Inkopolis Square has been bleached out all white. And not a single citizen of the city could be seen.
"Heeey!" A female voice called out. "Heeey! HELLOOOOOOOOO?! Up and at 'em, Eight! Yo, Eight! You awake or what?!"
"Oww. My head!" Agent 8 said, feeling like she got a headache before standing up. "What the- Where am I?"
Agent 8 seemed to look alright. But she was in a white outfit, and the color in her octoling tentacle hair and eyes seemed to be drained.
"Nice. If you hadn't come around, I didn't have a plan B!" A drone said, flying up close to Eight. "What's up? I got something on my face? Oh, right! You wouldn't recognize me like this."
"Yeah. Exactly. Who even are you?" Agent 8 said, a bit tensed up if this drone was an enemy.
"I'm Pearl! You know, your bestie!" She said.
"Wait, Pearl?! What happened to you?" Agent 8 said, worried about Pearl's appearance as a drone.
"Not sure how I got this way, but here I am." Pearl replied.
"If you're here, then where's Marina?" Agent 8 asked.
"Not sure where Marina is either. She's supposed to be with me." Pearl responded.
"Ugh. My head is still spinning." Agent 8 said, feeling her headache come back.
"It's cool. You just woke up. Might take some time for your head to clear." Pearl said. "You got any idea where we should go from here? Marina's usually around to help me with that."
"So would Shadow. But we don't know where we are, and our communicators are probably too far out of range." Agent 8 said.
It was then a burst of energy appeared near the two of them. Shadow, Rouge, and Omega have appeared. Yet, somehow... their colors weren't drained.
"Ugh! My head. What the hell happened?" Shadow said, placing a hand to his head.
"Last I remember, we were surrounded by some digital aura. And we ended up here." Rouge said.
"According to my scanner. We seem to be transported to a color drained version of Inkopolis Square." Omega said, running a full scan in the area they were in.
"Shadow? Is that you?" Agent 8 said, recognizing him.
Shadow turned to see Eight and drone Pearl were here.
"Eight!" Shadow said, rushing over to her.
The two octolings hugged each other in relief.
"You're okay!" Agent 8 said.
"Of course, I'm okay. I thought you were dead." Shadow said.
"Dead? What are you talking about?" Agent 8 said.
"We thought Mephiles had killed you, Off the Hook, and a bunch of other citizens in the Square." Shadow said.
"Mephiles? But I thought he was destroyed." Agent 8 said.
"He was. But now he's back." Shadow said.
"What?!" Agent 8 said, in shock.
"I know. It's a shock. The others and I are worried he's planning something big." Shadow said. "We haven't seen him ever since our last encounter on Mobius."
"Huh. Even if Mephiles is back, we haven't seen him either." Agent 8 said.
"At least it's good to know you're safe." Shadow said.
"Now, we just got to find our way out of this place." Rouge said.
"Shadow, who are those guys?" Agent 8 asked.
"Oh. Eight, this is Rouge and Omega. Guys, this is Agent 8." Shadow said, introducing his allies to Eight.
"Greetings." Omega said.
"Hello." Rouge said.
"Nice to meet you." Agent 8 said.
"Okay. Introductions now aside, let's try and find a way out of this place." Shadow said.
"C'mon, agents! Let's get going!" Pearl said.
"Alright, then." Shadow said, as he and everyone else went towards the tower.
"This place kiiinda looks like Inkopolis Square. But how did it get like this?" Pearl said.
"This place looks weird." Rouge said, having a bad feeling like someone or something would attack.
"Krssshhh...bzzt...Pe...arl..." ??? said.
"Marina?! Are you up there?!" Pearl said in shock, recognizing her partner's voice.
"Skrrrzzz...zzzrrr...elp m...CLICK." ??? said.
"Hang on! We're coming up to you now!" Pearl said. "Shake a leg, agents! Marina's at the top of the tower!"
We'd better save her before it's too late!" Shadow said, as he and the others rushed in.
Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Eight, and Pearl rushed inside the tower to save Marina.
"Hey, Shadow?" Agent 8 asked.
"Yeah?" Shadow responded, turning his head to Eight.
"How come you and your friends still have you colors but I don't?" Agent 8 asked.
Shadow didn't realize that. Neither did Rouge or Omega.
"Huh. I don't know. It's strange." Shadow said.
Shadow looked at his Squidbeak uniform was still black and red.
"What is?" Rouge asked.
Her outfit was similar to her suit color is intact too.
"That Eight and Pearl's colors are bleached out in this place, but ours aren't." Shadow explained.
"Huh. That is strange. Maybe it's because we're from another universe." Rouge said, placing a hand on her hip.
"Yeah, that's probably it." Shadow said.
Shadow, Rouge, and Omega had no idea at all of how their colors remained intact. As they entered the tower, they ended up going to some sort of training area before the lobby.
"Is this for real? Wherever we are, it's nothing like the Inkopolis Square tower." Pearl said. "I'm getting the heebie-jeebies. Keep your eyes open!"
"This is not gonna be easy." Shadow said.
"I'm detecting high readings of unknown energy up ahead." Omega said.
"Then we'd better be careful." Rouge said.
Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Eight, and Pearl moved forward, and suddenly two fountain like portals activated, near the elevator door.
"Heads up, agents!" Pearl said, as a bone-like fish emerged from one. "Trouble's coming for us. Use these!"
Pearl digitized up some dualies for Eight to use.
"Dualies? Okay, then." Agent 8 said, as she was ready to fight.
"I'll help you out." Shadow said, taking out his dualies.
"Show 'em who you're dealing with!" Pearl said.
"Gladly!" Shadow said, as he charged in.
Shadow opened fire, taking out the colorless entity.
"That took care of him." Shadow said, blowing out the smoke from his dualies.
But it wasn't over yet. Four smaller entities emerged from the portal.
"We got more incoming!" Pearl said.
"Hang on, Shadow!" Agent 8 said, rushing in to help her ally.
Eight and Shadow fired their dualies together, taking out two each.
"Is that it?" Agent 8 said, hoping it's over.
But it wasn't. A bigger one jumped out from the portals, before retracting into the floor.
"That one's huge! What did we get ourselves into?!" Pearl said, a bit worried.
"I've got this!" Shadow said, blasting the colorless bony fish.
The entity was getting close to him as he blasted it. Eight snuck up from behind and finished it.
"Thanks, Eight." Shadow said, putting away his dualies.
"No problem, Shadow." Agent 8 said.
"Whew! I think that was the last of 'em." Pearl said, in relief. "Huh? Where'd I get the weapon from? Iunno. Your guess is as good as mine. Just felt like...something I had in me y'know?"
"This place definitely gives off a weird feeling." Rouge said.
"Well, it's bleak and colorless. It's bound to be." Omega said.
While everyone was clueless about their thoughts about this place, the elevator turned back on.
"But nevermind that. The elevator's running again." Pearl said. "We can sit and scratch our heads all we want, but why bother when the answers are up there? Let's get moving, guys!"
Shadow and Eight shrugged, walking over to the elevator. The door opened up, and someone was inside.
'Belongs to Nintendo.'
Pearl, Rouge, Omega, and Eight were confused on who she was. But Shadow seemed to recognize her.
"You with those fish we busted up?!" Pearl asked, unsure of what side she was on. "Sic 'em, agents!"
"Cool it. I'm not your enemy." She said. "Just another bystander who got sucked in. I take it you guys followed Marina's voice here."
"Say what?! You know Marina too?!" Pearl said, in shock.
"Wait... you're the DJ D3df1sh, aren't you? The one from Inkopolis Square." Shadow said, recognizing her.
"Yes. That's me." She replied. "You're Shadow Robotnik. The bassist of the Sonic Underground band from Mobius, aren't you?"
"Yes. That's right." Shadow nodded. "Wait, how did you know I'm from Mobius?"
"Well, everyone knows of the War of Darkness that was started by the Demon of Destruction, Mephiles the Dark." D3df1sh explained. "Since he's from your home world, and the fact you and your winged friend have animal ears."
"She does have a point there." Rouge said, agreeing with her.
"Yeah, she's right." Shadow shrugged.
Everyone entered the elevator with D3df1sh, as the doors shut behind them.
"First things first: My real name is Acht. As for Marina and me... we go way back." She explained.
"For real?! Yo, lead with that next time!" Pearl said, very surprised that Acht is a friend of Marina's. "I'm Pearl, and this is Eight! Cool meeting you, Acht."
"So, how did you end up here, Acht?" Agent 8 asked.
"I've been in the area since I came to." Acht explained. "I heard Marina's voice from up the Spire, so I came to find her. But those bony fish found me first. I call them Jelletons. They're why I'm trapped in an elevator. The Spire is crammed with Jelletons. This wound they gave me hasn't healed. So I'm stuck."
Acht's left arm was bandaged up, from the wound the Jelletons gave her.
"Yikes. Things aren't looking super good for the home team, huh?" Pearl said, a bit worried.
"Don't count us out yet." Acht said. "I've been waiting for an Octoling with a drone, and a team of three from another world. Said her name was Eight? You're the one I need to see."
"Me? Why me?" Agent 8 asked, confused.
"OK, Pearl. Now check out what happens when you set this colop chip into that Palette." Acht said, handing her a color chip.
"Palette? I'm supposed to know what that is?" Pearl said, confused. "Oh, are you talking about this thing?"
Pearl opened up a color palette, for everyone else to see.
"You got it. Now set this color chip into it." Acht said, handing the chip to Eight.
"OK, but whatever happens is on you. Here goes nothing, Eight! Slap that chip on in there!" Pearl said.
"Okay." Agent 8 said, placing the chip into the top left of the Palette.
Pearl felt a sense of power rush through her.
"WHOA! Is it me, or did your weapon get stronger?" Pearl said, noticing the power boost. "If you set a whole bunch of color chips in here, you could walk all over those fishy freaks!"
"No doubt. Play your chips right, and you could make it all the way to the top." Acht said. "Whatever's going on in this city, Marina's in the thick of it. Or so I'm assuming. But this injury has left me sidelined. Our strike team will be limited to you guys."
"Guess it's up to you and me again, Eight. Rouge doesn't have a weapon, and Omega only has heavy fire power." Shadow said. "It could end up in major damage if he used those bullets."
"We're on it, Acht! Deep breaths, you two. It's time to go find Marina!" Pearl said. "Alright! Hit the button for the top floor already!"
"Love to, but this elevator only goes up one floor at a time." Acht explained.
"Whaaat?! How come?! You mean I gotta be PATIENT?" Pearl said.
"I'm in a hurry myself. But we play what we're dealt. We'll just have to take this a little at a time." Acht said.
"She's right, Pearl. This was how it is during some of our stealth missions back home." Shadow said, agreeing with Acht.
"Now then. We're almost at the next floor. Are you guys ready?" Acht said.
"Ready to roll." Shadow nodded.
"Same here." Agent 8 said.
(// Spire Tower: Floor 1F //)
*Skip to 6:43 for level. Shadow and Eight will take it on together.*
(After the floor is conquered...)
"I knew you two had it in the bag!" Pearl said.
"Yeah, that was solid work. You're learning to make the most of your color chips." Acht was impressed. "There are different kinds of color chips. You get one every time you head to a new floor. Here-I'll show you."
Acht pulled up a layout for Shadow and Eight to see. It showed the floor selection for their next objective.
"What you're seeing is the next floor and details on the color chip you'll get there." Acht explained. "The color chip is...Poison Ink. It increases the damage those Jelletons take when they're on your ink."
"Nice!" Shadow smirked.
"Looks like we've got some floors to climb." Rouge said.
"Affirmative." Omega said.
"Let's go, Eight." Shadow said, walking over to the control panel.
Eight nodded, and pressed the button to the next floor. She received the Poison Ink color chip, and plugged it into the Palette. The elevator went up to the next floor. Shadow and Eight got out their weapon, ready for their next objective.
Eight and Pearl have been found, but Marina is still no where to be seen. Will they be able to find her with Team Dark and Dedf1sh's help, and figure out what happened with Inkopolis Square?
(End of Chapter 1)
(Publish date: 3/18/2024)
'I am so sorry about taking so long to get this chapter out. I've been busy with school and other stuff. I've had a bit of a rough time, since my hammer prop got damaged, and is taking a while to fix up.'