Chapter Text
“We found her! she’s hiding in the pipes!”
“Use the scanner!”
There was no other escape route for Marina. She tried to use her swim form's minute size and squishiness to fit into the pipes of the sewer, and hide until they passed on, but with her injuries, and them having her DNA signature, she didn't have either the strength, nor the chance to run away anymore.
Oh, the irony, in the fact that they were hunting her down with the exact technology she helped to create herself. She remembers explaining to the warfare committee that “No marked target would be able to escape, guaranteed one hundred percent!”, and it wasn’t an exaggeration: she could even be on the other side of the world, or the moon, for all that matters, and they would still be finding her.
They were going to kill her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
The Elite member assigned to the team sent an Octoling to grab her out of the pipes. Despite knowing the exact location, they didn't even bother aiming their shots directly at her through the wall.
The soldier quickly grabbed her before she could move out of reach. Once outside the tube, she was quickly subdued and beaten, forcing her to return to her humanoid form.
“ Well, well, well... look who it is... The filthy betrayer who decided to run away, instead of helping her own kind. What a disgusting sight… What do you say, girls? one more round?”
" With pleasure, boss.”
Every single member of the squad, except the captain, started hitting her indiscriminately: kicks, fists, even the stock of their weapons was being used, her tentacles torn and twisted apart with violence. All of them showed a sick grin of pleasure while doing it.
Now near losing consciousness, Marina was once again grabbed by the tentacles and pulled up: it was the captain, their grip on the mace in their hands so firm that it was visibly bending at the handle.
“You don’t even deserve the grace of a quick shot trough the head..." Began her, showing a disgusted look.
"WE NEEDED YOU, BACK HOME! TO CALM THE RIOTS! TO REGAIN ORDER! TO AVOID MAKING EVERYTHING WE HAD BUILT FALL APART!"
The pained screams of the elite, filled with tangible hatred and regret for what had transpired, shook Marina to her core.
"But while our people were getting lost amidst the chaos and the dark..." Continued her, "...instead of helping... you decided to run away. You only cared about saving yourself."
The elite threw her on the ground.
"You traitors deserve to die on the side of the road with thousands of injuries!”
Marina said nothing, as she knew it was true. It didn’t even matter what she could have actually done to help, the simple fact that she left without any regard for her homeland was enough to have her rightfully executed.
“You are scum, a worthless backstabber who teamed up with the filth that are the squids! Something… that we have to get rid of.”
As if she had said a code word, the other members of the squad quickly and in unison pulled out the standard-issued batons from their gear.
"Luckily, that is our currently assigned duty: we will soon find all of the members of your kind, in whichever hole they might be hidden, and you will all be dealt with accordingly. All I can say is that I will send them your regards… and thank you, for your contribution to the octarian cause.”
The instant her club hit Marina’s head, she opened her eyes. She was so used to this nightmare that she didn’t even wake up scared of it anymore. It was, at this point, merely just part of her morning routine.
She looked at the side of the bed, where her salvaged clock was: 5 am, like always. The sun was just about to rise, but she wouldn't know it since she closed all of the "windows" in her base. Not wanting to disappoint her clock once more, Marina tried to go to sleep again, with all of her might, but it was physically impossible for her body to not be fully operative before 6 am. She had to use the bathroom, fix her face, change clothes, and then eat something for breakfast.
She hated it. She wanted to enjoy waking up relaxed, late, like every single person on the surface that didn't have a job that required them to leave their home so early; She wanted to messily wash up, and eat at an inconvenient hour of the morning.
But she couldn't easily change something that was part of her whole life routine. At the very least she could get a small revenge on her body by eating all the things she wanted in the morning instead of a quick snack. Squid food was weird to get used to, and it made her sick sometimes for the huge amount of sugar it had, but it was nice that she could enjoy it in peace, and most importantly, by her choice.
While doing her morning chores, the alarm clock started ringing. 10 am... that was the hour she was supposed to wake up to, a reminder issued by the clock she repaired that now sounded more like a mocking remark, rather than a helping hand. It was a cheaply made clock, nothing special, but she had it since she managed to repair it, and it was also a very important tool she tried to use to train herself to wake up later than usual in the morning.
After finishing her breakfast, she always had quite a lot of free time. Nothing a packed schedule she would set up for herself couldn't fix, but today she couldn't bother doing anything. She observed one more time her not anymore improvised and very well hidden base: a secret entrance disguised as a ravine of rocks printed on a long tent, with a long cable coming from the outside that illegally gave her all the energy needed, a table made of discarded wood, three cabinets put together by different fused metals that contained her clothes, food, and weapons, with an old inktank resting on the side of the “armory” one, a makeshift, portable respawn point that fortunately she never had to use up until now, several “windows'' she created by putting together different kinds of screens that showcased a serene sky view, giving a rough illusion of the outside. The “bathroom” was a small spring stream outside of her base where she could wash up but not exactly have a bath.
The base was filled with all of the things that were collected from her new favorite place on the surface: the local scrapyard! A literal all-you-can-eat buffet for a tinkerer. From simple and familiar metals, that reminded her of home, to any kind of sophisticated devices: various types of discs, some of them that she couldn’t read yet, never seen before toys, useful instruments, and even handheld video games. She had never seen one of them up close, and after repairing it, she couldn’t put it down for an entire day.
The place was entirely decorated by these findings, from the walls to the “furniture”. Marina didn’t know it, but their placement was all according to her taste, one she didn’t even realize she had: All of this stuff belonged to her now, and for the first time she had something that could be called property; a collection born to satisfy her curiosity for the surface, and to satisfy her tireless working self. She always needed to have something to do, always. She couldn’t stand idling at all. One more habit to dull, but not remove entirely for the octoling.
The best, and worst part, of waking up so early, unlike an entirely different species, is that this helped her travel around the outskirts of Inkopolis without being noticed at all. She could safely walk up on the streets, and literally never meet a single inkling. But in truth, she didn’t really enjoy it: Aside from scavenging for things, and maybe having a chance at meeting her again, she hated being alone. She wanted to meet new people, buy clothes, play turf war with others and enjoy life like all of the surface dwellers! Surviving wasn't an issue at all, she could get anything she wanted from anywhere and easily too, but she didn't defect and came up here to remain confined in a small living space: She swore to herself that as long as her hearts beated, she was never going to live like that ever again.
The biggest problem was the language barrier: no matter how hard she tried, or how many posters and signs she saw and noted/drew the words to learn them, Marina couldn't understand at all the Inkling language. She might be a technical genius, but languages require a completely different kind of mindset, and a lot of adaptability. This language in particular being so... aggressive, lively and colorful, that never takes its time to be harmonious or even formal, didn't make it easier at all. She couldn't even say her name after hours of reading a simple alphabet sheet. This made it almost impossible for Marina to leave this state of forced solitude and join the rest of squid society. What's worse is that this also meant she couldn't be ready to speak with her, the next time they might meet.
After frustratingly giving up on today’s usual language training session, Marina began reminiscing about the last two weeks of her new life:
Everything changed far too quickly, since that unbelievable day back in the Octo Valley. Like many others, she had joined the stands to witness the ultimate victory of octarian-kind on the so hated surface-dewelling squids! But all she actually witnessed that day was their leader failing and falling flat, defeated by a teenage squid of all things, and most importantly... the melody. A song in an indecipherable language for octarians that somehow was perfectly understandable at the same time. She remembers how her older self's eyes closed for the last time, and her new self opened them for the first, all in one, singular blink. It was terrifying. She felt happy. It was the scariest moment of her life. It changed everything.
She remembers her life before the melody, and how different her personality was: Cold, logical, ruthless and methodical to almost an insane degree. Once celebrated as a genius for improving weapons of war, now she only feels guilty about having created them in the first place.
She remembers losing her cool at the invader squid agent for outmatching her most advanced creation by simple ingenuity, or how some of her modified designs derived from the weapons of the enemy didn't bring an edge at all for her fellow Elite octolings against the enemy.
She remembers the moments and days following Octavio's defeat and kidnapping: Confused and panicked screams, her literal rebirth on the spot that broke her down, mass escapes before martial law was established from the remaining loyal troopers, her hurrying up to the hole she was assigned to, finding it unfamiliar and overwhelmingly dull like never before, quickly grabbing a map of the service exits that was pending review in her unfinished projects drawer, packing up the only things she truly cared about, leaving the scene with a light as a feather, half empty bag, and running away as fast as she could before things went south, never looking back.
Was it cowardice? No, she had concluded after some quite long reflections: like many of the others that escaped, she simply aspired for something new now, a need for a change born from the ambition for something better, for an escape from this oppressive way of life, and into a new light. Even if she didn’t know where this better world was, anywhere else will still be thousands of times better than remaining forever underground and working for someone that all they have going for is a big grudge for something that happened over a century ago. She didn’t hate the DJ, none of the escaped octolings did. He definitely tried his best, but living underground was no longer an option to them.
Still, this still didn't exclude her out at all from feeling a considerable amount of regret from her choice.
After finding a safe way up to the surface, in an old and disused side of the Kamabo station lines, she finally stopped to take a breath. That’s when the adrenaline left and the existential dread slithered in, like a plague on her mind, a feeling that she had never known before. "That damned melody... it cursed me with the gift of life." she often thought, a rational mind trying to find an exhaustive enough explanation for what happened to her. How do you even begin to explain what felt like having slept for all of your life up until now? Everything about herself felt unfamiliar, she knew nothing aside from engineering, obedience and camaraderie. No personality or interests to account for, and she didn't know how to cope with this.
She remembers all of her "sleeping" past very well, unfortunately. Marina Ida, the “magnum octopus” of batch #83: All of her achievements in technology, all of her study years, skipping entire grades, quickly and effortlessly rising the ranks... it all seemed worthless now. She had nothing else. She was nothing, without someone telling her what to do all the time.
She realized this soul crushing truth by fixing up the salvaged stuff: most of the objects found in the scrapyard were still usable and not beyond repair. She wasn't looking for perfection anymore: All of these objects had an infinite amount of potential inside of them, they just needed the right help to find it. They were purposeless, incomplete. Just like her.
That's the main reason why she was trying her hardest to change her lifestyle and find something new to live for. Learning a language was just the beginning: Marina discovered, thanks to her advice, that she did have quite a talent for music (or was it the melody that gave her the power to hear things like never before?) Her old self would have definitely laughed at the very idea, and reprimanded anyone practicing it that wasn't genetically predisposed for it, like her old (and only) friend Acht or their beloved leader.
And now look at her: lost for hours on a broken and salvaged synthesizer, playing with distorted beats and surprising herself by coming up with some really sick tunes, trying to express the harmony of her renowned soul in a way that words cannot, all in preparation for the desired new meeting with her.
That morning, she had a feeling that the meeting she wished so hard for was finally going to happen. Call it an instinct, or destiny, or fate, she simply knew that all this time waiting around Mount Nantai was finally going to be worth it. Because of this, Marina decided to wear the only nice dress she had, "borrowed" from someone's drying rack out of desperation, because it was the first piece of clothing she found that actually fit her since leaving Octo Valley. She only ever wore the standard octoling armor and changes of it, and beauty was barely considered something useful in her life on the ranks, almost everyone was of amazonian-like build. And so she discovered only recently that she was actually what one would consider a really beautiful girl. Pretty, lovely, feminine, all adjectives that made Marina happy about herself.
For the first time in two weeks, the octoling felt comfortable wearing clothes: Nothing she ever found on the surface fit her size, and she had to sew as best as she could anything that could give her an outfit.
"Man, why is everyone so short up here?"
Thank cod crop tops and pants don't require that much fabric, and they fit her style back at home. Not that she enjoyed so much something that reconnected her to the past, but this was one of the few habits she didn't think was worth changing, for the time being.
Marina carefully detached the synthesizer from the makeshift electric line switch, the homemade battery that was charging near it too, a few cables and a spare one, and placed them all in her old bag.
She felt positive, she knew that this time she would show up again. She quickly closed the entrance of the base, and left with the bag on her shoulder, walking towards her spot. A patch of early blooming flowers covered the path.
“The flowers today are so beautiful”, noted Marina. “Should I pick some of them?”
Wait, what? No, she absolutely shouldn't stop, she can't be made to wait! Maybe next time.
She will be here for sure, her spot has to be the same, right? Everything fits the moment. Marina had the heartaches by the number right now, hoping to not lose the only chance she had to see her again. It felt like waiting for a phenomenon that manifested only every ten thousands of years.
Her, her, her. The only thing she could think about for the days following their chance meeting of two weeks ago. Their souls had bonded, and looked for each other constantly, so it was just natural for them to somehow meet without even taking an appointment beforehand. Marina dismissed this idea, since she believed herself to still be soulless.
Marina finally reached the spot. She entered inside one of the bushes around the area. Like a camouflaged hunter waiting for her prey, she stood still, like every single other day of the week since they met, but this time was different.
How long was she going to wait? At this point, It didn't matter anymore, she could spend days without moving from there. Nothing else mattered but showing her growth to her.
Suddenly, she noticed in the distance a small, cyan figure silently walking through the shades of the trees. The figure was looking around with predator-like eyes, trying to spot anything that moved around the area. The figure stops, and starts to shout around. Marina is too far to understand it, and she knows that the figure didn't notice her yet. She can't see the intruder clearly, so she hesitates about showing up to them. The figure stops shouting and starts to whistle. Several tunes pass, music Marina recognized from some of her disk collection, but this still didn't confirm anything about them. Suddenly, the figure stops once more, and starts to whistle to the tune of the melody.
“IT'S HER, IT'S HER!!” Marina screamed internally, excited to finally be able to leave the spot and reunite with Her, the muse of Mount Nantai .
End of chapter 1