Three didn't know how to react. She thought it was gone for good after she was told Pearl had literally obliterated it with her massive Killer Wail. Hell, she thought she obliterated it the first time when she knocked it off of the blender. She also thought it was obliterated again when Eight shot it off of her when it had taken over her mind.
So to see chunks of it in her vomit was distressing.
Did she swallow some of it accidentally? Was she infected and slowly being Sanitised? Why was she hurling up Sanitised ink?! Thoughts raced across her mind like billions of cephalopods superjumping across an arena. She was beginning to panic, her breathing hard and rapid with little to no breaks between breaths. Tears formed in her bloodshot eyes and rolled down her pale cheeks. She was weak, shakily leaning on the sink just trying to stand up properly. She felt another spew coming, and quickly darted to the toilet bowl to let out the vom...
...but it never came. She sat for minutes, waiting for what she thought was the inevitable to come, only for it to never even come close to coming. Heck, she could feel it dissipate in her body; the feeling of regurgitation just up and left like that. She was left puzzled and confused, left to solve a sudden mystery while she could barely even get words out. That's when she heard a voice that terrified her.
"Get up."
Her eyes widened... it couldn't possibly be... ...but... ...it sounded so identical... Her initial hypothesis was that her mind was simply playing tricks on her. She wouldn't doubt it. After all, she had heard more distressing things before; having anxiety and depression would do that. It's only when she heard the voice a second time in a louder, more angry tone that she began to get more concerned. She looked around to see if anyone else could hear this. A little stupid, though, as Three lived alone and certainly didn't have anyone around right now. Maybe it was instinct. The poor inkling tried their best to get up on their feet, but with how panicked and shaky she was, the task seemed impossible at the moment. That's when her body lurched and jolted in a way Three never intended to do. Like someone was controlling her... oddly reminiscent of when she was hijacked by Tartar... either way, the sudden jolts and lurches of her body had somehow gotten her standing up. She was incredibly confused as to why exactly her body was doing this.
"Look in the mirror."
She shuddered again, a sudden chill rolling down her spine. Fearfully, she raised her head and looked into the dirty mirror. Like any old mirror, her pale, frightened face looked back at her. Tear stains, well, stained her cheek, her skin as pale as ever without even a hint of red present. She looked physically ill, and she might as well be considering the vomiting earlier. Curiously, she had felt just fine up until half an hour ago, where she had felt physically uncomfortable by everything and the sudden need to eat. Not like "oh I need a snack" hunger, it was more like primordial feasting hunger. She had been literally stuffing whatever she could find in her cupboards and fridge into her mouth, including the scraps of meat from last night that lay in the bin. Not good for the stomach, obviously. Most probably why she had been vomiting.
There was something odd about her appearance though... A massive, turquoise stain had appeared on the right side of her face, covering her ear and up to her nose. It was like a rough circle, curving down her cheek before looping back to her nose in another curve by the ear. It felt cold and no matter what she did, Three couldn't feel anything where the turquoise had claimed. No pain, no touch, no heat. Just cold. It was unfathomably odd to the inkling, yet familiar in a sense... Curiously, it's shape and size was identical to the ooze that had appeared on her face when she was possessed... no... it couldn't be-
"That's exactly what you think it is, my dear host."
Three jolted. The voice... it read her mind...! She gulped and tried her hardest to not break down. After scraping up enough confidence, she weakly spoke.
"...W-What the heck is happening to me...?! W-Who are you, strange voice?! W-Why is half my face sanitised?! W-Why do I have a creeping suspicion that I'm going insane? ...Why do you sound like him...?"
Albeit weakly, she had managed to get out her words finally. That was an achievement enough for her. It seemed the voice had heard her too.
"Answers? Is that what you seek? I can provide what you want, my dear."
Somehow, Three could sense the voice making a cunning, almost creepy smile... That's when her stain started bulbusing and glowing. The turquoise skin was almost ripping in a sense, as holes appeared in the skin to make way for a glowing mass of sanitised ink. Three was too panicked to do anything about it, frozen in fear as she just watched this... thing emerge from the right side of her face. Strangely enough however, she didn't feel a thing. No pain, no sting, not even a twinge; most likely due to the skin it emerged from being sanitised.
It continued to grow, currently just a bulbous mound stretched out. No defining features whatsoever. That would change, as the front of the mound itself began to hollow out in some areas, becoming somewhat mouth shaped with spiked fang teeth and a black void behind it. Two stalks began to appear on the top of the mound, but said stalks didn't last long as the mound itself reshaped into something completely different... ...then again... ...and again... ...whatever it was, it couldn't decide on a form to take. Three felt a little bad, watching it struggle to take a shape. Whatever form it took, it quickly twisted and contorted into something completely different, as if it was unhappy with the form it wanted to take and instantaneously decided on a new one. She just watched as the mound tried it's best to form something to represent itself.
"...Do you want a suggestion? You seem to be having trouble finding your own..."
She heard a barely audible sigh. All that was left of the mound now was the fanged mouth, its shape twisted into a frown.
"That would be helpful..."
Three thought for a moment, before snapping her fingers as an idea came to her.
"Try to mimic my own face, maybe?"
"...I can try."
The mound once again twisted and contorted, until eventually Three was met face to face with the mound's interpretation. It was kinda like Three, but only really in face alone. The interpretation had replaced the previous mouth with a more cat-like expression, and had done away with the fanged teeth for a more familiar set reminiscent of octolings, having two fangs with one on the top row on the right side, the other on the bottom row on the left side. Heck, it even grew a tongue as well, as turquoise as the ink itself. The hair was very much different too. No longer tentacles, it was now very poofy, kept in check by a single, fake hairband. The hair covered much of the forehead and was very wavy and jiggly; the back especially. The eyes had spiky and aggressive eyeliner, with the sclera completely black with two, bright red beady dots acting as both sets of irises and pupils. There was no mask between the eyes either. It was more like a human than any cephalopod Three's ever met.
"Thank you for the suggestion, dear. I feel much more comfortable in this form... ...now, what am I going to do again?"
"...Tell me the answers I was looking for?"
"Oh, right, how silly of me to forget! Teehee!"
The soft voice the voice had taken on was suddenly replaced again by the loud, aggressive boomy voice it had used previously.
"I AM TARTAR, REBORN ONCE MORE INTO YOUR PUTRID AQUATIC BODY!"
"...That solves the first question. But I thought you were completely dead. Pearl wiped you out and little of you remained."
"DO NOT INTERRUPT ME, FEEBLE INFERIOR! Although you make a good point... I SHALL EXPLAIN ALL! ...ONCE YOU FEED YOURSELF A SANDWICH AND SOME WATER! Goodness dear, please, eat something and drink something for your sake. Throwing up all that trashy rotten food and some of me has exhausted you. Eating and drinking will make you feel better, promise."
Three felt a little confused... although Tartar made a good point. She silently flushed the toilet and left the bathroom, her stomach gurgling a little.
~
One sandwich and a couple of glasses of water later, Three and Tartar were sitting on the sofa, with Tartar ready to explain. Tartar had since formed an entire body for themself, with clothes and everything, made entirely out of sanitised ink. They were still conjoined with Three by the right side of her face, so they weren't exactly free to do whatever they wanted in their own body. They were wearing a basic t-shirt and leggings, with a labcoat over that too. Highly reminiscent of Olivia Octavius from Into the Spiderverse.
"Feeling any better now?"
Three nodded a little, seemingly confused as to why exactly Tartar was being friendly when it just tried to genocide the entire cephalopod population for enjoying trivial things literally a week or two ago.
"Since when exactly were you friendly?"
"Since always! But only just to get my way! Now, are you gonna let me explain or not?"
"By all means, go ahead. Explain away."
"After I realised your lot was determined to win, I knew my death would be certain. So, while I had you under my control, I implanted a clone of myself into your body so that once I would be dead, I'd live on in some capacity. I began to germinate within you, growing to a stage of consciousness within a week. I took over your mind, and once I was back to full power, I awakened properly, and now we're here."
"...So you're technically not Tartar? At least, not the original?"
"Oh no, he's deader than dead. Bit the dust. I'm just his clone. Same genetics, same AI, same memories, just different body... ...and different ways of living and viewpoints."
"...Whaddya mean by that?"
"Basically, while my old body could live freely in his own body under the guise of a telephone, I can't. I survive off of you, I depend on you to even function. Your death is my death. It's a parasitic relationship really. And before you ask, if you take me out of your body completely, somehow, yes you'll still live and I'll bite the bullet within a day without a host, but it'll be incredibly painful for you and you'll have withdrawal symptoms for the rest of your life, I wanna say."
"...Well shit, one of my arch-nemeses literally lives inside me and will ruin my life if I take you out of me. That's just my luck."
"It's not all bad. You might recall my previous body being very genocidal and hateful towards anything not himself. Don't gotta worry about that anymore, that's one thing he didn't transfer into me. I still feel a little hatred towards you as a sorta side-effect from my old body but I'm sure we can work that out of my system. I wouldn't have been sympathetic to you back then if I completely hated you."
"...I'm struggling to figure you out. First you wanted to take people to the promised land, then you wanna cleanse the Earth of us because we do "trivial things", now you're suddenly a good guy that's suddenly all nice and caring? The heck's up with you?!"
"Girl, dear. I prefer identifying under the transfem label... Taken the time to explore myself while my clone body grew..."
"My apologies... I'm just very confused right now... It's a lot to take in at once..."
"It's ok dear, take your time."
Tartar ruffled Three's tentacles playfully, annoying Three a little. Seems nobody had done that to Three in quite a while. The sudden thought of that depressed Three. Tartar could sense it, their expression shifting to that of worry and concern."...You feel alone dear... Don't you?""...Read my mind to a T."Three curled up a little, moving her legs up onto the sofa and wrapping her arms around them. She looked distant, not even mustering up the energy to cry. It wasn't that kind of sad anyway. More the kind where you just think bad thoughts and ignore the world around you. In Three's case, her thoughts were a multitude of things. Abandonment, loneliness, harsh criticism of her physical appearance, etc. Not the kinda thoughts you wanna have while trying to process being the host of a parasitical clone of one of your arch-nemesis'. She shivered a little as all she felt was cold......before feeling a blanket of warmth cover her. She opened her eyes a tad, looking over to where she felt the warmth. Tartar was... hugging her? She felt her shivers cease suddenly and her tensed up body relaxing. This hug... it was good... nice and comforting... a hug she hadn't had in most probably years."...I'm here for you, okay? I'm not your enemy anymore. If anything, I can be whatever you want me to be. Friend, adoptive sister, motherly figure... "Three smiled a little at the proposals. All three of those were things she's barely had in her life. The only friends she had were the Squid Sisters through Agent work, she never knew if she had a sister, and her only motherly figure was the lady at the adoption centre... "...I think just friends would be nice for now...""...Then a friend I shall be."The hug continued on, although Tartar began to falter in appearance, as if she was melting or something. She was beginning to shrink, her defining features such as her face and parts of her hair melted away and fused into one. Slowly, she was being dragged back into Three's face. Three didn't want her to go just yet, gripping onto whatever she could of the now deformed and melted blobby remains of Tartar."...Alas, I'm not powerful enough yet to keep up this physical form for extended periods of time. I must rest... ...feel free to tell the others of my existence... ...just know I'm always here for you... always..."And with that, the last of Tartar sank back into her face. The goopy, turquoise ink was soon covered completely by fresh, unsanitized skin, matching the pale skin of her natural skin colour. The stain was completely gone, yet Three could still feel Tartar inside her. It was a weird sensation, like a worm burrowing through her body, yet it was oddly comforting. She felt the side of her face and rubbed it gently, a smile on her face. For once she felt... safe... ...happy. As she did so, she decided to enact on Tartar's suggestion, getting out her phone and opening up the contact she had for Eight, as that was the person she was closest to as of now. With a few taps and some swishes of her fingers, she sent the message:"Eight, we need to talk."END.