Crusty Sean was a prawn, taller than any other creature he had seen besides for Iso Padre, a crispy jacket over his body and shoes on every one of his feet. Black square glasses showed his imperfect vision. He smiled at Tartar as he came near.
"Welcome to the Crust Bucket! What are you hungry for? Or do you want a drink? My drinks can help you get certain abilities on your gear faster!"
"I was wondering about the fish and chips sale?"
"I should have known! Everybody loves 'em, so sometimes they go on sale if I have too many of 'em. Want me to make one for you?"
Tartar nodded and sat down in a small chair.
"What's your name, Octokid? I haven't seen you around here before. Did you hear about my cooking? Everyone really loves it." He peeked over his shoulder. "Are you okay? You look a little green. Need some nice, cold water?"
"No, the green is natural. And...I've never heard of you before."
"Oh! You must be really new then!"
"I'm getting this for a friend of mine."
"That's really nice of you! Want me to make some for you too?"
"Oh, you don't need to do that!"
"Nonsense! You need to try some too! I'll bet you're hungry. You Inklings and Octolings get hungry really quickly, believe it or not."
Tartar didn't want to be rude, and also didn't want to have to explain that he never could feel "hunger" because he was just AI, and watched in silence as Sean finished preparing the food.
"There we go! Two servings of fish and chips for you and your friend! Yours in on the house, but you need to pay for your friend."
"Why is mine 'on the house?'"
"I felt bad! You should try my cooking at least once! If you don't like it, that's fine! My crispy bites aren't for everyone!"
Tartar handed Sean the payment.
"Have a good day! Oh, by the way..."
"What's the matter?"
"What's your name? I try to remember my customer's names for next time. It sounds hard since there are a lot of celephods here, but their names are pretty simple to remember."
"Tartar."
"Bwuh?!" He flinched back, then leaned in close. "You mean...THE Tartar? The one who tried to perfect the world or something?"
"Yes. I'm trying to stay undercover for now. Only you, The Outcasts, and The Yellow Jackets know my identity. If you could keep this quiet, I would appreciate that."
"Well, you seem nice enough. Sure, I'll keep this hush-hush. Just try not to hold on this for too long. People'll start to figure it out one way or another."
"True. And I plan to do something about it before the Splatfest, so you have no need to hold onto this for long. I trust that you'll continue to be nice to me despite knowing my true identity?"
"Of course! You didn't mean harm-I think. You just wanted peace. I get it. The world can seem like a mess sometimes, but it's home. And if Chaos would have won, I'm not sure what would have happened to this place...Now, you better get that to your friend before it gets cold!"
Tartar left his seat and bowed. "Thank you, Crusty Sean. I'll be sure to visit."
"You can just call me Sean! Nobody calls me Crusty Sean anyways."
"Alright. Thank you for your time, and thank you from promising to keep this a secret. I don't know what would happen if this got out..."
He followed what Ivory had said and examined the area around the steps. He found a grate, a cool breeze gently flowing from it.
"A grate? The breeze implies it leads outside but...I'm outside right now." He placed the bucket of food next to him and reached for the grate. "This is odd-"
His hand sank through it, and he fell the rest of the way through with a short scream. He thudded around in the pipe, then found himself in a barren area.
"What was that...? I've never been so dizzy..." He looked around. There was a cabin nearby.
There was nothing more but a few supplies for living, and a chair with a drawing on it. He picked it up and recognised the person on the image, as the exact same one had been taped to him in the Deepsea Metro.
"That Agent 3 person...That means she's somewhere around here." He put the image back and followed down the path.
There was a strange, giant hole in the ground, far deeper than a crater should be, and the path led right to it. He stopped at the hole and peeked down. It was pitch black.
"Is there anybody here?" He looked around again. "There's nobody here..."
He felt a breeze from the hole.
"Could there...I better check. This is the only way to go. I should scan it first...just to be sure."
The scanner didn't pick anything up. It didn't even work at all. There was no signal, so it only picked up static.
"Looks like I'll have to go down there myself." He took a deep breath. "Alright. Down I go."
He tried to slide down the side, but it was too steep to do that and he just ended up falling. He braced for a painful fall as the darkness sped past him.
The ground was surprisingly cold, yet still warm. He landed a little too hard and had to reform himself onto his robotic insides. He brushed the powdery snow off his arm.
"Snow? But it's too warm to snow in Splatopia and Inkopolis..." He stood and stumbled a bit. "Ah! Too fast!" He steadied himself. "Alright. So there is ground here."
"How did you get here?!"
He jolted, and whipped around to find Aniya wearing a strange uniform. It was yellow, and long at the sleeves. Lil' Buddy was bouncing next to her, excited as always.
"Aniya! Good, I wanted to talk."
"You need to leave! They'll recognise you!"
"Who would?"
"Agent 3, who's that?"
The Inkling who spoke was what Tartar knew as Agent 3. She had a scar on her eye where he had controlled her, the eye mint green as well. A grey-haired Inkling stood at her left, a black-haired Inkling at her right.
"Aniya, why did she call you Agent 3? Isn't she Agent 3?"
"How did you get here?" She demanded. "And how do you know who I am?" She blinked. "Wait a second. You're Sanitized. You must have found a way to escape when Hachi and Pearl stopped Commander Tartar."
"Um..." He glanced at Aniya, who sighed. "About that...Aniya, I wanted to talk to Hachi."
"Tell them, since you're here." Aniya folded her arms. "You can't keep this a secret forever."
As if she heard him mention her name, Hachi came over from further ahead. She looked no different except for her gear, which had been upgraded to an Octo Layered LS, Studio Octophones, and Neo Octoling Boots. She still had the Ink tank and Octoshot from the Deepsea Metro, however.
"Oh!" She sounded excited. She hurried over to Tartar. "A Sanitized Octoling? This is great! And based off the fact you came here on your own means you found a way to escape Tartar's control!" She smiled. "My name is Hachi, but here I go by Agent 8."
"Agent 8, huh? Interesting...So you retired 1,008 then?"
"Yeah...I don't want to be known as a test subject for the rest of my life..."
Aniya cleared her throat at Tartar, muttering "Tell them!" with the coughing.
He sighed. "Agent 8, Agent 3, I need to tell you something."
"Well then," said the black-haired Inkling, "spill it already! Don't just leave us in suspense!"
"Actually, I'm Captain 3 now," said the old agent. "I was promoted."
"Good for you. Anyways!" He fiddled with his thumbs. "Alright...Don't get mad, alright? I'm going to try and explain this the best I can."
"There's no rush," the grey-haired Inkling consoled. "And if this is hard for you, you can always wait to get our trust first. Right, Callie?"
"Mhm!" The black-haired Inkling nodded. "Marie and I can wait. Not sure about gramps though. Sometimes I think he might have died when he's really just asleep..."
"And he's asleep right now. I'll wake him up." She snapped in his face.
"Whazzat?! Oh, you're from the Deepsea Metro, right? What're you doing way out here?"
"I'm Commander Tartar."
Agent 8 backed away. "What? But he died? Didn't he?"
He removed his hat to reveal the cords, and Agent 8 cowered behind Marie's open brella.
"You lived?!" Captain 3 stood from her seat. "And now you're trying to sneak into Splatopia?!"
"Let me explain, Captain 3. This won't be long."
She sat back down. "Fine. You've got three minutes to explain this before my special is ready."
"The respawn points dragged both C. Q. Cumber and I in as Kamabo Co. was destroyed. It forced us into Inkling-and in my case-Octoling forms. I had lost my memory chip and washed up on the shore. Aniya found me and took me to Splatopia where I helped her with a few...issues before getting my memories back. I promise I've changed. I'm not here to kill you. I actually came here to find Agent 8 so i could tell her this and see how she would have reacted. I was going to broadcast this all to Splatopia before the Splatfest, once I got all the supplies I needed to hack into the television system..."
Agent 8 emerged from her shelter. "Are you being serious?"
"Would using my contemporary speech mode help you understand it better?" He said smugly.
"Please never use that again. That was even more terrifying than your plan was."
"Not to mention cringe," Captain 3 added.
"But if you're being serious, maybe we should give you a chance..."
"Eight, are you squidding me?" Cap'n Cuttlefish said. "He tried to blender us, remember? I say we take 'em out!"
"You look like you're dying. Why do you look freeze-dried?"
Captain 3 snickered. "Freeze-dried..."
"Mr. Grizz almost killed him," Aniya explained.
"Grizz? Who's that?"
"You don't know?" Marie asked. "You two were made by humans, so I thought you of anyone would know who he is."
"Wait a minute...Grizz...Could he be a Grizzly Bear? But then how could he have survived this long?"
"Cryosleep, I think?" Callie suggested. "You know, the thing Judd did. And Little Judd too, maybe."
"Judd..." He glanced around. "Wait, are those Moai? How did they get down here? And this snow..."
"This is Alterna," Captain 3 explained. "It was a refuge built by the humans. That big thing over there is for a rocket. They tried to use it to return to the surface."
"Alterna? Humans? I didn't know about this place."
"I can show you everything. Just give me a minute." She walked off, towards the grate Agent 8 had come from, and entered it.
"So...you're not here to mind control me again?" Captain 3 asked.
"I wouldn't if I had to. That felt weird for me. I cannot imagine how strange it felt to you. Was it cold?"
"No, it was surprisingly warm. It made the slime worse."
"Sorry for...doing that. Corrupting your brain was surprisingly difficult."
Aniya returned. "Okay, I'm allowed to show it to you." She handed him a small button-activated device. "It's all in here."
He pressed it, and a holographic screen appeared. He pressed it again and it shifted to Log001: The Fall of Humanity. It explained how the remaining humans found the crater. The next told of how they created Alterna and O.R.C.A. Aniya noticed his sad expression as he finished reading that one.
The next two explained the creation of the liquid sky from squid and octopi, and then their failed plan of reaching the surface with the rocket Captain 3 had mentioned before. He quickly skipped to the next one.
His expression turned to shock as he read over the creation of the Inklings and Octolings. Or, at least, their ancestors. Aniya was convinced that he had known all of this information already, and the feeling faded as she watched him continue to read the logs.
He stopped at the final log. The one Aniya went through great lengths to acquire. That one told of Grizz. She tried to stop him, but he read it anyways. Not even Captain 3 had seen it, as she had promised O.R.C.A that she would keep it secret.
The screen retreated back into the shell and Aniya found it back in her hands. Tartar had started off towards the pipe that lead to the second area.
"You weren't supposed to read that one. Orca's going to kill me now..."
"They replaced me. They left Grizz and I alone for thousands of years. They created you."
"Wait, they replaced you? With what?"
"O.R.C.A, or Orca, as you call it. My professor was the only human who knew how to program AI. So he replaced me with it, even though I was still working. Even though I was there for him."
"Commander Tartar-" Agent 8 began.
"I'm going to find this Grizz and bring him back."
"What? Why would you want to do that?" Aniya grabbed his wrist, forcing him to stop. "Tartar, he's worse than you! You changed, he won't."
"He knows just how I feel. If anyone can convince him, it'll be me. Now, it'd be best for everyone if you superfluous crustaceans stay put." He tore his arm from Aniya.
"Marie, stop him!" Captain 3 ordered.
Tartar broke into a sprint. He glanced behind him to see if Marie was trying to catch up, but instead she brought out a charger. She aimed it for him and fired. The shot hit him in the headphones-the telephone's eye-and he completely froze and fell stiff to the ground.
Agent 8 knelt down, and he strained to look at her. "Look, I understand that you're upset. I'll gladly let you talk to Mr. Grizz, but not alone. I'm coming with you in case something happens."
Marie and Callie came next.
"Hey, Marie...Your Low-Tide ink doesn't do damage."
"Yeah. I used it to break the Hypnoshades, so I wonder if it had the same effect on Tartar."
"[Agent 8...]" He slowly pulled himself from the ground. "[Why do you want to come? You might get hurt, or worse.]" He closed his eyes. "[Repairing systems...]"
"I know, but I'm all for the plan of trying to help Grizz. When Aniya told me about what happened, I could only think of you. I know you and Grizz were both so lonely and hurt. And if you can really change, I'm certain he can too."
"But he's crazy powerful," Aniya mentioned. "And if you touch him, it's likely you'd turn into a Mammalian."
"A-a what?"
"You know, the Fuzzy Ooze he made in the last log? He infected a bunch of Octarians with it and made them Mammalians."
"What a strange name..." He snickered.
"You can use that Launch Pad to get to the rocket," Captain 3 said, signaling a hand towards a small ink puddle.
"There's an issue with that," Tartar said. "I don't have a swim form. My body is made of Sanitization and technology. Trying to go into a swim form, hypothetically, would result in me melting off the robotic insides. I don't think anyone wants to see that..."
"But the tubes are also used by swim form," Cap'n said. "And so are the grates. So how the shell did you get down here?"
"I'm not sure. I just melted through, you could say. I have no idea how my insides came with me though...Are you suggesting I try to use the Launch Pad?"
"It's our best shot," Callie said. "And if you could come here, I don't see why you couldn't use them."
"After all," Marie continued, "if the Spawn Point saw you as an Octoling, then you must be an Octoling. Or part, at least." Her gaze went to the odd tentacle atop his head. "I say part."
"Alright. It would be 'worth the shot,' as you celephods say." He walked to the Launch Pad. "Say, if I were to use this..."
"You don't know how to use a Launch Pad?" Agent 8 asked. "But, you had a lot of them in NILS. How did you get up to the head then?"
"One, those were for the Octolings I left in charge of repairing damage to NILS; and two, there is another, much quicker path up. You completely flew past it when you exited the Deepsea Metro..."
He jolted.
"Commander Tartar? Are you okay?"
"I meant to meet with Marina! She was going to take me on a tour of Splatopia! I can't see Grizz right now! I have an important-not romantic in any sort of way-date with her! I'll come back later, I promise!" He hurried back to where he landed, then froze. "Um...How do I get out of here?"
"Super-Jump, you idiot!" Marie smacked him with her brella. "Oh my gosh! For an AI, you really are clueless, aren't you?"
"For the record, some of my memories are still missing. And I swear I keep losing more the more I stay in Splatopia..."
Captain 3 sighed. "Fine, I'll show you how. But after that, you're on your own."