[Vault]
[Drake's POV]
I went deeper into the vault, putting my hand on my wound to stop it from bleeding.
"Great, a wound, just what I needed..." I groaned as I had blood dripping down my arm and staining the floor, probably leaving a trail behind me.
But I didn't pay any mind to it, I continued walking until I reached some stairs that went down.
And the moment I saw them, I remembered where they led to, so I didn't doubt going down, heading deeper into the vault.
[POV: Third person]
While Drake went down said stairs, the two girls that made it into the vault had finally started to recover from their daze.
"Dang it... What was that?" asked Nary as she rubbed her eyed, without the octoling right next to her.
"Lieutenant Otome reporting, do you copy? I'm currently inside the vault... Can anybody hear me?" said Otome through her goggles's intercom as she leaned down on one knee, but since she couldn't hear anything but static, she decided to rule out trying to make contact with anyone.
Both girls looked at their surroundings, before their eyes finally met.
They spent around five seconds just staring at each other, before they aimed their weapons at their opponent at the same time.
"C-come on you dirty Octoling! If you want a fight, I'll give you one!" exclaimed Nary, aiming her splattershot towards the lieutenant, somewhat nervous yet determined.
"Not if I splat you first, you cheating inkling" replied Otome with a serious tone, aiming her octoshots towards the squid girl.
They both stood there for around twenty seconds without moving, waiting for their opponent to attack first.
It wasn't until Otome noticed the blood stains that Drake had left on the floor that she finally took her attention off from Nary.
"Red ink?" she asked to herself, while the inkling kept staring at her in confusion.
Otome just ignored her adversary as she crouched and took a sample of the red liquid with her fingers, luckily for her she was wearing gloves.
"Hey, what are you doing? Aren't we gonna fight?" asked Nary as she lowered her splattershot and stared at the octoling with curiosity.
But of course, the octopus girl kept ignoring her.
"What kind of ink is this?" she asked once again to herself as she rubbed the blood between her fingers.
"Are you even listening to me!?" exclaimed Nary, finally pulling her out of her trance.
"Would you shut up for a second?" replied the octoling now a little annoyed, before noticing the trail that a certain human had left behind.
"Wow, is that red ink?" asked Nary as she also noticed the trail.
The octoling then turned back to look at the new door that had covered the vault's main entrance, and possibly the only way out too, she then remembered that she went into the vault without planning ahead, now being trapped inside.
She then turned towards the orange tentacled inkling, who was curiously looking at her surroundings.
"Hey, inkling!" the lieutenant called Nary, making the squid girl turn to look at her.
"Why are you here?" continued Otome.
"And why should I tell you that?" replied Nary, crossing her arms, and looking away with a frown and her eyes closed.
"Because whatever that reason may be, you forgot to plan how to get out" said Otome in a serious tone.
The moment Nary heard that, she quickly opened her eyes as she realized the lieutenant was right, there was no way out.
Otome couldn't help but smirk and chuckle a little when she saw Nary's reaction.
"W-well I wouldn't worry about that! 'cause once I catch him I will force him to tell me how to get out" said the orange inkling, putting her hands on her hips and raising her head up high in a confident pose.
"So your mission is to capture him?" asked Otome, leaning her head to the side.
"Well, not me... The Squid Sisters are the ones who want to do that..." replied Nary, rubbing the back of her head.
"The famous duo? Why would they do that?" asked the lieutenant once again.
"I dunno, we still don't know why they're aft-... Wait a minute, why am I talking to you!?" exclaimed Nary out of nowhere, realizing that she was talking to 'the enemy'.
Otome couldn't do anything but let out a frustrated sigh and put a hand on her face once she saw the inkling's reaction.
"Okay, listen here inkling..." said Otome before being interrupted by Nary.
"And stop calling me 'inkling' all the dang time! I have a name and it's 'Nary'" she replied, now a little annoyed.
"Whatever... Listen, the two of us entered this vault without thinking on how to get out, but listening to your reason for why you're here gave me an idea on how to get us both out of here" said Otome while staring at the squid girl.
"An idea? And what could it be?" asked Nary. Looking at her with curiosity.
"... We should make a t-truce so we can capture him, and then make him tell us how to get out" replied Otome begrudgingly.
"A truce!?" asked Nary, surprised at what Otome said.
"Yes, a temporary truce, as hard as that may be..." replied Otome, still in disbelief of what she was proposing to the squid girl.
"Yeah right, and then I'll dress up as a shark and take a quick dip in the sea" said Nary in a mocking tone, making the lieutenant even more annoyed.
"I'm being serious, neither of us know this place, but he does, which means we're in his territory, we'll have more chances of capturing him if we forget about our rivalries just this time and work together!" insisted Otome reluctantly.
Nary thought about it for a moment, but seeming as there was no other way, she had to accept her offer.
"Alright, but just until we get our hands on him" said nary, pointing at her while she finished her sentence.
"Fine for me" replied Otome as she started to follow the blood trail, Nary following after her, although they were both at least three meters apart from each other.
(T/N: 3 meters is about 10 feet)
"This feels weird..." said Nary without turning to look at the octoling.
"The feeling is mutual..." replied Otome, doing the same thing.
Drake had finally reached a visibly aged door, but not so much that it couldn't be opened.
As he searched for a way to open it, he discovered a little panel with a fingerprint detector.
Without doubting for a second, he put his hand on it, and it automatically began to scan his hand, only to emit a green light and unlock the door as it finished.
Due to the rust on the door, it didn't open instantly, instead, the human had to use both of his hands and use all of his strength to force it open.
After a few attempts, he finally managed to open the doors, but also making it burst open, making a loud sound and almost making him fall down.
Drake had a wide smile on his face as he saw that finally something good had happened to him, before entering the room and closing the doors behind him, without mentioning that above the door there was a sign, almost unreadable due to the rust on it, though the first three letters were still visible, reading "Arm-..."
Otome and Nary kept searching for the ancient one in the giant vault, walking past multiple crates of different sizes.
On one occasion they found several pods similar to the one where drake was found, although these ones were already open, and seemingly for a long time.
But they both stopped dead on their tracks after hearing a loud sound that echoed through the whole vault.
"He must be somewhere around here" commented Nary as she looked everywhere.
"Keep your eyes open, who knows where he might come from" added Otome, holding onto her octoshot.
Both girls kept on walking, keeping an eye on their surroundings, and looking behind them every once in a while.
After some time they reached some stairs that went down. Otome believed that maybe the ancient one was hiding down there, although they couldn't see well through dimly lit hallway.
But before they even thought of going down, the same sound was heard again, though this time it was louder, as if someone had kicked something, startling both of them.
The inkling and the octoling stepped back after hearing said sound, as well as the sound of footsteps going up the concrete stairs.
They kept stepping back from the stairs, until they saw something that left them speechless.
It was Drake, but this time he was wearing a military uniform, each piece of clothing being various shades of green or brown, a balaclava with a skull pattern on it, and an M4A1 carbine, attached with an ACOG sight and an M203 grenade launcher under its barrel.
The moment Drake saw the girls, he gave them a look that would freeze anyone's blood, or in their case, their ink?
They didn't know how to react, until Otome was the first to come out of her shock, aiming her weapon at the human.
"Shoot!" yelled the octopus girl as she started attacking.
Nary finally reacted the moment she heard Otome, and just like she did, she also started to shoot at the human with her splattershot.
But no matter how much they shot him; he didn't even seem to flinch as he was being covered in ink.
"But... H-how?" mumbled Otome in disbelief as she saw how her ink as well as the inkling's didn't seem to have any effect on him other than stain his uniform.
"Oh right, I forgot to tell you that ink is ineffective against him" said Nary, making Otome turn to look at her, baffled.
"My turn..." replied the human, aiming his carbine at them.
They both stood there petrified, with their eyes wide open, this time Nary was the first to react.
"RUN!" she yelled as she pushed Otome, pulling her out of her shock, followed by trying to run away while Drake started shooting right next to their feet.
They tried to separate so one of them could distract him while the other attacked on several occasions, but always being stopped by drake, shooting wherever they tried to run, forcing them to stay together, while Drake calmly walked towards them.
The deafening sound coming out of the human's weapon also wouldn't let them think clearly, or even try to make a plan.
Drake didn't mean in actually harming or killing them, if he wanted to do that he would've aimed at their heads instead of the floor.
But as they were running, Otome saw a crate big enough for them to hide and/or counterattack.
"Quick! Follow me!" exclaimed the lieutenant, being followed by Nary.
Once they reached the crate, they both went over it to then take cover and return fire, the human didn't even take cover as they were shooting at him. But suddenly Otome had stopped shooting.
"What happened!?" asked Nary, taking cover once again.
"I ran out of ink!" exclaimed a frustrated Otome as she peeked from one side of the crate and seeing the ink puddles near Drake.
"And mine is running low..." added Nary looking at the container on her back.
"I can't refill unless I submerge myself in ink" thought Otome followed by seeing how Drake swiftly reloaded his weapon, dropping a little rectangular box and putting in a new one on it, showing that said weapon could reload way faster than an octoshot refilling ink.
"I need to get one of those..." she commented, staring at Drake's M4A1.
"Me too" said Nary peeking above her, staring at the weapon with starry eyes.
But they both went back to hiding behind the crate once Drake started shooting at them again.
"I don't even know why we worry about running out of ink, our weapons are completely useless against him!" exclaimed the octarian, covering her head as bullets were flying above the crate.
"We could at least use them as clubs!" proposed Nary, holding her weapon as such.
"It's no use! How are we going to fight him like that when we can't even get close to him!?" said Otome before noticing that drake had stopped shooting, leaving the two of them confused.
"Did he run out of ammo?" asked Nary, but before Otome could say anything, she saw almost as if it was slow motion a stun grenade fell next to them.
Otome instinctively dropped onto the floor and covered her ears, unfortunately, Nary didn't react as fast as her.
The grenade detonated, a blinding light and a deafening sound coming out of it.
The poor squid girl couldn't do anything but drop her weapon and cover her eyes as she screamed.
"I'M BLIND! I'M BLIND!" Nary screamed, but her temporary blindness and deafness didn't last long as she felt something hit her on the back of her neck, instantly leaving her out of combat.
Otome slowly removed her hands from her ears, feeling very dazed, as well as hearing nothing but her ears ringing thanks to the stun grenade.
The octopus girl struggled to turn around, only to see Drake hitting Nary using his weapon's stock, knocking her out, followed by turning around and staring at her.
Otome desperately tried to find something to defend herself with and saw Nary's splattershot relatively close to her.
She clumsily started to drag herself towards it while hearing drake's footsteps approaching her, making her pick up the pace.
And once she got close enough, she reached for the weapon, but the moment she grabbed it by its grip, a boot prevented her from picking it up.
Otome slowly turned around to face the masked human, who due to her blurry vision, appeared as just a faint outline, however, she could notice how he lifted his weapon over his shoulder.
"Lights out..." was the last thing drake said, before hitting her in the face with his weapon's stock, literally knocking the lights out of the lieutenant.
[Excavation zone]
[Outside the vault]
[One minute after the vault's door closed]
Everyone was finally starting to recover their sight and hearing, being left in a daze and their ears ringing.
"Ugh... what the shell was that?... Marie, are you okay?" asked Callie, her vision still blurry.
"My eyes hurt..." replied Marie sitting on the floor as she rubbed her eyes.
"I can't see! I can't see!" exclaimed Nayls with his eyes closed, walking in circles with his arms outstretched in front of him.
"Open your eyes moron!" said Shara, who had just one eye open, and lowered Nayls' arms, annoyed at her brother's clumsiness.
Nayls finally listened to her sister, and slowly opened his eyes as he started to rub them.
On the other hand, Levin was sitting on the floor with his hands on his ears and his eyes closed, waiting for his ears to stop ringing, which it gradually did.
The octoling group was also starting to slowly recover, some faster than others.
But the first one to do so was the private, who was already standing upright, although still a little staggered.
"Everyone alright...?" she asked.
She didn't get a coherent response, instead she just got groans and some of them saying "Ugh", she even thought someone from her squad said, "I see stars".
But that was enough for the private to know that everyone was good, or at least good enough.
"Lieutenant... Are you alright?" The private asked, but since she didn't get a reply, she started looking around for her.
"Lieutenant...? Lieutenant Otome!" called the Private as she searched for her superior, until she put her sight on the inkling group in front of her.
"Is everyone alright?" asked Marie, looking at the three SquidFire members left.
"Guys... Where's Nary?" Levin asked as he looked around, searching for his orange tentacled friend, before everyone started doing the same thing.
But as they did that, a loud stomp made them all turn around.
"You! What did you do to our lieutenant!?" asked the private while she and the rest of the octoling squad were aiming their weapons at the inkling group.
"Us!? What did you do to our friend!?" replied Nayls, while they also aimed at the octolings.
But before things could escalate, Shara noticed that there was someone else missing.
"Hey, where's that guy we were chasing?" asked the dark-skinned inkling, before turning to look at the vault's door.
"And wasn't there a hole on that door?" the purple tentacled inkling asked again, focusing on said door.
"Don't change the topic!" ordered the private, getting ready to fire her octoshot.
"Hey, why don't you analyze what's going on instead of blaming us?" replied Shara with a frown.
"Analyze what? Inkling" asked the octoling.
"Your lieutenant and our friend aren't here, neither is the thing we were chasing after, and also that vault or whatever it is, now has a new door... It's obvious that he kidnapped them" affirmed Shara, leaving everyone speechless.
"She's right" said Marie with her eyes wide open.
"Good job Shara" commented Levin, while Shara blushed a little.
"Wow Shara, did you really make that up in a single minute?" asked Nayls, impressed at how smart her sister was.
"The fact I am your sister doesn't mean I'm also dumb" she replied, looking mockingly at her younger brother.
"Haha, yeah right... Hey!" exclaimed Nayls annoyed as he realized what his sister meant, also making one of the octolings laugh a little.
"This proves nothing! Tell me where the lieutenant is or else-...!" The private was interrupted by a call on her intercom before she could finish her sentence.
"Recon group twenty-two, this is Octavio, abort mission and return to base, await for new orders!" ordered Octavio through the four octolings' goggles.
"B-but sir...!" tried to argue the private, being interrupted once again.
"I know you bunch of fools got nothing for me again! But there's no time for that, return to base and await for new orders!" the tyrant repeated himself.
"B-but sir, the lieutenant-..." the private once again tried to argue against her orders, being interrupted yet again.
"NOW!" yelled Octavio, almost deafening the four octolings.
"Y-yes sir!" replied the Private with a shaky voice.
The four octolings started to retreat, walking past the inkling group, who just stared at them as they left, but the private had turned around to look at them.
"We're not done with you! I swear you will pay for this!" she exclaimed while pointing a finger at them, before catching up with her team.
"Hmm... Cute..." commented Levin sarcastically as they left.
After that, the Squid Sisters as well as SquidFire turned back around to look at the vault's new door, wondering how they were going to open it... Except for one, who unsurprisingly was the only one thinking about something else.
"Anyone hungry?" asked Nayls, earning a sigh of frustration from everyone.
[Vault]
[30 minutes after Nary and Otome were captured]
[Unknown place]
[Otome's POV]
I slowly started to wake up, feeling as if my eyes were refusing to open, I then felt a very strong headache, as well as my face also starting to hurt.
However, I managed to sit up, only to hear some snoring to my right, to which I instantly turned around and saw that it was the inkling who was sleeping and snoring like a walrus, she was drooling too... Gross.
But that wasn't the issue now.
Touching the floor where I was sitting on, it didn't feel like a regular floor, it felt too smooth, it feels more like...
Forgetting about my headache and the pain I felt on my face, I looked around me and to my surprise, see that we were trapped inside a giant glass sphere.
But that didn't last long, since I could hear the sound of a metallic door opening and closing somewhere.
And who came in you might ask? Well none other than the Squid Sisters... Yeah, as if that were to happen.
It was that strange creature, still wearing those weird clothes stained with ink from our fight, but as he walked around the room, he turned to look at me, giving me a cold stare that would chill me down to the bone, if I had bones, but that didn't mean that it wasn't scary, and with that mask... It just made it even harder to make eye contact with him without gulping, those eyes staring deep into your soul behind that skull mask.
But then, he said something in a language I have never heard, followed by the lights turning on.
I had to cover my eyes with my arm as I took my time to adjust to the light, and once I did, I saw that we were in some kind of lab, and a very advanced one if you ask me, way more than the ones I've seen before.
I then saw the strange creature start to finally pull off his mask, feeling curiosity for taking a closer look at him, since I didn't pay much attention to it earlier.
Unfortunately, the moment he pulled it off, I saw that his face was also painted in a skull pattern, making it hard to make out his features.
But then, he turned to look at the inkling. And I decided to wake her up, not because he told me to, but because I was getting tired of her snoring.
"Hey, wake up..." I said as I shake her around a little, but she didn't even react.
"Hey you! Wake up!" I asked again, shaking her some more.
"Hehe... Yeah, I'll take another bite..." I heard her mumble as she turned her back against me.
At that moment, I just couldn't handle it anymore and had to pull out a little trick that always worked when someone from my squad didn't want to leave their bed.
Putting a finger in my mouth and then taking it out, I inserted my now wet finger into the inkling's ear and then moved it around. And just as I expected, the inkling got startled and instantly woke up.
"HEY WHAT THE SHELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" she yelled at me, showing her teeth in anger, and putting her hand on the ear I had put my finger in.
I didn't even reply to her, I just pointed to where the other creature was, who was just standing in place with his arms crossed.
She looked to where I was pointing and the moment she saw the creature, she instantly stood up.
"He's unarmed! Let's go, it's our opport-...!" The inkling couldn't even finish her sentence as she crashed into the glass, getting basically glued to it, followed by her slowly slide down the sphere, still stuck to the glass.
I just shook my head in response, looking at the inkling slowly slide down, making a squeak noise as she did.
[POV: third person]
Drake was very confused at what the inkling did, who had just now realized that she was trapped inside a glass sphere.
"At least you can't get through reinforced glass, or at least I hope you can't" thought the human, holding his chin.
"Bruce" he called, which made a small floating robot shaped like a ball instantly materialize next to the soldier, earning some impressed looks from the girls inside the glass.
"How can I help you?" asked the robot with a classic robot-like voice.
"I need you to scan both of them while I take a shower" asked Drake as he walked out of the lab and went to another nearby room.
"Right on it, sir" replied the small robot as it got closer to the glass sphere and using its big lens on its front to project a blue hologram on the girls. Startling both of them, stepping back to the other end of the sphere while they looked at the hologram projected on them with curiosity and suspicion at the same time.
"Hmm... Interesting..." commented the little robot, continuing with its task.
[Nary's POV]
Where are we? What's that floating thing and what is it doing to us? Those were the questions that kept repeating on my head over and over while we tried to get away from that strange light, but no matter what we tried to do, that blue light just followed our every move, well, not like we could do much to avoid it anyways.
"What do you think it's gonna do to us?" I asked the octoling as I turned around to look at her.
"Don't know..." she replied as she kept staring at the little floating thing.
"You think it's gonna splat us?" I asked her as I gulped.
"If it wanted us gone, it would have already done it..." replied the octopus girl, while we both noticed that the metal thing had already stopped shining that strange light on us, now just staring at us, sometimes turning to look at one of us individually.
"Why's it just staring at us now?" I asked, now somewhat uncomfortable of that thing just floating in place and staring at us like aliens.
"Hey! Why don't you go bother your friend!?" I angrily told the small metal ball, to which it didn't reply, instead, it just 'blinked' as it kept staring at me.
"Maybe it's just keeping an eye on us in case we try to escape" said the octoling with a serious tone.
But before I could reply to her, the same door where the human had left opened once again as he entered the lab, but this time he wasn't wearing that suit he had earlier, instead... Oh Cod.
He was wearing nothing but some pants, leaving his torso completely exposed, and taking a closer look at it, it was evident that he worked out, well defined abs, strong arms, visible pecs, but not in an exaggerated way.
Without realizing, I felt my cheeks get hot, and that was because I was heavily blushing as I kept staring at the strange creature's body.
[Otome's POV]
Did he really have to walk in like that?
The creature just walked in through the door half naked, making me blush, and uselessly try to hide it.
At least I could take a closer look at his face.
His hair was short and dark brown colored, his eyes being almost the same color as well, he also had a fair complexion like us, well, it was closer to mine, since the inkling was a bit more tanned.
And athletic build, and a few marks on his body.
Damn, how I wish I had my goggles on me to hide my face right now.
But to our relief, he put on a black T-shirt, covering his exposed body.
[POV: third person]
"Found anything, Bruce?" asked Drake, putting his hands on his hips.
"They are very interesting creatures, they seem to be an evolution of the cephalopods of our time, although I do not understand how they acquired a humanoid form" replied Bruce, scanning the girls once again.
"Anything else?" asked the brown-haired man once again.
"Their dialect is very curious... Though I could not gather much, if you made them communicate with you some more, I could make that translator you asked me for" replied Bruce, turning to look at the human.
"But how do I do that? They can't understand me... Besides, I don't think they'd like to talk to me right now" said Drake as he tried to think of something, while his robotic helper stared at him.
But then, an idea crossed the human's mind, and he approached the girls' glass prison, and as he expected, they stepped away from him once he got close.
Drake got down on one knee to be more or less at their height and made a motion with his hands to tell them to calm down.
"Alright... Let's hope for the best..." he told himself, taking a deep breath and moving his hands around.
"Hello, don't worry, me not hurt you" said Drake in sign language while both girls looked at him attentively.
"Great thinking sir, using the only language universal for everyone" Bruce congratulated the human.
"Yeah, but I hope they also understand it" replied drake, repeating the same motions with his hands, as if repeating himself to the girls.
"Wait... Is he...?" thought Otome as she saw the motions the human was making with his hands.
The octopus girl stepped towards him hesitantly and did something that would make Drake jump a little.
"Let us out!" said Otome in sign language, impressing the human.
Drake could only smile at what he was seeing.
"Well... I suppose that's a step in the right direction" commented the human as he stared into the octoling's cute green eyes.
Translator's thought corner: And that makes it five! Whew, this sure is tiring, and there's still a long way to go so I'm not giving up just yet, once again, if you have any suggestions or comments on how to make these translations better feel free to tell me. And if you made it here before I could upload more chapters, congrats I guess.