Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Decommissioned

“In the life of Octaria, some of our best, brightest, and greatest reach a point where they can no longer contribute. In these times, they choose to walk into the darkness, to embrace its gift onto Octaria and know the darkness will imbue all who remain with their virtues.” Terry's mother coughs and clears her throat.

Terry takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He tries to dry his hands on his uniform, but it just skids off. He glances at the crowd again.

Elites, almost all elites, but in the front row, kneeling on the ground, are twins. Identicals, like him and Atla. Three sets too young to have forms, and another pair, identical boys, that he recognizes. They did tests together, once or twice. The August twins. And shouldn't the Noodle boys be here? Macaroni and Cheese were only a few months younger than him, even though they haven't seen each other in... oh.

Terry fixes his attention back on his mother and tries not to think about it.

“Amelia Brine. You have served Octaria far beyond normal expectations, even at a young age: by improving technology, aiding our understanding of ink development, cementing the Octarian-Salmonid Alliance, increasing our understanding of the Splatlands, and by being a key and vital part of destroying the NSS. You are an example of what Octarians everywhere should strive for.”

Okay, here goes.

“Amelia Brine, I wish to recognize your contributions.” His mother holds out her hands. “You may choose your way into the dark with eight items. What will you take into the darkness, to enrich our lives?”

Terry knows this. He takes a deep breath. “A power egg and an LED,” he says.

“Two items.” His mother nods. “Six remain.”

“An octoshot and ink tank.” He almost forgot the ink tank would be separate, but these are also traditional, and good things for him to have, both in the dark and when going into basic training.

“Four items, one for every tentacle on your head,” she says. “Before you choose your final four, you have a task.”

He... he does?

His mother gestures into the crowd, mostly Elites and the council, and Terry turns. It's too dark for him to see clearly, but three Elites step forward with...

Oh.

Terry has made two tentacle donations in his life. Eight octotroopers. Now six of them approach him, four still small and immature, not even starting their training yet, and the other two...

A tear drips down his face, and Terry swipes at it. The Representation of Friendship's Bonds and Change Is The Way We Serve Our People. Tribble named them both. Where are the other two? Where are The One True Servant Of The Octarian People and The Surface Is Already Ours?

“Whether you're with us or not, they will obey your orders above all,” his mother says. “Make your last ones count.”

He'll never see them again, and if he tells them to do something dangerous, the council will kill them before they have a chance to do anything. But all Terry wants is simple. He rubs the tears from his face and straightens his back. “All of you, if you ever see me again, do your very best to help me,” he says. “And if you don't see me, listen to Atla. My twin. And take care of her.”

He doesn't see Atla, so she may still be with Deep Cut. She has her orders. She's a real good Octarian.

“Those are acceptable orders,” his mother says, and when he looks up, he sees she's removed her shades—for this moment, even though she should wear them in public as a leader, she's removed them so he can see her eyes gleam with tears and pride. “Amelia's Octarians, please return to your assigned duties. What are the last four items you wish to take with you?”

He wants to know where his last two octotroopers are, but he knows they won't answer. He keeps his eyes on the Octarians he made, from his tentacles, watches them walk away

and realizes he forgot what he was planning. “I-I, um... I...”

He looks back at his mother. Someone laughs. Terry takes a deep breath and chokes on it. Great DJ, what's wrong with him? He went over and over and over what to take and... and...

He can't remember. “An, uh... an octoshot? And ink tank?”

His mother doesn't even blink. “A second octoshot and ink tank,” she says, and Terry goes hot from his ears to the tips of his tentacles. He already— “Completely normal to be nervous before this. You have two more requests.”

He has two octoshots now, or will, what else? He knows he already asked for a power egg and LED. What... what... “I want my family to walk with me the first half mile,” he blurts. “My mother and father and sister and Tribble.”

“That request will be granted, as well as we're able.”

As well as they're...? No, focus. He'll be able to say goodbye, proper goodbyes, and that matters. What else could he... “I want one last good meal,” he says. “I get breakfast before I go, right? Can I...”

“You may request one food to eat as you walk,” his mother says.

A lot of foods, dozens upon dozens, leap into Terry's mind: pancakes and maple syrup, blueberries, toast with real jam, squiddycola, but those are all things he can get on the surface. “Parsnips?” he says.

“They'll be ready in a few minutes.” She signals to someone he can't see, probably an Octotrooper. Probably someone who knows his favorite. Roast parsnips, like he had for breakfast before his first day of school every year when he was little, and on the final day of every experiment with Elite Rice, and before he and Atla demonstrated how flooders worked to a crowd of cheering Octolings. “Right now, however,” she steps closer, and takes his hands in both of hers. Terry sucks in a breath and looks up an inch into her eyes. “Thank you, Amelia Brine, for all you have done for Octaria.”

She releases him and steps away before he can react, and Terry's only had time for a shaky breath when a member of the council takes the stage, Elite Sashimi. They take his hands and also wrap their tentacles around his wrists, honoring him. “Thank you, Amelia Brine, for all you have done for Octaria.”

Then they release him, and Terry can't stifle a cry when Elite Rice steps up. His eyes gleam at him and he frowns, but Terry holds still, his hands out, and lets Elite Rice hold his hands. Elite Rice squeezes a bit tighter as he thanks Terry, then he's gone, and Terry can breathe again.

He knows he saw this once. He was very young, only six or seven, when the last identical twins had one decommissioned. There were others after, he's sure, but they were when he was on the surface. He didn't have to watch. He didn't have to hear, after, about how honored he or Atla would be, when it was their time.

Finally, all the council's thanked him and walked away. There were only eight people, since his mother is DJ. And his father may be on the surface, or hasn't been promoted to her position yet. He's sub-prime Elite, sharing the title with seven others who were below his mother in the surface intelligence branch. It's possible he'll stay there.

Terry squares his shoulders, takes one last look at the twins kneeling in the crowd, and walks off the stage.

The smell of roasted parsnips, just like he wanted, greets him. His mother and father are waiting there, by a pile: two weapons, two ink tanks, a power egg and a light. “You panicked, didn't you?” his mother asks, offering him the food. “Though, I suppose practicing with an octoshot in each hand won't go amiss.”

His father steps between them to wrap his arms around Terry, pulling him close and squeezing, his two working tentacles twining around Terry's own to press as many suckers as possible. “My beloved diamond,” he says.

Terry wraps his arms around his father and holds tight, and after a moment, his mother sets down the food and joins them, wrapping around them both so Terry is sandwiched between them, warm and loved and as safe as he'll ever be.

Chapter Text

Farewell

“Atla texted me. She had to spend the night with the NSS,” Terry's father says. “Tribble as well, of course. Duty, as you know, comes before everything, even this.”

Terry does know. He eats the last bite of parsnip and hands the empty bowl to his mother. “And Deep Cut?”

“The goggles were set to activate and begin recording the wearer's surroundings upon being worn. To begin altering them within an hour.” His mother sighs. “They were waiting for your sister, and to come see your father, to put them on. Tonight, I expect.”

He'd rather it not happen at all. Maybe Atla will have to stay with the NSS for another two or three days, long enough for him to get Agent Marie and his DJ out of here. He knows the NSS will be angry with him for the way they've been tricked, and probably furious with themselves for not being able to tell him and Atla apart. And Deep Cut, when he sees them, probably won't believe him; he might have to tear the goggles off their heads himself.

But things will be okay, because he'll make them that way.

His parents stop walking, and it takes Terry another two steps to realize why. He turns to see them both looking at him, the power egg and LED set on the ground by their feet, something on their faces he hasn't seen before, and he drops everything he's carrying and runs back with his arms open to wrap around them both at once.

His father picks him up and pulls him close and tight tight tight, tearing him away from his mom to wrap him in arms and tentacles. “Oh, my diamond,” he whispers. “I love you so very much.”

“I love you too, Dad.” Terry sniffs hard, pulling back the tears, and twines his tentacles around his father's. His father wraps his back, spirals upon spirals, their stuckers grabbing onto everything but each other. “I love you, too.”

“I love you forever.” His father presses their foreheads together, and Terry looks up into his eyes, but then away, because his father's wearing hypnoshades, and Terry focuses on the tears on his father's cheeks instead, gleaming slightly purple. They match Terry's tears. “Never, ever think otherwise, understand me? I don't know when we'll meet again. Intelligence has few interactions with construction. But you have always made me proud, and I know that won't ever change, because you are a smart, brave, wonderful Octarian, and the best daughter I could ask for.”

It feels like a bucket of ink was thrown on his face, and Terry blinks, and blinks again, his last tears drying up. He... he told his father he was a boy.

“My turn.” His mother pushes an arm between Terry and his father, and Terry's dad sets him down, though he keeps their tentacles intertwined. Terry turns as his mother kneels and opens her arms, even though she doesn't need to kneel anymore, even though now when she kneels it makes Terry taller than her, and he runs into her open arms and holds tight. Her tentacles don't work, haven't for years, but she holds him as close as arms can manage.

“I love you, mom,” Terry says.

“And I love you,” she says. She pulls away, enough to look him in the face. “This is goodbye, but not a darkness departure. We will meet again.”

Terry unattaches one of his tentacles from his father, his father's suckers pulling so hard they hurt when they detach, to reach for his mom. She presses her hand to his tentacle, and he twines the end around her wrist. She doesn't know. She thinks he's going to the construction unit, that she, as DJ, will be able to inspect and visit and... but... “I won't be able to hug you like this.”

“We'll figure something out.” She gives his tentacle a squeeze. “And I know you. You're too creative to be stuck at the bottom. Three years, you'll be an Elite. Not Prime or Sub-Prime, but the construction branch has fewer Elites overall, since there's no combat, or even dangers from the surface like the civilian branch handles with farms. One Elite oversees eighty splatoons, not eight. That's more than enough authority for us to have meetings.”

He squeezes her harder, with hands and tentacle alike, and slouches to press his face to her shoulder. “I love you, so much.”

“And I, you,” she says. “This is hard, for all of us. But it will keep you safe.” She uses her one arm to pull him tighter against her. “You won't have to worry any more, about tests, about espionage. Just that you can never let anyone know you started life as a girl, as my Amelia.”

He did. He used to be her. He used to be Amelia, playing Call-and-find in the dark with Atlantis; he used to be Brine Tester B, staring at a maze of flooders, tentacle-in-tentacle with Brine Tester A; he used to be Amy, telling Atla all those closed trucks driving into that big building was worth knowing about, and getting Atla to boost her through a window and into a room with cages and cages of smallfry.

But now he's Terry, and he's never coming back. “I love you,” he says again.

His mother sniffs, just once, and something drips on Terry's neck, and he pulls back and his mom releases him from the hug to wipe below her shades. “I love you, too.” She doesn't release his tentacle. His father still has his other three. “I love you so much.”

Terry lets out a breath. “I wish Atla and Tribble were here.”

“So do we, diamond,” his father says.

“When surface housing is being constructed, you'll go up,” she says. “And Atla will be assigned to your Splatoon for her surface knowledge. And I'll ensure your living accommodations are within easy reach of each other, when you're both ready for it.”

That won't be for years and years. Everyone starts in their splatoons at fourteen, and has to serve at least eight years, through basic training and learning their jobs and everything, but most serve sixteen before moving to administrative or civilian positions and starting families, and some get promoted high enough they're allowed to start families while still being Elites and never really have an assigned housing location, like his parents.

Like his sister wants, he's sure.

“We have to get back,” his father says. He doesn't let go of Terry.

“We do,” his mother says. She squeezes his tentacle again and stands, swiping below her eyes with the back of her other hand. They stay connected, palm to sucker. Family. Forever.

No matter what happens.

Terry lets go first. He picks up the power egg and LED and takes a step back, his tentacles stretched to their limit as they stay stuck to his father, her mother extending her arm to stay with him. “I'll be fine, Mom, Dad.”

He takes another step, a loose rock rolling under his foot so he pinwheels his arms, and his father's suckers pull off with a snap that makes him grunt, and one of Terry's tentacles pulls free but his father twines his ends around Terry's as they pull away.

A third step back, and his father can't reach him anymore, his mother's arm is stretched to its limit. “I'll be okay,” he repeats.

“Remember everything I taught you,” his father says.

“Remember what we spoke of yesterday,” his mother says.

“I will,” he says. One more step, and his mother's palm pulls from his sucker. “I promise. You should go.” Because he isn't turning his back on them.

And they don't, either, backing away until they're shapes at the edge of the light, then shadows, then gone.

Chapter Text

Care

When Terry's done crying, and taking deep breaths, he turns his back on his parents, and Octaria. He closes his eyes and drops to the ground, to swim form, and changes into himself, even though the armor digs into his sides.

It feels good. It feels right. He never has to be a girl again.

With that done, he picks up all his supplies and looks ahead. He's walked a mile with his parents. His mom drilled this into him, and he repeated it back a dozen times yesterday. To get to the cave where she stored the food and extra power eggs, he needs to

needs to

He

Great DJ.

Terry sits down, right there, and puts his head in his hands. He can't remember. He has never, not once, forgotten an instruction given by an Elite. Disobeyed them, sure, but he doesn't just forget things! That was part of his training, before they went to the surface, and in those first few weeks and months before his father let them go anywhere alone: he was told to remember conversations, or things he saw, and to recite them back and describe them an hour later. Then two. Then a full day.

Terry doesn't just forget things.

Spies use their memories because writing things down is too dangerous.

But there's a hole, a gap where an entire conversation used to be, and he's already a mile away from the nearest Octarian outpost. If he goes the wrong way here, he'll never return to Octaria. Or the surface.

Terry takes a deep breath. Then another. Panic helps nothing. The power egg will provide light for two or three days, but no Octarian wastes energy. He closes his eyes and unplugs the LED, the darkness pressing against his eyelids. The darkness holds him safe.

It will swallow him and he'll wander until his legs give out and he dissolves into ink if he doesn't get a hold of himself.

Deep breaths. Slow breaths. The darkness holds him safe. He just had good food, he can walk for hours. Nothing can hurt him, nothing can find him, so long as he stays in the dark. Darkness is protection.

He opens his eyes.

The darkness reveals a faint green glow in the distance, and Terry almost sobs in relief. He's fine. That's Agent Marie.

Even knowing where he's going, even with the slightest light, Terry marches. Octarians march underground, and he's still an Octarian, even if he's... anyway, it makes sense. He's not on the road anymore, not on the path, and marching helps him keep his footing on the uneven ground. He sees a few patches of mushrooms, ones the foraging splatoons in basic training will probably come for soon, and he almost stops to pick them out of habit.

But the green glow, getting brighter and brighter, calls him.

The glow's barely bright enough to make out his DJ when he comes into view, but it's enough for all of Terry's breath to escape in a sigh of relief. He doesn't see Agent Two until she stands up, and then he breaks into a run, rolling his ankle on one of the rocks on the ground and tripping as he gets close.

She catches him. “Pull yourself together, NT,” she mutters. She sets him on his feet and looks at him from head to toe. “So they sentenced you to death?”

“Not exactly,” Terry says. Past her, something moves, and he gasps. “Guys!”

“Terry!” Says The Surface Is Already Ours; Terry releases Agent Marie and moves to hug her. “Knew you'd get here.”

“No, you were worried,” says The One True Servant Of The Octarian People, stretching her tentacle towards Terry for her own hug. “I wasn't worried.”

“I followed your mother and retrieved the supplies,” DJ Octavio says. “She prepared well; I couldn't carry them all. Servant and Surface will make another trip. That will give us time to make plans.”

“Plans, right,” Agent Marie says. “But right now, sit down.”

Terry releases Servant and obeys, frowning. “Why? I haven't done much, but—”

“It's important. Give me your things.”

Oh, full inventory for better plans. That's a good idea.

She holds out her hand, waiting while he passes her all his things, and when she gets the first ink tank, she opens it. “Okay, take off your shoes.”

Take off his—

“I doubt you've been treating that fuzzy foot of yours properly,” she continues, and Terry's cheeks heat. “We need to soak it. We can talk while we do that.”

“Fuzzy foot?” DJ Octavio asks.

Terry uses taking off his boots to avoid looking at him. “I touched the fuzzy ooze during my first week in Alterna,” he mumbles, “and Mom told me not to let anyone know. They'd wanna run experiments. So I haven't taken my shoes off since I got down here.” He even slept in them.

A lot of soldiers do. In case they have to go somewhere in a hurry.

“Well, good job keeping yourself safe.” Agent Marie angles the ink tank, sloshing a bit out, so he can put his foot in. “Looks like it hasn't spread, or receded. Not sure I believe it'll be permanent, but we're gonna keep doing this, morning and evening, got it?”

Terry's got it.

And... he leans back on his head and tilts his head back, looking up and up, where darkness swallows the dome of green surrounding him and everything fades away. And it's nice.

To have someone looking out for him.

Chapter Text

Captivity

Something smells delicious.

Atla's sore all over, but that's just what happens when you serve Octaria. Every part of basic training involves moving, working, building muscles and exercising parts you didn't know you had, and then taking your tired aching self all around Octaria to clean roads and make meals and everything else that keeps the place running. She'll be good for more than that, she knows, but everyone does their time, and whatever the cafeteria's making today must be amazing.

Atla hasn't been called to breakfast, though, so she doesn't have to get up yet, even if she feels rested. She does stretch a bit, and roll over, and knocks against something hard and round and

Oh no.

Her eyes jerk open to the glint of sun off glass, or something enough like the sun and glass that it doesn't matter, and she sits up to find she's still in those soft soft pajamas but her clothing vanished while she slept. A few more blinks brings into focus Alterna's snow, a pile of boxes, and beyond that, a pair of Inklings standing by a makeshift table, a salmonid leaping to reach it.

She'd thought she'd dreamed it. She'd really, really hoped she'd dreamed it.

Agent One looks over and smiles at her. “Oh good, you're awake!”

Atla pushes herself to her feet as Agent One walks over, because she refuses to be on the ground when faced with an enemy, and readies herself in a combat stance. “What do you want?”

“Do you prefer pancakes, or waffles?” Agent One asks. “Waffles are better by far, of course, but Marie likes pancakes.”

Atla puts all the force she can into her glare. “You'll just poison it.”

“Nope!” says Agent One. “Not gonna hurt you, remember? I had plenty of chances during that fight.”

That makes sense, so Atla refuses to think about it.

“Marlin, she wants waffles!” Agent One calls back to The Inkling Menace.

“I didn't say—”

“So you'd rather have pancakes?” Agent One smiles at her.

This is stupid. “I'm not eating anything.” Agent One isn't coming in after her, so Atla stands up straight and crosses her arms. “And where are my clothes?”

“Used the grabbing mechanism to take them while you were sleeping,” Agent One says. “They're being washed. But I got other stuff that'll fit you, if you want to change!”

Atla bites her lip and stops when it starts to tingle. She doesn't want to change. She doesn't want to stay in these pajamas all day, it'll be a lot warmer in the day even if she's not in the desert, and even if the sun here is fake, so soon the comfy-cozy pajamas won't be so comfy. She doesn't want anything from the NSS, and it's bad enough she's already taken this.

She needs to be at her best to escape, and that means wearing better clothes, so she gives a tiny nod.

Agent One pulls open a drawer in the base of the snowglobe and deposits something. Seconds later, the clothes rise from the bottom of the snowglobe. Atla picks them up: underthings, and jean shorts with an elastic waist, and a t-shirt with a picture of a splatzone and the words THIS IS MINE in Inklish.

Everything should fit her, and she glares at Agent One. “How do you know my size?”

“It's Terry's size,” she says. “I bought him a bunch of stuff, but he's been arguing about it all, and I get the feeling this isn't his style. Felt like yours, though!”

Atla would totally have bought this shirt if she had any surface clothes that weren't for turfing. It's selfish and surface-centric and pure Inkling behavior, but she would have. It would have helped her blend in.

But she doesn't put it on yet. She crosses her arms and demands, “What about shoes?”

“How about these?” Agent One holds up a pair of Transom Note Boots, and Atla can't help her eyes going wide. “Terry was awfully enthusiastic about getting his own pair, even when he pretended not to like any of the other stuff we bought him...”

“Gimme.” Atla's brain catches up with her mouth then, and she flushes as Agent One laughs. “I don't want her stupid shoes.

Agent One's laughter stops almost at once. “Terry's pronouns are he/him. Which you should know, since he's—”

“Too caught up in faking you out to remember who she is,” Atla finishes. “We're twins. Alike in every way that matters. And that means we both hate you.”

Agent One's mouth twists. She drops the shoes in the slot anyway. “We're gonna have to work on that,” she says, as the tray brings the shoes up to Atla. “And they're not his shoes. They're yours. New pair, just for you.”

For her?

This is a bribe. And she's a servant of Octaria. She doesn't need bribes. Or gorgeous, fashionable, absolutely wonderful shoes that she's sure will be super comfortable. She's stronger than this.

She's a servant of Octaria, and that has her crossing her arms and glaring at Agent One. “You're not going to brighten the sky with these.”

Agent One shrugs. “Don't need to; the sun always comes out. It can just take a while.”

“Callie!” Atla flinches, but The Inkling Menace doesn't even look over. “Food's done! Come get it before Tribble has fifths!”

“Be right there!” Agent Callie calls, turning, but she looks back at Atla. “I'm gonna give you five minutes to get changed, where neither of us will look, then I'll bring you breakfast.”

“It'll probably be poisoned,” Atla mutters.

Agent One shakes her head, still smiling. “Nope. Just maple syrup. I'll let Tribble eat some off your plate, so you can be sure. I bet you've never had the real stuff, have you?”

Chapter Text

Plans

“The Octobot King is in the central munitions collective,” Terry says. “I don't know how to say that in Inklish.”

“Neither do I,” Agent Marie says.

They don't plan to be here for days, so he, Agent Marie, and DJ Octavio all have a power egg hooked up to an LED. They create a steady light, not bright but brighter than Agent Marie's glow, and while Terry soaked his foot DJ Octavio scratched a map in the dirt. Surface and Servant have their own LED and are going to retrieve the things his mom left that they couldn't carry the first time.

“Does every city in Octaria have a munickons collenive?” Agent Marie asks.

“This isn't a city, it's a military outpost,” DJ Octavio says. He draws an eight-pointed star on the rectangle meant to be the munitions collective. “No civilians except a couple members of the council. A healthy basic training initiative, a strong intelligence base, and the head of testing and experimentation to improve the future.”

“The council doesn't usually meet this long,” Terry adds. “They usually meet for a week every month, and in a bunch of different places. The council members live all across Octaria and travel to each other, or the DJ.”

“Did you memorize your mother's schedule?”

“Only enough to know when she was traveling.” Terry did memorize it at least once, but since he was never going to use the information, he didn't bother any other year. There was too much else to do, to think about.

“So it's special circumstances, and they may not know the terrain,” Agent Marie says. “Right. So that building is where, in relation to other things?”

“Over here is the dorms for people in basic training and people who do bottom-level work,” Terry says, pointing to the spot on his DJ's map. “Mostly the same thing, because once the Octarian Soldiers in basic training reach the base level of fitness, they put everyone through everything, cooking and cleaning and everything else.”

Agent Marie snorts. “At least they give you something better than ration bars.”

Terry opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, DJ Octavio taps the map. “The main points of interest are the prisoner containment facility, three miles away,” he says. “Eight stories below ground, of course, and eight above, with the superjump pad connected to the surface on the roof.”

“Where Terry was trying to take us,” Agent Marie murmurs.

“It's designed to be hard to climb, just in case,” Terry says. “Guards on the roof, of course, though not most of the upper floors; people don't know the prison and the surface are so close together, and that would make it obvious. But the only way up is narrow staircases, and they tend to be on opposite sides of the building.”

“And they can't see us here?”

“Our current light level is detectable by those wearing hypnogear, but only if they're within a half-mile of our location,” DJ Octavio draws a rough circle around his map. “The light of three LED's doesn't travel that much farther than a single one. And we're a mile from the intelligence outpost. “

Only a mile?

Terry looks away, into the dark. He can't see anything, even though he knows it's out there. Get closer and he'd see the streetlights flicker on as people pass, maybe even make out the building his mom is in. Atla and Tribble must be there by now, with Deep Cut.

It makes his stomach clench. This is his fault. But he never gave them shades! But it's still his fault.

Agent Marie taps his knee, and Terry looks back. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“It's not like you to tune out like that,” she says. “Is the stress getting to you?”

That has to be it. Terry's tentacles twist, and he puts his hands on them. “I guess,” he says.

“You'll handle it,” DJ Octavio says. “You'll be a key part of this plan. Your sister will be in the city soon. We need to use that.”

“Use Atla?” Terry releases his tentacles. “How?”

“She's pretended to be you long enough, wouldn't you like to be her?”

No. No, he doesn't. Atla wears hypnoshades. She's a good Octarian, still. She's a girl.

But...

“Nothing will help us if Agent Two and I are spotted on the way to the central munitions collective,” DJ Octavio says. “If you go ahead, pretending to do an errand for your mother, we can follow in the darkness. Then you can get them to open the door.”

“Once we're inside, we'll have to fight our way through.” Agent Two grins. “Good move, pretending to be dazed so you could get an extra octoshot. With the one I kept from the first escape, all three of us can be armed.”

He wasn't pretending, but he shouldn't say that now. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “There's, uh. There's one problem with pretending to be my sister.”

“Besides having to be a girl?” Agent Marie asks.

Yeah, besides that. He can handle being a girl; he was one his whole blothood. “Atla wears hypnoshades.”

Chapter Text

Distraction

The Inkling Menace puts each of the cards he dealt Atla on the stand facing the snow globe. “Hey Atla, got any threes?”

“Go jump in a lake.”

“Just me, then.” He takes a card from the top of the pile. “Your turn. Remember, you need four of the same number for it to count.”

Atla scowls at him, at Agent One, and even at Tribble, who's given up crying and is lying next to her cage with some pathetic whimpers. But she's bored, and The Inkling Menace is waiting, so she sighs. “Agent One. Got Two's?”

Agent One pulls a card from her hand and puts it on Atla's stand. That gives her three of them, now.

“Marlin, do you have any ones?”

“Dig for worms,” The Inkling Menace replies, and Agent One draws a card. They grin back at her. “Cal, ya got any tens?”

She pulls two from her hand and pushes them at him. “Why am I so bad at this?”

“Maybe because you're distracted from our distraction.” He slots them in his hand. “What's on your mind? Your turn, Atla.”

“Don't call me Atla,” she mutters. “I'm an enemy combatant, not your friend.”

“Sure you are.”

She kicks the side of the snowglobe, but once again, it doesn't budge. “Fuck you.”

“I'm too old for you.” He smiles at her. “It's still your turn.”

“How can you two stand waiting?” Agent One asks.

“I'm not standing anything,” Atla says. “You and him are keeping me here.”

The Inkling Menace rolls his eyes. “I'm they/them, remember. We need a game plan before we go fumbling around the desert trying to find a kettle, or before we go to Inkopolis and into one of those kettles and try to figure out where they are on foot underground. Ashti's done enough undercover work, she may have some insights, and her flight should be landing soon. It'll only take her and Luck-Luck another hour or two.”

“Got any—”

“There's gotta be something I can do until then,” Agent One says. “Gramps is still missing, too. Could I go to Site Six and check for him? There's plenty of undone kettles.”

Much as Atla hates this, she doesn't want Agent One searching for the octomurderer. “But we're playing a game. Got any fives?”

Agent One tosses her hand down. “You've won one, Marlin won one, I forfeit. Good game, you both beat me. Can I go, please, oh Captain of mine?”

“I told you what would happen if you called me that,” The Inkling Menace says, but he doesn't say it with the voice that makes Atla's stomach clench. They sigh and look at their cards, then Atla's. “You were winning anyway, Atla. Good game.”

“So what, now I just sit here?” She gets on her knees and presses her hands against the wall of her cage. “Trapped and alone and—”

“It's not too early for lunch,” The Inkling Menace says. “Or at least a snack. Want something?”

“No.”

Atla's stomach growls.

Agent One grins, and Atla hates her even more. “I'll get you a bunch of snacks,” she says. “A whole variety.”

“Get the laptop, too, as well as the tablet,” The Inkling Menace says.

Agent One disappears around the pile of boxes, though the crinkling of wrappers is clearly audible. Atla sits back down on the floor of her cage. “Why do you want those?”

“The tablet, so I can easily watch and communicate with Agent One, who will be wearing her headset and full hero suit!”

“Oh come on, you don't like the dress?” Agent One comes around the pile of boxes with her arms overflowing with crinkly bags and packages; she drops some, and Tribble dives for them. She pulls out the food slot and starts shoving the rest in the snowglobe. “I can totally kick butt in this and you know it.”

“What you did that time on the red carpet isn't the point,” The Inkling Menace says. “We have uniforms for a reason. Ink resistance, splat-stop slits, more ability chunks than even turf-legal.”

“It's too hot and kinda itchy and I look like a lemon with arms.” Agent One looks over her shoulder to stick her tongue out at him.

“Your weight is fine.”

“I know it's fine, it's just not in the right spots, you wouldn't believe how some directors get about the tiniest bit of stomach chub and of course it isn't right for most roles if I'm too muscled.” Agent One slams the food cubby closed.

The snacks rise beneath Atla's feet, and she checks them despite herself. Four flavors of chip, popcorn, cheese popcorn, three types of granola bars, fruit snacks, so much candy, some juices and sodas and Atla immediately grabs the sparkling apricot-mango one that was too sweet for Blister and Mono and Kishduck.

“I've already lost two agents, Callie,” The Inkling Menace says, and his voice cracks on her name. Atla looks up again to see a very un-Menace look on their face, but it's gone before she can identify it. “I don't care how safe we think it is. Wear everything.”

Agent One stays kneeling on the ground in front of Atla's snowglobe for a long few seconds, then gets up, takes two long steps, and pulls The Inkling Menace into a hug. Atla snorts. Trained combat operatives, acting like that?

And Tribble leaps off the ground and climbs The Inkling Menace's back to join them.

Atla stares at them all, at Tribble abandoning her for these—these—these Inklings.

Then she turns her back on them all. She doesn't need him. She's an Octarian soldier. Strong, smart, and loyal.

She cracks open her drink and takes a long, long sip. Sweetness courses through her, the embodiment of happiness and joy, everything the surface has that Inklings took from them.

They'll pay for it.

Chapter Text

Roller

The Inkling Menace sits on a couple boxes, more boxes nearby, stacked as though to make him a desk. The laptop's there, leaning against another box, so he can watch the screen but keep his hands free. For what, Atla doesn't know. He's only eating a protein bar.

The tablet, balanced on a pile of boxes so it's at her eye level when she sits, shows her Agent One.

“If you were going to give me a show, you could at least give me something good,” Atla complains. She doesn't mean it, but she has to be contrary, to show them how much she hates this. They'll double down.

“Sure, I'll get on that. Hey Tribs, want a granola bar?”

Tribble trills and climbs onto the box-desk. Atla looks away.

Agent One isn't even slowed by the massive roller in her hands. She's taking the long route to Site Six, using the journey to warm up, Atla's sure. She carries that thing like it's a junior.

Atla's used rollers before. She's tried almost every weapon ammoknights has, and all the ones available in Octaria. Even the lightest roller is unwieldy, tripping her when she tries to run with it, getting caught on rocks and bumps and yanking on her arms. Mono said there's a technique for getting it to glide smoothly over bumps, but Atla hasn't mastered it.

And some of them are heavy. When Atla first tried the dynamo, she couldn't lift it. She had to get Amy's help carrying it home for their parents to check over and see if any of the design would be useful in Octaria. Even rolling it's a challenge.

As Agent One makes her way through Site Four, Atla looks at her arms and flexes them. She can fire an E-liter, though the recoil gave her bruises. She wore herself out the afternoon with the explosher. She had to rest the tentabrella on the ground to open it. But only the dynamo roller and hydra splatling have truly defeated her.

She should work on that. She can't do push-ups too well in here, with the bottom curved the way it is, but she should do some tonight, when no one is watching. It might leave her legs higher than her head, and that's better, too. Makes it harder. It's the sort of thing they'd have her do in training.

“There have been tough fights in some kettles, and if our old Cap'n is in there, it's bound to be the toughest one yet,” says The Inkling Menace, and Atla glances up again. “You are not taking that solo. If you run into a fight, superjump out, understand?”

“But—”

“Knowing he's there will be helpful either way.” The Inkling Menace opens a bag of chips for Tribble. “You can take the fight when Eight and Four get here, after we figure out how to register them without Marie around. Think human's available on inklate?”

Agent One sighs, lowering her roller for a moment. “Probably. Just about everything else is.”

“And you need a proper warm-up. Try to start with a kettle that lets you use roller.”

Oh, this is a good reason to pay close attention. Atla gets as close to the tablet as she can, as Agent One drops into one of the kettles on the outskirts of the island chain. She can report back to Octaria about Agent One's weapons skills if she gets out of here.

When. When.

“Looks like I chose well,” Agent One says, when the equipper offers her a choice of roller and roller. She selects the one with burst bomb. “Nothing but my best weapon.”

“Get on with it. Remember to use NNSS yellow. And watch for problems!”

“Chill, little Lin-Lin.”

“You do NOT get to call me that.”

Atla flinches back against the snowglobe. Even without them using their scary voice, Atla does not want to be in their way.

But Agent One only laughs. Atla flicks her eyes over to see Agent One stopped in front of a dashtrack, peering down at a zig-zag path before her. “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”

Atla doesn't have time to wonder why before Agent One's on the dashtrack, vaulting over the water and smacking her roller down on the Fuzzy Octarian there. She runs down a zig-zag path, making the carbon roller look like an inkbrush, breaking crates in her wake and making Atla's eyes bug out.

Yeah, Carbon's light, but this?

She weaves around corners and directly over more fuzzy Octarians, not even hesitating, not slowing down in the slightest, she shouldn't be able to take them out without a roller swing at least but she's just rolling.

Right up until she runs out of ink. Right up until she's faced with a staircase. She doesn't even refill her ink tank, she just hops up the stairs, ignoring the fuzztarians, and Atla realizes Agent One is humming something and covers her own ears and hums Octo Eight-Step to cover the noise.

It probably wasn't the cursed Inkantation, but Atla can't be too careful here, she can't. She's a good Octoling, a good Octarian.

When Atla looks again, Agent One is bouncing around on bounce pads, smacking fuzzy Octotroopers between them. She isn't the slightest bit out of breath, though she's been running nonstop for almost ten minutes.

She pauses for a second after another dashpad, when a checkpoint lights up, and Atla lets a grin cross her face at seeing an Octosniper. That'll stop Agent One! Her weakness, chargers, that's why she always has Agent Two to—

Oh.

Or, all her experience with Agent Two has made it so she can just blatantly ignore Octosnipers, or at least fuzzy ones.

It's over in another few breaths, and Agent One collects her power eggs and returns to the surface. “Satisfied, Captain Three?” she asks, heading for an inkrail.

“Yep,” he says. “Go get our Cap'n back.”

“With pleasure,” she says, and ducks into another kettle. A fanciery, heavy duty one.

She gets to use whatever weapon she brought in with her, so her own massive roller, and when she ducks through the entryway she's met with a jump-pad. “Looks clear so far,” she reports.

“The description on this kettle wasn't detailed. Be careful.” Atla glances at The Inkling Menace. He's got a finger wedged in his beak and is chewing on it as he watches. Tribble's got his whole head in the bag of chips.

“Yeah, yeah, C3, this'll be a cinch.”

A new voice cuts through the speakers, and Atla sits up straight. “Ay? (Where's Terry?)”

Chapter Text

Big

The camera shows Big Man. The camera, hooked to Agent One's headset and showing what she sees, showing the top of her head and surroundings, shows Big Man. In the kettles. Underground.

Amy reported about that, about how she fought Frye and that's what made Deep Cut speak to their father, about how fighting Shiver and making up with Shiver is how they got their chance to bring Deep Cut hypnoshades to begin with, but Atla didn't expect to see Big Man here. Last time she saw him, he was eating breakfast.

He and Frye and Shiver were supposed to put on hypnogoggles, and Atla scowls at the screen. He shouldn't be here!

“You know Terry?” Agent One asks.

“Ay. (For ages.)” Big Man glares at her. “Ay. (And we are not happy.)”

“If you're working with—”

“Ay. (Your days of kidnapping Octolings is over.)”

Atla snorts. She covers her mouth with both hands and glances at The Inkling Menace, who's staring at his laptop like he expects it to bite if he moves.

Cod, Deep Cut thinks the NSS is the one taking the deserters? That's the funniest thing she's heard in weeks. Her hands muffle her laughter, but she can't stop it.

“I think you're confused,” Agent One says. “We don't kidnap Octolings. I'm Agent One of the NSS—we're the group who rescued half of them.”

“Ay, ay. (Terry may buy that, but I don't.)” Big Man reaches behind him with one fin. “Ay. (I'm going to take you out for good.)”

“Agent One, come back.”

“Not doing that, Cap3,” she says.

“Agent One—”

“I can take him,” she says, as she and Atla watch Big Man turn green. She changes her own ink pink in response. “Besides, this is all a big misunderstanding.”

Atla pats the floor around her until she finds a bag, opens it, and pulls out not a chip, but some popcorn. That's all she has time for before Big Man sinks into the floor.

Holy carp he's huge.

Atla pops a piece of pocorn in her mouth and grimaces; too cheesy. Big Man's whole form swims through the floor, leaving ink in its wake, a combination between an Octoling and a Salmonid and Atla didn't know that was how Manta's evolved to use ink. Agent One backs away, just watching for now, as Big Man leaves a trail behind him.

Are Manta related to salmonid somehow? It seems more like their way of inking than a cephalopod's.

Then a splatbomb bursts from his form, and Agent One knocks it from the air and charges.

Watching her fight is beautiful, and Atla stays frozen, watching. She smacks his form so hard with the roller it splits in two, four, eight, and she chases down each piece as it charges her, as more bombs are thrown, coating his ink with her pink.

It's terrifying.

It's amazing.

Atla wants to use a roller like that.

Agent One knocks Big Man out of his ink and smacks him. He flies back, then gets to his feet. “Ay. (You're pretty good,)” he says. He reaches a fin behind him. “Ay. (But I'm better.)”

“Ship,” says The Inkling Menace. “Agent One, come back, he must have a secret weapon or—”

Big Man pulls out a sea cucumber phone.

The Inkling Menace laughs. “False alarm,” he says.

Atla keeps watching as Big Man holds the phone to his head. “Ay. (I've got one of them.)” He must be talking to Shiver and Frye. “Ay. (You handle the rest.)”

He must mean

Atla drops into swim form, landing on crinkly wrappers and dropping popcorn on her head and popping at least one bag of chips. She needs to be Terry, with wide shoulders and narrow hips, and she can't do it, she can't get the shoulders right—

“I don't know what you plan to do with the Octolings you've taken,” says Shiver, and Atla climbs the snowglobe with her tentacles to see Shiver and Frye standing in the snow, just close enough that The Inkling Menace is in range of Shiver's stringer. “But it ends here, now, and with him.”

The Inkling Menace has his hero shot in one hand, but doesn't shoot yet. Good idea; he couldn't reach them anyway. “From what your friend told my agent, there's been a misunderstanding,” he says, somehow calm. “You don't need to do this.”

“We definitely do,” says Frye. She bares her beak in a smile, every point gleaming in a threat, and flips her Splatana over in her hands. “You and your gang have run rampant through the Splatlands long enough.”

“We haven't squidnapped any Octolings,” he says. “We're the good guys here, trying to get them back. And clean up this fooze stuff while we're at it.”

Tribble races from The Inkling Menace's side, straight to Frye. He jumps and leaps at her legs until she takes one hand off her splatana to bend down and pat him. “Liar.” Her voice is cold.

“You've got a friend of ours caged right there,” says Shiver.

“That's not Terry,” The Inkling Menace says.

Frye picks Tribble up, and he clings to her arm, crawls to her shoulder, and trills. In support, Atla hopes. Not that it matters. None of them can understand him. “Of course it's Terry,” Frye says. Her tentacles change color slowly, top to bottom, blue almost dripping down as she changes to match Shiver. “You think there's any other Octolings with salmonid around?”

Atla releases the snowglobe glass and drops to the ground. Terry Terry TERRY, Terry with his stupid narrow hips and stupid wide shoulders, she blocks out everything but that and the way Amy looks as Terry, the way she stands, and she thinks she has it right this time. She thinks she does, and she sits up in walk form, and her balance is off the way she knows is Terry.

But she doesn't need balance to press her hands against the glass and shout, “HELP! SHIVER! HELP ME!”

Shiver's gaze whips to Atla, and the hardness in her eyes hardens further.

“Seriously, you don't want to do this,” The Inkling Menace says. “You have no idea who you're tangling with, here. Classified operation, but under the circumstances I think we can declassify some things. Just not during a fight.”

Shiver relaxes her grip on the stringer, releasing the shot without firing, and reaches in the folds of her sarashi to pull out a sea cucumber phone. She flips it open, presses a button. “Tell you what,” she says, and Atla jerks because she can hear Shiver's voice, tinny but clear, through the tablet showing her Big Man at a stand-off with Agent One, “you release Terry, and once your other agent,” she mocks the word with her tone, “gets here with Big Man, Big Man can take Terry to safety and we can discuss things.”

The Inkling Menace sighs and shakes his head. “Can't do that,” he says. “She can't be trusted.”

Shiver raises one eyebrow and speaks into the phone. “Big Man? Get her.”

Chapter Text

Misunderstanding

Frye darts across the open space, splatana pulled back and whirring, but The Inkling Menace jumps out of the way and she swipes at nothing and tristringer bolts land where he once was and Atla presses her hands against the glass. Tribble's racing to safety, good. The Octarian-Salmonid alliance isn't at risk, at least.

She thought she was going to be here until Amy or her parents came up with a way to save her. She thought the NSS was going to kill her. She thought she was going to be tied up and gagged and forced to listen to that song, and

The Inkling Menace shoots and Frye rolls out of the way, not like dualies a drop to the ground roll push up wielding her splatana one-handed and Shiver runs behind her

right to Atla's snow globe

body-slams against it, string already charged for another shot

and knocks the tablet sideways, wobbles but doesn't fall

and Atla suddenly realizes the swearing she's hearing

is Agent One.

She looks at the tablet just in time to see explosion of explosion of bombs going off, Big Man's bombs, and Agent One scrambling out of the way, camera shaking. “I'm supposed to be the bomb-rusher!” she snaps, then dives to the ground, dragging her roller and ink along with it.

Not the proper way to use a roller, Great Zapfish, even Atla knows that!

“Ter, did they hurt you?”

Atla jerks her eyes from the screen to the fight happening in front of her, the ground now littered with blue and yellow ink and Shiver staring at her from an inch away and Atla sucks in a breath. She's Terry, voice down. “No,” she says, trying to pitch her voice like Amy does, the way she practiced. “Ju—just a scrape or two.”

“Good,” she says. “Do—” and yelps, diving sideways, The Inkling Menace landing a shot on her from all the way over there before spinning to dodge around Frye's splatana again and focus on her up close.

Atla looks around, the sea of blue and yellow ink around her, and she's—what color is she right now? She's not sure, Terry is yellow on the surface, yellow so no one can connect Terry to Amy and her and their family, but she pushes a tentacle in front of her and sees purple.

Purple she focuses on changing to blue, blue to match Shiver's stringer bolts landing a hit on The Inkling Menace and he stumbles back and Frye breaks away to run up to the snowglobe, Splatana pulled back in both hands and revving, glowing with the charge, until she dashes forward and slams it against the side.

The entire thing shakes, making Atla grab for the walls again but they're round and she slides and that's fine she's got her balance again and there's a mark, not ink, a spot where Frye hit it and “MOVE!” shouts Shiver and Frye's gone, a burst bomb exploding where she was.

Atla scrambles as well as she can, presses her hand against that spot. It's not cracked. But, as she runs her hand along it, along the outside of it, there is the barest, tiniest hint of a dent.

The Inkling Menace slams against the snowglobe and Atla stumbles back, landing on her butt and sliding and scrambling up as well as she can as The Inkling Menace keeps his back to her and shoots, shoots, shoots, making Frye scramble away then he dives out of the way as ink strikes the snowglobe where he was and the shots explode but don't hurt it.

“FUCK!” Shouts Agent One, and Atla whips her head back to the tablet, sideways now but still showing the screen. She's carved a little pink circle for herself with her roller and she ducks into it and then back out, burst bomb splat bomb suction bomb and torpedo all dodged and right into an ink mine, she falls backwards directly onto one of the dozen Manta shapes and yelps and slaps her roller on the ground and submerges.

“Get her, Big Man!” Atla cheers. Agent One is splotched in the green Big Man's using for the fight, stained clothes and tentacles, and Frye swears

Atla looks over, looks around, looks behind her to see her covered in yellow ink, almost splatted, almost until tristringer bolts rain down and The Inkling Menace moves out of range and Frye submerges, healing, and The Inkling Menace darts forward

right into another stringer bolt

and leaps backwards, hat stained blue, a dazed look on his face. Frye uses the ink to swim away, closer to Atla. Pops out of the ink with a bruise on her cheek.

“Frye!” Atla yells, and realizes her voice is too her when Frye glances over. “That hit did something! Hit it again!”

Frye charges her splatana, then does a quick spin and slashes at The Inkling Menace, who leaps back. “Soon as I can, Ter!”

Agent One screams. The tablet gives Atla clear audio, and she whips her head around to see Agent One running, bombs exploding around her, tossing burst bombs in front of her and diving in and leaping out to repeat it as torpedoes and suction bombs explode around her.

Is Deep Cut stronger than the NSS?

Is Deep Cut really capable of taking out the NSS?

Atla bites on her lip, holding in a laugh, and winces as it goes numb. Bit too hard, there. But Shiver and Frye are landing some good hits on The Inkling Menace, and Big Man's got Octavio's Siren in the ink; ten, twenty minutes, and

The thudding splat of a landing superjump makes Atla's ears perk. A superjump? But she can see, on the tablet, Agent One and Big Man are still fighting...

“What the carp?”

“When you said we should expect trouble, I didn't expect it here.”

Atla spins in the snowglobe. Two people, Inkling and Octoling, with a tentacle sucker-locked like squiblings; disgusting. The Octoling Atla doesn't know, tall and taller, in a yellow NSS uniform and a charger in one hand, being brought up to charge.

But the other Atla recognizes. How could she not? Lia 'Lucky' Sepia-Todarodes was the youngest Olympinks Athlete, and the one most often playing in the Splatsville Anarchy Lobbies to stay warmed up. Atla watched a dozen of her matches. She has her autograph.

And now she darts in, body-slamming Shiver sideways before Shiver can make a shot, and asks, “Are you Deep Cut?”

Frye darts forward, shrieking, and dives to avoid a charger shot. “You—didn't we give you a medal?” Frye demands.

“Yeah, the gold one I got!” Agent Four dodge-rolls like it's easy, avoiding each and every attack around her. “Eight, don't splat them, this has to be a misunderstanding.”

Agent Eight is an Octoling?!

Atla doesn't think she knew this. Maybe someone knows it, but she didn't.

“If you say so,” says Agent Eight. “You can handle them both, right Four?”

“I didn't take you to be a member of a gang,” Frye snarls, getting to her feet and charging Agent Four.

Four dodges easily. “Not a gang. Secret agent. We can stop fighting and talk this out, or I can beat you up and we can talk this out, but there's some serious misunderstanding going on here.”

Shiver's stringer shot hits no one as all the Agents dodge. Atla sits down, her hearts heavy. With all of them together, Deep Cut has no chance.

“Eight, you wanna go get One?” Agent Four dodges another attack. “This shouldn't take long. I bet you can break into wherever she is, sounds like she needs the assist.”

“You self-righteous Inkopolitan ass,” hisses Shiver, then shrieks and dives into the ink. “Misunderstanding nothing, you're kidnapping Octolings and are holding Terry hostage!”

Agent four actually stops to look at Atla, and she freezes. She looks like Terry. She and Amy are identical, of course she looks like Terry. Agent Four won't know that.

“Don't be silly, Terry has a scar on his eyebrow,” Agent Four says.

Oh squit.

Shiver and Frye and everyone stops fighting to look at her, and Atla slaps her hands to her forehead, too late. Shiver's and Frye's jaws drop.

“Told you,” Four says. “Can you call off your friend? We can just talk this out, over there,” she waves beyond the boxes, “and I'll sit still so you can kick my beak in if I can't convince you.”

Chapter Text

Impersonation

Terry makes a conscious effort to hold his head up. Atla walks with her head high and her shoulders back. That's how she walks with her friends, when they go to turf in the morning and go to lunch and he's playing harmonica and watching; that's how she marched during the brief moments he saw her in basic training; and that's how she walked beside him when they escorted Agent Marie to the council for sentencing.

Agent Marie and DJ Octavio walked him here, but the light of Agent Marie's glow doesn't reach the road. It's still easy to tell when no one's around, because the lights go off.

That's when Terry takes a deep breath, lets it out, and steps forward. Marches, even paces, fifty steps. The lights click on. Head high, shoulders back.

The hypnodevice storage facility is near the edge of the outpost. It's only a short walk, Terry flinching with every light that turns on, before he's at the door.

Deep breath. Shoulders back. Head high. You're Atla. March.

Terry pushes open the door and enters. Straight up to the desk. The worker looks up, then looks again. “Soldier Brine! I didn't expect to see you, and without your special shades?”

“Mom—uh, DJ Brine said that I'm not really here,” Terry says. He fumbled a bit, Atla wouldn't mess up and call Mom Mom right now, but the hypnoshades organizer wouldn't know that. “No one's supposed to know until... but my shades had to be put on someone else, in a hurry, and when they're asleep we can swap a boring pair for mine. So I need that boring pair.”

The worker smiles at Terry, and he doesn't shift from foot to foot, because Atla wouldn't. Atla's started standing with one hand on her Octoshot, the other behind her back, parade rest. But he does smile back, because you're nice to people you're asking favors from. “One moment. We got a new shipment in, and I'm sure I can find something.”

“Can you hurry?” Terry really fights not to fidget; he wants to be out of here. DJ Octavio said this would be okay, but he, he doesn't like this. It doesn't matter if they planned together where he would go, what he would say, that they need these shades.

He doesn't want to think about the big room with all the glasses, or the small room next door, the fitting room, where they made sure every single set of goggles and shades he wore were just right, not too loose not too tight, centered exactly on his eyes, before turning them on. Where an optician measured his pupils to do more adjustments.

Where he woke up again and again with his Mom leaning over him and Tribble not there.

“I know; being without shades, once you've gotten used to them, is difficult,” he says. “The disorientation will pass in a few hours, but the headaches may take weeks. You won't be in pain much longer, you can relax your tentacles.”

Oh, oh DJ, he forgot to pay attention to his tentacles.

The worker vanishes into the back room, where all the hypnoshades are stored, and Terry slumps. He takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. He reaches up his hands and, one tentacle at a time, massages them, root to tip, pressing against the muscles. They're all but coiled on his head, tips twitching; he gets them down, until they're all at his shoulders, and takes another deep breath.

Back to parade rest. Relaxed smile. Kinda bored. He can't get his tentacles to stay still, so he pulls a ration bar from his pocket, something Atla would have and Agent Marie insisted he should take, and plays with it, passing the bar from tentacle to tentacle around and around his head. It's a good exercise, it practices tentacle manipulation, and Atla would do it.

He and Atla would use their tentacles to pass things back and forth, back and forth, all the time when they first got their walk forms. Better coordination, and it was fun. They even threw a ball back and forth, though neither really got good at catching that way.

The door scrapes as it opens, but Atla never notices their door at home scraping, so when the worker comes in he does that half-flinch and freezes in place with big eyes like she does for just a second, then grabs the ration bar and shoves it in his pocket. It makes the worker chuckle. “You won't need a case for these, I imagine.”

Terry swallows hard. He doesn't let his hand tremble as he takes them from the worker's hand, and holds them up to the light. “No scratches, should be good.”

“You want to wear them out?”

No. No, he does not. He opens his mouth

he forgot what DJ Octavio told him
What he should say to keep the worker from suspecting anything
How to get out of it.

“W-would I like to wear them out?” Terry looks at the shades in his hand, the hated, awful, things. If he throws them across the room and runs they'll know, or at least suspect, that it's not Atla. “I—I, uh, I really, really, but, uh, but—”

“I'll get you a case, then, since someone wants to inspect them first.” The worker turns back to the other room.

Terry stares down at the shades in his hand, his breath coming fast. He's supposed to be better than this. He's Atla right now, he knows how Atla acts, but... shades cause headaches when they come off, he didn't know that before. And putting them back on fixes it. Except for him.

Who figured out how to do that? And why? That just punishes every Octarian who has to take them off.

“Here you go, Atlantis,” the worker says, and this time Terry does flinch, but he turns it into a snatch of the case and shoving the hated ugly awful shades inside. “Tell your mother she's doing an excellent job. Long live DJ Brine! Long live Octaria!”

“Long live Octaria,” Terry says, and does not flee the office, but he does walk quickly, quicker than marching. He's supposed to

did

did he take a left or a right to get on this road?

Terry looks around, up and down the street, with the flickering streetlights, and. And he can't remember. Was it the left? Or the right? Or...

The streetlight goes out.

And Terry sees a green glow.

Deep breath. Head high. March.

Back to Agent Marie, and his DJ, with the hypnoshades.

They'll tear out all the wires so he can wear them.

Chapter Text

Damaged

As soon as Terry passes the shades to DJ Octavio, Agent Marie grabs him by the shoulders. “Okay, Terry,” she says. “What the shell was that?”

“Was what?” Terry reaches in his pocket for the ration bar, even though he's not hungry.

Agent Marie snatches it from his hand. “You hesitated so long the streetlights went out.”

Terry's cheeks heat. He pulls away from her and wraps his arms around himself. “It wasn't anything.”

“It was something,” she says.

Terry doesn't know what to say, so he glares at her.

Agent Marie props her hands on her hips and glares right back, and even though she's barely taller it makes him feel small. “Ter, you're not just a kid. You're my junior agent. We all look out for each other in the splatoon, but as someone with more experience, making sure you're not in over your head is my job. And even now, with this mess, I won't let you do anything else if I think it'll get you splatted. We don't have respawn pads waiting for us.”

Terry's tentacles twist, and he looks away. She's not giving him an order. She's not dragging him around. This isn't for his own good.

This is because she wants to trust him and rely on him as a team, as a splatoon, in more than name. And even if they're equals under the captain menace, she's looking out for him, the same way he'd look out for any new spies on the surface, if he knew who they were. The way he'd look out for Atla, when he could.

“I forgot,” Terry mumbles. He sits on the nearest boulder.

“Well, I hope this jogs your memory,” she says. “We're a team, and I'm on your side. And it has nothing to do with your seizures, I swear.”

“They're not seizures, they're events,” Terry says. “And that's not what I forgot.”

“Fine. Events. Still has nothing to do with it.”

“That's not what I forgot,” Terry says. He looks at the ground.

“Terry, what do you want us to do?” calls Surface.

“We got all the supplies Mom left us,” adds Servant.

Terry looks past Agent Marie, to his Octotroopers, and his hearts warm. “Ummm... could you help DJ Octavio with the hypnoshades? I don't know what he needs.”

“Better tools, for a start,” DJ Octavio says. “Scissors, or a knife.”

“Would a very sharp rock do?”

“If you two each hold an arm still so I can make more precise cuts,” DJ Octavio says. “This needs more tentacles, or hands, than I have.”

“Now that that's taken care of,” Agent Marie says, and she sits on the ground in front of him. Her octoshot's loose in one hand, and she rests it on her lap. “What did you forget?”

Terry sighs and bows his head. He should look an Elite in the eye for this, but Agent Marie isn't his Elite, and he... he doesn't want to. “I forgot where I'd come from,” he says. “Which direction. Even though I'd only been there a couple minutes ago.”

“Too much stress?” Agent Marie asks. “I suppose that makes sense. You—”

“You forgot?”

Terry tenses. He looks at his DJ, then away, then back again, because it's DJ Octavio staring at him and he looks at Elites when disappointing them. “Yes, DJ,” he says. “I forgot.”

“You've been on active duty in spying for several years, and performing admirably, with regular reports, for the past several weeks without issue?”

Terry's tentacles press against his head. He hates being scolded. “Yes, DJ.”

“Hey, stop that,” Agent Marie says. “Terry's a kid—”

“He's a trained intelligence operative who's done memory exercises most of his life.” DJ Octavio's tone leaves no room for argument. “If he's forgetting things, there's a reason. Are you sick?”

Terry shakes his head.

“When did this start happening?”

“Today,” he says.

“So, very recently.” DJ Octavio crosses two tentacles. “Yesterday, your mother carried you from the hypnodevice storage facilities to the dormitories. What happened?”

“I didn't realize that's what it was,” Agent Marie whispers. “Ter? Were they putting those on you?”

Terry can't look at his DJ anymore. “They were t-testing,” he hates that word, “different hypnodevices. To see if, if, uh, if I could wear g-goggles. Or a low setting.”

And of course, they found he was defective.

“Terry,” Agent Marie says, “how many seizures did you have yesterday?”

“Events,” he says. “Events. Uh. I think Four? No, five. I think?”

Agent Marie lets out a heavy breath. “We've really got to get you to a doctor.”

“No, you don't.” Terry still speaks to the ground. “Not going to some stupid Inkling doctor who doesn't know anything.”

“An Octoling doctor, then,” Agent Marie says. “Hopefully it isn't permanent.”

Terry doesn't like the sound of that, sound of any of this, and he puts one hand on his writhing tentacles to smooth them down. “It's not permanent,” he says. “It's just stress. Has to be.”

“Well, until that 'stress' has been identified and removed, we cannot trust you to complete anything on your own.”

That stings, and Terry's tentacles flatten against his head, but he can't protest. If Agent Marie didn't glow in the dark, he'd still be on that road. Or walking into the darkness, giving everything he had to Octaria.

“Boss!” Servant waves her tentacle until Terry looks at her. “I have an idea. Your mom put stuff in the supplies, so you could learn construction things!”

Terry winces. “Thanks, but I'm not really going into construction.”

“But she wanted you to take notes!” Servant races on her stubby legs to the piles and rummages through it, pulling something out with a tentacle. “She left a notebook.”

A notebook?

That's nothing on the surface, but underground, everyone writes with chalk on boards. Not with a notebook.

“That's a good idea,” Agent Marie says. “You'll have to keep it hidden from any Octarians, but if you get stuck again, you can check that. Pens or pencils?”

“I'll get them,” says Surface.

Servant walks over and pushes the notebook at Terry. It's a small one, about the size of his hand, and already scuffed and bent around the edges. He's never had a notebook before, never needed one on the surface, but it's from his mom and he loves it.

Then Surface comes over with a pen, just one, and Terry takes that too. But it doesn't seem to have a cap. Or a tip. Or—

“There's a spot on the back you press to make the tip come out,” Agent Marie says. “And press it again to make it go back in.”

Terry clicks it open, opens the notebook, and draws a small swirl on the top of the page. It's ink colored, his ink, even though this is precious permanent surface ink and not Octoling ink that'll vanish in a few minutes. His dad always pointed out things in their ink color on the surface.

Terry wipes at his eyes, where he's not crying, and looks up at Agent Marie. “Okay, I'll write things down,” he says. “Are we making a plan now? For getting the octobot king?”

“First we're having some food and a nap,” she says. “Octavio won't be much help in a fight,”

“I assure you, I can hold my own.”

“I trust the tentatroopers with an octoshot more than I do you.” Agent Marie doesn't glare at him, because no one would dare glare at DJ Octavio, but it's a very similar look. “You can't use it in swim form. And you're not exactly quick in your ink.”

“I'll have you know I won races when I was younger. Talk of my splatoon's division.”

They're not really fighting, and it makes Terry relax. He clicks the pen, closed and open, open and closed, a few more times. Even though he won't need them, not long, because nothing's wrong with him, they're from his parents.

He doesn't have much of that anymore.

Chapter Text

Trick

Atla tears open another candy bar and shoves it in her mouth. This one has nuts. It's not as good as the others, just plain sugar, but she's hungry and she's still. Trapped.

Big Man and Agent One arrived separately, but once they were both here all of the NSS and Deep Cut went where she couldn't see them. They brought Tribble. And they haven't come back.

Atla chews on the chocolate and resists the urge to spit out the nuts. Nuts are protein, energy, good for her. She shouldn't be eating chocolate, with its fat and sugar. She should sort through the things Agent One shoved in here for a, a protein bar or something. Something healthy. But by the zapfish, the smooth delicious sweet chocolate is everything she isn't supposed to want. May as well enjoy while she can.

And while she can't do anything else!

A noise reaches her, and she leans against the snowglobe's sides, straining her ears. Someone shouting? She can't tell. Wherever they went for their talk, they're far enough away that Atla can't eavesdrop. But the tablet's still on the ground in front of her, and The Inkling Menace took the laptop with him, so they must be able to hear her. Watch her, too, maybe; she isn't sure the NSS (and Deep Cut) can get a good glimpse of her from that angle.

So she doesn't say anything, or try to beat down the glass of the snowglobe with her bare hands. Tempting as it is. She just has to—

That's definitely screaming. And it's not Deep Cut.

A flower blooms in her hearts, and Atla tries not to let it reach sunlight. If they started fighting again, then the NSS—but the image of Agent One, dragging the roller with one hand because she can't use the other one, two black eyes and tentacles yanked loose, is in the front of her thoughts. Hope flowers die, they always die, but—but none of Deep Cut is yelling.

And then it gets quiet, and Atla tries not to hope, but

but then Frye waltzes up, and leans against the snowglobe, and bares her beak, and says, “So you're not Terry?”

No real point. Atla shakes her head.

“Wanna tell us who you are?”

Atla shakes her head again. She can change her mind later, once she figures out a way to get Deep Cut to put on the hypnogoggles.

“We're still getting you out of there,” Shiver says, and Atla jerks her head up to see them approach her from behind Frye. “Big Man's just finishing restraining those,” they make a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Tribble's helping him; he bites.”

“I noticed,” Frye mutters.

“But it'd be easier if we knew which compound your family was in.” Shiver has their stringer loose in one hand, but they put a hand on the string, in case of attack. “Once you're out, we'll probably take you to the Onaga Stronghold; I think Frye wants to visit her family anyway.”

They're still getting her out.

Oh, thank the zapfish. Even if she's a failure, she's—wait, restraining the NSS. She just has to get out of here, go home, or even just text her dad once she's gotten her phone back, if she gets her phone back, and the greatest threats to Octaria will be dealt with forever.

“Thank you,” Atla whispers.

“You don't deserve to be locked up,” Frye says, pulling back on each finger one at a time until it makes Atla wince, then stretching her arms. “Right,” she says, “let's get you outta there.”

Frye backs up a few steps, charging. Her splatana glows, bright, then brighter, still the blue of Shiver's ink from their fight, the blue Atla is right now, until she darts forward and slams her splatana against the glass. It's not quite the same spot she hit it before, but it's close, and makes Atla scramble backwards.

“Wish we could get you some protective gear,” Shiver says.

“This is gonna take a few hits,” Frye says, gearing up to hit again. The third strike is directly between the first two. Still barely leaves a mark.

Five strikes later, the dent is visible, but not much more than that. Frye wipes her forehead. “Fucking shell, did they make this from,” she coughs.

Shiver tosses her a drink. “Take a breather. Hey, your name is... Atla?”

“Atlantis,” she says. “My friends call me Atla.”

“Can I?” Frye opens the drink.

“Sure,” Atla says. “Better you than them.”

“Atla, do you like our music?” Shiver takes a seat on a box and leans against some other boxes, trying to get comfortable.

Atla grins. “Love it! It's a bop every splatfest, with Anarchy Rainbow and me and my friends singing along to Now Or Never.”

“If you think singing'll keep my strength up, Shiv, I'm game,” Frye says.

Atla grins. She gets her own private concert. Maybe they'll do Fins In The Air, just for her.

But the beat Shiver taps out on their legs doesn't sound like that, or Til Depth Do Us Part. And the part Frye hums, strumming on an imaginary guitar, doesn't seem like it, either. Atla bops her head to the beat. Frye gets to her feet and charges her splatana again.

She darts forward, slams it against the side, and Shiver sings, “Ya weni mati mirechurapire juri,”

Frye joins in, “Nu direkerason,”

“Chure chanri nerihyarahi durutera
Donkera dunniherayuradyenna myichengari.”

Frye charges another strike. Atla keeps bopping her head. This is new. And this song is good. Atla floats along, listening to the music, just them singing, sometimes together, sometimes taking turns, soaks into her and she closes her eyes to listen. It's wonderful. It's different.

She wishes things could be different.

Where did that come from?

...and why can't they be?

Frye smacks the snowglobe again. Atla keeps her eyes closed. She's... she's thought about this before, at night, or when taking her headphones off so she could listen to music at splatfests and during turf. They won't always be underground. They won't always be at war. Someday, Octaria is going to take Inkopolis. Someday, she'll live on the surface, as herself, with Amy and her parents, and they'll be known for who they are to the Splatlands...

...and, maybe, they won't be happy about the hypnogoggles? It makes sense for the NSS, of course; they're the enemy, they'll wear it until they die. But Octaria needs to know other places won't attack them, will let them travel, will like them. The Octarian-Salmonid alliance is good, but not all.

And she likes Deep Cut. And Deep Cut likes... okay, they like Amy. But she and Amy are just alike. And they're so concerned about the Octolings...

Something can change. Something HAS to change. Maybe she can change it? Maybe?

She'll never know if she doesn't try.

“You okay?”

Atla blinks her eyes open, because they stopped singing and she didn't even notice, so lost in thought. “I'm fine,” she says. She looks around, at the sparkling snow—did it sparkle before—and the blue blue sky, and aches to see the real one. “I...”

Frye charges up another strike. Darts forward. Slams her splatana into the snowglobe.

“I'm not Terry. But I know him. Her.”

“Him, unless you know something I don't,” says Shiver.

Frye steps back and charges her splatana again.

“Her. She's, uh... she's my twin.”

Frye releases the charge without dashing, and Shiver gets to their feet. “Your twin? Terry never mentioned a twin.

“It's complicated.” Great Zapfish, she'll have to tell them everything. “You know Octaria? The Octoling Society trapped underground?”

“We've heard of it,” Frye says, glancing back at Shiver.

“We came from there. We came to the surface when we were almost ten, five years ago now, with our dad. Because Inkopolis was trying to hurt everyone down there and they thought, with two kids exactly alike, one could sneak into places and see if Splatsville would be willing to help us and no one would know because there'd always be an alibi.” Atla shrugs. “Only, at some point that became pretending to be different people unless Amy was doing something dangerous, so she pretended to be Terry.”

“Is that why your dad's so specist?”

Atla winces. “We've been working on him, but not everyone is like that,” she says. “Honest.”

The looks Frye and Shiver keep exchanging aren't ones Atla can read. “Okay,” says Shiver after a moment. “So you want us to, what, go to war with Inkopolis?”

When Atla nods, Shiver actually takes a step back. Frye steps in front of her. “What about the missing Octolings?”

“They ran away from Octaria, so Octaria took them back,” Atla says. “They only ran because they didn't think we'd make it, but we will. We'll—”

“So Terry's been behind the missing Octolings?” Shiver rests their stringer on the ground.

“Actually, that was my job.”

Frye slams her splatana into the snowglobe again. A crack rips through the glass, and Atla darts forward to touch it. It goes all the way through, a jagged line twice the length of the dent. “What do you mean it was your job?”

Atla looks away from the crack. “Finding them, of course. I'm good at it,” she says, smiling. “And they'll be delighted to help, and—”

Frye slams the splatana into the snowglobe again, a different spot, but it still hits the crack and the crack grows. “Shell,” she says, “so the freaking other gang actually are secret agents?”

What?

“Frye,” Shiver says, and comes close enough to rest a hand on the snowglobe. “Atla,” she says, “they're your enemies, right?”

Shiver nods. “Yeah.”

“And you want our help against them.”

Atla nods again.

“And I'm guessing you, or your dad, has a way to contact the people in Octaria.” Shiver locks eyes with Atla. “To let them know we agree.”

“Shiver—”

“Yeah, yeah, of course we do.” Great Zapfish this is going better than Atla ever imagined. Who would have thought just telling them what's going on would get the help? “So you'll help? You'll really get the splatlands to help against Inkopolis?”

“We're so devoted to helping everyone in the Splatlands that we took in Octolings when they were being squidnapped, why wouldn't we—” Shiver coughs and clears their throat. “Why wouldn't we do extra things to help Octolings? I've always wanted to see the domes. It's half the reason we had Terry searching the desert for us.”

Atla smiles. Of course Amy wouldn't give them away like that. She was being careful, just like Atla was until now.

“We have a way down, course we do,” Atla says. “It's hidden in the house.”

Frye smacks the snowglobe with the splatana again. The crack gets wider. She can almost fit a finger in parts of it. “We've been in your house,” Frye says. “You don't exactly have anywhere to hide anything.

“It's in the basement,” Atla says. “Hidden under some furniture. Dad'll show you. Only, he'll want anyone he talks to to be wearing those goggles. Or shades. Amy gave you some shades. It's, uh, procedure.” People on the surface can be so weird about hypnowear.

“Terry never...” Frye and Shiver look at each other again, their eyes widening even further, and Atla knows Amy never told them about this. Amy was doing things right.

“So, where is Terry right now?”

Atla can't tell them why she's here instead of Amy. They may get the wrong idea, if they know Amy tried to free some criminals. “Underground,” she says. “I started basic training, and I'm a lot more athletic than Amy is, so they decided I should be Terry for a bit and she should learn some things.” She makes a face. “I guess I'm out of practice, since they figured it out.”

Frye sheathes her splatana and pulls out a sea cucumber phone. Presses a button, holds it to her ear. “Big Man?”

Atla's hearts soar. Big Man is going to splat the NSS; they may not be hooked to respawns right now. Or just leave them tied up, for her father to deal with. Or—

“They were telling the truth. Let them go; we've got a meeting with Terry's father.”

What?

“Sorry, Atla,” Shiver says. She puts her stringer into a sheathe on her back. “You stay here where it's safe, okay? We'll talk later.”

“You can't leave me here!” Atla shoves herself against the glass of the snowglobe. “Why are you—”

“Tribble likes them,” Frye says. “Big Man couldn't even tie them up, since he kept removing their ropes.

“Stupid, that a song made you talk, but I guess it was the Squid Sisters' greatest hit,” Shiver says.

That a song—

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

“We won't be gone long,” says Frye. “Betcha anything we'll need some supplies here first. Sit tight, got it?”

No, no, no, no no no nonononononononono.

No.

Atla sits, crushing the food beneath her, as Shiver and Frye race away.

They sang the Inkantation.

Atla heard the Inkantation.

She can't be a good Octarian any more.

Chapter Text

Deserve

“The LED's around the edges of the lenses are on, by the frames, but you shouldn't be able to see them.” DJ Octavio holds out the hypnoshades. “The tracking information, transmitter to security monitoring stations, receiver for sight and sound adjustments, and screen functionality have been turned off.”

“So they'll just be fancy sunglasses,” Agent Marie says. “But you're sure the LED's at the edges won't cause a seizure?”

“Event,” Terry hisses. “I don't have seizures.”

“You collapsed unconscious, swapped forms involuntarily several times, and convulsed.” Terry opens his mouth, but shuts it again at her glare. “I did some research before coming to retrieve you. They could've put you on a training video.”

Terry looks down at the ration bar in his hand. “It can't be a seizure, though,” he says. “They're going to stop someday.”

They have to. His parents promised.

“With medication, maybe,” Agent Marie says. “We can't know for sure until you see a doctor, run some tests to see how to help you. But that has to wait until we're on the surface.”

It's not happening. Terry's not seeing a doctor, especially not an Inkling Surface Doctor. He's had enough tests for one life.

But that doesn't matter now. DJ Octavio will keep him from getting any tests. Right now... “You're sure they're safe for me to wear?”

“Certain as the dark,” he says, holding the shades out to Terry.

He doesn't take them. He keeps his hands in his lap. He knows his tentacles are pressed flat to his head, but discomfort right now is fine. Understandable. Shaking hands is not, that sort of thing would get any good spy caught, and taking deep breaths isn't helping.

Agent Marie puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “If you're okay with me touching your tentacles—”

“No,” Terry says. He likes Agent Marie okay, but she's not family. She's not even really a friend, even though she is right now, and everything's confusing in his head. “I—I want...” he wants Tribble, but Tribble isn't here.

“How many seizures did you have yesterday?” Agent Marie asks.

Terry swallows hard. “A lot. I...” He's still not looking at her, but this isn't easy to say. “I don't remember. I'm supposed to remember.”

“If Callie were here, she'd give you a hug,” Agent Marie says, “but if I hug you right now, I'll start crying, because this whole situation stinks worse than a Sa—than a clamfart.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“You can swear around me,” Terry says. “I won't tell anyone.”

“Nope!” Agent Marie puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “We both have to just hang in there until we get to the surface. Which will be soon. But you need to try to wear these.”

Terry really, really doesn't want to.

“We can try it in steps,” DJ Octavio says. “Agent Two, if you could remove the shades after four seconds, to confirm with Young Mr. Brine that they aren't working?”

“Absolutely.”

“Perfect. Young Brine, when you have the shades on, I will say something. You will be asked to repeat it when taking them off. Do you think you can handle five seconds?”

No. No, he doesn't. But he knows it took longer than that for any events to happen. “O-of course, DJ.”

He holds out the shades again, and this time, Terry steadies his hand enough to take them. Both hands to open them.

One more deep breath, and he puts them on.

“I've never liked eggs.”
“One, two, three, four.” Agent Marie snatches the shades from his face.

Terry blinks. “You really don't like eggs?” He blushes immediately, because that's not what you say to a DJ!

“I do not. Power eggs in particular.” His DJ folds his front tentacles. “After being fully used, they are tasteless, bland, and simultaneously mushy and sand-like. If there's still any energy remaining, the texture improves, but their flavor is simultaneously sour and bitter.”

“There are eggs other than power eggs,” Agent Marie says. “Pigeon is the cheapest, but I prefer duck. Callie got to try snake eggs once and wouldn't shut up about them for weeks. Chicken's all right, I guess, but not worth the price.”

“What sort have I had?” Terry tries to think. “Probably Pigeon, when I had breakfast with De—uh, friends.”

“Pigeon at the hotel, too,” Agent Marie says. “De? You can tell me the names of your friends, you know. You won't get in trouble.”

Terry's startled into laughing. Won't get—she doesn't know his frie, uh, the people he eats with are Deep Cut.

“So, how were the shades?” Agent Marie asks.

Now that they're off, and now that he's laughed, it's easier to relax. “Uh, it was even darker with them on,” he says. “We don't really have much light, but I think it cut the light in half. So I'd be mostly blind.”

“No LED's that could trigger a seizure?”

“Event,” Terry says. “I didn't see any lights.”

“You should practice walking with them,” DJ Octavio says. “The limited vision may make reaching the central munitions collective more difficult.”

“So, you'll have to put them on again,” says Agent Marie. “Would you like me to take them off again, or try it yourself? I don't plan to get separated in the... place, but we can't rely on plans.”

No squidding. Terry didn't plan to be here, or for his DJ to stop being Octaria's DJ. Or ANY of this!

“And I will continue saying things for you to repeat, so you can be certain of reality,” says DJ Octavio.

“Since we don't have any candy, that's the best we can do,” she says. “Ready, Ter?”

Agent Marie holds the broken shades out to him, and Terry takes a deep breath and puts them on. He can barely see anything, in the dim light, and he gets to his feet. Marching, he shouldn't trip over anything, right?

“Your willingness to do this, and bravery in continuing, makes me proud to call you one of my Octarians.”

Terry snatches the shades from his face. “Wh-what?” His tentacles writhe, and he almost drops the shades, covering them. “Y-you didn't...”

“He complimented you,” Agent Marie says, and smirks at him. “And you deserve it.”

Chapter Text

Cracked

“You can't do this!” Atla pounds on the walls of her snowglobe.

“We totally can,” says Agent One. She pulls the icepack off and checks herself in the mirror. “Go in, do a little rescue work...”

“But my dad—”

“If your father has been behind this, then I will be speaking with him,” Shiver says. She folds her fan with a snap, comes close, and raps it on the snowglobe. “You'll be fine here.”

“Ay. (I checked the whole area.)” Big Man comes to rest a fin on the snowglobe, too. “Ay. (We'll come get you once you have Terry.)”

“Wait, you guys are coming to get him?” Agent Four asks. “I kinda thought one of us would—”

“You think for a second we're letting a bunch of stupid Inkopolitans take in splatlanders, you're nuts.” Atla can't see Frye until Shiver and Big Man step back. “Terry's our friend, and if that's his sister,” she jerks her head at Atla, “we're taking her in, too.”

“We can discuss this later,” says The Inkling Menace. “First order of business, you need to find that kettle. The goggles might be trapped, I'll explain it if you want, but me and Eight can disable them. You wear them, get their father to show us the kettle, then we'll go down and you three can—”

“We're going with you (Ay!).” All three members of Deep Cut speak at once.

The Inkling Menace rolls his eyes. “Fine. Just... come on, we'll get you set up.”

Atla slams her hands against the wall of the snowglobe again. The crack digs into her palms. “You can't—” the crack?

“We're going.” Shiver breaks away from the rest to rest her hand on the snowglobe, a bit above Atla's. “We're getting every Octoling who doesn't want to be there out, and then you, and Terry, can have a long talk about what, exactly, has been going on. Who's carrying Tribble?”

Atla bites on her lip, so hard it tingles and goes numb, but she doesn't let go. She just watches, glaring at them all, the crack—from Frye beating her splatana against the snowglobe, from Deep Cut sneakily interrogating her and she fell for it—digging into her palms.

They superjump out fast, one after the other, though Agent One and Agent Four and Big Man all stop to wave at her before they go, and then she's alone in Alterna. No sound but the wind and her breathing.

Atla drops into swim form, climbs the glass, and presses against the crack.

She can't fit through. Not quite. There's only the one crack that goes all the way through, so she can't ooze properly, and it's thin and not long enough. She needs to make it bigger.

She settles on the floor of the snowglobe to think, staring at it. They weakened it enough, it might succumb if she beats it with her fists, contorts until she can kick at it, but it might not and that would take too long. She doesn't have much in here. Several bags of popcorn and potato chips, some empty; a couple protein bars; the tray they gave her for lunch, thin plastic with a cardboard tray and wooden chopsticks and all the sushi Frye got for her still on it.

Atla's humming. She's humming The Inkantation, and she forces herself to stop. Her jaw tingles as it wakes up, she bit it pretty hard earlier, and she focuses on that. No humming. Not that song.

She's a good Octarian. She is, she is. And she wants out. She wants to see the sky.

She wants to see her father and her Elites and report back and stop this. And let them know that Tribble isn't loyal to Octaria or the alliance, since he's happily going with them... or maybe he'll alert her father so they don't trick him. That could be it.

Widen a crack. Widen a crack. Atla closes her eyes. She learned about this.

They all learn about cracks, in school.

The domes are old. The buildings are crumbling. The first sign something will go is cracks, and dust. Small ones, big ones. Surface ones and deep ones. She still remembers squishing along, right behind Amy because their Splatoons were arranged alphabetically until their first assessment, and up to the pillars to look at the cracks. And then on their test, they were given rocks with cracks in them...

And a superficial crack doesn't go all the way through. Atla opens her eyes. This one goes all the way through. It's wider in the middle than the edges. To widen a crack, you can apply pressure—either hard and fast or over a long period of time—and one way to do that is to put something inside and try to force it bigger.

What does she have with her?

A lot of Inkling Junk Food. Her clo—the clothing the NSS made her wear. And the wrappers.

She can use this. She thinks.

The wrappers for the things Atla ate earlier are scattered on the bottom of the snowglobe; she grabs one and starts folding it. Rolling it up, tight and tiny, until it's as small as she can make it. It fits in the crack, ends poking out, right in the center; she pokes the chopstick through, it just fits, and shoves it as far to the side as she can manage.

Another protein bar wrapper. A chip bag. Two popcorn bags. Each gets folded as tiny as she can manage and shoved in the crack, using the new ones to press against the one already in there, pounded again and again tighter and tighter by the chopstick, and when the sixth one goes in, there's a sharp pop and the crack spreads.

Holy squit. Holy squit. Atla presses a tentacle against the crack and it can't fit through, not yet, but it's a bigger gap in the center and she shoves the trash further into the crack so hard the chopstick cracks.

Squit.

She has one left. One other chopstick. And a bunch more trash.

Atla's more careful. She works on the other side of the crack this time, folding and pushing and pounding, not pushing as hard on this chopstick as she did on the other, which is still wedged in there. She opens a bag of popcorn and empties it on the bottom of the snowglobe, wasting food but this is more important.

She's humming again.

She drops the bag she's rolling and tugs on her tentacles. “Why do I keep doing that?” she asks the snow.

The snow has no answer.

Chapter Text

Distracted

Terry is Atla now. He's Atla. He's— “You're sure this will work?”

“It's our best shot,” Agent Marie says. She checks her octoshot and ink tank, turns squid, and lifts her tentacles to him.

Terry scoops her up. “I just, I don't know. Octarian Armor doesn't hide much.”

“Ink tanks hide plenty.” Agent Marie grabs his shoulder and hoists herself over, onto his back; she's cool against his back as she wiggles between his ink tank and skin. “We're both Octarian Pink, and we've established that the hypnoshades interfere with people's ability to see well. We've got a good chance of sneaking me in.”

“But...” Terry doesn't like it. He turns to Octavio. “Great DJ, won't we need you to pilot the octobot king?”

“Piloting the Octobot King requires basic knowledge of DJing, yes, but Agent Two has enough knowledge to get it out of the building,” DJ Octavio replies. “Provided, of course, she doesn't try to use any weaponry or the fists; I doubt she could handle such complex maneuvers. Remember to take a canteen for authenticity.”

“You say that like Marina wasn't overjoyed to teach me how to use turntables at those concerts,” Agent Marie mutters. She shifts against Terry's back as he secures the canteen.

One last thing to try. “But, Agent Marie, you glow.”

“I'll be glowing pink, same as your ink,” Agent Marie says. “Which will be easier to ignore. And your mom couldn't tell I was glowing, could she?”

“You were further away!”

Agent Marie taps his back with a tentacle. “Stop arguing. We're doing this. Let me know if you feel a seizure coming on.”

“It's an event,” Terry hisses, but he's lost and he knows it. He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “You'll be waiting behind the building?”

“And ready to jump in,” DJ Octavio promises. “Now march, soldier.”

Terry marches. He puts the shades on, even though he can't see well, and goes straight forward. The road is just ahead. He can tell when he's on it, even though none of the lights flick on, because the ground gets smooth and perfect under his feet. Turn to the right. Forward.

It's the third building down. A light flicks on, and Terry blinks; the broken shades make the light half the brightness, a glow not much brighter than Agent Marie's. And he can't see Agent Marie's glow at all. It makes him feel a bit better.

He marches on, out of the first light and into the next one. Head high; eyes forward. Fifty steps between the lights. Atla has her head high, and he's Atla right now. The light they need flickers on.

“You remember what to say?” Agent Marie whispers.

“Of course, Elite,” he says, and stumbles over his own feet. He isn't supposed to—

“Just checking,” she says. “Tap me if you need a reminder.”

Since she's on his back, it'll be easy, but he doesn't need the help. He marches up to the door and knocks, eight times fast.

An Elite opens it and looks down at him. Terry salutes, every inch the perfect soldier, the perfect Atla, and doesn't wait for her to ask because Atla always jumps in first, “Atlantis Brine, on the request of DJ Sessel Brine, checking on the status of the Octobot Queen.”

“Has she officially decided to change its name, then?” asks The Elite.

Terry salutes again. “Octobot King, sorry.” Atla explains too much, so he adds, “I'm just exci—” he snaps his mouth shut.

She chuckles. “Not enough shift-drops to completely make you mind your tongue yet, I see.” She steps back from the door. “I imagine this is more of the busywork she had planned, to prevent you from possibly tracking down your twin, Trainee Brine.”

His mom planned—and thought Atla would—really? But Atla's a good Octarian!

Doesn't matter right now. Terry marches in. Head high, shoulders back. One hand on his octoshot.

The Elite puts a hand on his shoulder, and Terry doesn't flinch, even though she's almost touching Agent Marie. “Is that a new model of ink tank?”

Terry focuses on keeping his tentacles from pressing to his head, on keeping them loose and relaxed, the ends twitching with excitement. In the Hypnodevice Storage Facility, his tentacles almost gave him away. That can't happen here.

If she's asking, she doesn't know. Would he? “It's the ink tank I was given, Elite,” Terry, as Atla, says. “Maybe they're having me test a new one? Twin testing turns torment to triumph.”

She lets go of his shoulder and takes a step in front of him, to look down at him. Terry keeps his tentacles loose, his shoulders back, his head up and looking at her as relaxed and proud as Atla would be if she were really doing this. Which, strange place with an Elite staring at him, is a little nervous, so it's okay that his hearts are pounding, that he can't keep his tentacles moving.

“Have they spoken to you about your sister yet, Trainee Brine?” asks the Elite.

Terry, as Atla, salutes. “Spoken to me, Elite?” he asks, and his voice wobbles. “What do I need to know?”

“Only that you shouldn't look for her, since those agents are on the loose,” the Elite says. Too quickly. And she stops meeting his eyes. “Do you know where she is?”

“Safe,” Terry says. They won't hurt Atla. Wait, but she thinks he's—

“Exactly,” the Elite says. “Given what she's done, she's helping Octaria in a new way.”

Wait.

Wait.

They think Atla doesn't know that he walked into the dark, and

“The Octobot King is being serviced in the largest garage, which has a third floor entrance for non-workers,” the Elite says. “Would you like directions, or for me to escort you?”

The Octobot King is big enough that it must have an exit to the outside somewhere in that garage. And they don't need more eyes on them. “Can you direct me to the stairs, Elite? I'll find my way from there.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure a bottom-tier soldier, not even finished basic training, is ready for that level of independence?”

“Of course I am!” Terry snaps, without hesitation. He reported Atla for being too independent. He's why she's wearing hypnoshades, and he hates it. But then he stops, and looks down, and grabs a tentacle and plays with the end, because that's a nervous habit for half the Octolings he's ever known. He was supposed to say something. He was supposed to say something! “Um. Sorry.” He reaches back and taps Agent Marie.

“Inspection,” she whispers, so quiet he may have imagined it.

Right! Inspection! Terry looks up, back at the Elite, and salutes again. “Sorry,” he repeats. “Mom gave me a list of things to look for, and she wanted someone to, uh, to inspect the whole building. Nothing for the best of Octaria! And people hide things from Elites they may show me.”

“Very astute,” she says. “Though DJ Brine should know the hypnoshade monitors would be alerted to any breaches in security or conduct.”

“How many shades do they watch the input on?” Terry asks. “Ten? Twenty?”

“Eighty standard Octarians per operative,” she says. “I'm in training to be one myself, the first hour of every day. Our few surface workers with hypnoshades have one monitor for every eight people wearing it, and occasional high profile cases have one-on-one attention or entire teams of monitors and adjustors.”

That's a lot. But, “I doubt anyone watching eighty screens can notice everything,” Amy says. “And I'm surface, mostly. Or was. So there's a better chance of them noticing things if it's me.”

It's not. He's not Atla; the shades are broken. But it gets her smiling at him again. “Then you should find the stairs yourself, and explore the building in the meantime.” She salutes him with a tentacle, one suited to someone lower than her in rank. “Keep you distracted while DJ Brine takes care of things.”

Chapter Text

Exploration

Despite the Elite not giving Terry directions, the building isn't hard to navigate. The hallways are shaped like a large U, with stairs at each corner; Terry needs to pretend he's inspecting the place for his mom, so he doesn't take them yet. He goes further down the hall instead, where there's a single door halfway down the hall.

The door leads to a large workshop, almost like a garage, where various... Terry's eyes widen. Flooders! They're building flooders in here. There's a large door to the outside, and a ceiling taller than the one in the hallway, and catwalks so people can get above the flooders to attach things properly. It's mostly manned by twintacle troopers, but a handful of Octolings are also in the room.

Terry ducks out before anyone can say anything and closes the door behind him. “Looks like they're gearing up for war,” he whispers.

“Why are you—”

“Speak Octarian, if they hear something and understand they won't pay attention, but anything that isn't Octarian attracts attention.” There are no other doors on this hall, so Terry heads for the stairs. “Better to be heard and not understood than be suspicious. There's always something you're not qualified to know.”

“I never think in that,” Agent Marie says.

Terry flushes. He didn't know he knew something Agent Marie didn't!

The hallway up the stairs has two doors on it. Terry opens one, to find a workshop, full of people sketching designs and patterns on metal, on precious paper, on blackboards. There are four stairs leading up into the room, which explains the other room's high ceilings. This is where engineers work, combat engineers probably, designing new weapons. He ducks out.

The door at the end of the hall reveals a metalworking shop. No doors, no windows. A massive, coal-burning fireplace in the corner, with a chimney leading out of the room, makes him cover his face and step away.

There are no doors in the center hallway, and the hall on the far side is another large workshop, this one with stairs down; probably below it are more workshops with low ceilings. They're making transport ships, things that can fly, so they'll have no problems leaving.

Terry leaves again and goes for the stairs again. “They be plans war,” Agent Marie says.

“With you out of the picture, and Atla fooling the rest of the NSS, they think Inkopolis is undefended.” Terry stops on the stairs and listens; no sound at the top, and he just checked the bottom. He shrugs off his ink tank—and Agent Marie—and kneels to speak quieter. “Agent Four and Agent Eight, sure, but I don't think anyone's ever met Agent Eight. Eight is just a rumor.”

“And Agent Four isn't scare much?” Agent Marie asks, turning into herself to sit on the steps beside him.

“Not without someone who knows what they're doing,” he says. “Four is scary because everyone knew you were giving her directions, and you were enraged because of Agent One.”

Agent Marie snorts. “I do not think Octaria know us much.”

“There's all kinds of information about all of you,” Terry says. She doesn't know this? "There's stuff I collected, sure, because that was my job, but most was gotten by our Inkopolis agents. But we knew who you and Agent One were before the second Great Zapfish kidnapping, shell, within a month of The Octomurderer's escape.” He realizes what he said and flushes. “Uh, not that—”

Agent Marie giggles. It's the last sound Terry expects right now. “When we be finished here, you need say all to me,” she says. She turns back to swim form and grabs onto his ink tank. “We have job do.”

She's right. Terry pulls his ink tank on again, carefully, trying not to squish her. “You good?”

“Let's bread.”

It makes him laugh. He's going to have to help her with her Octarian at some point, but right now, it helps him relax as he heads for the top of the stairs.

There's a door leading to the center of the building this time, when there weren't any on the other floors, and he takes a deep breath and opens the door.

He steps out onto a catwalk, with an Octoling at either end checking things on computers. The Octobot King is in the center of the room, resting on some sort of stand, the top of it level with his knees. An Octoling is crouched in the center, where DJ Octavio sits, fiddling with something below the console; another is lying on their back beneath it, only their legs sticking out. A third stands on top of it, and she looks over at him. “Clearance?”

Terry salutes with a tentacle. “Trainee Atlantis Brine, on special duty for DJ Brine to check the status of the Octobot King, and other research in the building.”

“Guess I won the bet,” says one of the Octolings on the catwalk, and Terry turns to him and salutes again. “Does DJ Brine know the measurements needed?”

Terry has no idea. “That's one of the things I should check,” he says.

“Stairs to the second level are on that end,” he says, pointing. “You're gonna want to talk to Magma.”

Terry salutes again and heads for the stairs, trying to walk the way Atla does: head high, looking all around, absolutely not looking at her feet. Every Octarian stairway has stairs the same height, same width apart, so he doesn't need to look at his feet, but everyone's looking at him now and it's making him nervous.

Even though Agent Marie's covered by the inktank, it feels like she's burning on his back. Even with her inkredible shooting skills, there are too many people in here, too well armed. If they try anything, they'll be splatted on the spot.

Once he reaches the second level, an Octoling with a helmet, huge apron, and heavy gloves waves him over. “DJ Brine wanted an update?”

“Yes, Elite,” he says, saluting.

“Good call! Not everyone realizes Elites can't wear their seaweed when doing electrical work.” He throws an arm around Terry's shoulder, and he does not flinch, because that means this Elite wants to take him, Atla, under his tentacle. Could lead to promotions or extra privileges. “We're finalizing plans to refit the turntables with dials and buttons: one will steer, the other select attacks, with the buttons in the centers to unleash either the jets or the attacks.”

That's actually really inked. “Can I see?” He presses against Elite Magma and wraps one tentacle around his back; if Elite Magma hadn't thrown an arm over his shoulder first, this would be way too familiar. “And—and can I sit in the DJ chair?”

He laughs, and pulls Terry along, and before he knows it he's in the cockpit, where there is no chair so he has to kneel on the ground. Agent Marie shifts against his back, peeking, as Elite Magma explains, “The key to keeping it moving now is a steady beat on both turntables. Full circles to lift off, then pulses to hover. The weapons are triggered through slight variations in both pattern and pressure.”

Terry hopes Agent Marie understands this. “So this is where DJ Oct—uh, ex-DJ, er...”

Elite Magma chuckles and gives Terry another one-armed hug. “And where DJ Brine, your mother, will sit when she leads us in taking Inkopolis.”

“I'll tell her all about it,” he promises.

“I advise you ask her to stop by when she can, tomorrow if possible; there are a few things we want her input on, like what form she'd prefer to drive it in.” He lets Terry go and hops out of the cockpit, holding out a hand to help Terry down. “You should go wait by the door before you leave; you won't want to miss this.”

Terry nods, and that's all he's gonna get, so he goes back up all the stairs and waits by the door. Elite Magma gets in the Octobot King again.

It starts up, lights on the stage glowing, and Terry's jaw drops. He saw it before, but up close, indoors, it's different. Elite Magma's pressing on the turntables, moving them, and it rises, and the lights on the stage start to flash.

His stomach clenches. He closes his eyes, and the broken shades aren't enough to keep the lights from reaching him. He knows what's going to happen.

The flashing stops, and he makes himself applaud, then wave to Elite Magma, then leave.

In the hallway, he looks around, then darts to the farthest corner he can. “Agent Marie—”

“What?

There's another door to the center garage, but no others on this hall, and a wave of dizziness hits so hard he falls to his knees. “Get off,” he hisses. He pulls off his inktank, then lies down. “I'm going to—”

Chapter Text

Inspection

“The eighth lesson Octarian Language was the kitchen. In the kitchen there are many dishes. There are forks, knives, and spoons, known as cutlery. There are also plates and bowls. Glasses hold liquid.”

Terry whimpers.

“You here now?” Agent Marie says. Something touches his tentacles, and he presses into it; it's soothing, whatever it is, and as it strokes down his head, it feels better. He aches, and he's... on his side? Why is he on his side? “You record, no, restart, no... Inklish?”

Terry can't remember why not. “Sure.” His head hurts, and his throat is so, so dry. And isn't it bright here?

“You had another seizure,” Agent Marie says. She scoots around so he can see her face, but stays sitting on the floor. “Only lasted about a minute, but just like last time, you seem kinda dazed coming out of it. I knew I was supposed to get you in the recovery position, and they advised talking until you responded.”

“Octarian lessons?” he asks.

She forces a smile. “Hey, it's what I could remember in Octarian. You want Callie for this stuff, she'd start translating the lines from her last show. If it was Inklish, I could do a mean Squidspeare recitation, but I thought you'd prefer the Octarian.”

He does. He really does.

Where's Tribble? He wants Tribble.

“Tribble isn't here,” she says, and Terry realizes he said that. “Are you okay? I know, last time, you were thirsty after the seizure.”

“Event,” he says.

“Seizure.” She puts a hand on his upper arm and squeezes, and it feels nice, and he looks up into her face and sees clear tracks where tears slipped through the dust. “Gonna be a bit until you can transform, right? You won't need the shades again; I took them off so you wouldn't break them. We need to sneak out of here.”

Need to sneak—they're in the central munitions building.

Terry stretches, moving his arms and legs, they're sore and a bit stiff but okay. Agent Marie offers him a hand sitting up, and he takes it. “We can't sneak out,” he says. “They expect to see me leave through the front door.”

“Great. Just great.” She sighs and puts a hand on her octoshot. “Are you going to be up for fighting? The Octobot King's too well guarded, so I'll force our way out, and we can—”

“No,” Terry says. There's a thought itching in the back of his head, and he closes his eyes. “We... there's gotta be a way. There's always another way.”

“Let me know when you think of it.”

Terry puts his head in his hands, grabs his tentacles, and thinks. “We can walk out and come back tomorrow,” he says, “since they expect to see Mom. Once I'm up for standing. But... what have we seen here today?”

“The Octobot King, which—”

“Not in that room,” Terry says. “In the others.”

Agent Marie pauses, and Terry can feel the weight of her eyes on him. “An engineering room, where they were drafting designs,” she says, and she almost but not quite sounds sarcastic, like she's holding herself back. “A metalworking shop, where—”

“They had a chimney,” Terry says, and he can see it now, in his head. “Agent Marie, if I were going to inspect that, really inspect it, what sort of things would I ask?”

“Wait, what? Why—”

“We can leave here, like they expect, and lie in wait until tonight,” he says. “And once everyone's gone, climb in through the chimney.”

He opens his eyes to see Agent Marie open her mouth, then close it. Again, and she pushes her hand against her chin, thinking. “You'll have to check it out from the bottom, to make sure it's an actual chimney, not pipes or something convoluted we can't go down,” she says.

Terry snorts. As if they'd use precious metal for pipes down here!

“And it would probably still be hot, even after a few hours,” she says.

“Not if I invent a problem with it,” he says. “They'll turn it off soon as I say, and it'll be cooled down by the end of the day. Can I have the shades?”

Agent Marie doesn't stop staring, but a slow grin crosses her face, crooked and reaching all the way up her eyes. “Say it has cracks,” she says. “You say you're supposed to make sure everything's in working order, because who knows when the last DJ properly inspected things—”

“That wasn't high on the council's priority,” Terry says. “I think Mom argued with them once or twice, because good equipment makes for good intelligence. But her and Elite Wasabi always got overruled. Shades, please?”

“You good to walk?” she says. “We can do this now.”

Terry gets to his feet. He wobbles a little, being in girl form feels strange, and it suddenly hits him that he's Amy, he's been Amy all day. He wants to be himself again.

He can be himself tomorrow.

Agent Marie hands him the shades at last, turns squid, and climbs back onto his ink tank. Terry shrugs it on. He puts on the shades, wobbles, and has to put a hand on the wall to go down the stairs. “Do you remember what floor that was on?”

“Second,” she says. It's good that she's speaking Octarian again. “Remember your canteen.”

Right. He only has it because DJ Octavio insisted, but he unhooks it and takes a sip. Seltzer, the bubbles only the barest hint of fizz, tickle his throat on the way down; he prefers juice, he doesn't like bubbles, but he feels a lot better. No one ever told him why his events make him so thirsty, or why he has headaches after them.

He straightens up as he reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns the direction Agent Marie directs. He is Atla. He closes his eyes, and opens them.

So he's Atla, and throws open the door to the workshop, raising one tentacle into a perfect salute as he marches in, steps high on the stairs, and waits for everyone to be looking at him. “Trainee Atlantis Brine, here on the orders of DJ Brine,” Terry announces.

“What are your orders?” asks one of the metalworkers, a twintacle trooper. He puts down the pliers and wipes his face with one tentacle, leaving a streak of dirt. “We haven't heard of anything.”

“It's a surprise inspection,” Terry says, being as proud as Atla is, as he used to be of his mom. “DJ Brine has wanted to ensure all military facilities are in peak condition for a while, and has the authority to ensure it. I'm supposed to check all the walls and ceilings and tables and—”

“Darkness bless DJ Brine,” says one Octoling, with absolute feeling. “Me and my troopers have been complaining for months. Do you see this?”

Terry marches into the room, over to him, and he puts a hand on Terry's shoulder and leads him over to the table. “Wobbly, uneven legs,” he says, bending over and kicking out a book holding it steady. “They're giving civilians first crack at the supplies, while we make use of old, broken equipment. And the floors!”

“Can we stop early, boss?”

“Absolutely, Twintin,” he says. “Put out the fire, let Soldier Brine look at everything.”

This is too easy. Isn't this too easy? Terry waits for the fire to go out and looks at the floors in the meantime. Now that he's looking at it, they're full of superficial cracks, just surface level but signs that there could be a collapse if things aren't taken care of soon. He can't see any in the walls, but he pretends he does; with the shades on, they're too dark.

“Chimney's in working order, as far as we can tell,” says the Octoling, as Terry almost lies on his back to peer up it. “Too much smoke, at times. We really need someone to clean it out. That would be the job for a trainee, to clean it and check for cracks.”

“Why a trainee?”

“You lot are a bit smaller, easier to pull out,” he says. “You'll have to go in with brushes and other cleaning supplies, get all up inside. Best time would be overnight, when the chimney's cool.”

Terry could do that, but he wrinkles his nose. He just wants to nap, and when he pulls himself from the chimney, he closes his eyes. “I'll mention that to DJ Brine tonight,” he says. “She may want it done immediately. Can you work without the fire for the rest of the day?”

“Easily,” he replies. “Thanks, Soldier Brine.”

Terry blushes. He doesn't know if Atla would, but he can't help it. Until he met the old Cap'n, until he joined the NSS, hearing that was all he wanted. “I'm going to be an Elite, someday,” he says.

“I'm sure you will.”

With that done, Terry says goodbye and leaves. Agent Marie pokes him as soon as the door's closed. “Do that work?”

“It better,” he says. Now that he doesn't have to be Atla, for a few moments, he puts a hand on the wall. “I'd better make an appearance in the other rooms, too, at least one, so it looks good.” He yawns and rubs his eyes. “Great DJ, I'm exhausted.”

“You can rest soon,” Agent Marie says. “We get out of here, we go back to Octavio, and you take nap until all the lights go out.”

“Then we come back?”

“Then we come back.”

Chapter Text

Sky

The tip of Atla's tentacle fits all the way through. She turns to swim form, clings to the side of the snowglobe, and slips out.

Freedom!

Now she can superjump to the surface, and see the sky, and

Wait.

The sky doesn't matter. That's an inkling way of thinking, a deserter way.

Atla runs for the superjump pad anyway. She pauses to grab a weapon and belt it to her side. Since they're right there, she also grabs a few candy bars and drinks—she'll need them—and launches herself up, up, up, to the crater.

The sky is full of colors. The sun's low on the horizon, not even a full circle, and stretching out from it are purple and orange and gold, painting the sky. Where there's blue, it's so pale, it's almost white. There's a cloud up there, just one, all that they ever get this time of year, brilliant yellow and orange on the bottom and the deepest, most pure dark orange elsewhere, and the sand glows.

The lights shift, little by little, sand glinting and gleaming, the cloud changing to a darker yellow and the sky shimmering through shades of blue, and Atla sits, right there, in the sand, and watches. She's seen the sky of course, she's seen it for years, and it's never been special, never been anything that wonderful, nothing anyone's ever thought to talk about, but this?

This is the sky Atla never heard about and has never looked for, and she's stunned by its glory. By the way the light changes, by the colors.

She doesn't know how long she sits there, staring. When the sky's faded to deep purples, she blinks, and blinks again. Her cheeks are wet; her tentacles relaxed. How long has she been here?

She was supposed to be helping Octaria!

She swipes the back of a hand across her face, one move to clear away the tears, and dives down the drain to Splatsville. It's almost full dark here, and she has to run to catch the last bus of the night.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What was she thinking?

Atla emerges in Splatsville. It's full dark here, but there are still plenty of people about; all of them seem to stare at her.

She forgot to cover her tentacles.

She drops back down the drain without thinking, back to the crater, and emerges back into the crater's twilight, shaking. She can't go through Splatsville. She's guaranteed to be followed. And then... well, it'll be bad.

Focus. Focus. She's an Octarian, DJ Brine's daughter and an accomplished covert ops agent. There has to be some way she can get back home without anyone seeing. If only she could jump the distance...

That's when Atla remembers she spent hours and hours, in the desert by her house, practicing unassisted superjumps. Trainer Nori was praising her, even; she was getting within five feet of the target, even when it was a mile off.

And in the desert, even in the twilight, you can see a mile.

Her family's home is west of Splatsville, about twenty miles away. The crater is south of Splatsville, about fifty miles. A straight shot between them is maybe thirty miles. Thirty jumps.

And, as the sky darkens, the lights of Splatsville are easy to see. Just like at home, any light shines in the darkness. The dimmest light is the greatest. They will be led to victory, and the surface, by the glow of their shades.

Atla looks northwest, to a spot as far as she can see, free of rocks or cactuses, drops into swim form, and leaps. Twist in the air to ready for landing, which you don't do automatically without a target or a jump pad. Set tentacles for landing on unstable surfaces, different from how she has to land when she's in turf and knows it.

She lands hard on sand and skids a bit, but pops up into walk form smiling. She brushes some sand off her knees, uses the crater behind her (that old shack just in view) and Splatsville on her right to triangulate, and leaps again.

She comes down harder, on some rocks she couldn't see, and yelps. Stays in swim form, checks her tentacle. It's sore, but not bleeding.

She has to keep going. She may be too late to help her father already, but she could still help Octaria. She has to. She needs to.

She doesn't know what to do, if she's not a good Octarian.

By the fifth leap, she's starting to pant. She's tired, and hungry; lunch, all those candy bars, was a long time ago. And candy bars don't fill half as well as nutrient bars, even if they taste amazing.

She turns into herself and looks around. There's no oasi in sight, and she left the crater behind but she still has Splatsville as a guide. She'll leap until she finds a place to sit, or until it gets too dark to navigate by Splatsville alone, and sit to eat. She knows what the stars look like above her house, she'll use those; better that than getting lost out here. Better a little late and ready for a sneak attack than to never arrive, ambushed by the NSS... or something.

She can't really be ambushed by the NSS now.

It takes six more leaps, and her stomach's trying to chew itself up, before it's too dark to see where she'd land. It may be gang territory, but if anyone comes after her, she'll jump straight for Splatsville, dark or no. She puts herself in walk form, pulls out a candybar, and starts to walk.

She's on her third candybar, and sprayed herself opening a soda, when the stars come out, and she stops in her tracks to stare.

She didn't remember they were so beautiful.

Chapter Text

Stealth

Atla knows the desert around her house, even by moonlight. She's gone through all her food, and only has a few swallows of seltzer left, and she's tired and bruised and scratched, but if she recognizes it then she's close enough to run home.

She's too late. No, she's not too late, she can't be too late. She got here as fast as she could. She

She's humming that song and she smacks herself right across the face, twice, a third time, again and again until it's out of her head, and keeps running.

Deep Cut and the NSS got here before her. She knows that. If they splatted her father, then he'll be underground, the emergency respawn for surface-only operatives, and they'll be putting up a defense. That's what happened, they're already in a tight fight, and her job will be to guard the exit so the cowards can't escape.

Her house comes into view, and Atla trips over her own feet. Tents are set up outside it, dozens upon dozens of them, and she slams hard into the sand and slides.

Ow. Oh, that hurts.

Stealth mission. Atla doesn't do stealth missions, not really, that's always been Amy's job, but she doesn't get up. She spits out the sand in her mouth and crawls, as low to the ground as she can, freezing whenever she sees movement... which isn't often.

The shooter she stole is bright yellow, but she gets it out, holds it in one hand as she crawls forward. She reaches the edge of the house and stops to listen.

There's no noise inside. No voices.

Nothing.

Not for eight slow breaths, and not for eight more.

Atla crawls forward, presses her back against the wall, slides on her butt below the window. This would be easier in swim form but in swim form she can't shoot. She needs the weapon.

But there's no noise from in front of the house, and the moonlight isn't bright enough to make out any tracks, and maybe the NSS decided to wait until morning before confronting her father?

That's speculation, and speculation gets Octarians splatted. She was trained for a reason, not to speculate, and even though this is Amy's job, not hers, Atla slides the fingers of her free hand under the door and pushes, very gently. The door opens the tiniest crack. And with her fingers under it, it doesn't drag against the ground, now that it's moving.

It hasn't closed properly in ages but it's good for this one thing. She's going to get into the room and if her father is here, instead of at work, he'll congratulate her and

“Who's there?”

Atla freezes, the door barely cracked, only her fingers under it. That's not her father.

Her hearts pound, and she can't breathe. Are there footsteps? Is someone coming to investigate?

“No one's there, Eight, just the door opening again. Captain, have you finished?... great, next floor's the ground floor. One, don't let Deep Cut handle tying them up alone; I don't know about their knots, and we can't risk an escape or a respawn letting them know before we're ready.”

One of the Agents.

Atla eases the door open more, bit by bit, until she can slide forward and put her eyes to the crack.

The first thing she sees is a cephalopod cage, locked shut, active, with electricity running through the bars. The second thing she sees is her father inside, in swim form, glaring out, and when he sees her he presses a tentacle to his beak.

Atla doesn't make a sound. She flicks her eyes, taking in the main room as well as she can.

Someone's taken all the chairs from the kitchen and moved them into the living room. Agent Four sits in one, her back to the door, her father's cage on the ground to her left. She's using a folding table as a desk, with a laptop on it, and is clicking through screens and scanning what she sees and, “Eight, keep a close eye on... Shiver? Two Octolings won't raise alarms, not if you have your tentacles correct, and you two can look around. I'll be keeping an eye out, but you've been down there before; you've got priority.”

By the zapfish.

Atla eases the door open a little more, just a little, and shifts, up on her elbows, raises her bright yellow shooter

Her father motions for her to stop.

Atla lowers the shooter. She doesn't want to. But he's pointing at the door to the kitchen, the kitchen with the trapdoor under the table, with the kettle down there the NSS must know about and use. He wants her to leave him behind, to go down, and... and if he doesn't want her to fight here, now, then he doesn't want her to fight them there, either.

She needs to find and warn command.

She lowers the shot and tucks it away, then turns octo. She waits until Agent Four starts talking again to squeeze in, and makes her way across the floor, as fast as she can with no sudden movements, freezing with every silence.

The NSS is in Octaria. The NSS is taking out the guards. The NSS is going to free all the deserters and take them back to the surface, where they can see the sky, and Atla nearly growls at herself because the sky doesn't matter. What matters is Octaria.

What matters is her father in a cage, likely being held for questioning, telling her not to do anything about it, and Atla has to just swim by, dragging herself forward by the suckers on her tentacles because that makes less noise, into the kitchen where the table is on its side and the trap door is open.

She climbs down the ladder in swim form, tentacle over tentacle, and straight to the kettle where she emerges into herself on the empty rooftop shaking and dusty and sneezes six times in a row, and tears stream down her cheeks but she wipes them away because it's just the dust, just the sneezing, and if the NSS is inside they'll stop her so she has to superjump down.

She lands on the road, she can tell by how flat it is, in darkness. Not even the lights flick on as she goes by.

And against every protocol but the most dire emergency, Atla marches to the first door she can manage, the first building by the prison, and pounds on it until someone opens it, a light blaring on overhead and the Elite's angry from her seaweed to her toes, but before she can say anything Atla bursts out, “We're under attack. Atlantis Brine, surface unit, Sub-Prime Elite Brine is held for questioning, the NSS is in the prison.”