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Chapter Text

Flashes of piercing blueish green.

One moment of distraction is sometimes all it needs. One moment of distraction is all it took.

Agent Eight submerged herself in her own ink, trying to regain some of her strength, some of her breath. She could feel the green ink sting in her side where it had hit just mere seconds ago. An attack she should have been able to dodge.

It had been a while since she’d rested properly and unfortunately it was starting to show.

But there was now time for this now.

Quickly, she swam up one of the platforms to at least have the altitude in her favour.

“Eiiiight! Attack!” Pearls voice bellowed from the CQ-80.

Eight resurfaced and aimed her octo shot.

Only, there was nothing to aim at. Where was…

“Behind you!” cried Marina.

Eight whirled around, but too late. She gasped, as her defence shattered again, the ink burning wherever it made contact. Blindly Eight shot in the direction of where it had come from, not sure if she hit at all. This had gotten out of hand again way too quickly!

She had to recover, she had to recover!

When Eight’s sight cleared again, she only got a glimpse of her opponent, right as they jumped up into the air and out of her view. They were going to do splashdowns again.

Eight cursed. She knew she’d be too slow to dodge, she knew it!

The first one. Desperately, Eight swam through the ink, forcing herself to go faster, faster, faster!

Second one. Eight hissed in pain as the ink met her skin. But as long as she could move, she had to keep moving. She shifted back into octoling form and limped away, away, away.

Third. The splashdown hit her straight in the face.

Eight yelped and fell on her back, her octo shot slipped from her fingers.

“No!” Eight stretched her arm towards the weapon, every inch of exposed skin burning even more in the puddle of green ink she found herself in. She had to get up! There was no time to waste, she had to get up, she had to get her weapon!

A sudden weight knocked the wind out of her lungs.

Eight blinked.

An inkling with green, strangely marbled hair, brightly glowing eyes, the left one covered by a gigantic, leaky sea snail and an expression as cold as ice. Clanged in her right hand, a hero shot.

Agent Three was sitting on top of Eight, one leg on either side of her torso.

Eight pulled out a splatbomb, holding it against their chest to detonate. Three didn’t look alarmed, didn’t even look down. With the back of their hand, they slapped the bomb out of Eights hands. It exploded somewhere close to her octo shot.

Shit.

Somewhere far away, Eight could hear Marina and Pearl scream out for her. She knew they couldn’t help her.

She was unarmed, out of ink, and couldn’t shift form like this either. She had to get up, she had to get away!

Eight made a grab for one of Three’s tentacles, meaning to pull and scratch and hurt but within less than a second and without even the slightest change in expression Agent Three caught both of Eight’s hands in her left and pinned them to Eight’s chest.

Eight yelled in frustration. Helplessly, she kicked and squirmed, trying and failing to free herself.

This couldn’t be it, she’d come so far! This couldn’t be it!

Agent Three just continued to look at her, unphased.

Gone was the aggressive demeanor with which the inkling had fought before, replaced by something close to careful curiosity. Slowly, she raised her hero shot. Slowly and almost gently, she rested the muzzle against Eight’s throat. She didn’t shoot. Yet.

Why? Was she trying to make her suffer more? It was needlessly cruel of the Agent.

But this wasn’t Agent Three. It was something else. Something that was needlessly cruel. Something that wanted her to feel the weight of her failure.

Piercing blueish green.

Agent Three’s eyes were unfocused, empty, soulless. Her gaze seemed to go through Eight, had been for the whole fight. Though there was something about it she hadn’t been able to quite place before. This up close, Eight was almost certain, that it was pain.

Eight inhaled slowly and shut her eyes.

I am sorry, she thought, and she was. She was so unbelievably sorry.

She was sorry for Pearl and Marina, who she couldn’t thank for all they had done for her and who would now have to watch her die. Sorry for Agent Three, who she had failed to save, even when they had saved her twice before. Sorry for Captain Cuttlefish and all the people she had met along the way, who now had to stay trapped in the deepsea metro forever. Sorry for the people she’d left behind and forgotten when she defected from the octarian army. But most of all, she was sorry for herself, mourning the life she would never get to live. Had it really been worth it, in the end?

There was no way of knowing.

All she could do now was wait.

…

Nothing happened.

Eight opened her eyes to see. Agent Three’s face was directly above hers, closer than even before. Her expression was screwed up into a distorted grin, her head kept twitching. It looked nothing short of agonizing.

Eight felt the hero shot shake faintly against her throat. Why weren’t they shooting? Was Agent Three fighting back?

From the edge of the agent’s eye, seeped a thickly liquid. Was she crying?

Before Eight could react in any way, the hero shot pressed into her throat hard, making her gasp. Immediately upon inhaling, Eight choked. More of the thick liquid was raining down on her, filling her lungs. Eight tried to scream but only gurgles came out.

It felt like her whole body was being set on fire. Like the liquid was eating through her from the inside. It was worse, so much worse than the green ink had been. A pain like she had never known before, spreading from her lungs through her entire nervous system!

Panicked she spit and sputtered and croaked, desperate to get some air. She kicked her feet, threw her body from side to side as hard as she could and screamed and screamed and screamed.

Her vision was getting fuzzy, the edges fading into darkness already.

Oh, she didn’t want to die. She didn’t…!

Against her skin, the hero shot steadied again.

Her own screaming and struggling suddenly seemed really far away.

The last thing she saw before slipping into merciful unconsciousness was Three, still looking at her. Maybe in a way it was even comforting. In a way, she could pretend that she wasn’t alone at least. In a way, it was good that it was her.

Eight didn’t hear the shot that killed her anymore.

When Eight opened her eyes again, she briefly wondered if she was in the afterlife.

She quickly dismissed the thought.

There was no way the floor would be this dirty, her knees would not hurt, and she’d imagine there’d be some kind of… serene silence and positive energy or whatever, instead of the incomprehensible babble of voices she registered only faintly in the background.

Eight looked at her hands, covered in filth from when she had touched the ground, and at her scraped knees.

Was she… alive? Had it all been a dream?

The ground before her was covered in big shards of glass.

Eight looked up. The blender.

She was back at the deepsea metro’s central station, but how was this possible? Had she fallen again? Had someone taken her back?

“BOOYAH! Man, that was way too close…” said Pearl. Pearl!

Eight scrambled to get her CQ-80 out.

“Sweet! The distress signal worked!” Marina chimed in cheerfully. Pearl and Marina! Surely, they’d be able to make sense of it all, they were watching her the whole time after all!

Before she could get a word out, she registered a shift next to her. When she turned her head, she saw… Captain Cuttlefish?? Had they freed him as well? (Whoever they were). How did all of this…

“Agent Three?! Is that really you? Where have you been?!” croaked the old man.

Eight paused. The others continued to talk, probably, all of their voices faded into the background.

There, right next to the destroyed blender’s base, was Agent Three. Lying on the ground passed out. So, they’d been saved… too? It all seemed a little too convenient, too good to be true.

There were no traces of the weird ink left on her. Her tentacles were of a lime color, the same way they’d been before when she had smashed the blender…

“Oh, wow…  I think that might be an employee-model CQ-80,” Eight heard Marina say. Wait.

“Woah!” said Pearl.

“Gimme a second here. I’ll see if I can access it…”

This all seemed very familiar.

“Jackpot! I think these are the blueprints to the entire Kamabo Co.’s test facility!” Marina said, “Agent Eight! Cap’n Cuttlefish! I think we can use these to get you guys outta here!”

Eight ran her hands over her face.

“For starters, it looks like you’ll want to head up through that hole Agent Three made.”

“I should wait here until Agent Three wakes up. No squids left behind!” the captain said and turned to Eight, “You go on ahead.”

Eight just stared at him.

There was no doubt. It was the same as before, the exact same! It was like she had… Like she was-

“Yo Eight, you good?” asked Pearl, voice full of concern.

“I,” Eight paused, unsure how to put her horrible suspicions into words, “We’ve been here before.”

“Uhhhh, yeah? This is the central station, you’ve been here many times,” said Pearl.

“No,” Eight got up, “No, I mean we’ve been here before. We had this conversation before, exactly like this!”

“Whaddya mean?”

“The poor thing must have hit her head,” Cuttlefish sighed and started rapping about head injuries.

“So it’s just me? None of you remember?” Eight rubbed her chin.

“When you were here before, what happened exactly, could you describe it?” asked Marina. Eight could hear her keyboard clicking frantically in the background. Could that mean that she believed her? She should have known she could count on Marina!

“I superjumped through that hole in the ceiling and worked my way up through the stages of Kamabo co., all the way up to the elevator that leads to the surface, where…” Eight looked at Three, “I died.”

“No way!” Pearl gasped in shock, “How are you here, then? Rina?”

The keyboard clicks continued.

Clickiti-click-clack.

“I see,” Marina said at last. Eight held her breath.

“See what?”

“I found an anomaly in the energy system of this place; it looked like nothing at first, but it runs deep. Maybe it was like this before and we just didn’t notice, maybe it just changed when the loop reset.”

“Loop?” Cuttlefish raised an eyebrow. Eight leaned forward.

“I have reason to believe that Agent Eight is experiencing a timeloop.”

“You mean to say… She went back in time?!” Pearl asked bewildered.

“Positive.”

“What in the scifi bullshark?! And there I was thinking nothing could surprise me about this place anymore…”

Time… Loop. Okay…? This was not the answer she was hoping for. But an answer nonetheless, she supposed.

As always, Marina seemed to have a sixth sense for Eight’s confusion and explained, “People getting stuck in time loops is a popular trope in fiction. It involves characters reliving the same week or day over and over again. It is always triggered by something, usually the main character has to learn a valuable life lesson to escape it again.”

“I don’t need to learn a valuable life lesson!” Eight said defensively. She felt like she had already learned plenty in her time being in the metro.

“That’s just in fiction,” Marina assured her, “I would assume there is a different trigger. It might just be some built-in mechanism of this place. I have to look further into it.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Mh… Well. It’s safe to assume that what triggered it was you dying up there. If you just went again without dying, I think you should be fine.”

Could it be this easy? Did it make sense? If the evil phone didn’t want her to leave, which she could only assume was the case after everything, why would it give her a second chance? But then again, the path she had taken had been restricted and heavily guarded. Clearly nobody was meant to enter it, even worse use it as an escape route. Perhaps it was all just a lucky coincidence.

If going through the stages again was all it took for her to finally see sunlight, there was no time to waste. Eight dusted the dirt off her legs.

Her eyes landed on Three.

“You can’t stay here,” she said to Cuttlefish, who shook his head in surprise.

“Why? Whatsamatta?”

“It’s not safe here. The last time, both of you were attacked,” Eight explained.

Captain Cuttlefish seemed oddly happy about this information. Wisely he nodded with his eyes closed. “Good work Agent Eight. Thank you for the heads up. Me and Agent Three will go back on the metro and ride along then, till you got more information for us.”

“Actually,” Eight said, “I think it would be better if Agent Three came with me. They might know more about the loop; I’d like to talk to them directly once they wake up.”

“Might be a little difficult considering their state,” remarked Pearl.

“Are you sure, Eight?” asked Marina.

Eight nodded. “I can take her along in her squid form. That should be possible, right?”

“Should be arrangeable, yes,” said Cuttlefish.

Eight nodded again, pleased, and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. So she’d have to go through all of the phases again. If anything, this was an opportunity to do better than before, in was an opportunity for improvement.

Eight knew, she could do better.

She would not fail again.

Making her way up through the stages a second time was, as it turned out, unfortunately, not that much easier. It certainly helped that she knew where she had to go and to look and to hide. Coccyx phase was still plenty nerve wrecking. More than once, did the green octo troopers turn around and view the place she was in with great suspicion in their dead eyes. They remained only suspicious and Eight got through it alright.

Villi phase was when things started to move along, at least somewhat. Dodging the octomissiles, she found into a smooth rhythm quite quickly. Rearming herself with the triangular splat bombs felt like a reward in and of itself. Being able to splat the octorhurlers did even more.

As she traversed, it was really interesting to find that the advice Pearl and Marina were giving her throughout her journey remained largely unchanged from before. Which Eight supposed made sense but seemed to send Pearl into a small existential crisis, when pointed out.

“How am I supposed to believe in free will when we can’t even divert from previous dialogue boxes?!”

“Pearlie… You’re not. Free will is a lie.”

“Stop it right now, Rina!”

They kept in steady contact with the captain too. “Sitting fresh in the met-ro! Hiding here from the danger, yo!” he’d rhyme skillfully. Eight was glad he was okay. The whole situation was still making her a little anxious.

It was the phone that had wanted to blend her and the captain into a paste. The phone that had attacked him and Three. And the phone that had controlled Three to fight her… Eight had kept the details of what exactly happened in the Spinal phase to herself for now. She wanted to talk to Three and feared Marina and Pearl would have objected had they known the truth (they could get quite protective, she had found). On the off chance that Agent Three knew more about the state they were in; she wanted to make sure she got the information firsthand. Carrying the still unconscious inkling on her back, in her ink tank worked surprisingly well. She had worried at first that it would be more difficult to section off a part of the tank to hold the light green ink as well as her own, but it had worked like a charm.

When she finally retrieved the octo shot, things really picked up in pace. Belly phase was what some would call a cakewalk (a phrase Eight had picked up from one of her magazines). She navigated the sinking platforms effortlessly, earning praise from Pearl and Marina. The Missile copter was delt with easily too, Eight hardly broke a sweat.

And thus, she moved on to the Intestinal phase.

The lasers. She had to slow down and be extra careful again. Even with the possibility of not dying due to the loop, she did not want to know what touching the beams would feel like. So, she focused, only half listening to what the others were chatting about on the line.

For the most part, it all went nicely. She swam, she jumped, she ducked out of the way. She wasn’t surprised when the lasers started to move towards her and she foresightedly inked the wall, to use it as refuge, when jumping and swimming weren’t an option. “Nicely done!” Marina told her.

Next was the white room with the trapdoor, the one Eight knew would lead her to the next phase. Dodging the lasers would be tricky, as it had been the last time, but certainly doable.

What she found, however, had Eight stopping in her track. What…?

“What is it Eight? Somethin’ wrong?” Pearl asked.

Eight blinked.

The lasers to the left half of the room, the one Eight knew had the mechanism to open the trapdoor in it, reached all the way to the ceiling.

“The room has changed…” she mumbled.

“What’d she say??” Pearl yelled.

“This room wasn’t like this the last time. It has changed, the lasers were different,” Eight said louder.

“Are you sure?” Marina questioned.

“Definitely,” Eight moved closer to the wall of lasers.

The last time, she remembered clearly, there had only been one laser beam on the very ground. She had jumped over it no problem. The whole room had required a lot of jumping and shifting. But this…

She leaned in closer.

And a little closer…

Maybe a little too close.

“Woah!” Eight stumbled forwards, while her ink tank shook on her back.

Pearl and Marina cried out for her. Through frantic waving and maneuvering, Eight somehow managed to regain some balance and avoided smashing face-first into the laser wall. Cautiously, she took a step back from the barrier, one hand at the still shaking tank.

“It’s all good, I’m fine!” Eight assured them but promptly fell to her knees. The tank seemed to get heavier. Which could only mean one thing!

With effort, she flung the tank over her shoulder and on the ground. A muffled squawk.

One more, two more, three more shakes, until at last, a blobb of lime green ink oozed out of the container, rather unceremoniously.

The blobb was of course not a blobb at all, but a squid. Eight watched closely as the squid shifted into its inkling form… rather slowly. It looked like it hurt quite a bit.

And then, there she was at last.

“F-fuck!” Agent Three coughed helplessly. She was holding herself up with her arms.

Eight, for her part, wasn’t sure what to do. Should she say something? Help, somehow? Pat them on the back?

“Eight! What’s happening? We can’t see you properly!” Marina asked frantically and entirely too close to the microphone. Eight flinched a little at the clipped audio.

So did Agent Three.

They whipped around and locked eyes with Eight.

Bright, fiery orange.

Eight blinked. She’d never actually seen Three’s real eye color before. It shouldn’t be a surprise of course that it would be different from during the fight, when Three had been mind-controlled. And yet… It was weird, in a way. Eight couldn’t even say why. Maybe just because she hadn’t thought about it much (shell, she couldn’t say why she was thinking about it so much now!).

Maybe because this time, Three was actually looking at her. There was something so intense about the way she did, Eight wasn’t sure she could have looked away, had she wanted to (for some reason, she didn’t.)

“You…” the inkling slurred, her voice still low.

With her right hand she grabbed behind her.

Oh.

Oh!!

Eight rose to her feet and drew her octo shot. Three of course, grabbed into nothing. Had she had her hero shot, Eight wouldn’t have had to look for a weapon during the villi phase.

“We’re on the same side!” Eight yelled. She wasn’t sure if being unarmed would stop Three from attacking her anyway. Probably not.

“You say that while pointing a weapon at me?!”

Eight looked at the octo shot, which was still pointing at the agent. It was a fair point. Slowly, she lowered the shot, till it hung limply at her side.

“We’re on the same side,” she said again, this time hopefully a bit more convincingly.

Three glared at her, not saying a thing. But they weren’t attacking her either, so that was good.

“Eight? We still can’t see you, are you okay over there?” the silence was broken by Marina again. Right.

Eight mumbled a quick apology and stepped a bit to the side, where Pearl and Marina would hopefully be able to see her better (she honestly still wasn’t sure how exactly the camera function they were using to keep an eye on her worked), all the while making sure to not make any sudden movements that could escalate the situation further.

“Yo yo, is Agent Three awake?” Pearl raised her voice.

“Yes, they just woke up,” Eight affirmed. Three raised an eyebrow.

“Who is-“

“AAA—A-YYyy!! -Gent Thr-Ee,” the audio clipped horribly, Eight held the CQ-80 a little farther away from her body.

“C-captain?!” Three jumped up and grabbed the CQ as well, making Eight stumble, “Cap’n cuttlefish is that you? Over.”

“It is! Thank cod you woke up, I was getting worried, yolo!” the cap’n replied cool-ly.

Three blinked, “Are you alright? Where are you? Over.”

“I am, uh,” sounds of paper rustling, “Chilling in the metro, that’s right, no.. Lit af.”

“Keep it up, gramps,” Pearl huffed on the other line. Three frowned.

“No need to worry about me, squiddo. I’m safe here. You should focus on the mission! Find a way out. You can trust Agent Eight, she’s one of the good ones.”

Disapproving groans from Pearl and Marina at his choice of words.

Three, at last, looked up from the device to meet Eight’s eyes again. They were… pretty close. A fact they seemed to realize at the same time. Three pushed the CQ back into Eight’s hands, a little harsher than necessary, and took several steps back. Eight noted again, that the inkling was slightly shorter than her. She knew this already of course, but still, it was an interesting piece of information… Probably.

“So you’re Agent Eight, then? Great,” she didn’t give her time to reply, “Fill me in. What are we doing here and where are we going. As many details as possible. What is our objective here?”

Eight bit her lip. Right, she still needed to explain the whole time loop thing. And she needed the right words…. Hm. Agent Three had started to walk around, eyeing the deadly lasers themselves, the same way Eight had done earlier.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked carefully.

Three stopped and turned around slowly, “Why?” Their voice sounded alarmed, in a way. So maybe they did know something!

“Well, you see, it seems like this place… In a way… It has all these… Um, it’s difficult to explain, the uh,” there was no way of delicately explaining something she didn’t understand herself, “we’re in a timeloop,” she said blandly.

“Timeloop,” Three repeated under her breath. She believed her! Immediately! Of course she did, she was very skilled and used to high stakes situations, Eight could imagine.

“What loop is this?”

“Um… the first.”

“Cap’n, what do we know about this? Over.” Three raised her voice so the captain could hear her.

“You gotta ask Marina, she knows the most about this.”

“Marina?” Three repeated.

“That’d be me,” Marina introduced herself, flatly, “The energy surrounding this place is very irregular and unstable. The magnetic field around the facility seems capable of bending time, in very simple words. It seems to me like this is a built-in mechanism, however. That’s all we know for now. Could be a fluke.”

Was it just Eight or did Marina sound kind of… on edge? She wasn’t usually this short with her. Or Pearl. Or the captain. (And that concluded all the people Eight could reference.)

“The plan for now is to do the same as before. Eight got pretty far the last time, homegirl’s a beast!” Pearl proclaimed. Eight blushed and avoided looking at Three. Agh! Pearl!

“Anyway,” Eight said loudly to change the subject. She described the next two phases of the route to the elevator again. She had already explained it all to Pearl, Marina and the captain, and then once again to the captain because he wasn’t listening the first time. She rattled off the phases like a report. At one point, she knew the words would stop sounding like words. With a little luck this would be the last time she had to recite them.

Only when she was done, did she look back at Agent Three. They nodded, having listened carefully to each word with crossed arms. Right.

“So, what is the last thing you remember?” Eigth asked again.

“Passing out,” Three answered, “when I jumped into the blender.”

Oh.

“So you don’t remember our fight, then?”

“UM your excuse me WHAT now?!” Pearl shrieked.

“Huh!? You said nothing about this, Eight what do you mean fight?”

Eight cringed.

Three looked back at her, her expression not giving much away. “I don’t,” she said, quietly and calmly, “what happened?”

“She did this!” Marina gasped in sudden realization, “that’s how you died the last time! It was her!”

“Ayo!”

Three’s face remained neutral. So she didn’t remember then. It would be a lie to say that Eight wasn’t at least a little disappointed.

“Why did you keep this from us Eight?” Marina asked, there was hurt in her voice.

Eight sighed. It had felt wrong lying to them, it really had. Marina’s displeasure specifically made her hearts ache. But it had been the only way. “I knew you’d react this way.”

“Ayo!”

“What happened?” Three pressed, seemingly uncaring about being cursed out by the others.

Eight straightened and focused back on the other agent, “The telephone did something to you while you were unconscious the last time. It… infected you with weird goo that took over your mind, somehow. It made you fight me again, and in the end, I lost.”

Three winced, “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault though!” Eight assured her, waving her hands for emphasis, “That’s why I didn’t want to leave you or the captain at the station anymore.”

“I see. Well, if we want to get out of here today, we should get a move on.”

Complains from Pearl and Marina. But Three was right, they had to continue upwards.

Eight turned around to once again inspect the lasers. Getting to the mechanism from the other side of the room was going to be much harder with the way the lasers were positioned on the wall, criss-crossing from side to side. But it had to be possible. Eight inked the way through the right side of the room and maneuvered through the lasers until she arrived at the trap door.

“The mechanism to open it is on the other side,” Eight explained. It was blocked of by no less than three vertical lasers, two crossing ones and two more on the right wall. Eight scratched her ear.

“Step aside,” Three ordered and stepped in front of Eight, where she… did nothing.

“Yes…?” Eight asked after a few seconds.

Three sighed. “I don’t have a weapon, you have to do it.”

“…Yes?”

“You swim on the wall to the right side. Get as close to the wall lasers as you can without touching them and jump into the room with the mechanism. Do you think you can do that?”

That’s… What she would have probably done anyway. Eight told her as much.

“Then why aren’t you doing it?”

A fair point. Eight inked the wall and swam.

It took an immense amount of concentration. She could hear the lasers buzzing next to her ear. A shrill and dreadful sound. She tensed all her muscles and mapped out her next move in her mind. With all her force, she pushed herself off the wall, through the small gap between the deadly lasers, and landed directly on the field that activated the door.

Back to her octoling form, Eight turned around. Three was gone, presumably already fallen down to where she knew the path to the next phase to be. Eight chuckled. Three hadn’t even made a sound when they fell. How silly.

Eight turned back around.

Now she just had to get to the door herself. Eight inked the wall some more. Dodging the lasers on the way back would be even harder. But certainly possible. She was just about to get going, when a sound interrupted her. A small beep.

“Eight, wait,” Marina spoke from the CQ. Eight took it out.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. She saw on the device, that captain cuttlefish had been muted. Marina had cut off the transmission for him.

“I need to talk to you, it’s about Three,” Marina said, “You don’t have your memories, you don’t remember her from before.”

“I know what she did,” Eight assured her. The captain had left few details to the imagination. Eight knew that Three had taken on the octarian army about two years ago, knew that she had beaten DJ Octavio and that for many octarians, life had never been the same. She supposed this included both herself and Marina as well.

Even though Eight didn’t have the memory of making the decision to leave for good, she had the song, how could she ever forget it?

“Still. The way in which they used to fight then…” Eight didn’t have to be told about this either. Three had gotten her pretty good the last time.

“I’m not saying they can’t be trusted but… Be careful, okay?”

Eight obviously understood where Marina was coming from but… Three had saved her, hadn’t she? By smashing the blender, she had saved her life and injured herself too. She’d been passed out for so long, that couldn’t be healthy. Plus, she was a fully trained agent with so much experience and skill. If there was a person she could rely on, apart from Marina of course, it had to be Three, right?

Eight nodded anyway.

“Hey, are you coming down??” she heard Three yell from somewhere far down.

The next stage. They had to continue.

Eight put the CQ-80 back in her pocket and shifted into octopus form. With great dexterity, she climbed the wall.

“Marina…” Pearl, who had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole conversation raised her voice.

“I’ll explain it to you, give me a second.”

The device beeped another time, signaling that both Pearl and Marina had left the call.

But at least cuttlefish was back again.

“Time to show the wall who’s boss!” he cheered, oldly. Eight made the jump.

Diaphragm phase.

Eight viewed the structure. At first glance everything appeared to be the same way it had been on her original walkthrough. The high ceiling, the red lights indicating the location of the different data points needed to release the locks on the energy core and, of course, the energy core itself.

This golden light. A clear objective.

Eight scanned for the data points, their positions seemed to be unchanged. Had the lasers in the last stage been a coincidence? Had Eight been mistaken and they had actually been positioned like that all along? She doubted she’d get any real answers, so she just moved on from that question.

Instead, she found the equipper she knew held the necessary equipment to complete this stage, the inkjet. It was for the best, if they advanced through the last few stages as fast as possible. Luckily, the diaphragm phase specifically had not been particularly hard the last time, unless something turned out to be out of place, Eight doubted there’d be much trouble. She inked the platform before her and swam and jumped to get to the other side, where she approached the equipper.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” chuckled Pearl. She and Marina had rejoined the call a minute before.

Mh? Eight turned around. Oh.

Three was still standing at the very beginning of the stage. The two of them were separated by the abyss that lurked beneath the platforms. Right. Without any ink to swim in Three couldn’t cross over to the platform. How could she forget?

“…Should I get you?” Eight asked rather awkwardly. But it was the reasonable thing to do, she’d carried them in the ink tank before. What difference did it make if they were awake now? None. That’s right, none at all.

Three pulled a face, clearly displeased by the proposal.

Wordlessly, they took a few steps back to gain momentum. With a short sprint start, they jumped over the ledge, rolling off on the small platform they avoided touching even a drop of Eight’s ink. With one more swift jump, they made it over the last stretch of distance and landed steadily next to Eight. Their cape flowed in the wind.

“Guess not,” Eight mumbled. Ah! They were so cool!!

Eight stepped onto the round field and let herself be armed with the inkjet. Only when the cylinder shaped glass around her retracted into the floor again did she realize. Apologetically, she turned to Three who still stood a few steps to the side.

“Oh, sorry. I think this equipper only carried one inkjet. But you can get back in the ink tank, if you want?”

Eight felt her face flush up. Gosh, she sounded so insistent about carrying her, was that weird?? No… It was the logical thing to do, and she had to at least offer it!

“No, I don’t want to go back in the tank,” Three said harshly, her cheeks dusted in light color as well. So at least Eight wasn’t the only one that was embarrassed. How reassuring. Not. “I’ll just… Wait here, I suppose,” Three concluded and sat down at the base of the equipper, not at all looking happy about it.

Eight nodded. It was probably for the better. She was just about to take off, when she remembered something.

“Here,” she showed Three the blue CQ-80, the employee model, “This was yours, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you…”

“I found it,” Three said the kind of matter-of-fact tone that didn’t allow for any further questions. Sigh, alrighty then. In honesty, the inkling did still look slightly under the water, if the dark circles under their eyes were an indicator. There was probably not that much information she had that Eight didn’t know already anyway, having gone through all stages before.

Eight rummaged through her belongings once more and pulled out her own grey CQ-80, the one she had used to navigate the metro system and used to stay in contact with the others.

“Here,” she handed it over, “You can use this to communicate with us. I’ll keep the employee one…” Assuming that Marina could activate the communication function on the employee model as well.

“Leave it to me,” Marina chimed in, as if on cue. She always seemed to know exactly what Eight needed, it was truly impressive.

“ccaann yyoouu hheeaarr mmee??” the audio came from both devices at the same time.. It was an unpleasant sound that continued to ring even when Marina stopped speaking.

Eight confirmed to her that the audio worked and looked over her shoulder one more time. Three was still sitting on the base, their hands covered their ears at the horrid sound continued. The CQs should not be this close to each other, Eight pocketed hers and turned back.

She’d complete this stage as fast as she could, faster even than the last time.

She activated the inkjet and shot into the air.

To Eight’s slight surprise, the others continued talking as she moved through the level. Normally, they used the groupchat for such conversations, reserving the line for advice and warnings. It wasn’t like she was bothered by it, not by a long shot. When she had to really concentrate, she was able to tune out any disturbances anyway.

But every once in a while, she’d listen in.

“And that’s how you successfully get out of detention using three packages of mayonnaise alone!” Pearl concluded a story Eight had only absentmindedly listened to while getting the third data point.

“Wow, Pearlie! That was so… graphic,” Marina remarked, making Pearl giggle.

“You call that graphic?” the captain chuckled,” let me tell you something, squiddos! A real story!”

“Oh-ho! Gramps has a story to tell,” Pearl snickered.

“Are we sure we want to hear it?” Marina laughed nervously. 

The captain didn’t wait for confirmation and went right in.

“I warn you! This tale is not for the weak! Also, I should mention, it involves an old, former friend of mine. I get the feeling that some of you may know him, so out of respect for his privacy, I will change his name… Mh, yes, let’s call him ‘D.J.O’”

“Oh, that’s not…”

“Bring it on pops!”

“Please…” Three mumbled weakly. Eight listened up more closely. It was the first time the inkling had said anything on the line. The captain immediately switched up with concern.

“Oh Agent Three, how are you feeling? Hanging in there?” he asked.

“Having a headache, is all. Over.” Three said lowly.

“I imagine,” Eight could almost hear him nod as he said it,” You need to get some rest soon. Surely Eight will make quick work of it, right Eight?”

Eight smiled and collected the next data point. She was certain it wouldn’t take much longer to clear the stage all together. She moved through the structure with practice and experience. Skillfully she’d anticipate the green octarians. This time around, not a single drop of their ink even got to her. Had they still been capable of emotion, they probably would have looked surprised.

“Oh cod! Tell the story old man!!” Pearl pushed, impatiently.

“Ah, yes yes,” Cuttlefish chuckled, then paused, “You are all of age, aren’t you?”

“Yes!!” Pearl cried.

“No?” Three grumbled.

“Right! Agent Three, Agent Eight, cover your ears! This is not going to be family friendly slash pg!”

Well now she had to listen! Eight stopped in the air, ink still pooling around her feet. She pulled out the CQ-80, moving it closer to her ear.

“Rina, can’t you just mute them?” Pearl whined.

“’Muting’ would just make it so that we can’t hear them. What you want me to do is to make them not be able to hear us. But, since this line is kind of for communication purposes first, Pearl, that would in a way defeat the whole purpose, don’t you think?” Marina said sternly.

Pearl sighed, clearly admitting defeat. Eight lowered the device, only slightly disappointed. She focused her attention back on the task. Only two more locks on the energy core. And then only one more phase to the elevator. It was practically within reach.

The others continued talking but Eight didn’t listen anymore. It was time to focus.

She dropped into the round room and dodged the volley of ink shot by the blue octarians. Carefully she manouvered down, taking out some of her enemies and with a few shots of her own ink, the last data point was hers.

The floor shook and shifted as the last of the locks was released on the energy core.

It shot high into the air, well beyond how far she could see, up into the next phase. Just like it had done before.

The others didn’t know this, of course and were still surprised. “WOOOAAAH!” Pearl yelled. Eight superjumped to the next highest platform, right to where she knew next launchpad to be. Three landed next to her. She must have jumped at the same time. Eight cast her a proud side-glance. She had finished the phase in record speed, after all.

But Three just stalked right past her.

Right. Eight bit the inside of her cheek. Of course the inkling wouldn’t be impressed by something as trivial as this. Technically they hadn’t even seen her the whole time…

Eight stepped onto the launchpad. Luckily, the next phase could give her plenty of opportunities to prove herself!

With a wet sound smack the octocommander burst into pieces, leaving behind a puddle of grainy green ink and a handful of salmonid eggs. Eight grinned. The angle in which she had thrown the splatbomb had been flawless! If that thing wanted to soil the energy core, it’d have to get up earlier!

Eight shot at the energy core, moving the platform they were on to follow the preset track. The sixth phase had been among the most intense the first time, but Eight was no longer unprepared. When the platform came to a halt in the right position, Eigth swam in her ink, a little forward just to the right spot. She waited a few moments, counted the beats.

With her octoshot drawn, Eight emerged from her ink and shot at the octobomber, splatting the thing just as it spawned.

Smugly, she looked over her shoulder, to where she knew Three to be standing. The inkling inhabited the left corner of the platform, the only space of it that was not covered in ink. Their hands were fidgeting with the seam of their cape, their eyes stapled to the octomissiles ahead. They… Hadn’t even looked at her. And after she’d been so cool too!

Eight’s shoulders sank in disappointment. She was doing exceptionally well on the stage, especially if you considered that the challenge was much harder than it had originally been. Not only did Eight have to protect the highly fragile energy core and herself from enemy attacks, no, she had to look after agent Three too! Which was tricky, with the inkling not tolerating neither the enemy ink nor Eight’s magenta ink (she hadn’t dared to propose the ink tank idea a third time). It would all be way easier if the two of them just had the same ink color, the way people fighting alongside each other usually did. But she supposed that couldn’t be helped, at least not now. Without a weapon of her own, Three couldn’t do much either way, which, now that Eight thought about it, was probably the reason why she was so tense.

Eight was so lost in her thoughts, that she registered the green splatbomb that landed next to the energy core just on e second too late.

Oh!!

Eight jumped.

“Hey! Pay attention!” Three shouted. So now she was looking, huh?

Eight charged forward but to no avail. The bomb detonated, covering both the energy core and Eight herself in disgustingly stingy ink. Eight hissed and looked up. The second octobomber. How did she miss him?! One moment of distraction…

Eight didn’t need to try shooting to know the nasty thing was out of reach. She hit the core again, effectively moving the platform closer to the bomber. And in the range of the octomissiles. Eight threw a bomb of her own at the propellers to move down the wall. This would give her at least a little time to deal with the thing.

Another green bomb, fell in front of her feet. Eight kicked it out of the way, even through her boot she felt it sting. She hit the core some more, moving in closer. Just when the bomber was about to cough up another explosive, Eight jumped up and pulled it out of the sky by one of its scrawny legs. Pitifully it squirmed in her grip, but there was no light in its dead eyes. Eight pulled the trigger. The bomber’s body burst in her fingers.

Eight looked up again. There was a third one, she knew this, but where was it? Had it not spawned yet?

“Agent Eight watch out!” the captain’s voice came from the CQ.

Eight whipped around.

An octomissile.

So close that she wouldn’t be able to even raise her weapon in time to shoot it.

Shit.

Eight braced for impact.

Instead of getting hit by the projectile, Eight suddenly felt a hand around her waist. Before she could open her eyes, she was being thrown to the floor, her back hitting the ground with a splash of ink. She gasped.

Three was leaning over her, holding the both of them down while the missile passed over their heads. The underside of its round belly lightly grazed the top of Three’s hair. Eight could only stare at them. How on earth were they so fast?

Three still wasn’t looking at her, her eyes focused on the passing missile. She was so close that Eight could feel her breath stutter on her face. The inkling winced. Right, they were sitting in ink! Three was in pain!

Damn it, she was so cool! And Eight was making a fool of herself. She would not let that sit with her, she could do better!

Eight snaked one arm around Three’s waist to put her hand on her hip. Immediately the agent’s eyes snapped back open, full of alarm. Eight didn’t give her time. In one smooth motion, she flipped the two of them around. Smoothly switching position, she used Three to gain momentum and get back on her feet.

“Go back to your corner!” Eight ordered, while she shot two more missiles right before they hit the core. With a few more shots, she finally moved the platform out of the way. That only left one thing to do.

Calmly, Eight walked towards the last bomber.

There was a low gargling sound at the back of its throat, announcing a new bomb. With a quick flick of her wrist, Eight shot it out of the sky. Its plump body fell into the abyss.

“Nicely done!” Marina cheered. Pearl and the captain also had nothing but praise for her. Eight looked at the energy core.

One single drop of enemy ink sullied its delicate golden shell. She had done much better than on her first run, true, and yet it somehow felt like a personal offense. A great dishonor.

Eight turned towards the corner, where Three was now sitting, rubbing at her irritated skin.

“There’s only one last stage to this phase,” Eight explained while shooting at the core, “it has more lasers and octoballers that can roll over the platform.”

Three got up. “Give me something to do the next stage. A couple of bombs will do,” she paused, seemingly thinking her words over. Then, she stretched her open hand out toward Eight, “Or better yet, give me the blaster. I’ll take care of it all.”

…

What?!

“Woah, she didn’t!” Pearl gasped.

Eight just looked at her. This… Was a joke, right? She could not possibly be…

Three raised an eyebrow, expectantly.

Oh gosh, she was serious!!! What the heck?!

“Are you mad? You can’t even leave that square without taking damage, how do you expect to clear the stage?”

“It’s manageable. I can handle myself just fine.”

“And I can’t?” Eight snapped. She didn’t want to be hurt by their words, but they stung more than the green ink. One bomb had hit the energy core, that was true, but that wasn’t that bad! It hardly did any real damage. And Eight did very well on the rest of the stage.

“Look, no offense,” Three said flatly, “but you weren’t paying attention at all just now.”

Eight felt her left eye twitch.

No attention… At all…

The platform came to a halt, as Eight stopped shooting. With a few long steps she crossed the space between them until she stood right in front of Three, just where the floor was still bare.

“How would you know?! You didn’t even look!” Eight pointed back at the core, “If I weren’t paying attention that thing would be in pieces right now!”

“If you were, I wouldn’t have had to save you. Don’t take it so personally. I just want to do what’s bests for the mission.”

It was awfully hard not taking it personally. No, it was impossible, actually! What the heck were they on about? They either had to have a very high opinion of their own abilities, or a really really really low opinion of Eight’s. Probably both. Eight clenched her fists.

She would not stand around letting herself be called incompetent!

“Tell you what,” she said lowly, “I will give you bombs.”

“That’s a start.”

“Under the condition,” Eight leaned in closer, holding eye contact “that this time, you keep your eyes fixed on me.”

Three looked back at her, face blank. Then…

“Alright,” they shrugged.

Eight detached a few of the magenta splatbombs from her tank and handed them over. They would not detonate unless ignited, so Eight didn’t worry too much about Three blowing themselves up. Although with how much they had gotten under her skin it might actually bring her some satisfaction if they did.

“I don’t know ‘bout you guys, but I’m getting popcorn,” Pearl said.

“Eight,” Marina spoke, “Don’t be reckless, alright? You don’t have to prove anything, we know you can do it.”

Technically, they didn’t, thanks to the time loop.

Eight pulled her tentacles back into a high ponytail. They were just long enough to stay up, and like this, they would not be getting in the way.

The platform moved again, climbing up the way to the next section of the phase. Slowly it came into view.

Eight could tell immediately, that much like the lasers in the fourth phase, the section had changed. So, the anomalies were not a product of her imagination, how good to know. Amongst the rolling octoballers she had expected, Eight spotted more octomissiles. Two canons shooting them, one from each side of the track. The laser barriers remained unchanged, as did the switches for their deactivation. Right beside the last switch though, Eight saw an octocoper that hadn’t been there before either.

Eight almost felt her head sparking flames in anticipation. She turned over her shoulder one more time. Three stood in her corner, carefully inspecting the bombs and clipping them to her belt. When they looked back up, Eight narrowed her eyes provocatively.

Watch.

With a few more drops of ink, the platform stopped just close enough for Eight to deactivate the switch that controlled the first barrier of lasers. With them gone, the platform moved ahead through the first of three archways.

Lazily, the first octoballer rolled onto the platform, drawing a trail of green behind it. Far away enough to not be a danger for the core for at least another few moments. An octomissile approached steadily, Eigth shot it out of the sky and instantaneously moved in towards the baller. She waited for and found the perfect opening, just when the head popped out.

The baller exploded, its shell shattering in ink. Without looking, Eight shot over her shoulder, deactivating the right laser. She turned around and got the left one as well, clearing the way for the platform to move along. She fired at the core and searched for Three. Three looked right back at her, expression unreadable. Wordlessly, she left her safe corner, stepping into ink.

Eight huffed and turned around again.

The next baller approached the platform, the octarian’s head was tucked in so Eight couldn’t get to it. Instead of waiting for the opportunity, Eight moved the platform just so that the baller rolled into the space right between Eight and Three, far away from the core. A second baller dropped down right after it, its head beautifully exposed. Eight shot it between the eyes. The sound of a bomb. Three took care of the other baller.

Eight swam, refilling her ink supply. Closer to the energy core again, the octocopter flying next to the third switch spotted her.

Two more spawned to both of its sides.

Eight grinned dangerously. They went right for the core, shooting pearls of green ink. Before they got anywhere close to it, Eight dashed forward and jumped up. She grabbed the middle one and threw it at the one to the left. Both octocopters drifted to the side dizzily, their eyes rolling funnily in their heads. The third one, Eight got without looking at it. Instead, she searched for Three’s eyes again, and found them just in the other corner of the platform. They were looking, alright.

One, two, three, four, splat!

With a smooth flick, she shook off the few drops of ink residue on her octoshot and moved the platform again.

Three was closer to the front of the platform, she had moved all the way around the energy core. Eight watched as she threw a bomb at another baller’s exposed head. It detonated perfectly, spluttering green. She looked back at Eight. And slipped.

“Oh!”

Eight moved forward and grabbed Three by the wrist, preventing them from falling right into the last laser. Who was saving who now, huh?

Eight whirled around and shot the two remaining octocopters.

A shrill sound caught her attention.

All enemy hatches opened, releasing several octomissiles and octoballers right after each other. Another anomaly. It had never seemed like the facility was reacting to her much before. Was someone controlling this? Eight counted the enemies. Five, six, seven… It were entirely too many. Even if they moved the platform out of the way, the energy core would be damaged.

“Eight?” Pearl asked. Or was it Marina? Someone else? It didn’t matter. In her mind, Eight mapped out her approach. She felt fire. Felt it in her heart, her mind, her eyes.

Three was somewhere behind her, as long as she didn’t hit the core…

With the first few octomissiles within range, Eight jumped right in. The first one splat right away, she swam through ink at the next two. Everything was a rush, the enemies blurring before her eyes. Eight shot and shot and swam and shot some more. All the while her head burned.

At the edge of her vision, she spotted a light blue balloon. It had been here before. On her first run, there had been an additional supply of ink in there. But something told her, maybe an inside voice, that this time, she would find something else in there.

Eight cleared the platform so that she had at least a moment of time to spare as she shot for the balloon. It burst and dropped its contents right into Eight’s waiting hands.

It was a small tin can.

A canned special.

Eight ripped open the thing and found the most beautiful thing. She looked at Three one more time, asking them with just her eyes to trust her. The inkling’s eyes were widened but they nodded, ever so slightly.

Eight equipped the tenta missiles and targeted all enemies in range. Which just so happened to include Three, but Eight was ready for that.

She pulled the trigger and felt how the weight on her back got significantly lighter as the rockets shot into the sky. With her once again free hands, she shot at the octoballer closest to the core. The next second, several shadows appeared on the platform and tracks.

Eight ran back to Three, pulling her out of the way hard. It would be hard for the inkling to dodge the ink herself in her already vulnerable state. She yanked them all the way back to the (somehow still) ink free corner just as the ink drops started hitting the ground.

Octomissiles and ballers burst loudly and messily.

Eight crouched down next to Three, keeping her eyes on her green foes.

She gasped, when the platform jerked forward without warning. What?

Eight looked up. A few of the tenta missiles were hitting the enemy core. That meant-

“Stay down!” Eight yelled at Three as she jumped to her feet. More ink was set to hit the core, she had to be fast. She slid across the inked floor, aiming her octoshot at the last switch. If she couldn’t deactivate the laser in time, it would destroy the energy core at once, as well as splat herself and Three.

The platform moved again, ripping Eight off her feet. Damn it!

She aimed again.

And shot.

The switch turned red just as the platform set into motion. Eight sighed in relief and buckled over as the force of the platform moving pushed her down.

It slowed down halfway up the way to the elevator. The elevator!

Eight got up and shot at the core, moving it the last bit of the way. The outlet sizzled with electricity as the energy core at last docked to the power supply.

Eight stretched her arms as she stepped off of the platform. Back onto solid ground at last. This sure had been something, especially that last part… Why did it react to them? Eight knew she wasn’t supposed to wander around this particular part of the facility anyway, but she wondered. Could this mean that the evil telephone knew that she was escaping? What even happened to the thing anyway, now that no one was around to keep an eye on it? Perhaps they should ask the captain to take a look. But first Eight needed to tell the others about her suspicions of course.

She pulled out the CQ-employee. Only as she held it in her hand did she notice that the line was… suspiciously quiet. Nobody had said anything in a while. Eight furrowed her brows.

Was something wrong?

“Hello? Anyone there?” she asked.

“Yeah…” Pearl mumbled.

Eight was relieved, but not too much. Pearl wasn’t usually a person to mumble.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, we’re all just,” Marina chuckled, “a bit in awe I think.”

“What the fuck was even that man?!” Pearl apparently having found her voice again screamed, “You were over there, then you were over there then you completely destroyed that guys head! The tenta missiles, where’d you even GET those? Girl, every single inksport team is going to go feral over you when you get to inkopolis!”

“Good work, soldier, even in my best years I couldn’t have executed that better! Not that I’m outta my best years by far, but you know what I mean!” the captain commended her.

Eight turned around.

Three had stepped off the platform as well.

“Not bad,” she murmured as she walked past Eight toward the next launchpad.

Eight felt her cheeks heat up.

Frick yeah!! Finally! Eight fought the unbearable urge to jump up and down or do a little dance. Just be cool, damn it!

“Uh oh, Marina, you seeing what I’m seeing?” Pearl chuckled weakly.

“Oh no… Eight… you can do so much better,” Marina said pitifully.

Eight stopped. Right. There was always room for improvement, she couldn’t forget about that.

“Right, I will,” she saluted and moved towards the launchpad as well.

“That’s not- oh nevermind.”

Eight breathed. Here at last, once again. The central elevator. The ceiling was high, higher even than the one of the diaphragm phase. Trying to see where it ended from where they were standing was straining on Eight’s neck.

“You made it!” Pearl cheered, “again!”

Eight couldn’t help but break into a smile.

She was so close, a second time now, so very close to this new life she yearned for. (Technically, a third time, if you counted her initial alleged escape from the octarian army)(but since she didn’t exactly remember that one, it didn’t seem worth counting).

This time, Eight was certain, she had fought even harder, she’d done whatever it took to get this far, to the surface! She would not be stopped again, never! If she could do this, she could do anything. Her new life awaited her.

Eight shot at the inkrail, it activated and extended all the way to the elevator itself. This only left one thing to do.

“Sorry Three, no more fighting it. You’ve got to go back in the ink tank, otherwise you won’t make it to the other side,” Eight explained apologetically while Pearl cackled.

No answer. Was the inkling still flustered from underestimating Eight so much? The thought alone made Eight a little giddy.

“Three?” Eight looked back over her shoulder.

Three was still standing where the two had superjumped to, seemingly not having moved an inch. Her hands were balled into fists and her head was lowered so that her face was set in shadows. Eight turned around fully and took a step towards her.

“Is something wrong?” asked Marina.

“Agent Three, do you copy?” the captain spoke up.

Slowly Agent Three raised their head, and oh.

Their expression looked oddly haunted, eyes drifting into the distance, mouth slightly agape. It was as if they were looking right through Eight.

Again.

“What’s going on there?” Pearl’s voice.

Eight drew her octo shot and pointed it right at the other agent. Not again. She would not let this happen again!

Voices in the distance “What are you doing?” “What is happening? Eight?” “Agent Three, please copy!”

“Three!” Eight shouted, her voice getting swallowed by the room. No echo.

Why was this happening? She had been so far away from the phone, Eight had made sure of that, so why was this happening again?

Against her expectations, Three seemed to react to Eight’s words. Within a second it was like they snapped back to reality, their eyes locked with hers.

Orange.

They were still orange.

Eight held her breath. What did it mean?

It meant that Three was not being possessed again.

Eight lowered her octo shot.

So what…?

Three groaned quietly, one hand moving to their forehead. The headache from earlier perhaps? All that enemy ink… That couldn’t possibly be healthy, why had they insisted on jumping around so much?

The good thing was, that it would probably all get better if they just sat down for one moment-

Eight watched as Three took one shaky step backwards. Closer to the edge of the platform.

No…

“No!” Eight charged ahead, her weapon fell forgotten to the side.

With horror she watched as Three’s eyes rolled back in her head, exhaustion taking over. No no no, this couldn’t be happening, not now!

Three stumbled backwards.

In slow motion she fell, in slow motion Eight ran.

She was still so far away, way too far away! The others were screaming, yelling out for both of them. The same way they had done during the fight before the loop. Eight couldn’t fail, she couldn’t fail Three another time! They were going to the surface, both of them!

Eight jumped.

Her fingers caught around Three’s wrist.

She held it as hard as she could, just before the combined weight of the two of them jerked her forward, pulling them both over the edge. With her other hand, Eight held onto the platform, pushing down as hard as she could to counterbalance while her fingers skit over the unfortunately rather smooth surface. She dug in her nails so hard that it hurt, anything to stop herself from slipping off further.

At last, she found some momentum, her hand coming to a halt.

“Ah,” she coughed weakly. The strain on her arms was becoming more unbearable by the second. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to keep herself and Three up. It didn’t matter, she had to. So close…!

“Wha-?” Three!

Eight looked down at the inkling

“I-I’ve got you!” Eight yelped as she tightened her grip around Three’s wrist, “Just- Hold on!”

Her other hand was starting to slip again.

“No, no, no!” she chanted under her breath. Her eyes were beginning to sting with fresh hot tears.

She tried lifting the hand still holding Three, as she did so, her other hand slipped more, until she was holding herself up by the tips of her fingers alone.

Fuck!

“Eight…”

Eight looked down again. Three was so blurry through the tears. Eight sobbed.

“I’m sorry!”

She had failed again.

Eight pressed her eyes shut, as she felt the last bit of her strength run out. Her fingers missed the edge of the platform for good.

The screams of the others continued to ring in the distance. Until they were gone too.

Chapter Text

Darkness and noise. Noise and Darkness. The darkness was heavy. The noise buzzing. Heavy darkness. Darkness heavy. Darkness, heavy and noisy. And it only grew heavier and nosier. Like hands tightening around her throat. Fingers pressing into her airways.

She tried to scream but only gurgles came out.

Gurgles and noise, noise and gurgles. Yet behind it all, somehow, she could still make it out. That familiar melody embedded forever in her heart and soul.

Silence.

And light.

Eight opened her eyes and gasped for air. Her throat was clear again.

She sat in disorientation for a few moments, her eyes slowly adjusting. The view was blurry, so blurry that it was hard to even make out solid shapes and colors. She blinked.

Droplets of water glittered in the low light and fell to the ground.

Right, she had been crying.

Right, she had died again.

Right.

The timeloop.

Eight sighed. Oh how unhappy she was to be back in this grainy metro station! The floor so dirty, her knees so… hurty!! Some people would say that, actually, she should be happy and grateful. It was another opportunity at success, after all. And, hey, she might as well be dead! So it really wasn’t such a bad thing, now was it? Eight sighed again.

Those same people didn’t know what it was like, to not once but twice, get within reach of the one thing you have always wanted, and have it ripped away. Again, twice.

Not to speak of the experience of dying itself… Actual death (even if it was temporary) was quite different from getting splatted, it turned out. Eight shivered, pushing the thought aside for now. Her fault…. Oh, if she had only paid closer attention to Three…

“BOOYAH! Man, that was way too close…” Pearl’s loud voice brought her back to reality.

Eight took out the gray CQ-80.

“Sweet! The distress signal worked!” Marina chimed in cheerfully. Cod… She’d have to explain everything again, didn’t she? How annoying.

Next to her, cap’n cuttlefish got up and walked over to inspect Three. Eight looked at her too. Lying passed out on the dirty floor, the same way, in the same exact position as she had before. (Which obviously made sense. Obviously). Eyes closed, mouth ever so slightly open. The smallest furrow of their brows. They looked tired.

Had Eight only been more aware… She clenched her fists. Fainting from large amounts of stress seemed like something Three tended to do. This was something she needed to keep in mind this time around. She would not let this happen again.

“Ah, fish sticks! This ain’t good. Agent 3 is out cold…” the captain remarked.

You don’t say.

Eight got up and dusted the dirt off her legs. She felt like interrupting the others might be a bit rude. Despite the circumstances, politeness was still important. They were her friends, and she did intend for this loop to be the last one. It couldn’t be that hard to get to that stupid elevator in one piece!

While the others ran through the rest of their dialogue, Eight decided she would do something useful.

She took her inktank off her back and set it on the floor, knelt down and began the process of sectioning off a small compartment.

Halfway done, she stopped in her movement.

Was it really a good idea to take Three with her again?

They hadn’t exactly contributed much the last time… In fact, having the inkling by her side had made things more difficult. In a way, it was the reason the loop had repeated. Eight had not gained any additional information from her, nor anything else that could be considered of value.

Rationally, it really didn’t make sense to take them along.

Eight pouted.

But she wanted to.          

She could hardly justify her reasoning, but it was true. And who was going to stop her, if she didn’t tell anyone about her non-existent motives?

Eight continued her work on the tank, humming a little melody.

“Jackpot! I think these are the blueprints to the entire Kamabo Co.’s test facility! Agent Eight! Cap’n Cuttlefish! I think we can use these to get you guys outta here!” Marina continued in the background.

“Are you squiddin’ me?! I knew you’d come through for us, Agent Three!”

“For starters, it looks like you’ll want to head up through that hole Agent Three made.”

“I should wait here until Agent Three wakes up. No squids left behind! You go on ah- oh. Water you doing Agent Eight?”

Smoothly she swung the inktank over one of her shoulders, walked over to where Three was still lying, and put it back down.

“I’m stuck in a timeloop,” she said, straight-to-the-point-ly.

“Huh?!” Pearl huh-d, “Whaddya mean?”

“The poor thing must have hit her head,” Cuttlefish sighed and started rapping about head injuries. His rhymes where just as mid as they had been the first time.

Eight could hear the sound of a keyboard clicking frantically in the background. “How many times have you looped? Do we know what’s triggering it? Do you need us to do something?” Marina asked while the clicks continued.

“Rina?”

The very first thing Eight would do once she finally got out, she decided, was hug Marina. For being so awesome and cool and for always understanding her right away.

“This is the second time it looped. I superjumped through that hole in the ceiling and worked my way up through the stages of Kamabo co. twice, I failed just before I could reach the surface. Twice.”

“When you say ‘failed’…”

“I died. There are no respawn points on the way up.”

The others gasped audibly.

“Craaab, you really mean it, don’t you? This is actually happening? What in the sci-fi bullshark…” Pearl commented.

Eight nodded and continued her report, “We don’t know exactly why it’s looping… The last time, you found some kind of energy anomaly in the system, Marina. We agreed that if I just avoided dying on the way up that it would probably be fine.”

“So you’re going up again?” Pearl asked.

“Positive. And I’m taking Agent Three with me,” she pointed at the ink tank, “I carried them in here the last time. They were helpful.” She hoped her voice didn’t shake at that last lie.

Marina hummed doubtfully. “Are you sure, Eight?”

Right, Marina didn’t like Three for some reason. Nevermind all that for now.

Eight confirmed and knelt down again to stuff the unconscious inkling into the cramped tank. Forcing one’s body to change into swim form in this condition was a bit tricky, but cap’n cuttlefish had showed her a trick. Apparently, it was part of common first aid education programs on the surface. The motions felt somewhat familiar, so likely also a practice of the octartian army.

“When we left her here the first time, her and the cap’n were attacked by that phone. Cap’n cuttlefish, could you please keep an eye on it this time? But also keep a safe distance, we don’t know what it does.”

Captain Cuttlefish nodded wisely with his eyes closed. “Good work Agent Eight. Thank you for the heads up. I will keep watch.”

“How did you die before?” Pearl asked carefully.

Eight paused. Uh-oh!!!

She couldn’t tell them the truth, they would insist she leave Three with cuttlefish!! Which, the logical part of her brain agreed, would be the most mindful and smart thing to do, but!!!

“I dunno,” she shrugged a bit too non-chalantly.

UGH! Who was supposed to believe that?! It sounded like an obvious lie to her own ears!

“… Are you sure?” Marina asked doubtfully. Of course.

But she couldn’t backpaddle now. That would only make the lie more obvious.

“Yep. Happened really quickly.”

“You poor thing,” the captain patted her on the back. Eight picked up the agent-three-tank and stepped closer to the hole in the ceiling.

“Eight?” Pearl asked.

“I will be off then,” Eight interrupted and looked up.

Going through the phases a third time. If anything, she would do better than even the last time. Get to the surface as fast as possible.

She couldn’t fail a third time.

How embarrassing would that be?

Coccyx phase? More like SUCKcc-yx phase! Not the cleverest insult, but boy did it fit! It was hard to make quick progress with the enemy being this overwhelmingly in the majority, not to speak of the fact that Eight was still unarmed.

Next time, she had to bring a weapon from one of the metro stations.

…

What was she even thinking about?!! Next time?! There would be no next time!! She mentally slapped herself. What was this time loop doing to her poor brain?

Frustrated, Eight ducked into her ink, avoiding the prying eyes of a slimy blue octotrooper.

She kept her eyes open for any other anomalies. She had told Marina and the others about the strange behaviour of the lasers and missiles and the older octoling had agreed that it was indeed a weird occurrence. Apparently, this was something that didn’t commonly happen in fiction involving time loop plots. Which didn’t mean all that much to begin with, since they were not in a movie, but Pearl had mentioned it anyway.

For the time being, the phase appeared to be relatively unchanged from before.

When Eight, at last, stepped on the launchpad taking her to the second phase, she exhaled in relief.

Villi phase was when things again started to move along. Dodging the octomissiles, she found into a smooth rhythm. Rearming herself with the triangular splat bombs felt like a reward in and of itself.

I’m coming for you too, she thought as she passed the room with the octoseeker for the second time. She just needed to get her octo shot back.

Eight stepped on the censor that opened the door to the right part of the room.

“Niiice. I guess just keep pressing on,” Marina said, the same way she had done the first and second time. Sigh.

It was the room with the octohurlers. The room with her octo shot.

Navigating over platforms and taking out enemies with only bombs at her disposal.

Eight remembered how on her first run, half of her bombs had gone past the railing, tumbling into endless nothing. (Or, as she now knew, eventual water. Dissolving with no spawn point was truly no fun.)

This time, each one hit, going exactly where she wanted them to go. Eight calculated the angle in which she had to aim down to a t. About time she figured that out!

She threw another bomb at the propeller that moved the platform she was on forward. She had to keep a close eye on her ink. Bombs already always drained most of her supply but thanks to part of the tank being sectioned off, that supply was even more limited than usual.

The octohurler positioned at a higher platform coughed up more rolls of green and threw them, effectively inking the path Eight had just bombed. He was out of reach, Eight knew this. She had to move the platform she was on close to another second platform, throw a bomb at the second platform to draw it closer to her, jump on the platform and take the hurler out when she was close enough. Two bombs in a row plus the hurler’s projectiles.

Possible, yes. Annoying, yes.

Eight threw the first bomb, hitting the propeller again. When the platform moved forward, so did she, jumping next to the propeller to aim at the second platform.

Just when she was about to let go, a powerful jerk from behind ripped her off her feet. What was that? No time to think. She jumped out of the way back to her previous position, just in time to dodge the hurler’s attack.

“You ‘kay, Eight?” asked Pearl. Eight put one hand on the inktank on her back. Nothing… Had she imagined it or-

“Agh!” Eight gasped as the thing shook again. She’d definitely not imagined it.

This couldn’t be good. The last loop, Three had woken up during the fourth phase, so that couldn’t be it. Was there something wrong with the tank? Did Eight make a mistake when working on it earlier?

She dashed forward again, throwing another bomb. She had to take care of the octohurler and check out the tank as quickly as she could.

If the seal was done improperly… If her magenta ink started leaking into the smaller compartment…

She had to hurry!  

Eight threw the second bomb, pulling the other platform close enough to jump onto. Another jump and she was on the launchpad, just where she wanted to be.

The octohurler turned towards her, which she didn’t know hurlers could do.

Did that count as an anomaly or did that guy just hate her in particular?

Just when it was about to throw another pile of inkrolls, she threw one more bomb and made it explode. The thing had it coming. Eight activated the launchpad and flew through the air, to the next section of the phase.

Two more octohurlers ahead on a higher platform. In the distance sat the can that she knew held the octoshot (Marina commented on it too). But for now, she had other things to worry about.

Carefully Eight set the tank on the tiled floor, ready to inspect it. From the outside it didn’t look like the ink had started to mix, at least. Thank cod. What a disaster that would have been. Eight was about to turn it around, when it shook again, harder this time.

She furrowed her brows.

Odd.

Eight flipped it over and popped open the lid. The thing shook again, so hard that it slipped through Eight’s fingers and fell to the side.

Green ink started to flow out of the compartment almost instantly. Oh no! She had to put the lid back on!

Eight scrambled to find it, when the tank shook one more time.

A blobb of lime green ink oozed onto the floor, rather unceremoniously. Eight jumped up from the ground, as she watched it shift. No way! Was Three already waking up?! No way!?

Fidgety Eight scanned her surroundings. They were on a still rather small platform. The last time when Three had woken up, their first instinct had been to attack Eight. Probably understandable in such a weird situation. But this time, Eight only had bombs to defend herself with, and those weren’t as effective when it came to intimidation, she was afraid. Was Eight about to be in her first ever fist-fight? (First ever that she remembered anyway) That would eat up so much time! Somehow, she had to convince Three that she wasn’t a threat to her! But how?!

Three coughed, now back in her inkling form. Slowly she raised her head to glare at Eight.

“You…” she slurred in a low voice. Eight gulped. Oh shark!

“We’re on the same side!” she yelled, throwing both her hands in the air to show they were empty.

“You put me back in the tank!” Three spat while pointing an accusatory finger at Eight.

Back…

in the tank…?

Eight jumped.

“You remember!!!” she gasped pointing her finger right back at Three, “You remember the last loop!!!”

Three held her gaze for a while, before they eventually deflated and looked away again. “Yeah, I do,” the inkling mumbled weakly putting one hand against their forehead.

Eight flapped her hands in excitement. Oh boy!

This changed everything! Or, well, at least a few things… Eight wasn’t alone in this anymore, that was one thing. She wouldn’t have to fist-fight Three, that was another.  And! She wouldn’t have to explain the situation to her. All those were really good things! Eight knew it was a good idea to bring Three along with her! She knew she could count on her intuition.

“How’s your head?” Eight asked and bent down a little, trying to get a better look. They had only failed at escaping because Three had fainted. Eight had to pay closer attention to details!

Three only gave her a brief side glance. “S’fine,” she said.

Eight wasn’t sure if she believed that. In fact, Three looked awfully pale and her eyes looked slightly bloodshot, the right one more so than the left. Eight leaned in even closer, poking her finger into the side of Three’s cheek. “Are you sure?”

They flinched and jerked back suddenly. “Yes!” they said a little harsher than necessary and got up, somehow just as harshly. Eight narrowed her eyes doubtfully. They had a little more color in their face at least, it seemed. Eight stood back up as well.

“Did Agent Three wake up, yo?” Pearl asked from the CQ-80. Eight took it out to deliver a proper report.

“Yes! And they remember the last loop too!” she said, her voice barely concealing her excitement even yet.

“Really? That’s rather interesting…” Marina got on the line too, sounding rather pensive, “Could I speak to her for a-“

“AAA—A-YYyy!! -Gent Thr-Ee,” Cap’n Cuttlefish interrupted loudly again. Eight winced at the clipped audio. Again. Cod…

“Hey there, cap’n. Over.” Three was taking it a bit far with the formalities, in Eight’s humble opinion.

“Thank cod you woke up, I was getting worried, yolo!” the cap’n replied cool-ly.

“You’re hanging in there cap? Over,” Three frowned, her expression softening slightly. Eight quickly looked away.

“Everybody’s fine and doing great! Let’s get back to the matter at hand, okay?” Marina cut in and clapped her hands together. Probably, Eight could only guess. Marina did sound a little tense, once again. But why? “Agent Three. You’ve seen the events of this day happen before, is that correct?”

“Yeah.” (over)

Keyboard tapping and humming. “Could you describe what happened the last time? Not the whole thing, Eight gave us a thorough rundown already, just how… it ended, perhaps?”

“Yeahhh! Eight says she doesn’t remember that part!” Pearl added.

Eight’s eyes widened. Why’d she have to lie about that again?? Carefully, she glanced at Three.

“Uh, sure, yeah, um. We went up to just before the elevator… I was standing close to the edge. I started to feel dizzy and Eight was standing nearby so we both ended up falling. There’s some water down there that dissolved us. Over.”

“Horrible!” the cap’n exclaimed. Pearl hummed sympathetically. Marina continued to type.

“Okayyy… What is the last thing you remember before you woke up the last time?”

“Smashing into the blender. Over.” No news there, Eight had asked the same thing the last time.

“Mhh…” Marina hummed lost in thoughts, “Does anyone else recall looping in time?”

“Nope” Pearl said, letting the ‘p’ pop while the Cap’n audibly shook his head while mumbling “no, no, no”.

“Yes,” Eight raised her hand. Obviously, the others knew that she was involved and aware, but it couldn’t possibly hurt. Three remained silent.

More tapping.

The long forgotten octohurlers spluttered grossly in the distance. Eight chewed on her lower lip and rubbed her hands together. Three looked anywhere but her face.

More tapping. More tapping. More tapping.

Endless tapping!

“Mkay… Soooo,” Pearl finally (FINALLY!) broke the silence, “we got two timeloopers instead of one. What difference does that make?”

“Well,” Marina did one last reverberating tap on the keyboard, “So far, our assumption has been that this whole timeloop thing is just a built-in feature of the kamabo co facility, that Agent Eight just so happened to stumble into when trying to escape. This aligns with my scans of the data. It’s also not too far fetched, considering the way time inside the facility and the metro differs in general.”

“Wait, what?” Three asked bewildered, “what do you mean by that?”

Ah. Right. That.

“Agent Three,” Pearl tried carefully, “how long has it been since you, the cap’n and Eight fell down that hole?”

Three’s eyes widened. She thought for a few seconds. “Few months at least,” she said after a while. Eight hummed. It made sense, that Three wouldn’t know. The warped passing of time was one of the first things they had noticed about the metro network back when Eight had started her test series.

“Right,” Pearl continued, “because up here in Inkopolis it has only been about two weeks since ‘Rina and I found that walkie talkie.”

“Oh,” said Three. Probably a lot to take in.

“Yes, time is weird and crunched, or well… Expanded, I suppose. So, the fact that time seems to be rewinding back now might just be part of the system in some way. So far my theory, at least. Now the question remains what exactly it was that caused Agent Three to be part of it as well… One could make the assumption that it has something to do with the fact that they accompanied Eight the last time… But how does that fit together? What do the two have in common? Could it be contagious somehow? But then again how would that even work…” Marina mumbled on. And on.

“We’re not getting anywhere with this,” Three interjected.

Eight nodded along, “Yeah! We probably should continue upwards, right?”

“Uh, right,” Marina said, “to answer your question Pearlie, the involvement of Agent Three doesn’t change that much when it comes to our approach. Although, I would much like to run some more calculations. I would need a more powerful computer for that though…”

Pearl chuckled, “You can come over and use my gaming PC for shore, no need to beat around the bush like that Rina!”

“Alright, haha. I’ll be logging off for a while, then. See you in a minute Pearl! Oh, and Eight,” her tone got more serious, “be careful, please.” Eight didn’t have to see Marina’s suspicious side-glance at Three to know it was there. She wanted to sigh. It was a little over the top, yes, that intense worry about her safety. To be fair, yeah, technically it was in a way due to Three that they were here now instead of on the surface. It was Eight’s fault though.

Marina disconnected from the line.

“Whelp, guess it’s just us again,” said Pearl.

Eight picked the inktank back up. It didn’t look damaged, luckily. “Okay, let’s do this. One more time,” she said to Three but also herself.

Three just hummed, still not looking at her.

…

Eight would make sure they made it to the surface this time. She had to. With Three’s cooperation or without.

The familiar weight of the octoshot felt wonderful in her hands. Eight admired the way the light glistened off its smooth surface. A gorgeous weapon! Finally she didn’t have to feel so vulnerable anymore.

With a smooth flick of her wrist, Eight inked the wall that lead back to the connecting room. She looked at Three.

“We need to go up there,” she explained and let the statement stand for a second. Hoping to have the implication sink in.

“Mh,” made Three.

Eight swung her arms back and forth. Awkward. Why did this have to be so awkward?!

“So… Are you going to get in?” she probed after way too many seconds. Where they ever going to get anywhere at this pace??

Three did not get in. Shell, she didn’t even look at Eight. Still. Instead, she wordlessly swung herself over the railing to their left (much to Eights, mind you, very justified protests) and started to climb the metal scaffolding up to where they needed to go.

Eight growled through gritted teeth.

It was agitating! Eight had been sure that she’d at least left somewhat of a positive impression the last time. Thought she’d proved she was capable and trustworthy. Why did Three have to continue to be this incredibly difficult?

Regardless. She would deal with it. She had to.

Eight immerged in her ink and swam up the wall.

Back in the connecting room, where the octoseeker still stood guard and chimed its little siren upon approach, Eight was sure that sooner or later Three was going to have to relent. She watched tiredly as the inkling jumped around, carefully avoiding ink left and right. In honesty, she’d quite preferred it when she’d been here alone the last two times. In their awake state and still unarmed, Agent Three did little else than slow their progress down even more.

“Will you activate the door already?” Three yelled, having narrowly avoided the seekers attack once more. Eight shot at the gate to open it.

Quietly the two of them stood before the edge of the platform. The next gate, with the jump pad to the next phase behind it was well within sight.

Unfortunately, that gate and the platform they were standing on were separated by the great abyss, that they now knew lead to water. Thin lines of delicate ink railings spanned over that void, connecting in square shaped patterns. With a sanitized octosniper just shy of the door, focusing its red laser on anything that moved.

A stage that could only be passed in swim form.

Eight turned sideways to look at Three, who continued to stare forwards. Unmoving. Arms crossed.

“Get in,” Eight said.

“No.”

She took the inktank off her back and placed it loudly on the ground between them.

“Get,” she pointed at the sectioned compartment, “in!”

Three glanced at it from the corner of her eye. “This is so degrading,” she murmured.

“You’re not gonna make it by yourself. Get in now, or would you want me to leave you?”

Three sighed deeply and, at last, turned to Eight. Eight supressed a sigh of her own. Sharking finally!

“Whoop whoop?” said Pearl.

“Shut up!” Three cursed as she changed form.

Carefully, Eight heaved the now full tank back up and made sure the straps were fastened. She too changed into swim form and submerged in the ink railing.

The round pool of sanitized ink loomed over them, high on the ceiling with glass boxes that contained more of the ominously blue octarians falling as if in slow-motion. The room they were in was so very big that it was hard not to get overwhelmed by the mere sight. By the bubbling green ink, by the many falling boxes, by the weird way gravity affected them (or more accurately, by the weird way it didn’t). It could really make your head spin, true. But by now, Eight was used to it. One last time.

The tank on Eight’s back shook. She steadied it with one hand.

“Are you okay?” she asked over her shoulder.

A weak, muffled noise of what she interpreted to be confirmation.

“I don’t think you can come out yet,” she explained while eyeing the falling boxes and the way they slowly sank in the clear water below. Another part that would be simply impossible to do for Three. Luckily the inkling seemed to understand this, as suggested by another faint noise from the tank.

So, Eight set into motion. Hopefully now, with Three finally seeing reason; belly phase would be easily dealt with once more. She’d hardly had any trouble the last time, after all.

How hard could it possibly be a third time?

…

Very hard, apparently.

“Stop it!” Eight struggled. She’d hardly made it halfway across the first parkour of boxes when Three started shaking in the tank again. Carrying an awake inkling proved significantly more difficult than an asleep one. Eight had to try her very hardest at every step to not accidentally tumble to her demise. Oh, how embarrassing it would be to fail at such an easy stage!

“Woah, careful,” Pearl commented.

“Falling into water would dissolve you both,” the Cap’n agreed.

Eight grunted and pulled the straps tighter once more.

In two more swift jumps without any disturbances, she should be able to make it to the steadier platform. Eight took a leap and another one.

Another shake midjump knocked her off path.

Eight gasped and quickly pushed her shoulder forward. Somehow, she managed to not fall into the deathly pool. With an improvised roll, she dampened the impact, landing on solid ground. It still hurt.

She breathed deeply.

The next moment, Three emerged from the tank at once, not leaving Eight any time to even set the thing on the floor. Eight took a few more moments to properly catch her breath and collect her words. Three walked a few paces ahead and sat down near the edge of the platform. Eight raised her head, searching for the ceiling. The way up to the next launchpad was very long yet. Sighhhhhh.

“You can’t keep jumping around like that! If I lose my balance, we’ll both-“

“Yes! I know, I,” Three snapped. She took a breath and continued more softly “I just needed some air is all.”

Eight gave the inkling a proper look-over, her anger fading slightly.

They did look worse for wear, indeed. Being shaken around probably didn’t help with nausea… Or headaches.

“Do you maybe want to take a minute?” Eight asked carefully.

Three didn’t look at her. “Probably for the better,” she mumbled at last.

Alrighty. Eight superjumped to the next part of the stage, mentally already mapping out her approach. A few more tries and she’d be able to do this in her sleep…! Triple sigh.

In the background Pearl and the Cap’n commented on the faint music coming from the CQ. Even without Marina, their dialogue remained largely unchanged. Unsettling.

Eight inked the platforms and swam and jumped. Avoiding the octowashers that circled them was tedious because it slowed her down, but overall, not hard. There were worse octowasher placements, Eight knew this for a fact.

Approaching the largest platform, Eight’s eyes fell on the glowing suitcase that sat on a smaller platform to her right. Getting it was not a priority anymore, she decided. She could manage without extra armour just fine… Maybe she should consider giving it to Three later.

In front of her, the ugly shielded-twintacle-octotrooper spluttered and spat, drawing her attention. Eight dashed ahead and threw a splatbomb. It landed perfectly. Just behind the trooper so it would turn around. Eight waited a few beats. And shot it straight in the back of its giant head.

So much for that.

“Oh, look who it is,” Pearl announced.

Eight turned at the sound of wet footsteps. Three!

“Hi,” Eight said.

“Hey,” Three replied. So far so good.

“Are you feeling better? How’s your head?” The inkling didn’t look that much better. Considering that she was here, she had to feel well enough to continue though, Eight concluded.

“Uh, fine,” they said. Okay. That was somewhat of a good thing. Maybe they could finally continue and make some progress. That would be good. Very good.

Eight ground her teeth. In honesty, she doubted that Three would learn to hold still any time soon. Could Eight make them wait here while she finished the stage? Passing the parkour of falling boxes of course was close to impossible without swimming in ink and completely impossible without touching ink. Maybe…

“Wait, I think I got something for you,” Eight said and jumped over to the smaller platform. Three waited.

With the additional armour, maybe, just maybe, Three could manage to stand in Eight’s magenta ink long enough to cross over the stage without being much of a burden on Eight.

She popped the suitcase open. To her surprise, instead of extra armour, she found…

“Woah Eight, watchu got there?” Pearl asked.

Slowly, she lifted the item from the case.

“Is that…?”

“An octoshot,” Eight finished, turning the weapon over to examine it. It looked like an exact replica of the one she held in her gun hand. “This wasn’t here the last time… A new anomaly?” she wondered aloud.

“Mh. Sweet,” said Pearl.

“Hey,” Eight tossed the shot at Three who caught it bewilderedly, “Now you can shoot around too!” What a fun and awesome turn of event! Maybe now they could finally make some progress!

“Convenient,” the Cap’n commented.

“Very convenient,” Three agreed, looking the octoshot over closely.

A little too convenient, perhaps, Eight had to agree. But what were they to do? Leave it behind? She didn’t think so.

“Is there a problem?” she asked as Three continued to look lost in thought.

“No, of course not. Let’s go,” they equipped the shot and walked ahead.

The main room of belly phase. More falling boxes to navigate, more jumping and swimming, more deadly water below to avoid. And most importantly, one key to find.

Having a weapon again seemed to improve the inkling’s mood significantly. By extension, one would assume that that would also finally speed up their progress.

Well.

In a way, it most certainly did!

Three was indeed jumping around and inking again, painting the boxes bright lime green. They jumped ahead and swiftly took out the octotroopers. The problem with that was, that it was completely unnecessary! Eight knew where the key was: on the very bottom of the stage, hidden in a wooden box! Which she would have told Three too, had they not immediately thrown themselves into action.

Well… She supposed they didn’t have to do this together. Eight went ahead to do her own thing, take the right path. She recolored the boxes in magenta and swam and jumped. From the corner of her eye, she saw Three join after her again. With a bit of distance.

Okay. Improvement. As long as Eight had the lead, this might just work out.

“The key is in this box,” she pointed ahead.

“Okay,” Three confirmed.

Okay. Good. This was going well.

They continued for a while.

“Agent Eight…” Three’s voice broke the almost comfortable silence so suddenly that Eight had to do a double take. Were they feeling worse again?!

“Seems like we skipped a couple of numbers there,” they continued in a casual tone.

Eight eyed the other agent one sinking platform higher, suspiciously. She didn’t look that much worse than before… Actually, she looked pretty much the same amount bad as before. Eight inked and jumped onto the next lower platform.

“I know the Cap’n isn’t the youngest anymore, but shouldn’t we be at like four at best? I don’t recall the NSS hiring,” they counted their fingers, “Five more agents in the last two years.”

Eight blinked. So her ears were not deceiving her, huh. Three really was talking to her like a normal person! Casual chitchatty conversation!

Engage engage engage!!!

“Ah right,“ Eight said in a hopefully-not-too-fake-sounding-casual-tone, “I’m testsubject 10.008. That’s what the phone called me. Since that’s a bit of a mouthful, everybody’s just been calling me Eight.”

“And you just… Continue to go by that name?”

“Uhh, yeah! Better than nothing I suppose,” Eight shrugged and jumped onto a lower platform.

“What?”

Oh right.

“Oh yeah! I lost all of my memories, haha! You know how it is.” She probably didn’t.

“You lost all your…”

“M-mh!” A pair of octocopters noticed them. Eight shot them out of the air. “Yeah, the Cap’n tried looking me up on his top-secret data base once. But without any information at all that turned out a bit difficult. Even if you restrict the search and go into the pool of just deserters it’s near impossible. There are just way too many!” because of you and the wonderful calamari inkantation!! (she left that last part unsaid, lest she make a fool of herself again).

They both landed on the lowest platform. Eight shot at the wooden box containing the key and went to retrieve it. Back up all the way it was.

“What about you?” she asked.

“Me?”

“Is Three your real name?” Up until this point Eight had hardly questioned if it was, but now that she had she was quite curious.

“No,” Three admitted after a long pause.

Ohhh! Intriguing!

“What is-“

“I think we’ve been talking for long enough. Let’s get back on track,” Three said bluntly and stalked ahead.

Oh no.. Eight frowned. Had she taken it too far? Was their name a touchy subject? Was an apology in order? Stupid stupid! Eight didn’t know what to say, so she just didn’t say anything and followed Three up the next platform.

Secretly she of course hoped that she hadn’t completely messed up.

Three, who reached the top first, inked the wall to the next part of the stage and swam upwards. The acceleration-treadmill-esque-thingy (Eight had no idea what it was called), gave them a boost. Eight followed closely.

Up on the platform, they both came to a halt.

“Woah! What the heck is that thing?” Pearl asked loudly.

“Speedy missile octocopter,” Eight answered. Back at the part with the horizontally falling boxes. And the speedy missile octocopter. In and off itself this part was not particularly hard, in her opinion at least. As long as they avoided the targeted missile strikes of the copter and took it out, there shouldn’t be much of a problem. Having two different ink colors might up the difficulty slightly, though.

She explained the situation to Three, who just hummed. Mh.

“How’s your head,” Eight asked, it’d been a while since she’d done that.

“Fine.”

Okay. That sounded convincing.

It looked like the octocopter had noticed them both.

Eight wasted no more time and jumped down onto the first platform, with much encouragement from Pearl and the Cap’n. Three followed closely after.

A little too closely perhaps, considering the limited space on the platform. Eight reached for Three’s wrist and pulled her a bit closer.

“Careful,” she warned. They had to make their jump rather sooner than later. The copter already had them locked she was sure of it.

Three shrugged her hand off and wordlessly jumped onto a box to their right. A second later it was out of reach. So much for coordination?!

Eight frowned. She wasted no more time and leaped to the left side. Just in time.

The first volley of strikes hit where they had just been standing a second earlier.

No time. Eight pushed forward. So did Three on the other side.

Slowly, they closed in to their target. Just a little more…

The copter readied its missiles again. Counting down quietly, Eight got ready to jump again.

Only midair did she notice that, apparently, Three had chosen the exact same platform.

“Agh!” “Oh!”

They both yelled as they collided, rather painfully. Crab! That was exactly what communication and coordination were for!!

Eight regained her momentum first. Her arm shot forward, to catch Three by the waist. The inkling grunted and looked away. But at least they both stood a little more evenly.

Eight turned to the copter. Enough was enough.

She was finally close enough. Eight inked the last wall and swam up all the way.

The speedy missile copter blinked stupidly with its big dead eyes. Eight opened fire till it burst into a handful of salmonid eggs.

“Niiice!!” Pearl cheered.

“Great work, Agent Eight!” Cap’n cuttlefish agreed.

In front of her, the gate to the next launchpad opened once more.

Behind her, Agent Three swam up the platform to be level with her again. Eight noticed that they came out a little too close to the edge. Eight reached out to stabilize her a little.

Three pulled her hand away before she got the chance. “Stop that,” they snapped.

“Huh?” Eight tilted her head in confusion.

“Just,” Three seemed to reconsider her tone, “just a little less touching, perhaps?”

Eight blinked. “What am I supposed to do when you’re falling?”

“I won’t fall.”

Yeah right. Eight made a face that hopefully put her thoughts of disapproval into words without needing to actually put them into word.

Three held her gaze for a few beats but sighed at last.

“Right. Well, I just don’t like being touched that much, so if you could at least reduce it to a minimum, I’d be quite thankful,” she said and walked right past Eight, over to the next launch.

Eight chewed that new information over. She supposed it made sense. She could probably be a little more mindful.

“Noted,” she mumbled and followed her companion.

It was halfway through intestinal phase (the lasers back to how they were supposed to be) that Agent Three spoke again.

“Wait. We’re back here? We’re going back to the elevator?”

“Uh, duh?” Pearl supplied unhelpfully.

“Of course we are, that’s where the exit is,” Eight took out the CQ-employee to show Three the map on the display. The exit was once again so close… Eight tried hard to not be too excited. Regardless, it hadn’t even occurred to her that Three might not be aware of the fact.

Three just stared at the device and nodded at last. She looked resigned. Somehow Eight could not shake the feeling that Three was keeping something from the rest of them. But what should or could she even do about that? It wasn’t like she could just straight up ask.

Eight jumped through the laser barriers and shot at the switch on the wall. On the other side, the trapdoor to the next launchpad opened noisily.

So close…

“Where’s that Marina girl, didn’t she say she was only going to take a few minutes?” Three asked as they jumped through the barriers as well.

Pearl chuckled weakly, “It’s only been a few minutes.”

“Time works differently down here,” Eight reminded her.

“Ah, right.”

They both jumped down through the door. So so so close…!!!!

“Wait,” Three said suddenly.

Alarm bells went off in Eight head. She turned around to scan over Three. The expression on her face could only properly be described as ‘disturbed’. Oh no, oh no!

“Are you guys ‘off the hook’?!”

Stunned silence.

…Oh?

Eight blinked. So did Pearl, probably.

“Uhhh, yeahh!!!! The one and only!” Pearl laughed at last, “I’d do the catchphrase too, but without Marina that’s just kinda sad tbh”

Eight breathed in and out. She wanted to laugh a little too. How on earth could Three not have realized who Pearl and Marina were this whole time! Weren’t they kind of a big deal on the surface?

“Why does saving the world always have to involve working with some pop idols??” Three sighed deeply, earning them an offended gasp from Pearl.

‘Saving the world’ was, in Eight’s opinion, kind of an exaggeration in this specific case. But then again, Three seemed to be the kind of person to enjoy a touch of the melodramatic at times (if their cape was an indicator at all)(Though she had to agree that the cape was cool as shell)(…she should look into getting one for herself once on the surface!)

Plus… working with pop-stars… Who in their right mind would ever complain about that?! Especially!!! When those pop-stars were the squidsisters (which obviously she was aware Three was talking about here!!) Oh she was so jealous!!

Back when Eight had found out they were the granddaughters of the captain, she had lost all abilities to hold back. She’d asked (many) questions, to the point of even the captain reaching his daily word count. When Pearl and Marina had sent that picture of the four of them hanging out into the group chat she had wanted nothing more than to eat her pillow. She had plastered the walls over her bed completely with posters and snippets she had found in her magazines.

It seemed that out of all of them that Eight was the only person who had not met the squid sisters. Which she found to be pretty unfair.

One more reason, to bite through it and get to the surface asap!

“Eyyyy, how ‘bout some respect, kid?”

Three mumbled something under her breath, it was hard to make out, but Eight thought she heard her say, “No clue how they do it.”

“Do what?” Pearl asked.

“Nevermind.”

“No, no! I wanna know what you said just now, come on!!!” Gosh, they were pushing all of her buttons… Eight wondered if it was on purpose… Okay, no, it absolutely was on purpose going by the smirk they were smirking. In any way, she was certainly curious now as to how this would turn out.

“I was just wondering how the network always manages to choose the most annoying people to host Inkopolis news.”

Uh-oh.

“Goodness,” the captain remarked.

“EX-CUH-USE me?!”

“…no offence,” Three added.

The line got so loud that Eight couldn’t understand a single word.

Eight had to admit that the way Pearl exploded into wild curse words she’d never even heard of was a bit funny. But also mean. But also funny. In a way. She felt a little bad.

“Why are you being so mean?” she asked while Pearl raged on.

Three’s smirk faded. “They wont remember anyway,” she shrugged and walked to the launchpad.

How pessimistic!

Eight bit her lip bitterly and followed Three.

The conversation continued well into the next phase. Eight reequipped herself with the inkjet. High on the ceiling shone the energy core. This golden light. A clear objective. Eight set into motion to collect the data points. One last time. The jet activated and Eight flew high into the air.

“Besides, if what you said was true, they’d have chosen Paul from Sashimori to host it,” Pearl ranted in the background.

“The little kid??” the Cap’n spoke up.

“No comment.”

Oh Eight knew about that one! “Because he replaced you?” she asked innocently. She thought of the colorful pictures from her magazines.

“No comment!!!” Pearl shrieked.

And laughed. Wait, no. That didn’t make any sense. Why would Pearl laugh when she’s annoyed? The Cap’n then? No… she knew the old man’s signature old-man-laugh.

Eight shot at the data point in front of her, releasing the first lock. She looked down to the base, where Three was still waiting by the equipper.

Her ears had not deceived her. The small laugh from just now had belonged to Three!

She wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to feel about this revelation. In the end, she decided that it didn’t matter, as it sounded quite nice. What a shame she had to be so far away that she couldn’t see it too!

The inkjet pushed her back into the air. Eight moved through the structure with practice and experience. Skillfully she’d anticipate the green octarians. This time again, not a single drop of their ink got to her. Had they still been capable of emotion, they probably would have looked surprised.

“Mhpf, well, I guess there’s no helping those who simply lack taste” Pearl moped on the line. The Cap’n mumbled something entirely unintelligible.

Three snorted one more time. They were probably smiling too. Eight cursed Diaphragm Phase.

“Your music isn’t the problem. Ida specifically is a damn good DJ…,” Three said and added rather quickly, ”not that I know that much about dj-ing of course, but uh well…”

“Then what is the problem?”

“You!”

Eight raised an eyebrow while Pearl cursed and spluttered. She wasn’t sure she agreed. To be fair, she had never seen Marina and Pearls morning announcements (she so wanted to though!!!).

“Listen,” Three continued, “if I wanted to watch a cheesy romcom I’d turn one on! But during the morning news its really just- “

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pearl snapped.

“You know what I mean,” Three drawled smugly.

Eight did not know what they meant. No idea, in fact. But she feared that if she interrupted now, she would never find out.

“Ahhh yes, young love! I remember when I was your age, let me tell you about that,” the Cap’n laughed like the old man he was and dove right into a lengthy story about his youth.

“Cut it gramps! It’s… not like that.”

“No?” Three probed.

“No! Marina, she’s awesome… She would never even consider…” If Eight didn’t know any better she would have said that Pearl sounded almost self-conscious.

“Dude, she’s the really bad one! Do you moderate splatfests with your eyes and ears closed or what?”

Alright, yeah, Eight was completely lost. Listening in to the conversation was not giving her any satisfying answers whatsoever. She’d just have to ask about it later when she was not high in the air and supposed to be focused on freeing data points.

On the line, Pearl continued to cuss out Three, who continued to laugh. Louder this time.

Eight stopped in her track, ink still pooling around her feet. She pulled out the CQ-employee and moved it closer to her ear. Such a nice sound. She smiled and hummed.

“Something wrong, Eight?” Three asked suddenly. Ah. They had probably seen her stop in the air.

“No, everything is fine,” Eight explained and put the CQ away, “I just like your laugh.”

The line got a little louder again, so it was a good thing Eight had the CQ in her pocket.

“Well, well, well. Look who’s talking now!” Pearl cackled evilly. For some reason. Three mumbled something Eight couldn’t make out. Well, then.

Eight turned her attention, freeing the next four data points. One by one. The others quieted down after a while, even the Cap’ns wild stories found an end, which gave Eight the chance to concentrate fully. A faraway clicking sound in the background of the line made her listen up again, some time later.

“Hey!” Marina’s voice sounded from the CQ. Marina!

“Eyyy! ‘Rina’s back in da house!” Pearl announced loudly to which Marina chuckled faintly.

“I’ll be setting the computer up right away, if you don’t mind,” she said, followed by sounds of (very likely) the computer being set up, “did I miss something while I was gone?”

“Not much, really.”

“Some fun conversations perhaps,” Three interjected.

“Boring conversations. Nothing worth discussing again,” Pearl corrected firmly.

Marina laughed nervously, “Okay… I’ll take your word for it, Pearlie. Can I get a status update of everyone? Where are you at the moment?” Familiar sounds of keyboard tapping returned.

“Three and I are in diaphragm phase, right now. I’m closing into the last data point as we speak,” Eight reported and added a small explanation of the phase and the objective of the energy core, given that Marina obviously couldn’t know about it.

She dropped into the round room and dodged the volley of ink shot by the blue octarians. She maneuvered down, taking out her enemies, and with a few shots of her own ink, the last data point was hers again.

The floor shook and shifted as the last of the locks was released on the energy core. It shot high into the air, well beyond her line of vision, up into the next phase. Just like it had done the last two times.

The others still didn’t know this, of course and were still surprised. “WOOOAAAH!” Pearl yelled. Eight superjumped to the next highest platform, right to where she knew next launchpad to be. Three landed next to her, having jumped as well, just like before.

The inkling’s face was back to a blank neutral, which would have been a tiny bit disappointing were it not for what came next.

“Nice,” they said, looking to the side, and showed a thumb up. Eight could have exploded! Yippie!!

“Fantastic work Eight!” Marina cheered, “how many more phases are there now?”

“Just one more and then the elevator.” They were almost there again. Don’t jinx it.

“Great! I’ll get back to you when my calculations are done. In the meantime… Cap’n cuttlefish, what’s your status? Any updates?”

“Ah yes!” the Cap’n coughed cheerfully. Eight suspected that he had used his time to take a nap by the sound of his voice. “Please remind me again… What was the codeword again for something unusual occurring with the phone?”

“Codeword? Uh, I don’t think we agreed on a codeword,” Marina said nervously.

“Oookay, perfect. It hasn’t moved an inch, still just a broken ol’ phone.”

Strange. Eight remembered vividly that the first time, the phone had definitely moved and even spoken about halfway through her run. She had assumed that it must have done the same the last time, but to now find out it was still broken… She should let Marina know about this.

Just when Eight was about to speak into her CQ, she noticed that agent Three was staring right at her, eyes wide open.

“You left him with the phone?” she asked. Her voice sounded oddly hollow.

Eight blinked.

In less than a second, Three crossed the space between them and grabbed the CQ in Eight’s hands, making her stumble. “Cap’n get away from that thing! It’s dangerous! Over!”

“Wha?”

“Just get. Away. From it!” Three begged.

Eight frowned. Even with what she had told Three about the phone the last time, which wasn’t a whole lot to begin with, this seemed like a bit of an overreaction, didn’t it? She narrowed her eyes and stood a little straighter. “What do you know about the phone?” she asked.

Three froze, not replying for a couple of seconds.

“…Not much.”

A lie!

“You’re lying!”

“It attacked the Cap’n and me, I remember that much,” they flinched, regretting their choice of words, “I mean, that’s what you told me. Last loop. Is what I meant to say.”

They remembered the attack?

“You said the last thing you remembered was smashing the blender!” Eight pressed.

“Yeah, well…” Three looked away.

“Am I the only one having a hard time understanding any of this?” Pearl huffed in the background.

“Let them speak,” Marina shushed.

“Yes I lied, ok. Sorry I’m not too fond of the idea of the Cap’n being brainwashed!” they turned to the CQ again, “So Cap’n if you could just please-“

Okay. Eight’s head was spinning with questions, answers and contradictions. Three remembered the phone. The phone. She remembered the phone being dangerous, the phone attacking her and the Cap’n, the phone infecting her. The phone taking over her mind… Controlling her to-

“You do remember our fight,” Eight stated. Three held her gaze.

“UM your excuse me WHAT now?!” Pearl shrieked.

“Huh!? You said nothing about this, Eight what do you mean fight?” Marina.

Eight paid them no attention and kept her eyes on Three.

“Bits and pieces, yes,” she said after a while. Unbelievable! “Hey, you’re not mad at me, are you? There’s hardly anything I could have done!”

“I’m not,” Eight said truthfully, “It’s just… Why didn’t you tell us last loop? Or earlier today?”

“Uhh, because I don’t know you? Believe it or not but most people don’t react well to being killed. Feigning ignorance was my safest bet.”

“Killed?!?!?!” Marina squealed.

That… Made sense Eight supposed. In a way. For a while, at least. But they had spent quite some time together now. Surely Three must have noticed they were allies by now?

“Why keep the act up?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Three shook their head, “seemed easier I suppose?”

“Hey, how ‘bout we don’t skip over the killing part?” Pearl spoke up, “That walking anxiety attack keeping secrets, sure, I can get behind.” (“I’m sorry that walking what now?”) “But you Eight? Why would you keep that from us?”

Eight sighed. She still felt bad, of course she did! Pearl and Marina had always been so kind and helpful to her, sacrificing their scarce free time to guide her and even be her friend. But she also knew that she would choose to lie about this every single time.

“Because I knew you would react this way. It was just… Easier,” she reused her own words.

“Ayo!” Pearl gasped in offence, “Marina! Say something!”

Marina didn’t say anything.

“Rina?”

“Give me the whole rundown again. The true version of it this time if you don’t mind, Agent Three,” Marina ordered her fingers flying over the keyboard faster than Eight had ever heard.

Three cleared her throat and rattled down her report, “I smashed through the ceiling into the blender, passed out, woke up, the phone attacked me and the Cap’n, infected me with evil goo that had me fight Eight, I won, time rewound, we went up to the elevator, we both fell down, got dissolved by water, time rewound, went up again for some reason, and that’s where we are now. Pretty much. Over”

“We had it wrong the whole time,” Marina murmured and typed.

“Huh?” asked Cuttlefish.

“The starting point. Eight failing to escape was never the starting point of this whole thing. It was much earlier. Cap’n Cuttlefish and Agent Three being attacked, that’s where… That’s when… But there’s something missing. Something vital I can feel it, I just can’t put my finger on it yet…”

“M-marina!” Pearl stammered, “what does all this mean?”

Eight and Three exchanged a nervous glance.

The typing slowed down.

“I… I think we might have to discard our theory that this is all a coincidence,” Marina said at last. Eight felt her stomach sink. That… Didn’t sound very good at all.

“What does that mean for us?” she asked tensely.

“I don’t know. Not yet at least. I’m running some tests right now that will hopefully give us better insights. I’ll do some new scans of your surroundings too, also in relation to those anomalies you mentioned before Eight. Any new info on those, by the way?”

Eight thought for a moment, “There weren’t that many this time around. Actually, just one that I can think of.” She pointed at Three’s duplicated octoshot.

Marina just hummed thoughtfully. “Well in any case. I will need some more time here. It’s probably for the better that the two of you continue upwards anyway.

Eight nodded to herself. The uneasy feeling in her stomach stuck. She stepped onto the launchpad and waited for Three to join her. The inkling didn’t meet her eyes. She still looked rather shaken.

“Pops, maybe you really should step away from that phone for now,” Pearl proposed.

“Aye aye!” the Cap’n said, “I will hop off for a short while. Just until I find a good place to settle down.”

The line clicked as he disconnected from the call.

With a wet smacking sound the octocommander burst into pieces, leaving behind a puddle of grainy green ink and a handful of salmonid eggs. Eight exhaled and shook ink residue off her weapon.

She shot at the energy core, moving the platform they were on to follow the preset track. Peristalsis phase continued to be its high-stakes self but as long as more anomalies didn’t decide to make their life harder like they had the last time, it should continue to be very manageable, Eight thought. Of course, there was this new, underlying uncertainty. A sense of doubt, that only seemed to grow by the second. Eight hated it. So much.

How much longer were Marina’s tests going to take? There was no use excessively thinking about it.

“I’ll take care of the bombers. Can you make sure none of the missiles hit the core?” Eight instructed Three, who nodded. Coordination was more successful when they focused on separate issues as it turned out.

When the platform came to a halt in the right position, Eigth swam in her ink, a little forward just to the right spot. She waited a few moments, counted the beats, and reemerged much to the surprise of her opponents.

Splat, splat, splat.

So far so good. Eight wiped some of the green off her face. It stung faintly. I think we might have to discard our theory that this is all a coincidence. Marina’s words continued to echo through Eight’s mind.

The fact that Three had blatantly lied to all of their faces…! Eight closed her eyes and bit down on her lip. She had told Three that she wasn’t mad at them earlier, so in a way starting now would make her just as much of a liar, wouldn’t it?

A sudden and, unfortunately, familiar sound pulled her out of her thoughts. She recognized it from previous runs. Dull, distraught and reverberating.

The energy core!

Eight whipped around.

Indeed, a splash of marbled green ink stuck to the core’s membrane. No doubt the work of the octomissiles, more of them approaching by the second by the looks of it.

Frantically, Eight shot at the core to move it well out of the way. She stopped when the platform was halfway up to the next part of the stage, leaving it to hover in between.

Okay. That had been. Unfortunate! The now again stained core, again, felt like a personal insult. Eight knew that she could do better! Ragh! Eight turned to face Three, who was standing just to the side of the sullied core.

“What was that? You were supposed to protect the core,” she scolded unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice anymore. She was just so tired of it all. And especially since Three had chosen to be so hard on her the last time around!

Three looked at their feet, not at all reacting to Eight’s words it seemed. Eight paused. The Agent looked oddly worn, both hands hanging by their sides, weapon lowered.

With her head down like this, she looked very small somehow.

Eight sighed soundlessly, quiet understanding settling in.

“How’s your head?” she asked.

Three laughed. A hoarse, empty little laugh. Unlike before, there was nothing nice about it. It made Eight shiver.

“…bad,” the Agent’s voice was tiny, almost too quiet to hear. Eight frowned. She’d seen it coming. ‘Course she had. Luckily this time, she could do something about it. A small part of her, that wasn’t busy worrying, was even proud of Three for communicating her needs. It didn’t seem like something the inkling did very often, Eight got the impression.

“You guys good?” Pearl asked from the CQ.

“I got it under control,” Eight assured her quietly enough that Three probably couldn’t hear. A slow approach was key, she was sure of it.

Eight took one step towards Three. “I’m sorry. But you need to get back into the inktank. I can carry you the rest of the way. I know it’s a little embarrassing…” she said as softly as possible.

Three shook her head so violently that Eight feared it might make her nauseous on top of the headache. “No…” they whispered.

“But it’s the only way, we can-“

“No!” Three’s voice echoed through the room. Her hands shook by her sides, hands clenched into fists.

Eight bit the inside of her cheek. There was no helping it, the tank was their only real option. The uneasy feeling in her stomach kept growing and churning. Eight hated to spend one more second in this uncertainty! But… Forcing Three to get in didn’t seem right either. Maybe with the help of the others, she could manage to talk them into it, make them see reason.

The glow of the energy core illuminated Three’s face golden. Eight watches as the inkling’s eyes darted to the side, fast like lightning.

Eight reacted before she knew to even think about it.

She dashed forward and crashed into Three’s side, hard. She yelled in surprise, as Eight tackled her to the ground.

Three squirmed but Eight pinned her in place. Even with her lighter weight, Eight had no difficulty to keep them down.

“What are you thinking?!” she screamed. Her face felt hot, “You’re gonna throw yourself off that edge!? Didn’t once hurt enough?!” She put her hands on Three’s shoulders and shook them for emphasis. She couldn’t believe it, why would she do that?? Eight wanted to shake her harder, so she did. The inkling looked back at her with an expression that seemed almost bored.

Eight’s grip loosened, her anger fading as she got a glimpse of…

She leaned in closer.

To get a better look.

Of the other’s eyes.

There, in Three’s right eye.

A flash.

Of piercing, electric green.

Eight jerked back at once. No…

Three’s mouth pressed into a tight smile. “So, I’m not imagining it. Good to know,” she croaked.

Nonononononono-

“You,” Eight whispered. This couldn’t be happening this could not be happening!

“Eight? What’s going on?” someone asked. Eight didn’t reply, nor listen.

“You knew,” she struggled for words, struggled to properly have her thoughts fit together. “This happened the last time too, didn’t it?” Her hands tightened around the collar of the inklings cape. “Didn’t it?!”

Three sighed, annoyedly. Annoyedly?!

“Don’t get all huffy cuz I didn’t tell you,” she grunted.

“You threw yourself into that abyss on purpose!” Eight growled through gritted teeth. Her eyes were beginning to sting with fresh hot tears.

“Sorry,” Three spat, “Not that much I could have done.”

“You could have let us know! We could have figured-“

“Something out? Spare me, please. It doesn’t matter now. We’re running out of time here, just,” they breathed exhaustedly, “Just get off of me and let me-“

“No!” Eight shrieked. She would not let that happen no way!

Three’s eyes widened. Her right iris was starting to discolor. There was another way out of this, there had to be!

“Marina!” Eight yelled. If someone could help them…

“I’m on it!” Marina confirmed, tapping keyboard sounds in the background, “I knew there was something missing. Hold on.”

Three’s fingers dug into the skin of Eight’s hands still holding onto their collar. It hurt. “Agh!”

“Get. Off,” Three said in a low voice.

Eight shook her head wildly. “We’re both getting out of here.”

“Neither of us is getting out of here!! It’s over! Done! Final destination, better luck next time!”

“Marina. She can-“

Three pulled her closer. So close that they were almost nose to nose. “You think you stand a chance against me? Once it takes over?” her voice was barely above a whisper, her eyes shone with an intensity Eight couldn’t look away from. “We both know how that’s gonna play out.”

Eight bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted iron. But she had made up her mind. Her resolution was final.

She moved in ever so slightly. “I am not letting you do that,” she said just as lowly.

Three’s eyes grew even wider, her expression that of panic. Their hands let go of Eight’s, for a moment she feared they would try to break free again. Instead, Three grabbed Eight’s forgotten octoshot and pressed it into her hands. Eight blinked.

“You do it, then!” Three said, moving the barrel to her forehead. “Come on!”

“Rina?” Pearl asked tensely.

“On it! I’m running into a lot of dead ends here… I just need more time!”

Tapping and tapping and tapping.

Eight sat frozen. Irritated. She didn’t know what to say. The weapon in her hand felt heavier than ever.

“Don’t make me beg, ok?! It’s not a hard decision! If you can’t get yourself to do it, get up and let me!” Three squirmed and tried to shake her off.

Eight held her down.

She didn’t shoot.

She…

“You’re an octarian soldier, aren’t you?” Three tried again, “Others like you would kill for this opportunity. Just ask your friend!”

“Eight…” Marina said in the distance, “I’m sorry, this runs deeper than I expected. I need more time to properly help here…”

Eight ignored her.

“I don’t remember the army,” she said instead.

“Right! I’ll beg then!” Three yelled, now fully panicking. Eight blinked away tears.

“Please! Please please, shoot or get off! I don’t want to do this again, I can’t do this again!!”

“Eight, are you listening? We can’t help you now. Just talk to me in the next loop and we’ll figure it out from there,” Marina tried again, softly. Way too softly.

Eight’s hands shook. She didn’t shoot.

The orange from Three’s eyes was getting duller and duller, fading into that harsh blue more and more by the second. Their tentacles darkened too, lime green turning dark and grainy.

Three made one more attempt of throwing Eight off. Without success. She yelled frustratedly and pressed her eyes shut.

They grabbed their own octoshot. Pearl and Marina yelled.

Three flung the weapon to the side, far out of reach. Eight gasped and threw her own weapon away as well.

Much to the dislike of everyone.

“You dumbbass!!” Three screamed. Eight cried. But held her down nontheless.

Three screamed and cursed. Cursed until her words turned into senseless babbling.

When her eyes met Eight’s again, they shone alight.

Eight gasped as Three continued to struggle under her, more viciously than before. This isn’t Three anymore, Eight’s mind supplied.

She didn’t know what to do. The others were still talking, still giving instructions, still telling her to just let Three do that to themselves.

She didn’t want to listen to them. She didn’t want to go back.

Maybe. Just maybe…

She hadn’t been able to overpower Three the first time, hadn’t been strong enough. But she knew the other’s attack pattern. And she didn’t have to win. Maybe with a little luck she could make a run for her weapon. And tire the other agent out to the point of exhaustion. Exploit their tendency to faint. Maybe she could salvage this, maybe they could still make it to the surface, maybe-

“Agh!” Eight screamed.

A sharp pain burned deeply into the skin of her back. Hot, corrosively, familiar. Sanitized ink.

Eight turned her head, now struggling to contain Three.

Octomissiles!

The platform must have moved back far enough for them to be in enemy lines again. Eight’s eyes darted across the room, scanning the targets.

Too close and too many. Way too many!

She looked back at Three. Empty eyes in a painful grimace. Without thinking about it much more, Eight bend down and covered Three with her body, shielding her from the fast approaching missiles.

The inkling scratched at her back painfully, struggling and struggling and struggling.

The other’s frantic, angry voices faded into static.

Eight closed her eyes tightly.

And braced for impact.