Work Text:
One day, a lesser Octarian was on patrol. It was a routine patrol, one it had gone on dozens of times. Today was just another day of going through those motions.
That is, until it found something peculiar.
It was ink, like Octarian or Inkling ink, but it was different; it had too many colors at once, and it was… pulsating? No not pulsating, it was… Throbbing?
That Octarian saw something that day, the secret of something that lied behind itself, some kind of key to the future that lay in the… past? Yes, that was it! The past!
And it all starts here.
It had to know more.
It dove into the ink.
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George sighed. He knew that a great leader was called George once, so he called himself George as well. After all, George was great, so he would call himself George, because he was great.
He knew lots of things like that now.
He also knew where to start looking.
Some other Octarians had followed him as well, seeing that the ink was good, and they had gained from it too.
He was going to see Leader, to ask him for the Octoweapons. That would make searching easier. The ink was their way forward.
Leader would see that.
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DJ Octavio didn’t like this new ink much.
He hated it, in fact.
It… changed the Octarians, HIS Octarians, nevermind what those stupid inklings may do to his octolings, at least he had HIS Octarians, AND NOW THEY WERE BEING TAKEN AWAY BY THIS STUPID GOOP!
The problem ran deeper then just the lack of control over his subordinates, though.
The ink made them do strange things, like talking about some kind of “key” to the future that they wanted to show him.
Most of all though, it made them grow hair. They weren’t even Octarians anymore. They were something different, something alien.
What was that old word for animals with hair, before all the furry animals died out….?
Oh, wait, wasn’t it “Mammals”?
These Octarians were alien, and they were Mammalian.
They were “Mammaliens.”
Just today, another one of those bastards came up to him and asked to let him have the Octoweapons. Octavio wasn’t a fool, of course. He said no.
He was getting tired of this.
Tomorrow, he was going to wipe them all out.
The Mammaliens had done enough already. He wasn’t going to let his society crumble a second time.
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They were being attacked. George knew that.
Leader had refused to assist him. But that didn’t matter. He was Leader to George no longer.
What kind of Leader would deny his subjects the keys to the future?
He would like to fight, to make a last stand against the enemy. But fighting was what he knew when he was a lesser Octarian, and he was lesser no longer.
He knew they had to retreat, to go to the spot where the keys of the future lay, and then they would start looking. If they kept looking, they would find it eventually. Even without Octavio’s help.
The others like him knew this too. The ink let them know this.
They ran to the place where the key was.
They sustained losses but eventually, they were there.
They were at the key.
Now it was time to start looking.
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In the end, the Mammaliens were never truly eradicated.
Octavio moved his base away from the strange ink, and though he did send scout parties out into the territory to scout the area, none of which ever returned. The Mammaliens were largely forgotten about by Octarian society, and the Mammalians themselves never really saw any need to return.
Eventually, Octavio simply declared the entire area a gigantic quarantine zone, and to him at least, that was the end of that.
But what about the Mammalians themselves?
They kept looking all this time.
Eventually, they built a city of their own, using the pieces of things they remembered from the time before the ink changed them. They built great robots, in the spirit of the Octoweapons, as well, to find whatever it is they are searching for.
Who knows how close they are by now.
But the most important thing is that they are still there.
The Mammalians, and George, are still looking there.
Maybe someone should do something about that.