Derek and Morgan approached the kettle leading to one of the entrances to New Octopolis City, opening the lid.
"Are you ready?" Derek asked. Morgan nodded with a nervous expression.
"I'm scared of going back here after what all I've seen but...I'm ready," Morgan replied. She seemed very scared.
"I'll be right with you to protect you," Derek promised with a determined look.
"Thank you, Agent 5," Morgan said with a grateful look. "For everything."
"Don't thank me yet," Derek replied. "Wait until we get out of here in one piece." He lowered himself into the kettle, and Morgan followed. The pink Inkling slammed the lid down behind her. The slam echoed loudly. Derek flinched, looking back at Morgan.
"I, uh, don't know my own strength," Morgan said with a nervous laugh.
"Hopefully no one heard that," said Derek, adjusting his Hero Shot on his left hip and peeking out of the small tunnel leading to New Octopolis City. Morgan quietly slipped her phone out of her pocket, sent a text and tapped on an app, slipped her phone back into her pocket, and joined his side. "Where to?" Morgan pointed to an apartment complex just outside of the main city.
"We'll travel through there," she said. "From there we'll travel through the back alleys to the prison." Derek looked at her.
"You seem to know a lot about this place," he said.
"It's the way I escaped," Morgan explained.
"I see. Lead the way."
The doors to the cafeteria opened, and ten exhausted, magenta ink-covered Octolings entered, all conversations stopping and all eyes turning onto them. Monica, Alecs, Kimberly, Kelly, and six of Kelly's underlings stepped inside the cafeteria, boots squelching with ink with every step. The Octolings dripped with ink from the lake at the bottom of October Canyon and embarrassment from being beaten so badly by the New Squidbeak Splatoon.
"So not only did we lose on purpose-" began Alecs.
"-We lost to an old man," finished Kimberly.
"Horribly," added Monica.
"At least we planted Morgan among them," Kelly said. "We have to prepare for her return once she lures the agents to the rendezvous point." Just then, Kelly's phone beeped. As she checked it, Skylar Rose walked up to the group.
"Aww, did you all go swimming?" she teased mockingly. She looked at Kelly. "Where's your informant?" Kelly turned on her phone, closing the messages app with a message from the night before saying "I'm in" and "I'm bringing Agent 5," and opened the tracker app on her phone, pointing to a small moving dot.
"Doing what she does best," replied the indigo Octoling. "Gathering information."
Thunder rumbled overhead in the distance.
"Faster, 4!" Jewel urged as she and Autumn sprinted across Octo Canyon in their agent gear. "We have to get to 5 before this storm hits!"
"I can't believe we didn't question Morgan," Autumn groaned. "There were so many red flags and discrepancies that I'm so upset we didn't see them before."
"We all fell for it," Jewel said. "And honestly? Despite Morgan most likely being an Octoling? I'm hoping there's some kind of misunderstanding, that - even if Morgan is an Octoling - she's somehow still on our side."
"Are you saying you kinda want to trust Octolings now?"
"NO OF COURSE NOT!!" exclaimed Jewel, over her shoulder at Autumn. "At the same time, if trusting an Octoling means getting Agent 5 out of danger, then...I'll do it!"
Derek and Morgan made their way through the outskirts of the city. There were many different levels of massive floating platforms with entire city blocks on them. And then, far out in the distance, was what looked like farmland of some kind. Morgan caught Derek staring at the farmland.
"I guess they need some kind of food source," she said with a shrug.
"How do you think they're growing stuff down here?" Derek asked.
"Who knows, who cares." The two Inklings continued on their journey, hiding in the shadows or under an occasional apartment balcony as they went. The matching of boots echoed close, and the two hid behind a dumpster as a small patrol of artificial Octolings marched by robotically.
"Artificials," Morgan whispered to Derek. "The way they're made is...disturbing."
"How are they created?" Derek asked, looking at her with a scared expression. Morgan watched the artificials with a disturbed expression. At this rate, Derek wasn't aware of Morgan's true intentions; Morgan's faked face of terror worked. The artificials passed by, unaware of the two Inklings, and Derek and Morgan continued on their way.
"Carp! Where's the entrance?" Jewel exclaimed in frustration. The thunder rumbled closer in the distance.
"3! We have to hurry!" Autumn urged. "The storm's getting closer!"
"I know, I know!" snapped Jewel. She put her head in her hands. "Why was I so awful to him? I-I shouldn't have kicked him, or been rude to him over his ponytail holder, or-"
"Agent 3, there's no time for regrets!" Autumn shouted, shaking Jewel by her shoulders. "We have to focus on finding an entrance!"
"You're right," Jewel said, giving her eyes a small rub.
"If only we knew where to look- AAAHHH!" Autumn promptly tripped over a kettle. "Hey, I found something!" She stood up, and Jewel helped her pry open the lid. This kettle wasn't the same one Derek and Morgan had gone through, but it still led to New Octopolis City and was grate-less as well. The girls peered down into it.
"You ready?" Jewel asked.
"Mm-mm," replied Autumn, shaking her head.
"Neither am I," admitted Jewel, "but we don't have a choice."
"How close are they to the rendezvous point?" impatiently asked Monica as she, Alecs, Kimberly, Kelly and Kelly's Octolings waited on a apartment complex rooftop. Kelly checked her phone. The small dot beeped and moved closer to them.
"Not long now, maybe a few minutes more," replied Kelly. She looked at Monica. "Do you know what you're doing for your part?" Monica nodded. "Good. Every civilian here in this area has been warned to stay inside. For their own safety of course." Kelly grinned. "Too bad Agent 5 won't be getting that same warning." Her phone beeped, and Morgan's tracker showed up closer.
"Sounds like that's your cue," Alecs said, looking over at the phone. Kelly put her phone back in her pocket and stood up. Indigo ink swirled around her, and suddenly Kelly was an identical-looking Inkling with the Pigtail hairstyle. Kelly's other Octolings followed her movements, their ink swirling around them as they turned into Inklings.
"Morgan's here," Kelly announced to her underlings as she removed her golden toothpick. "Let's go."
Derek and Morgan reached a clearing in what seemed like an endless jungle of buildings.
"It seems so...empty," Derek said, looking around. "Where are the Octolings?"
"Probably off doing who knows what horrible things," Morgan replied in a low voice. She was looking around too, but not at the buildings. Morgan was looking for Kelly. The two Inklings stood there for a while, looking around.
"Where to now?" Derek asked.
"I'm...not sure," Morgan said.
"What do you mean you're not sure?"
"I...I can't remember which way I came from," lied Morgan as she stalled, putting her hands on her head in falsified distress. "It's all so confusing, I-"
"Morgan!" called a voice from the distance. Up ran a small group of Inklings wearing Neo Octoling armor and boots.
"You guys!" Morgan gasped, running up to them and hugging an indigo Inkling with pigtails. "How did you escape?"
"Chaos broke out during one of their 'experiments,'" explained the indigo Inkling with a scared look on her face. "We saw an opportunity and ran with some of their extra armor and weapons." She motioned for another Inkling to hand Morgan a Flingza Roller. "We even got you a weapon too." Derek furrowed his brow suspiciously as Morgan took the Roller.
"How did you know to come this way, and with an extra weapon too?" he asked. Something was starting to feel off, Derek realized. The indigo Inkling looked at him, seemingly hurt he didn't trust her.
"Morgan and I are good friends," she said. "We met in prison. Speaking of which..." The Inkling turned and pointed back the direction her group had come from. "We need to go back there. There's more Inklings in trouble."
"Something doesn't feel right," Derek said, looking around. "It's too quiet. One patrol of artificials is all we've seen. There's no other patrols, no soldiers, even no civilians." He looked back at the indigo Inkling's group. "You all just happened to find extra armor and weapons lying around as you escaped? I mean, I've never been inside the main prison before, so maybe that's common. But it feels too...convenient." Just then, a staticky sound went off in Derek's Hero Mindset, followed by muffled crackling voices.
"5...get out...Morgan...Octoling...trap!" Jewel's voice tried warning him.
"Where are you?" Derek asked, touching his earpiece with his middle and index finger. "What are you saying?"
"4, we're not in range...c'mon...this way...now is not the time...I can teach you about the earpiece later..."
"'Morgan...Octoling...trap,'" Derek repeated to himself. He looked up at Morgan. "Morgan, is this a trap?"
"What?" asked Morgan, seeming to not quite understand.
"Are you working for the Octolings?" Derek asked, pointing an accusing finger at the indigo Inkling, who frowned at him.
"What are you saying?" Morgan asked with a hurt look, going over to stand with her friend. "Kelly's my best friend, she'd never lie to me." Kelly shot Morgan a look and Morgan clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified she had let a name slip that definitely would've alerted Derek to the trap.
"KELLY?!" exclaimed Derek. "You're the one who caught me off guard during our battle yesterday!"
"Would you buy it if I said we just happened to have the same name?" Kelly asked with a shrug. Derek shook his head with narrowed eyes. "Ah, well...the gig's up, everyone." Kelly pulled out her golden toothpick and placed it on her ear. Ink swirled around each member of the "escaped Inklings," revealing their true forms as Octolings. Derek took a step back, looking at Morgan. Morgan shrugged.
"Sorry, Agent 5," she said as pink ink swirled around her, revealing her true form as an Octoling with the Fade hairstyle. "Like I said, Kelly's my best friend. She'd never lie to me. But she did lie to you."
"You also lied to me!" Derek said, throwing his hands up in the air. "You lied to the whole New Squidbeak Splatoon!"
"And you all were dumb enough to believe it," Morgan said. Derek took a few more steps back before turning and running.
"Go on and run, Agent 5!" Kelly taunted. "You won't be able to hide! You're in OUR turf now!"
Derek ran as fast as he could, trying to remember the path he and Morgan took to get there. His earpiece went staticky again.
"3, 4, where are you? What's happening?" Derek asked, putting his fingers to his Hero Mindset again.
"Hey 3, I did it! I reached 5!" Autumn's voice celebrated on the other end.
"We can celebrate later," Jewel said. "5, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm just very confused on what's going on," Derek said, ducking into an alley.
"I'll explain as briefly as I can," Jewel said. "Just know that we're on our way via some kind of floating walkway. This morning, 4 and I went to Sheldon's. Agents 1 and 2 were already there, and they had unencrypted a file on something called the Genetically Modified Octoling Project. Morgan was in there! She's an Octoling!"
"Yeah, I know," Derek said, peeking around the corner briefly before hiding again. Kelly's squadron stalked by. They were closer to him than he has realized. "I have to go," he said in a low voice.
"5-!" Derek cut the girls off as he moved deeper into the alley to escape the other way, hopefully away from Kelly. He peered around the corner. No one was there. Derek ran out from the alley, looking over his shoulder. He turned his head forwards and stopped in his tracks. Kelly, Morgan, and the other Octolings were there waiting in front of him.
"Like I said," Kelly said with a smug look. "There's nowhere to hide." She pointed her Dualie Squelchers at him, and Derek, readying his Hero Shot, prepared for the worst.
"5!!" yelled a familiar voice. Derek looked to his left as Jewel spotted him from the floating walkway and waved. Autumn tripped and fell right behind her but got up and waved to Derek.
"3! 4!" Derek exclaimed, relieved. Suddenly the sound of an Octoling super-jumping roared through the air. Monica landed in front of the girls.
"You two are in over your heads," she said, pointing an Octo Shot a them. "You're even more outmatched than you were yesterday. And we're not holding back this time."
"Then we'll fight twice as hard as we did before!" Jewel declared as she and Autumn readied their Hero Shots. Both Inklings fired ink at Monica, who ducked the shots. She touched her golden toothpick.
"Get up here," she growled. Seconds later Alecs and Kimberly super-jumped to her, Kimberly with an Octo Shot and Alecs with a Splatana Stamper. And the agents and the Octolings fought on that floating walkway over the water.
Derek, in the meantime, barely ducked a shot from Kelly's Dualies, running away from her squadron. A splash of ink from Morgan's Flingza grazed Derek, but he did not stop running. Derek aimed the Hero Shot backwards and fired a shot. It hit no one.
"Give up, Agent 5!" shouted one of Kelly's Octolings.
"You can't escape!" exclaimed another. Derek rounded a corner, stopping as soon as he realized he had entered a dead end. He turned around. From where he was, he could see Jewel and Autumn fighting Monica, Alecs, and Kimberly on the walkway. Directly in front of him approached Morgan and Kelly's Octolings with sinister grins. Derek gulped, bracing for a beating. Suddenly the Octolings halted their approach.
"Step aside," came Kelly's voice, and the Octoling obeyed, moving to the side to reveal Kelly touching her golden toothpick. Kelly stepped forwards through her underlings. She threw down her Dualie Squelchers. "You. Me. Hand-to-hand combat." Derek pressed himself against the wall. He knew with his bad arm he couldn't win a hand-to-hand fight. Kelly shrugged.
"No?" she asked nonchalantly. "Well, have it your way." She touched her toothpick again. "Have fun," Kelly ordered before picking up her Dualies and backing away. Morgan and the other Octolings approached menacingly. Morgan crackled her knuckles, which was very disturbing as Octolings did not have bones. Derek had to think quickly. Immediately he thought of how Kelly had run up the rock and flipped off of it yesterday. He had never done anything like it before but it was his only hope. Derek ran towards the wall and sprinted a few steps up it before jumping off of it and over the Octolings' heads. Nobody could believe he had just pulled that off, and Derek and the Octolings stood there for a moment in amazement and disbelief. Then Derek raced out of the dead end with Kelly and her Octolings close behind.
On the walkway, Jewel and Autumn were still fighting Monica and Kimberly, while Alecs had taken a step back to observe the Derek situation down below. He triggered his Zipcaster special and clung onto the side of the walkway. Alecs extended a limb towards the commotion on the ground. His limb wrapped around Derek's leg, picking him up and slamming him to the ground with a yelp, knocking him unconscious and allowing Kelly's Octolings to catch up and grab him.
"5!" Autumn yelled in horror as she and Jewel watched. Kelly wrapped her arms around Derek's shoulders, holding him up as he slowly came to.
"Well, our work here is done," said Monica before she and Kimberly super-jumped to Kelly's side. Alecs zipped over to Kelly as well before his Zipcaster wore off. Jewel looked as if she was preparing to super-jump to Derek's side herself, but rumbling thunder overhead stopped her in her tracks.
"The storm..." she muttered in dismay.
"Agent 3, Agent 4. My friends," Morgan called up to them with a grin. "You've got a choice. You can retreat while you still have time before that storm comes, or you can risk staying here, among the millions of Octolings that live here and hate you and would love nothing more than to see you suffer for all the pain the New Squidbeak Splatoon has put them through." Jewel and Autumn looked at each other with sad frowns before looking back down at Derek, who was now finally back awake. Derek looked up at them.
"Go," he called up to them in a weak voice. "I'll be fine." Derek looked back at Kelly. "After all, I'm more valuable alive than dead." Kelly frowned, annoyed that he had remembered that from the day before.
"You do have a point," she admitted quietly. The Octoling looked up at the two female agents. "He will not be killed should you decide to leave. You have my word."
"What good is your word?" Jewel demanded. Thunder rumbled overhead once again.
"If you stay here any longer, that storm will get here, catching you two in it," Monica said.
"And if you risk staying here," added Alecs, "every Octoling in the dome will be after you." Almost as if on coincidental cue, a few curious Octoling civilians peered out from behind their curtains and under their blinds.
"And this is where every Octoling lives after all," Kimberly added. "New Octopolis City - the last Octoling sanctuary from the horrors of the surface." Thunder rumbled again overhead, this time sounding a lot closer than it was just a few minutes ago.
"Go!" Derek urged again, mustering as much strength as he could to call up to Jewel and Autumn. Jewel and Autumn looked at each other and nodded solemnly.
"I'm sorry," Jewel apologized to Derek. "We'll be back as soon as we can, I promise!"
"You better not hurt him!" Autumn added threateningly to the Octolings, looking right at Kelly. Derek watched as Jewel and Autumn raced back to the kettle entrance they had come through. He lowered his head weakly. Morgan kneeled down and lifted his head with her hand to force him to look at her.
"Well, that was easy," she said. "Who knew Inklings were that gullible? Oh that's right - me." Derek wordlessly glared at her as two of Kelly's Octolings took him by the arms. Kelly picked up Derek's Hero Shot off of the ground and studied it.
"Good to have this back in Octoling possession," she said, smugly looking at Derek, who just wordlessly glared at her too.
"Take him to the prison, since he was so intent on getting there to begin with," Monica ordered. She, Alecs, and Kimberly led the way to the prison, with Kelly and her Octolings trailing behind. The previous clear sky-themed screens around the dome turned into dark gray storm clouds to match the weather outside. Derek closed his eyes as he was dragged to his doom. He had fallen for the trap and knew he was about to face the consequences.
Thunder rumbled, and the rain had just begun to fall. Cuttlefish waited anxiously back at the cabin. The door burst open, and Jewel and Autumn entered hurriedly, hair and uncovered skin sizzling slightly from where the first few raindrops had landed on it. Autumn shut the door and pulled back her hoodie before she and Jewel turned to the Captain. Cuttlefish could tell not by the fact that Derek wasn't with them but by their distraught expressions that their rescue mission had been unsuccessful. Jewel suddenly burst into tears with a loud wail and fell into Cuttlefish's arms, mourning the uncertain fate of her best friend. Autumn wordlessly approached, and the old man also took the quietly sobbing amnesiac into his arms as well.
A barless cell door opened, and Derek was thrown forcefully with a yell into the dark cell. On his hands and knees, he glared back at the five Octolings now standing in the doorway - Monica, Alecs, Kimberly, Kelly, and Morgan. It was dark in the prison, but he could see their eyes clearly.
"Enjoy solitary confinement, Agent 5," said Kelly as she began to close the door. "We'll see you tomorrow morning."
The New Squidbeak Splatoon was now down an agent, and the Elite Octobeak Squadrons was now up a prisoner. And soon Derek was about to learn all about the experiments and fates of the other imprisoned Inklings.