The King always knew what was best. That's what I have to believe. There had to be a reason for him to do what he did. Why we all lived in domes. Why we were always plotting. Scheming. Desperate for something that wasn't ours. It was for the good of our people. And in the end, the just would win, and the unjust would be lost to time. So then why. Why did Octavio lose? Why did my squad fail? Why did I? These are the thoughts that ran through her head as she was debriefed in the hospital. She gently touched the bandages on her shoulder and stared off into nothing.
The elite octoling turns her gaze to the octarian talking to her, cutting them off. "So none of my squad made it. And the King lost." She shakes her head. "Do I have the option to take some time to…reflect on everything before going to another station?"
"Well, let's confirm your history first before I can confirm that." The doctor looks at their clipboard. "Name; Mara. No family, and no family name, correct?"
"That's right."
"Occupation; Soldier."
Mara nods."Correct."
"Enlisted as soon as you were able…and…" The doctor whistles, looking up at her. "...You've really done this your whole life, huh? Never known anything else?"
Mara hesitates a bit. She really hasn't, has she? "...Yeah." She replies slowly. "...So…can I go now?"
"You can." The doctor helps her up. "We'll expect to hear back from you as soon as you're able."
"Right. You will."
Hours passed.
Those hours turned to days.
Mara didn't know what to do. Everywhere she looked, she saw people blindly believing in the octarian commanders. She'd seen where their leadership led them. Her time for thought was cut short.
"As an Elite, it is your duty to serve in the best interests of octo-kind. You are on special assignment henceforth. A scientist has claimed an island on the surface as a joint research facility with the Salmonids. Keep it safe. Any information about this project is on a need to know basis. You do not need to know..
Report to staging grounds for relocation."
She looked at the letter with mild annoyance. What a waste of time to mail something when they could have just told her face to face. She looked at her room. She had no belongings to pack. No people to say goodbye to. She grabbed her goggles and left.
At the staging grounds, a hovercarrier waited, where she and a select few other octarians were going to be sent to guard the facility. They boarded, sat, and waited, ever loyal. There was a lack of camaraderie though. Nobody made eye contact with each other. The tension and doubt could be felt hanging in the air.
The path they took out of the underground was long–going far out of the Octo-Valley, winding and twisting, weaving, finally emerging from the mouth of a vast cave. Mara almost felt disappointed that the sun wasn't up.
The facility was on an island covered in barrels of waste, salmonid nests and the intense smell of salmon slime and salt filled the air with a wretched, cloying scent. She'd seen the salmonid a few times in casual encounters, but nothing much more than that. The carrier landed beside a very well hidden hatch door. It blended in with the gunk and stone on the surface, and from above would be impossible to see. They file off, and the hatch door opens, a long ladder stretching down into the darkness. She stares off to the horizon, before going once more into the shadow.
At the depths was a bunker. They were in the landing area of it, so to speak. That ladder was the only way in, and out. And there, they were briefed again. This facility was top secret. So secret, in fact, that it didn't even have a name. Colloquially, it was just called the Tacklebox. In light of the Octolings failing, there'd be a new breed to handle the inkling problem. The one briefing them all explained that he had grand ideas for crossing Inkling, Octoling, and Salmonling DNA to create a supersoldier capable of wiping out all of Inkling society as a whole. She had to admit. If it was really possible…that'd be impressive. But it had to be too good to be true.
Time in the Tacklebox never seemed to move. There were constantly salmonid in and out. Mara's post was directly in the lab itself. She watched the lead scientists day in, day out. The process was…disturbing. Salmonids offered up their eggs to them, and he would use a stolen zapfish to charge a concoction of Cohozuna, Inkling and Octo DNA, injecting it straight into the embryo of the egg. Then it'd go into a test tube, and then they have to gestate.
Rinse and repeat.
If they survived a month, it was a miracle.
Mara'd grown tired of it all. But she'd also just…grown tired of life as a whole. They weren't allowed to be outside while the sun was up. Not for even a moment. And as the failures rose, and time wore on, the guards were pulled. One at a time, until only Mara was left. She was the entire skeleton crew. Watching every bit of the lab, day and night. She hardly slept.
And then it happened. An egg gestated, and…it took. It grew. She got to see from a distance, the growing specimen. The scientists had a goal–an age range of physically 10-14. The younger the better–so they could be properly educated as to what their place in the world was. The specimen was shown off several times. They were estimated to be 13 years old–at the end of what they'd preferred but they would have to do. Once they reached full maturity in the tube, they would be put to the test.
A few months passed.
And the facility was losing power. The hydro plant was no longer able to be run in a way that didn't attract the attention of the oh so happy little workers coming in from GrizzCo. They needed more zapfish. So it was up to Mara and the subject to go out and steal them. That was all they called the salmonling. The Subject. But it was Mara's DNA that ultimately birthed them. She was told that despite this, she wasn't to get too close to it.
She named them Fynn.
While out on missions together, the two talked. Mara explained things as she knew them–which admittedly wasn't much. She never made much of an effort to abide by rules and restrictions placed on her. But every success yielded more stress. The inklings knew she was coming, and they'd caught wind of the new 'superweapon' she was traveling with. There was one encounter in particular that nearly left her dead. Had Fynn not been a crack shot with the charger, that would have been the end of her. Sadly, despite all this, every mission, every day, ended the same. She'd be sent off to the barrack, while Fynn would be dragged back to the lab to be experimented on, and 'researched.'
Mara hated it. But she didn't get a say in the matter. This was their life now. Time passed, moving ever onward. And they were rapidly approaching the 'threshold' of how old Fynn had to be to be a proper weapon in their eyes.
They tried to replicate the success–splicing Mara's DNA over and over, but nothing worked. Their frustration grew, and so too did their aggression to try and mould Fynn into the perfect little soldier. It happened on Fynn's 15th birthday. Mara stared at the ceiling, thinking about their recent mission's success. But she was troubled. Fynn was sluggish. Short tempered, the entire time. It made her uneasy. Despite this, she started to doze, but was woken up not long after by sobbing. Fynn, tucked against her, crying softly. There were marks visible up and down her arms, and on her neck. Her eye wouldn't fully open, as if they'd hit her.
"Momma…I don't want to be here any more." Fynn laments "Why do we stay…? Why can't we go…I hate it here…"
Mara's heart dropped. She held Fynn close, rage and sadness rising in equal measure. She had to make a choice. And she did.
"Don't worry honey…I'll get you out of here."
The window for escape was small. The only time they left the island unsupervised was by airship, for missions to steal zapfish. Her aid offered to the salmonids alongside Fynn was recorded for research, much to her annoyance. So it'd have to be then–she'd need to evade recon and intel, and get away, fast, as far as possible. And that day came, some several weeks later.
"Stay ready." She says to Fynn, as they load up and take off.
The target today was an inkling research outpost, at the desert coast. In theory, it should be an easy job–in and out, without any chance of resistance. Fynn was visibly nervous. When they were found with Mara, they were given another session of…education. Since then, Fynn had acted like a beaten puppy since then. Mara had to bite her tongue, to avoid drawing suspicion, every action her superiors made confirming she was doing the right thing. They were pulling up to their drop zone–a spot along the coastline, with the plan to climb up the cliffs and enter through a service hatch for their ventilation system. Once inside, Fynn was supposed to eliminate the scientists guarding the zapfish, and Mara was supposed to steal it. They made their way up the cliffs, and into the hatch. It was then, that Mara began, grabbing hers and Fynn's communicators and speaking into her own
"We're ex–ncing inter–erence. Goi– dark." She says, pretending they were losing signal, then crushing them both. "...Once we get inside…we're going to have to run." She says seriously to Fynn. "They're going to hunt us, if we aren't careful."
"If it means we're free, then…this is the chance we have to take, mom." Fynn says, uncomfortably adjusting their charger a bit.
Mara hugs them firmly for a few seconds, before turning and heading through the shaft. Her goggles allowed her to see friendlies, and their sight-lines–something that was invaluable for this next bit.
"Stick beside me." She says, offering a hand.
Fynn takes it, and the two pop out on the inside of the facility. She saw her allies' distant gaze as red scan lines, covering the ground, sweeping about almost like a video game. She ducks behind a wall, keeping Fynn close, waiting for them to look away before advancing.
"Scientist up ahead…!" Fynn says, practically hissing. Indeed, by the main gate, a scientist sat on their portable handheld, playing some sort of game.
"Stay low." She gets into her octopus form.
Fynn getting into their own, fishy one, following behind her as she scoots across the uninked ground slowly. It was horribly uncomfortable. But in a few moments, they were out the main door, passed the scientist, slipping through. All they had to do was make it into the desert and they were home free. They sprinted now, racing away as fast as they could.
Days passed without issue–the two only traveling at night, to avoid inklings. Mara and Fynn both had stolen supplies so they could camp while they traveled. Their goal? To camp outside of Splatsville–a major city, where they could sneak in and steal whatever supplies they needed to get by. It wasn't fool proof–and definitely didn't teach Fynn any good morals–but it was the plan they had. As they got closer, their unease grew. Mara was at the camp, Fynn having left to go fishing for some food at a nearby river. She'd had her goggles on, using them as binoculars to scout ahead, when she saw those familiar scan-lines, and turned to find an octarian operative aiming directly at her head.
"You have to return the subject." They say to her coldly,"You've betrayed u–"
Mara didn't let them finish. Her time in the field had only improved her physique, and the very idea of giving up Fynn back to those bastards at the lab filled her with a level of rage that scared even her. She saw red–from the ink she splattered everywhere from the beating she suddenly was giving the agent, and just the emotions clouding her vision. When she pauses to catch her breath, there's only ink that remains–the operative gone, beaten to a pulp. She looks at her hands, shaking a bit, breath racing. She didn't want to do that. But she didn't have a choice. She looks to the sky and frowns. Rain was coming in–she sought shelter in the tent, hoping it washed away evidence of what she'd done before Fynn returned.
Fynn came back before dawn–happily carrying a net of fish they'd managed to nab by hand, and Mara helped with getting them prepped and cooked over the fire. She was tired–and while Fynn definitely noticed some of the dried ink on her hands, she didn't say anything about it. The two ate in absolute silence. And come the next evening, their journey continued.
Another month went by in the blink of an eye, and they were finally able to see their destination. While Mara knew nothing about it, she did talk at length to Fynn about what she knew about the inklings–how they hated change, and new things. How they would attack her on sight most likely, and herself too. That it was important to not be seen, and to never get too close. They'd planned to get just a little bit closer,setting up camp that evening not too far off the main road into the city. The stars twinkled brightly above, as the moon slowly rose. Tomorrow, they'd both see the sun for the first time. All was peaceful…until a shuffling outside, caused Mara to wake up with a start. Scrambling out of the tent, she finds that their packs have been stolen–mostly food and gear.
"Shit!" She says, looking around. She considers waking Fynn but decides against it, following the faint footsteps left behind by the thief, the trail going just up a nearby hill…