Sanitized

Chapter 29; Seen

We stood in front of a large mountain, completely barren in terms of snow or water, and covered in rocks and cacti. Marina had sent us to canyon land, and it had only taken 30 minutes to get there. Surprisingly different from the last base, they were only 50 minutes apart.
Elliot and I stood there, in front of the mountain, and saw no buildings, but saw plenty of guards.
These guards had ancient human guns, again which made Elliot and I very nervous. I could feel it in the air.
Me and Elliot looked at them, hiding behind a rock.
I looked to the top of the mountain and saw a signal tower.
"I think that's where we are supposed to be." I said, pointing to the tower.
"I would agree with that statement." Elliot said.
We began to run for the first group of octarians, which were holding flare guns. Elliot ran up and splatted them with his weapon easily, and then continued forward. We saw several octo commanders holding weapons. Elliot crept up to them slowly, and splatted them from behind. Then we moved on, splatting enemies. But we weren't even halfway, when the octolings started shooting at us.
One Octarian after another, randomly shooting their bullets. We would barely miss them, struggling to climb higher, but not get hit.
Elliot dodged a bullet by an Octarian trooper, and dodged, but it almost hit me. It missed by a centimeter. I was in shock and began to panic. Elliot could see the change in my expression, and we ran behind a rock.
We kneeled down, and Elliot held my hands.
"It's fine, calm down. Okay, princess?" Elliot said, jokingly.
"Thanks, but you should too. If you were calmed down, you'd be missing those bullets by a larger distance." I countered.
"Uh Huh, sweetheart. Don't go judging me, just because I'm scared. I don't want to die either, princess." He said smiling smugly. I smiled at him back and ran back out.
I began to shoot at the enemy blindly, occasionally splatting them. I dodge rolled and treated it like it was Turf War, except it wasn't. Elliot followed close behind me, splatting opponents left and right. We climbed higher, the ground getting steeper. I looked around and saw no enemies.
They were all gone, but something was off. I didn't hear anything, but it felt too silent. I heard motion against rocks. Elliot and I stood there, back to back. I changed my posture when I heard a slithering sound.
I turned around quickly.
"A-a-a sn-n-nake." I said quietly to Elliot. He nodded slowly.
Elliot spoke slowly and softly,"What do we-" A gunshot echoed. The snake wasn't there. And Elliot was bleeding.
"What happened?!" I screamed at him.
"I don't know." Elliot said calmly, but with winces of pain.
His leg was bleeding badly, and I saw a bullet. Elliot was grabbing it, and curled on the ground.
"Go get the other piece, I'll be fine." Elliot said.
"What?!" I said, kneeling on the ground next to him.
"You heard me, Princess." Elliot said.
I nodded guiltily, and began to climb the mountain.
I grabbed rocks slowly, and pulled myself upward. There were no guards in sight, but I knew at least one was there.
I aimed my gun outward, slowly turning at swiveling at every flat point.
I looked downward to find Elliot, and luckily, he was still in the same place.
I jumped up to a peak, and looked around, then saw a trooper.
"Hey there." a familiar voice said.
I looked towards the shadow, and saw a female octoling, with a familiar look in her eyes, and the same brightness, but changed. It was Opal.
"Opal?" I said, knowingly.
Opal had been sanitized, and I knew that, but she was here. That was for a reason.
"Yes Tres." Opal said, holding up an ancient human gun, and pointing it at me.
"Opal- where's everyone else?" I said nervously, trying to get her to unfocus about the gun.
"Why do you need to know?" Opal said, tilting her head.
"Why do you think?"
Opal smiled smugly, and shot the gun.
I dodged out of the way, and then realized.
Opal had shot Elliot, and was trying to kill us. It was very obvious that she was, but it was hard to wrap my head around. Opal had always been so sweet, and lively. But now there was a chance that she'd never come back. Elliot and I both secretly knew that we had gone particularly fast with finding everything, and figuring everything out. It didn't feel real.
I charged towards Opal, and slammed her to the ground, and pinned her down. Then I stopped. I was too paranoid, too loving, towards Opal, that I felt like I couldn't splat her. But I had to. I had no idea where she'd end up, or where she'd respawn, but I had to. I splatted her with my ink gun, and stood up.
I climbed to the signal tower, and saw the other piece of the ink connector.
I climbed the signal tower slowly, then looked down. I gripped the bars tighter, in fear of falling. I was extremely high up. I breathed in, and climbed higher, and then grabbed the ink connector piece. I looked down in fear, and slowly climbed down.
I stood on the flat ground, and looked off the piece of the mountain.
So. High. Up.
I was terrified. But then I saw Elliot passed out on the rocks below.
"ELLIOT!" I screamed. I then ran and jumped off the edge of the cliff, and floated in midair.
I saw my life flash before my eyes. I looked down, and realized I was about to fall and die.
I looked down as I was about to crash, then I saw Elliot's eyes open wide, as I flew 5 feet in the air, above and away from him. He stood up quickly and opened his arms, and I crashed into them. Elliot's hurt leg winced.
Elliot fell backwards, with me in his arms, and we fell into a deep crevice.
The light slowly faded away as I fell deeper into the hole. The walls were only feet apart at this point, and I kept slamming and flipping into them. My body groaned in pain, as I fell and slammed my head against the wall. I scraped my arms against the spiked walls, and was now bleeding immensely. My head hurt like crazy, and I was spinning around. I managed to slow for a moment by grabbing onto a rock, then slipped back into the abyss. I screamed tiredly and grabbed the wall. I saw Elliot above me, and he was bleeding everywhere.
"Tres..." Elliot said, grabbing me with limp arms.
We had been falling for 15 seconds at that point, and I didn't know if I would survive.
All of Inkopolis would be destroyed because we fell. I didn't want it to end this way. I grabbed Elliot's limp body, and saw him flicker his eyes open.
"It's okay, Princess."
"I don't want to die." I said, within the last 5 seconds, before slamming hard against the ground.