Chapter 5: Fishy Business

"There's no 'I' in team. But there's 'con' in economy."

Night came swiftly, and before the two brothers knew it, Callie sent them out to handle their part of the deal. Sal was a little sour that Callie didn't have to tag along, even though this agreement was her idea. But he sucked it up.

Before they could go to the warehouse Mr. Wale wanted ransacked, they had to group up with the lieutenant. She had left the canyon hours earlier for unknown reasons, so they'd be meeting up at a gathering area near the docks. The location was in a part of Inkopolis they've never gone to, so finding it might be tricky. Still, it was close enough to their target, so neither brother complained. Though Sal wondered why they didn't just meet up at the warehouse itself.

They arrived at the gathering area in their newly repaired agent gear. The only source of light was from the moon and the surrounding buildings. The area was pretty spacious, with only a few alleys to slip into on the sides. Sal could see people throwing a party here. That, paired with the view of the ocean in the background, would make for a great scene. Well, it would if it weren't for the statue in the center of the area.

The statue was huge, taking on the form of a female inkling. Her hands were gracefully folded near her waist as she stood on top of a small pedestal. On that pedestal was a plaque that read: "In memory of those lost."

Is that...? Sal thought for a moment, shaking his head before finishing the thought. It was then he noticed the lieutenant standing near the statue, staring at the plaque.

"Hey, lieutenant!" Cal waved at her with one of his hydra splatlings. He gained her attention briefly, but instead of returning the wave or giving them a command, she just turned back to stare at the plaque.

Immediately, they both knew something was off. The lieutenant wouldn't go without giving them a stern remark, a rude order, or at least a disgusted look. They cautiously approached Sepia, stopping a few feet from her.

"Beautiful night, am I right?" Cal said in yet another attempt to start a conversation. This time, she didn't even give him a look. Both brothers looked at each other, confused and concerned.

"Well, we're here. We should probably head to the warehouse now." Said Sal.

"In a minute," the lieutenant said in a neutral tone. Her body language and current behavior didn't indicate anger, at least not at Sal, but he couldn't help but feel like she was.

Cal eyed the statue. "Beautiful lady right here. What's the statue for?" He asked, completely missing the plaque she was staring at.

"It's a monument." She answered with slight annoyance in her tone.

Sal had thought that's what it was, but he didn't think someone would actually put one smack dab in the center of a gathering area. "Aren't those supposed to be in cemeteries or something?" Sepia whipped her head to stare at Sal, shutting him up instantly.

She didn't give him a specific look or anything like that. In fact, she displayed no emotion in her eyes whatsoever—which was normal for her. But something about her gaze gave him the creeps.

"Are you aware of the Ink Demon Incident?" She said, catching Sal off guard.

"Ink...what?" Whatever incident she was referring to, it was an enigma to him.

But not his brother. "Ohhhhhhh. I heard about that!"

Sal turned to Cal. "What? You have?"

"Yuh-huh. I remember it! Well, kind of. It made headlines all over Inkopolis. It was so big, even Splatsville got word of the incident." Cal's smile faltered. Then he looked up at the statue. "But last I heard, that was just a hoax."

"It wasn't," Sepia said in a definite tone.

"How can you say that? I mean, have you seen the videos available? There aren't many, but they're all terrible quality. And the photos are clearly altered."

"How have I not heard of this?" Sal inquired.

"Sal, you were ten. At that age, you were hardly keeping up with the news." Cal chuckled. "Besides, it was a big thing here, not Splatsville. Shell, I only found out about it through our cousin."

Sal squinted. "Which cousin?"

"You know the one."

"Ah." Sal could see why Cal was skeptical about the incident now.

"You must be getting this memorial confused for something else," Cal said.

"I was there," Sepia revealed. Her statement shocked both brothers. She turned back to the plaque without batting an eye.

"It happened on this night, right here, seven years ago." She started to recount the event. "It was just another splatfest. The Squid Sisters were having another concert, as usual. My family wanted to attend, so we did." The smallest frown formed on her face. "It came without warning... The messy mass of black ink was like a void. If you got too close, it swallowed you, and like that, you were gone." Her breathing suddenly became shaky, and she stopped speaking momentarily, choosing to hold herself instead. Sal and Cal looked at each other, unsure if they should let her continue or if they should change the subject.

Before they could decide, the lieutenant composed herself and continued, "And like that, it was gone without a trace, like a ghost." She let go of herself and stood up straight. "Many people vanished on that day. My family was among them."

Silence fell upon the trio. For once, it was too awkward for Cal to say anything. But that didn't stop Sal from trying to comfort her. "Lieutenant, I—"

"Shut up," she ordered, leaving him slack-jawed. "I couldn't do anything then because I couldn't fight. Now I can." She picked up her Scoped E-Liter, which had been leaning against the monument the whole time. "That's why I joined the Octarian Army—to prevent tragedies like that from happening again." She faced the brothers. "You two only became agents for your own betterment. You're beyond lucky Callie was desperate, otherwise, you wouldn't be here to slow me down."

She stepped up to both of them, getting right in their faces. "Let me make this clear to you both. I follow Octavio. Octavio trusts Callie and has assigned me to her. Callie has put blind faith in you both, so for now, I am to assist you. But this does not mean I respect or like either of you. You're both just no good thugs. Never forget that."

She turned. "Now come on. We have a warehouse to raid." Sepia got a few steps away from the brothers before looking over her shoulder. "And try to pull your own weight this time."

She left, leaving Sal completely flabbergasted. He wanted to get angry, but couldn't. It wasn't like she was entirely wrong about everything she said. They were indeed doing this for the betterment of themselves and were only agents because Callie was in desperate need of them.

"Well, she's got somethin' up her south mouth, am I right?" Cal grinned. It was a blatant and frail attempt to lighten the mood.

Sal sighed. "Come on before she starts making us do laps." He unholstered his splattershot and followed behind Sepia from a distance.

Sal couldn't believe Sepia told them her whole life story just to use it to insult them in the end. Why'd she hate them so much? Because they weren't the idealistic heroes Inkopolis could use right about now? News flash: no one was! If such people ever existed, the city wouldn't be in its sorry state.

Maybe she pulled all of that out of her ass just to insult them. Though, even with how hostile Sepia usually was, she didn't seem like the type to lie. Then again, she mentioned this incident took place during one of Callie and Marie's concerts. Surely they would've talked about it on one of their socials? But as far as Sal could recall, neither of them ever mentioned anything about an Ink Demon. Not publicly, not in an interview, not in person, nothing.

Still, Sal couldn't see Sepia making that up. If she did, she was a damn good storyteller. He'll just have to ask Callie about it after this mission.

With the thought put on the back burner, Sal and Cal followed Lieutenant Sepia to the Oct. Co Facilities warehouse. They maneuvered onto the rooftop and were promptly greeted by the Sam twins.

"What took ya so long?" Samuel questioned, having a hand on his hip.

"We were havin' a history lesson," Sal replied.

"Is that really more important than..." Samuel trailed off as his gaze went downward. "What are those on your feet?"

Sal looked at him confused, then down at his feet. "Shoes...?"

"No. What they is are some damn atrocities. Take that nonsense off."

"Screw you." Cal couldn't help but laugh at the two's banter. "And what're you two doin' up here twiddling your fingers for? Shouldn't you be in the warehouse already?"

Samuel and Samantha's faces curled into discomfort. "Yeah, uh, about that..." Everyone stared in both confusion and concern. "Just follow me." He waved them over, leading everyone further onto the rooftop.

"Now, everybody knows Oct Co. Facilities is eighty percent autonomous. Because of that, they don't typically make their staff work the night shifts. That remains true for this warehouse here. But when me and Sammy scoped it out, it wasn't vacant." He brought them to a skyline window, moving aside so everyone could look through. "I don't know who these guys are, but—"

"Oh, cod dammit. Are you serious?" Sal interrupted. "They're here too?!"

To Sal's dismay, the occupants in the warehouse weren't Oct. Co employees or random thugs. They were the same octarian forces he and Cal had faced in Octo Canyon.

"Hold on, you know these broads?"

"Long story, but yeah, we do."

They weren't the exact same enemies from Suction-Cup Lookout, but they were obviously a part of Marinus's forces. They were all female octolings, and the ones in the warehouse didn't have any of their mindless tentacled drones with them. That checked out, as Sal recalled the octolings back at camp mentioning how the enemy lacked those types of soldiers.

Now that they were in better lighting, Sal could finally pinpoint what was so off about them: their skin.

They had a dark magenta ink color, wore black shades, and, surprisingly, minimal armor. What little armor they wore revealed their pale white skin tone. They looked like ghosts. The octolings back at camp had varying skin tones, but every enemy octoling had the same skin color. It was even stranger that they didn't wear as much armor as he thought they did, considering they were practically unsplattable.

On second thought, the armor might have been their skin, and what he thought was skin was actually a very thin piece of silicone. That made more sense as opposed to all the octolings in Marinus's army sharing the same skin tone. But what would be the point of adding extra armor on top of armor that already made you invulnerable? Wouldn't that just slow you down?

"This doesn't make sense!" Sepia muttered as she watched the enemy octolings haul the last few crates stamped with the Oct. Co Facilities logo, which was an octopus inside a gear icon, into a large pickup truck. "Why are they here? What business do they have with Oct. Co?"

Suddenly, everything fell in place for Sal like pieces to a puzzle. "Actually, this makes perfect sense." Everyone turned to him. "Marina mentioned y'all didn't know—"

"MARINA?!" Samuel and Samantha shouted in unison, startling Sal. Panicking, he tackled them both to the ground and covered their mouths. Sepia and Cal backed away from the window soon after.

Sal let a few seconds pass before peeking his head over to peer through the window, seeing one octoling soldier holding a crate while staring up at the same window. Luckily, they didn't notice him staring back and eventually returned to loading the pickup truck.

Sal sighed in relief. "Can you guys be any louder?!" He yelled in the quietest voice possible before removing his hands from their mouths.

"S-Sorry, sorry. But you said, Marina! Are you talking about that, Marina?" Samantha asked.

"Yes, I'm talking about the same Marina who went missing a few months back. Long story short, we're in contact with her. I'll explain everything later, alright?" Samantha nodded. "As I was saying... Marina mentioned y'all didn't know where the enemy was getting their gear from. Them being here gives us our answer."

Cal tilted his head. "But I thought Oct. Co was a robotics company?"

Sal shook his head. "That's not all they are. They make weapons, bombs, armor, special ammunition, turrets, you name it. Some aren't even ink-based!" He kneeled closer to the window. "It's why Mr. Wale would want whatever is in those crates."

Samuel gripped his inkbrush tighter. "Well, now that y'all are here, what're we sittin' on our asses for? Let's get in there."

"We can't just go in and spray' n' pray."

"Why not?"

"The armor they use is some pretty diabolical stuff. It can tank any shot we throw at it."

"Come on, it can't be that bad."

Sal pointed to Cal. "It absorbed a whole cycle of a hydra splatling."

"R-Really?" Cal nodded in confirmation. "Damn."

Sepia grunted. "We need a plan." She started mumbling something under her breath as she walked off.

"Hey now! Don't leave us in the dark." Cal said, going after her. Samantha looked at Samuel and Sal before departing as well.

The air was quiet as Sal stared at the enemy, wondering if there was any way to bypass their armor. "So, what was it that made you do this for us?" Samuel asked, kneeling beside him.

Sal hadn't realized Samuel was still with him until he said that. He gave a blunt response. "It wasn't my idea. Thank Callie."

"I don't buy that."

"I don't lie, unlike some people here."

Samuel frowned. "Don't tell me you're still mad about that."

"You bet your sweet ass I am! I mean, what the shell, man? When we ask y'all if something's wrong, we expect you to tell the truth. Not lie! Especially about something as serious as being in debt to a literal crime lord!"

"And after you found out, you know what you did? You blew up on us! Then proceeded to sabotage us a year after the fact! You know, you doin' that didn't help us pay our debt off in the slightest."

"Serves you right. That's what liars get."

"What's your problem, dude? It's not like it was your debt!"

"My problem is that the friends I put my trust in couldn't bother to do the same with me!"

At that, Samuel went quiet, and an awkward silence befell the two.

Sal let out a somber sigh. "When me and Cal first came to Inkopolis, a lotta people looked at us as though we were some uncultured country bumpkins because we couldn't do turf wars. But not you or Big Sam. You both showed us how things work around here. Even gave us some worthwhile tips." He looked at Samuel. "You trusted us enough to befriend us. So why couldn't you tell us? Did you think we'd be mad at you cuz you did something stupid to get in debt in the first place?"

Samuel shook his head and looked down. "It wasn't our debt. It was our father's..." Sal's mouth went agape, which didn't stop Samuel from continuing. "I don't know... I guess Dad worked for Mr. Wale sometime in the past, but he ran without paying off his debt to him. And no one escapes Mr. Wale without giving him what he's owed. So naturally, he found Dad again. But by then, he already had a family..." Samuel's face saddened the more he recounted the story. "He was going to kill us all, but Sammy protected me from his thugs. I guess a show of ferocity at such a young age impressed him or something. I'm not sure. All I remember is he spared us and offered to let us live if we took on Dad's debt. Our parents...weren't so lucky."

Sal watched as Samuel sat down and hugged his knees. "When me and Sammy first saw you and Big Al, we were just tryna be good samaritans. We never expected to bond so well with you. And by then...well, we couldn't tell you. You were the only other family we had left. If we told you, and you went to confront Mr. Wale... We weren't sure what he'd do to you." Tears welled up in Samuel's eyes. "Big Al was never meant to see us at that pub. We weren't even supposed to be there, but Sammy insisted we go so we could pay off our debt faster. We thought it'd be safer if we never told you..."

"Your father did the same thing, and you see where that got your family." The words left his mouth before he even thought of them. He was surprised that he could say something so mean. When he saw tears flowing from Samuel's eyes, he realized he messed up. "I-I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. I didn't mean it."

Samuel wiped some tears away. "No, no. You did. And you're right... If we had been honest with you from the start, we wouldn't be on such bad terms now." Samuel weakly chuckled. "I guess history repeats itself after all, huh?"

Silence fell upon them once more. But it didn't last half as long. "...How come you never told us any of this before?"

Samuel wiped away the last few of his tears, sniffling in the process. "Well, you were going through your own family issues at the time. We didn't want to put any of our baggage on you..." That reminded Sal of something he would've much rather forgotten. "Speaking of... did you ever find her?"

Sal frowned, shaking his head. "No... we're still looking."

Samuel nodded. "Guess I'll help then."

Sal looked at him, surprised. "W-What?"

"I said I'll help. It's the least I can do after putting you through all of this."

Sal felt like they just patched up a broken friendship, which brightened his mood. "Thanks."

"No, thank you."

"For what?"

Samuel smiled. "Everything." Sal smiled back.

"Ugh, this is taking too long. Let's just get in there!" Cal boomed, interrupting the moment between Sal and Samuel.

"No! We need a plan—unless you want a repeat of what happened at Suction-Cup Lookout!" Sepia growled.

"Oh, come on. They don't even have half as many troops as they did back at that outpost. They're getting away at this rate, but we can stop 'em!"

"For the last time, no! We're not going in without a plan, and that's final." Cal frowned at Sepia.

Sal watched as his brother's frown soon curled into a sly smirk. Oh no, what is he planning?

"Y'know what? You're right, lieutenant. We'll get stomped if we rush in. I just don't think the plan you're forming is foolproof."

"Oh? Do you have any better ideas, agent?"

"Uh, not right now. But if you explain it to me again, I'll come up with some."

Lieutenant Sepia stared at Cal with an unamused expression. "Fine." She turned back to a large sheet of paper, which she had apparently been using to map out their plan. "The first thing we have to do is—"

Suddenly, Cal dashed for the skyline window. "AGENT!" Sepia reached out a hand as she called to Cal, but he didn't answer.

He leaped onto the window at full force, shattering it instantly. Cal careened down, breaking his fall by landing on top of one of the enemy octolings. "Hello, pretty ladies!" He announced with gusto.

Sal turned back to see Sepia fuming. "We're going in," she said through gritted teeth.

"Heh, I guess some things never change," Samuel said as he and Samantha changed their ink color to yellow. Then they all super jumped through the broken window, landing around Cal. By then, the enemy had surrounded them and drew their weapons, all of which were splattershots.

"Alright, genius. How do you expect us to fight them?" Sal murmured to Cal, who looked at the squirming octoling underneath him.

"Well, if ink won't work on them..." He put down one of his hydra splatlings, only to grab the octoling by the leg. "We'll resolve this Splatlands-style!" With an impressive show of strength, he tossed the octoling into another, breaking the enemy's circle formation. The enemy retaliated by opening fire.

Cal quickly picked up his hydra splatling, and the group separated, covering the floor with their yellow ink as they fled.

Sal swam into another aisle of the warehouse, hearing the pounding footsteps of an enemy behind. He jumped out from his ink to see an octoling was chasing him. Surprisingly, the ink wasn't slowing them down at all. "Jeez, this armor is cheating!" He complained, tossing a splat bomb at the enemy. It landed and detonated right next to them. At that distance, any normal enemy would splat immediately. Unfortunately for Sal, all it did to the octoling was make her stumble.

He prepared himself for combat as the octoling got within firing range. But before she could shoot at him, an inkbrush appeared from the side right in front of the enemy. The octoling did not react fast enough and got close-lined, falling hard and dropping her weapon.

Sal looked at the empty racks from which the inkbrush appeared, seeing Samuel giving him a thumbs-up on the other side. He smiled and gave him a thumbs-up back before continuing down his aisle.

Meanwhile, Samantha and Cal were shooting at the enemies, doing their best to keep them at bay. The best Cal could do was push them back with the sheer volume of ink that came out of each hydra splatling. Samantha tried to contribute by blanketing the area with her bucket, but the enemy walked through her ink as if it wasn't there.

"Jeez, this armor is cheating!" Samantha cried out.

"Shoot, who you tellin'?" Cal replied, leaning forward to duck underneath an enemy's swinging punch. Samantha counterattacked by vaulting over Cal's back, delivering a nasty kick to the octoling's noggin, which sent them barreling to the floor.

Another octoling was right beside Samantha, about to punch her lights out. She was too slow to react, but fortunately for her, a heavy charger shot collided with the octoling. They didn't splat, but they were sent rolling across the floor.

"This is why we needed a plan!" Sepia barked from the back, shooting another charged shot at the enemies ahead of Cal and Samantha.

"Alright, I'll admit, rushing in wasn't my best idea. But hey, at least they didn't get away with the crates!" Cal justified, bashing an octoling backward with one of his splatlings.

"Shoot!" Samantha turned to Cal. "We gotta get the crates off that truck!"

"No, wait," Sepia called out. "Get on the truck," she ordered. It didn't take Samantha or Cal long to figure out what Sepia was thinking.

"Throw me?" Samantha asked, to which Cal laughed.

"You ain't even gotta ask!" He dropped one of his splatlings again, then Samantha morphed into her swim form and jumped into Cal's free hand.

After eyeballing the distance, he tossed Samantha with the accuracy of a professional pitcher. As she was about to pass the truck, she transformed mid-air and grabbed ahold of the side door, flipping herself into the driver's seat. Luckily, the window was down.

After Samantha successfully entered the truck, Lieutenant Sepia turned and spotted Samuel and Sal through the empty racks a few aisles down. She whistled and, after gaining their attention, pointed to the truck. They responded with an affirmative nod.

"Get behind me, lieutenant," Cal instructed as he picked up his hydra splatling. She was a bit confused as to why he needed her behind him, but against her better judgment, she did as told.

After she huddled behind Cal, a maniacal grin appeared on his face. "Comin' through!" He blasted forward, raising both hydra splatlings in front of him to form an X.

The enemy was helpless to stop his charge, as his immense physical strength alone was enough to bulldoze through anyone who tried to impede him; With his hydra splatlings raised, he deflected any bombs they threw and blocked most incoming projectiles. Sepia did her best to stay behind Cal, but he was a lot faster than she expected.

Fortunately, they both made it to the back of the pickup truck, jumping aboard with ease. When Samantha felt them get on, she started driving, peeling off through the main area of the warehouse. She drove at a modest pace so that Sal and Samuel could catch up, both of whom super jumped onto the back.

"Punch it, Samantha!" Sepia yelled, and the truck took off towards one of the warehouse's docking doors.

The enemy octolings tried to catch up, but none of them were faster than a speeding vehicle. It didn't help that Cal and Sepia were using their heavy-duty weapons to further slow them down.

Oddly enough, none of them attempted to super jump to the truck, let alone transform and swim through their ink, which would've been leagues faster than simply running.

Everyone braced for impact as the truck smashed through the docking door and skidded into the empty parking lot.

Samantha steered the truck away from the warehouse and into the nighttime city streets, successfully losing the enemy in the dust.

"Woo! That's what I'm talkin' bout, baby!" Cal cheered, giving Sal and Samuel a high five.

Sepia crossed her arms. "For once, your recklessness didn't result in this mission being a complete failure."

"Thank you," Cal smirked.

"I wasn't complimenting you." Sepia scoffed, then moved away from them, heading further to the back.

"Eh, I'll take what I can get."

Samuel wiped the dust from the smashed wall off his forehead. "That could've gone terribly."

"But it didn't! That's cuz the four of us go together like clownfish and anemones." Cal wrapped both arms around Sal's and Samuel's necks, reeling them in together.

Sal rolled his eyes. "I'll admit, this was... fun."

"See! I knew you'd come around eventually."

Sal slipped out from Cal's arm. "Yeah, yeah. Congratulations, you know me so well. Now that we've got that out the way, how about we take some of this gear for ourselves?"

"What?!" Samuel panicked. "Are you out of your damn mind?"

"What?" Sal sounded genuinely confused.

"The boss will gut us like the inkfish we are if he finds out we took some of this from him!"

"Oh, calm down. I doubt he'll notice a few items goin' missing. Besides, don't you want some conventional armor that makes you indestructible against ink?"

Samuel stayed quiet, giving it some thought. "Well, I guess it would be cool to be immune to most attacks. But I'm only takin' the armor, seeing as you don't need it."

"Hey now, I could use that armor, too! It would keep your inkbrush from bein' a problem." He turned to the crates. "Now then, let's get to lootin'."

There was nothing worthwhile in the crates. All Sal found was some standard ink-based weaponry and a few Grizzco-modified weapons. It was as if they chose the one time the enemy wasn't stealing some high-quality stuff from Oct. Co Facilities to intervene.

"Just our luck." He muttered under his breath as he reached for the lid of another crate. His face contorted into surprise when he found neither weapons nor gear, but documents.

"What?" He said, surprised.

Sal grabbed the first folder he saw and opened it. After skimming through the first few papers, he realized two things. One, these were printed out around the time Urus became CEO of Grizzco but before he rebranded the company, evident by the old Grizzco logo stamped at the corners. Two, they were marked for disposal, implying their online counterparts had already been scrubbed clean.

"Huh, guess Urus is choosing now to get rid of his outdated catalog," Sal commented, thinking nothing more of the documents.

He started combing through each document out of morbid curiosity, seeing what he could find. Part of him wasn't expecting to find anything but corporate mumbo-jumbo, and another part wanted to find proof of shady dealings or illegal doings. He didn't find the former or the latter, but he did find... something.

Sal whipped out a file containing the statuses of what he assumed were employees around two years ago. If the file's contents were right, it showed that Urus had logged the information, which was strange. The only people who could log an employee status file were CEOs or executive members, largely because logging such files meant sifting through an individual's personal information; Last he checked, Urus was never an executive member. He was just some hotshot the company brought in to replace the last CEO, who vanished under mysterious circumstances.

Now that Sal thought about it, the company's founder, Mr. Grizz, had also disappeared years ago. Could the two events be related? It was far-fetched to think Mr. Grizz's disappearance was connected to the disappearance of the CEO who came after him, considering both happened years apart from each other. He doubted Urus played a big part in their disappearance—if any. But the existence of this file proves he was pulling the company's strings from behind the scenes for at least two years. Who's to say he wasn't doing so for far longer?

That wasn't even the biggest 'what the shell' moment for Sal.

The statuses for each employee started with the usual "Employed," "Promoted," "Demoted," and "Under Evaluation" labels. But as he went down the list, he started seeing "Terminated," "Unaccounted for," "Missing in Action," and most disturbingly, "SACRIFICED."

Terminated was just another word for fired, so nothing shady there. Unaccounted for was weird, same as Missing in Action. But when you account for Salmon Run, both made sense. But sacrificed? Why would anyone need to be sacrificed? Even the worst employees were just laid off, with a nice little severance package to boot. Matter of fact, who were they being sacrificed to? The salmon hordes? It didn't make sense.

As Sal tried to process everything, he noticed the date the file was made was around the same time his...

Suddenly, he read through each employee's name as if his life depended on it. After going a few rows down, he realized the file was in alphabetical order, starting with the employee's last name, so he went further down. He realized he had gone too far down once he saw the name "Reef," and went back up.

Eventually, he found the name he was seeking. All three of his hearts stopped beating when he saw the status "SACRIFICED" next to the name. All the color drained from his face as he stared in disbelief. His nerves lost feeling, and the sounds of the world around him faded. It was just him and his thoughts.

It didn't make sense. In all his years of researching Grizzco Industries, he's never heard of them sacrificing people. That had to be illegal, right? What sane company would even do such a thing?

"Hey, didcha find anything?" Cal called out from behind, returning Sal to his senses. When he saw his brother's distraught face, he jumped back. "Whoa, what happened to you?"

Sal didn't offer an explanation; he just stared at Cal, unsure what to say. His silence gradually made Cal's usually chill demeanor fade. "You good?" He asked in a serious tone.

Still, Sal said nothing. He just stared at Cal as the tears welled up in his eyes.

That's when Cal placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sal, what's wrong?"

Suddenly, something clicked in Sal's head. If there was anyone who knew what the files meant, it'd be the one who's been entrenched in Inkopolis for decades—the one who had an eye for weapons and information.

The one who wanted them to raid this specific warehouse in the first place.