The team, once again, retreated into a room in the facility. Michael was still growling at them like a rabid animal. Shelly decided to approach and remove his mask. He had been bound up and couldn't offer any resistance. He had lost the trademark black 'mask' of an Inkling and now had violet markings under his eyes. He started at the group with hatred, his fangs bared.
"Hey, aren't those…" Callie began.
"Those are the same markings Octolings have." Marie finished.
"God, just what did they do to him?" Angela was shocked. What kind of dirty tricks could the Octarians have used to make Michael fight his own friends, and gain the same kind of markings as they did?
"Something's going on here. Do you think they might have used that "trump card" Junko mentioned they were developing?"
"It's possible. It wouldn't surprise me to know that a weapon that could have won them the war turned Inklings into Octarians." Shelly replied, still looking Michael over. "It'd give them a really good output of soldiers for their army."
"But how they did it is my question. If Octarians and Inklings really are this close genetically, there's got to be some way to reverse this." Marie said.
"Hm… You know, Junko did mention that Inklings were converted by keeping them under Octarian ink long enough, right? Do you think if we put Michael under some of our ink he'd go back to normal?" Randy chimed in.
"That's a pretty good idea, actually. We could test that right now." Angela said. She pulled out her .52 Gal and strapped her ink tank to her shoulders. She fired onto the floor, creating a sizable pool of her own ink.
"Now we just gotta get him in." Randy and Callie had picked up Michael, Randy by his legs and Callie by his torso. Michael thrashed around violently, trying to dig his teeth into Callie's arms. Being tied up didn't help much in his efforts, though.
Michael's body offered a lot of resistance going into the ink, it was just a small puddle, not a large vat like the one he had been dunked into. Randy and Callie progressively got his lower body into the puddle, then his torso. His head offered a lot of resistance though, it moved around trying in vain to swat off their arms.
"Ah, jeez, I really don't wanna do this, but…" Randy said. He grabbed Michael's head on both sides.
"Sorry, bud." He then forced Michael's head underneath the ink.
"God, I'm disturbed just watching this." Angela said, her arms folded.
Randy's arms moved around, keeping Michael under the ink. After a couple of minutes of him praying for the whole thing to be over soon, his arms stopped. He pulled them out of the ink.
The team watched the ink intently, it was bubbling, showing that Michael was still breathing.
Then in an instant, he broke the surface, taking in heavy breaths. His eyes were wide. He turned to Randy.
"I swear… if you ever do that again I am going to kill you." He responded in-between breaths.
"That's four people tonight that want my blood, anyone else?" Randy said, mockingly.
Michael was about to yell at Randy when he was interrupted by Callie pulling him into a tight hug.
"Oh god Mikey I was so worried, I thought you were going to be an Octoling forever." She said.
"Oh… right. Wh-What happened while I was an Octoling?" He stammered out to the rest of the group.
"Nothing much, you just shot at us, threw Randy into a wall, and got into a fist fight with Callie." Marie said.
Michael's face went pale. "Oh… Oh god I'm so sorry guys, I didn't know what I was doing."
"Man, it's alright. We know that the Octarians did something to you."
"Oh. A-About that. Before I got… transformed, I found something out about the Octarian that runs this place."
"Oh really? What'd you find out?"
Michael stuttered, his voice choking up a bit. It was painful to say what he found out. "The boss of this place is… is my sister, Micheline."
Everyone in the room took on a look of shock.
"She's an Elite Octoling here. I guess she was turned into one when they captured her last year." Michael continued.
"Oh god, Michael I'm so sorry." Angela said.
"It's hard to think that the Micheline we worked with turned her own brother against his friends." Marie said.
"But hang on, Michael was turned against us by being dipped into Octarian ink, which means their ink kind of acts as a brainwashing agent if I'm understanding this correctly. If that's true then Micheline might be able to be saved, right?" Shelly put in.
"Yeah, I mean, it can't be impossible, right? We just turned Michael back to our side by giving him a small bath in Angela's ink." Randy added.
"That's what I was thinking, but I was only put in their ink for a small amount of time, who knows how long sis was put in there for when she was captured." Michael said.
"Still, it can't hurt to try, right?"
"It ain't gonna be that easy, Randy. Ya' gotta figure, Micheline's the head honcho here, she's no doubt got guards protecting her behind 24/7." Angela said.
"And even if things go sour for her, she's no doubt got a backup plan." Shelly added in.
"Darn, you're right." Randy said, cupping his chin in his hand.
"Micheline also told me they have cameras everywhere in this facility, even if we can't see them. Even if we blinded some cameras back when we first got here, they can track our every movement, we wouldn't be able to get the element of surprise." Michael said.
"Who said anything about surprise?" Callie said, still hugging Michael. "We're all pretty powerful as a team, maybe we can get 'em through sheer force."
"Well, we're definitely not gonna get a drop on them anytime soon with cameras all over the place. I guess brute force is our only option, huh?" Randy said.
Michael sighed. This whole situation was a lot to take in. "Yeah, I guess it is." He pulled Callie off of himself. "Well, there's no point in standing around. We're no doubt being watched right now, better get a move on. Also, we're gonna need to find Junko, where is she, anyways?"
"Randy says she's disguised as an Elite Octoling, gathering some intel." Shelly said.
"Good, hopefully she's found some stuff by now." He grabbed his newly acquired Octoshot. "Guess I'll have to be using this from now on. Let's get going, guys."
The team picked up their weapons and continued their long journey into the Presidio.
We're getting there, folks, just a few chapters more.