Chapter 41: Back and Forth
Bubbles. A burbling sound. A burning liquid that seared her skin. A seemingly endless green ocean that surrounded her, with the mysterious boy that floated in a fetal position just like her directly nearby.
Opening her eyes and slowly looking around, Bridgett sighed in complete frustration as she saw these familiar surroundings. Not this again…
She knew what this all was at this point. She knew this was just a tank, she knew she was a clone, and she knew this boy next to her was going to go on to escape this hellhole as well, coming to be known as Oliver. She knew how her story began, and how it had continued from there. Now, the only question that really remained to her was: How exactly was it going to end?
Now ignoring this recurring memory and nightmare that had haunted her again and again, she leaned her foot forward and took a step, walking through the shallow pond in this large green void that surrounded her, as she kept moving forward.
This wasn't the Subgrid, she could tell that much- It didn't feel real enough. This was a mere lucid dream, and all she had to do was wake up from it. She closed her eyes tightly, clenching both her fists as she focused on waking up. Several moments passed like this, and… nothing changed. She looked at her hands. "Shit…"
It was then that she became aware of the figure that was standing behind her, with his hands behind his back, familiar goggles covering his eyes, and that extremely annoying smirk on his face. "I guess this is it. I guess you must be dead, then." He spoke to her.
She turned to see Gideon, before immediately shaking her head and walking away again. "Nope. Nope."
She kept walking through the void, only for Gideon to appear before her this time. "That's a shame." He continued. "You had so much to live for."
"Go to hell." She walked past him, trying to pinch herself to no luck.
"I'm already there." He again appeared before her. "I died too, remember?"
"Uh-huh. Now stay out of my head." She kept furiously walking.
"Do you think it worked?" Gideon kept appeared in front of her every time she walked past him. "That little stunt you pulled? The whole dramatic sacrifice move, laying down on a wire, energy blasting from your hands, all in the off-chance that jump was going to work?"
She stopped and growled. "Shut up…"
"What do you expect to happen now? Lydia is still out there, likely planning to decimate two realities, she still has unstoppable powers, the serum's gone, and now, the only other person who can share those powers is dead. Because you just had to kill yourself."
She stared ahead at nothing, silently tearing up. "J-Jessica already said… they're the Splatoon, they'll figure it out. They don't need me."
"Oh, and Jessica." Gideon mused, standing by her ear. "Poor thing. If you are dead, you just left her to grieve all by herself."
She winced and turned away.
Gideon, however, just appeared by her other ear. "And what about Dylan? I think you technically just cheated on him."
"It's…" She sighed. "No. No, he said we're on a break, he broke us off. I-I didn't make that choice, he did." She looked down. "I-I think…"
"Either way, was that kiss seriously necessary? I think you may have just caused more harm than good."
Big, dramatic tears fell down Bridgett's cheeks as she stared blankly ahead. "…You're the one who created me… who put me in this damned body… and for what?"
"Not for this, dear Lydia. Not for this."
"Well, then, what was necessary about me?"
"I think that's for you to figure out." Gideon started pacing around her. "Assuming you still can."
She just sighed and closed her eyes.
"Now what?" He again turned to her. "With Lydia and Marina still out there… what do you think is going to happen now?"
"You failed. Marina was your responsibility and you failed." Gideon's voice then whispered, echoing through both her ears.
"Pearl is dead now because of you."
"Lydia's all-powerful."
"She's a god."
"She'll take over two worlds now."
"And here you are…"
"Dead."
"After all this time, you're nothing more than a mad scientist's worthless, forgotten project."
Bridgett shuddered as she stood there, trying to think about what, exactly, was going to happen now. How exactly did they get here?
Was she really dead? Or could she still wake up?
Did her team make it home?
The Home Timeline
Moments Before the Jump
The Ray stood on the empty field, where it had last been parked, as Cap'n Cuttlefish and Sheldon lingered nearby, discussing their next moves. Inkopolis, still visible in the background, was still in chaos from the effects of the massive Octarian station that had mysteriously appeared in the sky before ascending back into space, and the Splatoon agents inside the ship were all still recovering from the battle they had just been through. Samantha in particular, to everyone's concern, was injured and unconscious, leaving everyone unsure of if she was going to be ok.
As the Ray's alarm suddenly activated, Cuttlefish and Sheldon both looked over as its ramp started to close with all of the Splatoon agents still inside.
"Marie? What are you doing!?" Cuttlefish shouted at her.
"I-I'm not-" Marie tried to shout back, before the ramp closed entirely, closing all of them in.
Confused, they both began to rush up as they saw the Ray lift up into the air, before the powerful distortion effect began to form around it. "Marie! Callie!" The elderly squid shouted desperately.
Sheldon reached up to grab his helmet in fear as at that moment, the Ray disappeared in a flash of light. A final wind blew through the field as Cuttlefish and Sheldon were simply left standing there, surprised, afraid, and alone.
As they stared ahead at where the Ray used to be, Cuttlefish fearfully gripped his cane for a painful moment, before he turned back to Sheldon. "What was that? Where'd they go?"
"What makes you think I know!?" Sheldon replied, arguably even more confused than he was.
Starting to panic somewhat, Cuttlefish turned and reached up to his earpiece. "Callie? Marie? Are you still there? Please answe-"
They further jumped as the flash of light returned, and in its wake, the Ray had reappeared, considerably more damaged than it just was a moment ago. They both stared at it as it hovered there in the air, slowly touching back down.
"What the fuck!?" Sheldon swore, more and more confused by the second.
They walked over and looked over the ship for a few more moments until finally, its alarm again sounded and the ramp lowered.
They walked over to look up into the loading bay, as at that moment, Callie, Marie, Samantha, and Daniel poured out, running down the ramp. Their different uniforms and completely dirty, battered appearances, as if they had just been through a massive war, became quickly apparent as they ran up. "GRAMPS!" Callie shouted.
Cuttlefish was just confused as Callie and Marie ran up and threw themselves into a hug with him, a bit too roughly for his old body. "E-Easy, easy!"
Callie regardlessly squeezed him. "We…" She suddenly broke down crying. "We thought we lost you."
He blinked as he hugged them back. "Uhhhh… f-for a second there, I… thought the same?"
"What happened to you?" Sheldon held his hands out as he faced Samantha and Daniel, noticing that Samantha was no longer injured. He pointed at her. "And you, you-… WHAT IS HAPPENING!?"
After squeezing her grandfather for another moment, Marie slowly broke off as he turned to the Horseshoe Crab. "It is so… so good to see you both again… but-"
"BUT!? BUT IT'S BEEN TWO SECONDS!" He further freaked out.
"Listen! Everyone is in danger here. Lydia powered herself up with an Axcian serum and is likely coming back here with a vengeance. She must not have been satisfied with the other timeline that she created. We're all in trouble."
"WHAT!?" He started flailing his arms around in frustration.
"W-We'll need to explain, but…" Callie suddenly paused and looked back into the Ray. "How exactly did that jump work?"
"Where's Bridge and the others?" Samantha asked.
Realizing that Bridgett, Jessica, Dylan, and Oliver had still not come out from inside the Ray, the three of them, leaving Daniel behind, rushed back inside. Cap'n Cuttlefish and Sheldon glanced at each other as they slowly followed.
In the hallway, where the Axcian crystal was still placed in its slot in the wall, Jessica was cradling Bridgett and crying, while Oliver and Dylan nervously stood over them. The wall that surrounded the crystal's slot was now once again burnt from the jump they had just performed.
"Bridge… Bridge…" Crying, Jessica kept trying to rub Bridgett's cheek and pet her hair while shaking her awake. Bridgett was lying in her arms on her lap limply, with some similar burn marks on her hand where she had touched the crystal.
"Young lady?" Cuttlefish asked as everyone else came up and crowded them.
Jessica side-eyed them nervously. "She's not waking up."
The lights in the underground Splatoon HQ were all turned on automatically as every agent in the Splatoon rushed inside, with Jessica and Dylan carrying Bridgett. They got her laid down on a table.
"Sheldon, I need medical supplies, and I need someone to start running scans for that Octarian station." Marie ordered as they all helped to get Bridgett situated. "It could be reappearing absolutely any second now."
"This is going to be a very long day." Sheldon muttered as he rushed off to do so.
"Woo…" Samantha took a breath as, standing with Oliver, she looked around the HQ again. "Actually kinda nice to be back here again."
"Probably won't be for long." Oliver replied, looking back at Bridgett.
Jessica, who still appeared far more distraught than anyone on the team had ever seen before, was sitting next to Bridgett, shaking a bit as she kept silently petting her hair. Dylan was leaned on the table as well, staring at them both as he fought back tears.
Cuttlefish moved up to rub Jessica's shoulder, comforting her. They sat like that until, finally, Sheldon came over with the supplies, and Marie got Bridgett hooked up to everything.
"Ok, the scan's active." Sheldon announced another moment later as he slid his chair away from his desk and toward Bridgett. He stood up on it. "Now when's the part when we explain what the hell and why the hell?"
From there, as Marie continued to look over Bridgett, it became a somewhat awkward catch-up session as the entire Splatoon explained what had happened, and what they had all gone through in the alternate Octo City timeline. Much of it was quite a shock to both Cuttlefish and Sheldon, especially the part where they heard what had happened to the original Squidbeak Splatoon during the Great Turf War.
"And… what happened to Pearl?" Sheldon asked.
Marie side-eyed them, now fighting back more tears herself. "…She didn't make it."
Their eyes widened somewhat as they stared ahead at her.
Marie awkwardly wiped an escaped tear before she continued her check-up on Bridgett. "We may have made it out of that place… but it's still going to bleed over into our own timeline if we don't stop Lydia and Marina."
"Do you think that if Bridgett took the serum, she'll be able to take Lydia?" Samantha asked.
"Will she even wake up?" Dylan asked fearfully as he stared ahead at Bridgett's unconscious figure.
"...I don't know." Marie admitted as she backed up somewhat. She had completed her check-up twice over, and all it had confirmed to her was that Bridgett was still alive and that her vitals didn't seem to be going haywire yet. She just… simply wasn't waking up.
"What do you know?" Jessica asked.
"With what we're dealing with here… it's unprecedented. She could have entered a coma, or… if what you said about the serum is true… she could be…"
"Dying." Oliver finished that thought.
Everyone fell into a painful silence as they stared at her. Jessica and Dylan both began tearing up again.
Within the vast realities of her lucid dream, Bridgett had been walking through the green void that surrounded her for what felt like an eternity. She wasn't even sure what she was looking for anymore; She wasn't entirely sure if she was looking for a way to wake up or if she was instead… looking for…
"If you're looking for the afterlife, it's that way." Gideon again appeared, pointing down a random direction.
Bridgett looked around before she picked another random direction and kept going.
"What? That's what you wanted, right? When you took that serum?" Gideon again kept appearing before her.
"I don't-" She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Yes you do." This time, he reappeared with a taunting smirk. "You've known ever since you held Pearl for the last time."
"Shut up…"
"Was Pearl's death even really such a tragedy?" Gideon stuffed his hands in his pockets. "She still got to live her life. Far more of a life than you ever will. She had a husband… a daughter… two kind of annoying grandchildren… just like anyone else who lives life to the fullest."
She shook her head. "Yeah, after being hurled back in time 100 years to an unfamiliar time and then being forced underground. Not quite like anyone else."
"All of the Octarians in your timeline suffered that same underground life for those same 100 years, Lydia. It's the reason we're in this situation. You see, death isn't really the tragedy here. The real tragedy… is forgetting to live. Tragedy is watching your life pass you by."
She again stopped and paused, sighing deeply to herself. "You don't know shit about tragedy… you don't know about life, either."
"But I know the truth about why you took that serum." He stood in front of her, giving her a serious look. "I just want you to admit it."
She huffed, glaring at him. "Do you think the world is going to save itself, Gideon? Your plan was to make a new timeline, and hope everything lined up from there. Look where that got us."
"And that's exactly what you did as well." He smirked at her.
She huffed again and looked down.
He leaned toward her. "My dear Lydia… You want the truth of why I gave you this life?" He began pacing around her. "You need to find it for yourself. I'm dead, I'm not the one who can give it to you."
She sighed. "…I know…"
He smiled. "See? You've known all along. The mine and Octo City were never meant to be your final chapter. They were meant to be a beginning."
She stared ahead at nothing. "Then… what… is my final chapter?"
At this point, Gideon's voice suddenly turned more feminine. "You never know. Not until you're already in it and it's already too late." When Gideon again made a full circle around her, back into her line of vision, she had suddenly transformed into Marina.
Startled, she started backing up. "No… no, no…"
"You know what you have to do, Eight." Marina spoke with the same kind voice that Bridgett was used to, and gave her a same kind, caring look that had her fooled for years. "You know what's going to happen next."
"No, no, no, no…" She turned around, and dug her hands into her hair, as every negative memory came back to her in an instant. What Marina had done, what happened to Pearl, Lydia's new fantastic powers… "I can't do it…" She suddenly fell to her knees, splashing water around her. "I can't do it!"
"You have to choose, Eight." Marina continued. "Or else you're going to be stuck in the same loop here forever."
"No!" She sank down further, curling up.
"You know what loop that is… you've been living it again… and again… and again…"
Yes, she knew what that loop was. On cue, the Calamari Inkantation began to fill her ears, at first muffled, and then clear.
"No, no… please let me go." Bridgett hissed. She knew exactly what that meant. "Please let me go…"
Indeed, when she dared open her eyes again, she was once again in the same recurring nightmare, in the enclosed, floating arena, with the glass fences, and the boxed Wasabi sticks nearby that she knew all too well. Except… something was a bit different about it this time, since as she looked outward, she saw that the background surrounding this arena was no longer Octo Valley's underground, but rather Octo City's skyline.
She shook her head and again curled up. "P-Please let me go… Please let me go…"
As the Inkantation only continued to get louder, she slowly looked upward at the familiar floating platform, and the familiar mysterious figure, with her back turned to her. With the blue hair, Deepsea Metro outfit on, and Octo Shot in her hand, Bridgett slowly stood up for the same old tired battle, sighing in nervous frustration.
But again, something was different. As the figure turned toward her, it wasn't revealed to be Jessica, or any form of Agent 3 this time… it was Lydia. It was herself, her own flesh and ink, with the same intimidating armor on and the blades that emerged from her gloves.
Staring up at her, Bridgett felt a new anger build in her chest… and she lowered her weapon as a new realization came over her. She watched as Lydia did the usual spin, jumped into a flip, and then slammed down with a splashdown attack. Emerging from her attack, she of course lunged forward to begin her attack, and then-
"Stop!" Bridgett suddenly spoke with great finality as she held her fist up, and Lydia froze in place.
Lydia shot her eyes around, confused.
"Yeah, I know, I know how this goes." Bridgett shook her head as she herself began pacing. "We're gonna fight for a while, you're gonna be difficult to defeat, you're gonna splat me a whole bunch of times, I'm gonna beg to be let go, then eventually, I defeat you, I finally find the strength to pick up to the gold toothpick, and I move on with my life. This is my mental prison, yada fucking yada."
Lydia stared back at her, tilting her head.
Bridgett kept walking around, looking around at the arena and at the surrounding city. She took a good few moments to simply look everything over, sorting through her own thoughts. "I think… one way or another, I was always in that prison. My entire life." She held her arms out. "I didn't know who I was. I didn't even know who I loved. Pearl, Marina, even… even Dylan, they… weren't giving me everything that I needed, not mentally like I thought they were." She looked out at the rising sun over the city's horizon, shaking her head. "…No more." She rose her hand.
Lydia looked down as the entire arena began rumbling beneath them. She backed up.
After getting her fill of the view in and focusing on breaking herself out of this, Bridgett turned back to her, with green energy erupting from her hand. "I know who I am now. And I just have one thing left that I really need to do."
Lydia looked around in a panic as green energy began overtaking the entire arena, causing everything to fall apart. Random rubble began to fall all around her, crushing the ground.
"I'm gonna come for you." Bridgett continued, looking her dead in the eye as her own hair began flowing violently. "And we're gonna fight. You might be difficult to defeat, you know how it goes. But I'm going to beat you."
Lydia stared back as everything began shaking more violently, and the world began lighting up brilliantly.
"See you then, Lydia." Bridgett closed her fist, letting out one last burst of energy. She watched on as Lydia was completely incinerated by the light, and the entire arena collapsed around them. Bridgett was left floating in the air, with her entire body now bursting with green energy, before she ascended toward the sky.
Some green sparks emerged from Bridgett's hands and she twitched a bit, as she finally escaped the dream and opened her eyes, letting out a breath.
The Splatoon agents around her, who were busy preparing their weapons for the upcoming battle, noticed in a chain reaction as Bridgett slowly sat up and felt her head.
"Bridge!" Jessica was the first to exclaim as again, everyone surrounded her. She hugged her.
Bridgett hugged her back, sighing in relief. She looked around at the HQ they now sat in. "You… the jump made it…?"
"Yeah… we're all here."
Bridgett sighed in absolute relief as they squeezed each other. Feeling a slight tingle from Bridgett's hands, Jessica broke in confusion to see that, indeed, more small amounts of green energy were emerging from her hands. Bridgett awkwardly looked at everyone, who were now left staring at her hand.
Oliver looked her in the eye. "…How do you feel?"
She blinked a bit as she lowered her hand. "Ready to end this."
It was outside of Earth's atmosphere in the void of space where yet another massive flash of light had appeared. The Octarian station appeared with a massive, looming presence, hovering in place before the big, blue planet.
Onboard, Lydia was walking down the hallways, accompanied along the way by multiple Eightfolds, Tartar-Bots, and other Octoling soldiers before she came up into the control room and up to the window, where she stared out at the massive planet. Inkadia, albeit partially hidden behind a blanket of clouds, was visible to them on the planet's surface, as if waiting for their arrival.
She put her hands behind her back. "Is everyone ready to make a truly better future?"
One Octoling soldier, who was staring at the ground with a somewhat nervous expression, decided she had some last objections to put in. "Ma'am… maybe, before we do anything too crazy, we should put some second thoughts into th-" She was interrupted as she was thrown halfway across the room and then pinned against the wall, with her feet dangling above the ground, much like Bridgett was before.
"WHAT DID I SAY!? ABOUT DOUBTING THIS POWER!?" Lydia shouted, holding her arm out toward her with her glowing hand. "My father didn't give me this power for no reason! And he especially never expected anyone to chicken out! Do you hear me!?"
The soldier desperately nodded, before she was again dropped to the floor, wheezing for air.
Lydia took a breath, straightened her own armor somewhat, and kept staring out the window. "For a long time, I've dreamt of a day where Octarians would be freed. Not stuck living underground. We'll give them that in both worlds. But we need to free them both and then unite them first. Both worlds will be sharing knowledge and technology for decades to come, and anyone who objects such a utopia, will be punished. Starting with their precious city."
The Octarians just stood there in a silence. Marina, who was walking into the room with her six drones at that moment, nervously stared at her. After all the suffering the Octarians had gone through… they were still doing the right thing… right? Frankly, Marina wasn't quite so sure anymore. She looked ahead at Lydia.
"Get our battle positions ready." Lydia commanded as she stared ahead at the Earth. "Then make our push forward."
Splatoon HQ
In a hurry, every able-bodied Splatoon agent in the headquarters were grabbing their gear and getting ready for the upcoming battle, occasionally sharing some nervous quick-chat all the while.
Bridgett, who was also getting her own gear ready, occasionally paused as she felt more sparks emerging from her fingers, seemingly out of her control. Every time this would happen, she would pause and hold her hand up to stare at it, wondering if it was going to continue, before after a moment, she kept getting ready.
"That's cool." She heard Dylan's voice as he approached her.
She glanced at him. "What is?"
"Your hand…" He awkwardly chuckled as he pointed at it. "You're like a… real-life superhero. Never, uh… thought I'd see one of those."
She awkwardly chuckled a bit as well, before her smile dropped and she kept getting ready.
He looked down, rubbing his own hands together. "…I know there's a lot going on… but before something else happens… are we, ever gonna… talk about… any of this?"
"W-What is there to talk about? I-I'm just gonna go and stop Lydia, and this'll… this'll all be behind us."
"That's not what I'm talking about."
She froze.
"About what we discussed before… You… really chose her. Huh?" He told her with sad look.
Her eyes trailed down, unsure of what to say about that. "I'm… I'm sorry… Dylan…"
He, however, gave her a smile. It was an extremely sad smile, and he was getting teary-eyed even if he tried his best to fight back his tears, but it was a smile nonetheless. "That's ok." He almost whispered. "I'm just glad you're ok. You gave us quite a big scare."
She stared at him.
"I guess, that, whatever we were, it wasn't… meant to last…" He looked down. "Sooner I accept that, the better, I guess."
"...I guess we've just… wanted different things, was all."
He kept staring at her, not wanting to break away. "…Well." He suddenly smiled again, even if he still fighting back tears to his best ability. "At least I got to date a future superhero. That's pretty cool."
She looked down, not even comfortable with being called that.
He softly patted her arm. "Do good out there, Bridge."
She nodded at him, and he walked away, toward Samantha. Samantha, with her own comforting gaze, silently rubbed Dylan's shoulder. Dylan was unable to stop some tears from falling, but he quickly wiped them away and turned so that Bridgett wouldn't see.
Bridgett did see- She was staring at him until he did turn away. She sighed and turned back to her own business, only to pause a moment later as the energy in her hands returned. She desperately shook her hand to get it to go away, but as she did, a burst of energy suddenly escaped her hand, flying across the room and damaging one of the desks. From where the blast struck, pieces of burnt paper and other debris were sent flying through the air a short distance, and the room fell completely silent as everyone turned to stare at the wreckage, then directly at her. Gulping, she tried pretending nothing happened as she kept getting ready.
After another moment, Marie slowly walked up to her with her own charger. "You're… gonna be able to control that, whatever that is, right?"
She nervously looked at her. "I… assume so."
She gave her a look. "You assume so?"
"I don't know, Lydia was controlling it fine."
She sighed. "…Gonna have to cross every limb we've got and hope this works."
Indeed, a moment later, they all turned as Sheldon called out. "Guys! I've got a signal!"
Marie rushed up to where Sheldon and Cap'n Cuttlefish were standing. They all stared up at the monitor on the wall that displayed the new signal which had appeared outside of Earth's atmosphere. "It's time!"
All of the Splatoon agents gathered around as Marie and the others turned to them.
Again, she took in a breath. "We don't know what exactly we're walking into. Chances are it will be heavy fire and more. I don't know if we're all going to make it through this… But we're now the front line, the only thing standing between them and all of Inkadia. Our Inkadia, not some alternate timeline this time, ours. Our home."
Samantha nervously looked down as she heard her speech, but kept her posture as brave as possible. Daniel stared somewhat blankly ahead as he listened, but regardlessly listened with intent as his trigger finger twitched, more than ready for another fight.
"Marina betrayed us and made this happen." Marie remembered. "But we're about to show her what kind of mistake she made. We're gonna remind her what our team can do."
Again, Bridgett's hand began glowing somewhat as she heard that, and she shook her hand to make it stop.
"But it should all end here. Because right now, it's us, and them. This is what it comes down to. So let's get out there, with everything we've got. And let's blast Lydia into the goddamn sun." Marie finished as she stepped forward. The rest of the team turned and began heading to the elevator.
"Good luck, everyone." Cap'n Cuttlefish said proudly. "We'll support you as best as we can from down here."
"You can count on us 'til the world burns!" Sheldon saluted.
Marie gave them a last nod, before finally, they all grouped up in the elevator, and the doors closed in front of them.
With that, they all headed back up to the field where the Ray was parked, and standing together, they all walked up to it. Everyone was wearing their own usual armor that they had changed into and was carrying their own gear, with Jessica and Daniel wearing their Agent 3-style Hero Outfits, and Dylan and Samantha wearing their Agent 4 ones. Bridgett was of course wearing her Deepsea Metro outfit, and Oliver was wearing his own Octarian-like armor. Callie and Marie were wearing their black armors they had previously worn on the space mission.
As they climbed up the ramp and into the ship's loading bay, with a high degree of nervousness, yet all with bravery, they got the ramp closed. Moments passed as Callie and Marie went up to the controls in the cockpit, double-checked everything, and then worked together to get the Ray into the air.
The Ray turned toward the sky, and then blasted off toward where the station was, for one last fight that would finally determine everyone's future.
Alright, everyone! It comes down to this. Now, as decreed by the outline overlord, there are two chapters left, and as I did with my previous longer stories, I plan on publishing them both at the same time so that you can read the ending in one go if you so please. (This is of course assuming that the next chapter isn't too long and I don't have to split it in half but we'll see what happens). So, I'll see you at the end of this. *waves*