halls, trying to keep an ear and eye out for… something, he wasn't all sure what, though. Those letters he read in that office really put him on edge, he was not in the mood to fight monsters from a horror movie or demonic Cuttlefish or something like that.
Michael thought to what that Sorui guy said about the papers he read, talking about his apparent boss ranting and raving about wanting to kill a bunch of Inklings. Specifically, Cuttlefish. He simply brushed off the specificity as just regular Octarian malice towards Inklings. Cuttlefish was probably public enemy #1 to the Octarians, considering he's lead two different teams that have caused their failure. He tried texting Cuttlefish the info, but there wasn't any reception this deep into Octo Valley.
The hallways stretched on and on, the occasional guard patrolling. Thankfully they weren't smart enough to actually move out of the way of the bombs they threw at them. Michael had a bit of a laugh at how they didn't improve at all since a year ago. The regular Octotroopers always seemed painfully incompetent for what their job actually was.
As more and more guards were taken out, and the team went further and further into the facility, the halls started getting eerily empty. The times between when they encountered guards was getting longer and longer. It eventually came to the point where the halls seemed completely abandoned. Even security cameras started falling in number. Not that they were actually abandoned, of course, they were still illuminated just as well as the other hallways had been.
Eventually, the hallways funneled to a single door. It had an insignia on it in the shape of an Octoling in their Octopus form, its eyes sharp and intimidating. Next to the door hung a small panel, with a small number keyboard with keys running from 0 to 9.
Junko approached the door and began working on the panel, trying different combinations and growing increasingly frustrated with each mocking beep the panel gave. She eventually started typing in nonsensical passwords, 12345, 09876, 77777.
"Alright, one last try, then we're just kicking the damn thing in." She said to the team.
She then jammed her finger into a single key, putting in the passcode "11111".
To nobody's surprise the panel beeped at them again, showing it was the wrong passcode.
Junko lived up to her word, stepping back and planting her foot into the panel, smashing it into multiple small pieces. A voice chimed in from the panel, seeming like a pre-recorded message.
"Thank you for breaking this panel, we were just dying to spend more money to fix another one. We'll open the door for you out of pity that you really weren't able to remember the code. This will come out of your paycheck, by the way."
"I feel bad for whoever's getting their pay docked for that one." Randy remarked after the message ended.
The large door opened. To the team's utter shock, the hallways that laid behind the door were absolutely teeming with Octarian soldiers. They all turned to the sound of the door opening.
The team and the army of Octotroppers stood there, staring at each other in silence. One Octotrooper seemed to have put two and two together, he hurried over to the other side of the room, and pressed in a button with his foot, setting off an alarm. This set off a chain reaction in the other Octotroopers, who started panicking and furiously mashed the button that controlled their machine's gun, sending in a tidal wave of Ink towards the team. All of them scrambled out of the way. All of them, except for Junko.
She was immune to their Ink, being an Octoling had its advantages when you're infiltrating an Octarian facility. She walked into the room, calmly, with the Octotroopers trying their best to splat her. She walked over to the alarm button that had been pushed and pressed on it again, stopping the alarm and immediately calming down the Octotroopers. The team was absolutely stunned at just how stupid they actually were. Junko signaled to the Octotroopers to leave the room and they followed her orders perfectly.
She called to the team, telling them it was fine to come back in.
"I'm glad our Octotroopers are taught to follow an Octoling's orders without question, makes it too easy to control them."
"Why didn't you do that before?" Angela asked.
"Would've taken too long. Besides, it was funny seeing you all get worked up over some tentacles with legs."
With Junko laughing at Angela's disappointed face, the team ventured deeper into this new area of the Presidio.
Bit of a more lax chapter today. Don't worry, I'll get a meatier one out this weekend. :^)