Sanitized

Chapter 21; Plan

I woke up in a chair.
I was bound to it, by metal cuffs.
I looked next to me.
I saw Isaac and Tres, sitting in two different chairs.
Underground. That's where I was.
I looked around the dim lit metal room.
The only light was the ominous glow of the teal ink, flowing in the tanks.
Tartar's ink.
Where was Octar.
I looked around slowly.
I didn't see him.
I turned into octo form, and slid out of the chair.
I stood up and looked around more.
I walked to the door, and then looked back at Tres and Isaac.
I don't know what I could do.
I walked over to them again, and tried to shake them awake.
Tres woke up.
"What? Opal, where are we?" Tres asked.
"I think we're underground." I said quietly.
"Okay, let's go I guess."
I tried to shake Isaac awake, but he wouldn't budge.
"I'm not carrying him." Tres said.
"Should we leave him here?" I asked.
"There's not much we can do. He doesn't look like he's waking up anytime soon."
"Okay then."
We walked to the door, and I typed in the passcode I remembered from Gianna.
It worked and the door opened, echoing.
There were large hallways, with no decor or noteworthy design, except for walls of metal.
We walked through quietly, stopping at every corner to see if there were any guards.
There were none.
Strange.
We kept walking until we saw a large metal door.
We walked over to the code pad.
I typed in the code.
Slowly, the doors opened.
The opened doors revealed an entire army of sanitized inklings.
And behind them all, Octar.
I looked at him in fear.
"Well, nice of you to join us." Octar said.
"Inktolings. Rise." He said, motioning his hands upward.
And like that, all of the army lifted their heads.
Mindless stares.
The sanitized inklings had green faded into blue hair. Green skin, swirled blue eyes, and Octarian Army suits.
This is what they had done.
I ran for the emergency weapon, and grabbed it out of the wall, and it filled up with my pink ink.
Tres' tentacles turned to match my hot pink, and she grabbed another emergency weapon.
We ran at them, dodging the army's ink.
We charged at Octar.
We ran through the vast crowd, and ran up some stairs.
We ended in front of Octar, and pointed our ink guns at him.
"Well, you can't do that." Octar said sarcastically.
"And why not?" Tres asked.
"Because I have something of yours." Octar answered with a menacing grin.
He pressed a button, and then a chair came up through a hole in the ground.
The chair had Isaac in it.
Tres and I looked at the chair.
Octar grabbed a separate gun, filled with Tartar's sanitizing ink, and pointed it at Isaac.
"Want him to not be able to help you?" Octar asked, grinning.
I looked at him scared.
And then at Tres.
Isaac woke up, and then looked at Tres.
"Tres? What am I doing here?" he said dazed and sleepy.
"Isaac!" Tres said.
I wondered what had happened to make Tres that concerned about him.
We all kept our guns pointed at the opponent.
I looked around.
I wasn't even wearing my hero suit, one shot from these guys, and I was a goner. Steven should have let me go. I would have had the advantage if I surprised them.
I then thought about Steven more, in the milliseconds to come.
Steven, he'd saved me from here.
I saved him from Tartar's control, with his words as my inspiration.
I didn't know what to think of those words now.
We stared at each other, having what Elliot called, "a Western Showdown".
I breathed slowly.
I aimed at Octar.
I looked at Tres.
Tres was only looking at Octar.
It was almost as if the moment was in slow motion.
She pulled the trigger.
Her ink slowly reaches Octar.
It hits him.
But with his last chance, he hit Isaac with the sanitizing ink.
Octar falls, and turns into octo form, and then stands back up.
Isaac's head was hanging, and his body slumped.
I watched as his skin turned to sanitized green, his tentacles to green and blue, his clothes to an Octarian Army suit.
He lifted his head, mindlessly. And opened his eyes, almost like a robot. His eyes were sanitized green and blue, a swirling storm of unfortunate. Tres looked at him, shocked.
Octar grinned.
"So. Since you're about to become one of us anyway, I'm just going to tell you our plan. It doesn't make sense for me to tell you, and you do not respond with rebellious emotion. That's no fun."
Tres and I looked at him, scared faces.
"Do you know what we're using these Inktolings for? And before you guess, I'm just going to tell you. The Next Great Turf War. If it's going to be all that great, you guys haven't done barely anything to fight back. Quite pathetic if I say so myself. You guys haven't even fought back for the one thing that we're taking: your land."
"What?!" Tres screamed, "What's the point in that?!"
"There's the rebellion! Where were you all this time when we wanted to have some fun. You left all of the boring people back in Inkopolis, what was that for?"
I didn't respond.
"I can tell that you're especially excited, Opal, after telling that boy you could handle this by yourself. No wonder he doesn't trust you."
I looked at him. Anger.
"He shouldn't have used Serenity as his example though." I thought to myself, trying to stay mad at him.
"Hmmm. No response? Let's see what you'll say when I show you this." Octar said, before pressing a button that lifted more chairs from the floor.
And in those chairs, were sanitized agents. Faith, Marie, and Callie.
I looked at them. How did they have no problem sanitizing them? What had we done wrong? Run away, that's what. Us, the Squidbeak Splatoon, had ran. We didn't stand up for the people, we didn't outdo the odds. No, we stood back, cowering in fear, secretly only afraid of what might happen to ourselves. I stood there, intently watching them.
I looked at Trss, she was as surprised as I was, speechless.
Serenity.
That was the word to describe that moment.
The quiet in a filled room.
The thoughts surrounding the air.
The expressions.
The girl who I didn't see.
Octar gave a grim smile.
"Now, now you see..." he said.
Me and Tres looked back up at him.
"And now, now you will become one of us..."
He shot at us, and we both dodged his two shots.
He then said, "Inktolings! Attack."
They all turned to us, grabbed their ink guns, and started firing at us mindlessly.
There were so many of them, me and Tres barely dodged their attacks.
We started shooting at them, swimming through the ink and then jumping up.
We shot blindly into the crowd, and then ran towards the door, all of the army following us.
They tracked us down hallways, and up stairwells, us barely dodging at every turn.
I ran to the surface door, and then opened it.
Me and Tres ran out, closing it behind us.
We knew we only had less than a minute until the army was out here too.
"Opal! I'm getting a transmission!" Tres said, pointing to her hero suit headphones.
"Really?"
"Yeah! It's Marina!"
"What is she saying?"
"She says that there's help on the way."
"Thank goodness."
Then there was banging at the door, and it broke open.
Me and Tres backed up against the rooftop. And then started shooting at the again.
"We've got to get out of here!"  I screamed, then grabbed Tres' hand and ran to the side of the building.
Tres looked at me, and I jumped off.
Tres followed me, and we landed on a lower rooftop.
The Inktolings were still shooting at us, but not following. But I knew that if they even got one drop on me, I'd be splatted.
We ran to the other end of the rooftop, where the ink couldn't reach us.
"What should we do? Wait here like sitting ducks?" Tres said.
"Not sure that there's much more we can do." I said scared.
"That's been the answer to everything. Octar is right, we have been pathetic scaredy-cats."
I nodded sadly, it was true.
We looked at the door on the rooftop we were on.
It broke open, and Octar came through, with our friends.
"Well, fancy meeting you here," he said.
"Not very formal attire though, I see." Tres said.
"What do you mean? Octarians are very formal." Octar said.
"Not really." I said quietly, trying to contribute to trash talk.
"Hmm. Well, that's too bad. I do believe that we were about to destroy you, so you couldn't do anything, but you just ran out on me, not very nice." Octar said.
"Are all Octarians like Elliot?" Tres asked me.
"Oh, Elliot, that other traitor? Yeah, he's next too." Octar said.
We slowly backed up closer to the wall.
Octar pointed his ink gun at us.
We were preparing for doom, when we were hoisted up into the air by grapplinks.
We were being pulled up into a jet.
Me and Tres flowed in the air.
Serenity.
That was the word to describe that moment.
The silent winds.
The speechless aura.
The slow motion feels.
The girl that was as confusing as this.
Me and Tres stood up inside the jet.
"Welcome!" a voice said.
"What?" Tres said. We both walked up to the cockpit.
"Go on, have a seat!" the boy said.
Me and Tres sat down in the seats next to the boy.
He looked familiar.
"I'm Paxton!" the boy said cheerfully.
That would explain it, he did the news now.
"Thank you so much!" I said, expressing that fact that he just saved us, and I would be grateful.
"That's what fellow agents do! I'm Agent 11." Paxton said.
"Welcome to the crew. I'm Agent 3." Tres said.
"I'm Agent 7!" I said.
"And your names?" Paxton asked cheerfully.
"Tres."
"Opal." I said, delighted at his positivity.
"Well, it's great to be welcomed." he said, with a big smile on his face.
...
He landed the plane back on the beach.
We all hopped out, and the plane flew away.
I looked at it confused.
"Autopilot." Paxton explained.
"Oh." I said.
And we walked back up to Steven's room.