Order Up - Splatoon3 Side Order

Part 1 - "Parallel Canon"

They found themselves pretty stressed out by this... but they had no real choice in the matter. So, they went up to the next floor...

Only to find a bunch of weird skeleton-like fish when they stepped out. And a bunch of portals too! The skeleton fish were coming out of the portals.
But... what could that mean?
If they were to guess, clearly they'd have to kill the skeleton fish. They're skeletons! Which, of course, have to be bad!
They pointed their gun and shot.

...And they didn't know what they expected. Their ink color was black, just like the skeleton fish, and therefore did zero damage. They stomped their foot and groaned - or at least, they tried, but what came out was just a strange robotic noise. They were surprised anything came out at all.

They de-possessed the robot, flew towards a fish and tried to punch it. They weren't sure why they thought that would work, but their hand just phased right through it.

They sighed and sat crisscross in the air.
They couldn't advance through the tower, and they couldn't leave without their dumb parallel canon. And still, they couldn't remember a thing!
How could they possibly-

?!

Their thoughts were interrupted by... a voice.

"Huh? That's weird... you're not like the other enemies coded in here. Why can't I get a solid read on you?"

Agent 4 gasped. It was a voice out of nowhere, but he was talking about their parallel canon! They knew he was! And if they could somehow communicate with whoever was behind this voice, they could get help!

They re-possessed their own strange metallic body at such force that the parallel canon stumbled forward. Unsure what to do, they tried to frantically say something, anything, but it didn't work! All that came out were robotic noises!

"Whoa! You can talk?"

Whoa. He could hear them?!

"No, no, I can't actually hear you. But I can see lines of dialogue in your code that come and go. Crazy, right? It's like I'm reading your mind!"

Oh.
Well, at least they could somehow talk to this mystery person! They could explain their situation! They explained, and they did so quickly. They were glad the person could read it all...

"Whoa... so "Order," the AI that runs this place, turned you into that thing? A "Parallel Canon"... Well, if that's true, you can count on me to help you get out of this crazy virtual prison. What did you say your name was? Agent 4? That doesn't sound like a real name..."

They sighed.
Agent 4 wasn't their real name, after all. But it was all they could remember.

"Amnesia, eh? That's rough. Maybe you'll remember once I get you outta here... Well, as long as we're using aliases, you can call me H4CKER! Hey, we both have 4's! That's how you know we'll be a good team!"

...Given the fact that this guy was likely... a hacker, they figured that "H4CKER" couldn't truly be their screen name. It was a bit on the nose. But who were they to judge?

"So, are you ready to kick some virtual butt?"

Agent 4 quickly nodded.

"I'll take that silence as a YES!"

Agent 4 quickly nodded again - they finally had a way to get out of here!
...Wait. How would they get out of here...? Sure, they had someone on the outside, but what could he do?

"Heh, what can't I do?" H4CKER gloated, "You probably put two and two together, but I'm a pretty good hacker. I noticed that the elevator can only go up one floor at a time, right?"

Agent 4 nodded. It was annoying. To get the elevator to go upwards, they had to beat levels on each floor. But because they were an enemy, they couldn't fight the other enemies!

"Oof. Well, lucky for you, I can hack the elevator! It's pretty complex though. Going up each level could take a while, but it's better than nothing."

Agent 4 groaned.

"Hey, don't give me that! I'm helping!"

...True.

"Well, as long as we're on the same page, head towards the elevator! Let's not waste any time!"

Agent 4 nodded again - it'll take a while, but... sooner they go into the elevator, sooner they'll get to the top... and sooner they get to the top, sooner they can hopefully find something, or at least find a way back to floor one.

With a strange drone and a new ally in tow, they headed towards the elevator and went inside.
Time to escape the Spire of Order - no matter the cost!