Chapter Text
The situation was unreal. Even though her shock had died down long ago, she still felt a bit weird when thinking about it. Looking at the big sleeping body that was way taller than her and any other inkling or octoling, with the long dark… fur? That fell from her head all the way to her lower back. How did she and her refugee end up like this?
Alright. Sneaking into the octo canyon wasn’t that hard at all, it’s a bit weird how it is still a restricted area despite the octarians not being a threat to inkopolis now. Good thing is that the octo canyon should be completely abandoned now so there’s really no reason to be worried. Just force a couple doors, find the armory and get out.
She is Zuri, an inkling that worked as a weapon designer for professional turf war teams. Many players like their weapons to be better adapted to themselves, or some quality of life changes such as softer triggers, a different scope or slightly modified ink pressure on each shot. She loves her work and her guns, so when she though in the opportunity of getting her hands on some octarian weapons, she just couldn’t get her mind off of it.
She had heard some rumors saying that the octarian bases were built on top or near of human structures, which beyond ridiculous. Barely anything is known about humans, supposedly they built many things that now are only ruins and that’s it. Many inklings don’t believe humans were real in the first place, believing the ruins might come from other sources or even being made up by the government. Human bones were supposedly been found but it didn’t gave much information either, just a couple bones that didn’t even form a fraction of a recognizable skeleton. And then again there are people that doesn’t believe bones are real “how is anything gonna move with long heavy sticks inside their bodies?” Some of them argue, and it was a fair question. To summarize, even with the evidence that is currently present, there’s still a great debate whether humans existed or not.
Regardless of who was here before, she’s not here for that. Zuri soon finds the main octarian base and with help of a well placed ink bomb, she is able to blast one the back doors open. It might have not be the smartest decision, considering the deafening sound of rumble coming after the door was sent somewhere inside the facility, but she had no other method of breaking in.
Alright. Let’s hope nothing important collapsed.
Zuri walked inside through the rubble and yellow ink she just caused, and just as expected the rest of the building was also filled with rubble. Holes through the floor and ceiling that let you see all the way up to the 3rd floor and all the way down to the basement. The floor cracked every now and then and the atmosphere and the loneliness of the place was a bit creepy, but that didn’t deter her, so she pushed on.
If I were an armory where would I be? Hmmmm, in the basement probably, it’s the safest place to keep important stuff. Down i go.
Finding the stairs was easy enough, even amidst all the wreck, the recognizable green sign was still there but she soon found out that while the sign was there… the stairs were not.
"Whoah!" She said out loud, stopping in place when she found the huge gap before her. With an enormous pile of trash and broken concrete at the bottom.
I definitely can’t afford to be reckless around this place. She grabbed her splattershot and shot a path of ink all the way down, she changed into squid and effortlessly swam down to the last floor which was by far the floor that took the most damage out of all of them, and the most eerie too… dark corners, the sound of leaks, cracks and clangs coming from unstable walls, the occasional crackling of a wire that was still live somehow. It was slowly draining her confidence little by little, so she quickened her pace. Step step step around the labyrinthine corridors each time faster and faster until she found what she wanted, deeper inside one of the rooms, she recognized the glisten of the plastic-like shell of an abandoned octarian charger, probably used or yet to be used by one of their elite snipers. She quickly went to get it.
Perfect, now grab it and get out of here as soon as-
crack
crack
CRACK
The next moment she found herself laying face up somewhere below the building. Miraculously she only had a couple scratches, nothing too bad considering how much worse it could have been.
She gets up and looks around and she immediately felt that something was off. She wasn’t in a different section of the building, she was in another different facility. And by the looks of it, it looked more like a bunker instead of a base of operations. Everything felt so much older, yet better preserved, sure there was rust and dust everywhere but it doesn’t look like anything is falling apart on it own, at least for now. She should probably get out in case her observations are wrong, which at this point it was quite likely.
She walks to the nearest door hoping to fiend the exit soon, but before even opening it she finds yet another reason why she was so put off by her surroundings.
Why is the doorknob at the height of my head? She asked to herself as she pushed open the door, stepping into a room filled with what looked like lab equipment. The tables, the chairs, some lockers, all of those being unreasonably big. Why is everything so big?! Because I’m sure I didn’t shrink!
15 Minutes had passed. The more she advanced and the more she discovered, the harder it was to keep herself calm. She found signs written in gibberish and symbols she had never seen before or at the very least felt vaguely familiar. She found decayed paperwork and diagrams that were unrecognizable at this point, even what looked to be a layout of the place was in so poor state that she couldn’t distinguish the original colors from the rust that covered it.
This place couldn’t have possibly been built by octarians, it surely even predates the great turf war. Who built this and why? When? She felt like she was getting deeper into the bunker, but without any indications of where to go, she could very well be just besides the exit.
After 5 more minutes of aimless walking, she found herself in front of an ominous looking door. Unlike the others, this one had a faint light creeping out by the small gaps between the door and the frame. please be the outside, please be the outside, please be the outside.
It wasn’t the outside. Instead, one piece of machinery crowned the center of the room. A room filled with some chairs, a table, dozens of what looked like hermetically sealed containers, the rest of the room was as decayed as the others. However, the machine was somehow still running, it looked like one of those pods in science fiction movies but the glass was so clouded that it was impossible to tell what was inside, but there was something inside for sure. She cautiously approached the machine, hoping it would somehow help her in some way.
The pod had a panel with plenty buttons on it, all of them overshadowed by a red button that was easily 4 times the size of the others. The button lit up and made a small beeping sound (the latter of which almost gave her a heart attack) the moment she approached it, almost like it demanded to be pressed. Whoever made this wanted for someone to find it and open it. If it were something dangerous it wouldn’t open with just a red button… hopefully.
She hesitantly pressed the button with the nozzle of her splatter and backed away swiftly. The machine beeped for a minute or so and made a variety of other noises before finally falling silent again, then the glass pod opened little by little, revealing what it was guarding all this time.
For a second she though it was an inkling or an octoling, just for a second though, before she looked again. A tall figure, pale as a ghost, with what looked to be claws on their hands and feet, rounded ears, smaller eyes and no trace of tentacles on her head, but a long long plume of black fur that went all the way down to her lower back, it looked like a similar material to the mohawks that salmonids have. If she had to describe her, she would call her a mix of a beast and an inkling. But wait… the claws, the fur, her size… it clicked. She was a human. A real human. She didn’t know how to think or what to do, she was too shocked to do anything, even more shocked when the human opened her eyes and was looking straight at her. But neither of them moved, in fact, it looked like the human *couldn't* move, at least for now.
"Can you move?" Zuri asked, but the human didn’t answer back, obviously she couldn’t understand her language same way she cannot understand human language.
At first, Zuri planned to sit the human in one of the chairs of the room, but she had a couple difficulties, the first being that when she went to move her, she felt her hair touching her arm and she freaked off, almost making the human hit her head against the pod, the real problem was the second issue though.
Oh god she’s heavy! She’s like half a time bigger than me but she still shouldn’t be this heavy!
In the end she just sat her against the pod and covered her with some foreign clothes that were in the boxes, then she waited for her to be able to move on her own. The gaze of the human felt calm, like if she hadn’t spent who knows how long in that machine, she guessed the human had mentally prepared for what she was going to see after waking up. Her eyes were first focused on her tentacles, but then it shifted to her weapon and the ink tank she had on her back. She guesses it’s her first time seeing one of these kinds of gun so she does a demonstration shooting at one of the corners of the room, covering the floor yellow.
When the human’s voice came back she didn’t scream or started to talk continuously, but instead said a small simple word just to get her attention. The voice of the human wasn’t like an inkling’s at all, it wasn’t wobbly and felt more like a musical instrument. The good thing is that at least she could learn her name.
She uses her hands to point to herself. "Zuri." Next Zuri points to the human, hoping that she’ll get the message, which she did.
"Sylpha." The human said. Luckily the name was pronounceable in inklish.
Unfortunately that was as far as they could successfully communicate, the rest was fruitless, the language barrier was too big to cross in one sitting. The good news is that in that time, Sylpha mostly recovered control of her body. She stood up with wobbly legs on her naked feet and started rummaging through the boxes to find herself a pair of shoes. Apparently the boxes contain things she prepared before entering the machine, they were airtight so the items inside haven’t decayed. After stuffing the contents of some other boxes to a backpack she went to touch the yellow ink Zuri had shot. She was curious about it, she touched it with her fingers and she quickly understood it was ink.
"Does that mean you’re done? I hope you know how to get out of this place." Said Zuri.
Maybe Sylpha noticed that Zuri had no idea where to go because she started leading the way, slowly and with unstable steps towards a door located past the machine on the other side of the room. The door lead to a very, very, very long corridor where there was literally no end in sight. Sylpha looked back to make sure Zuri was following her and she stepped into the corridor.
It took them half an hour to reach the other end. Half an hour! But they finally reached the other end of the tunnel. The door before them was in much worse conditions than the rest. Zuri tried to open it by force but it didn’t bulge, she though on using the splat bombs but after partially collapsing 2 different buildings she decided against it, she was running out of ideas when Sylpha tried to push open the door, pushing with her hands and shoulder, and actually succeeding. It seems that that size and weight makes humans pretty strong.
When they got out it was nighttime, with inkopolis visible in the distance. Zuri couldn’t have felt more relieved. But now that she had solved the issue of going back home, she had to solve the issue of what to do with the female of a species though to be a myth or extinct from more than 10000 years in the past. She clearly cannot just walk into inkopolis with her! It would cause the mother of all commotions! And that is without taking into account what will happen after the commotion, probably a government group will eventually take Sylpha to who knows where to do whatever tests for who knows how long (possibly years). She did her best to communicate with Sylpha with signs and drawing in the dirt with a stick, it didn’t take long for Sylpha to understand.
Sylpha opened her backpack and pulled a black cloak that covered her fully. If she also had some kind of mask it would be much better, but the cloak will be enough for reaching her house without calling much attention, it’s pretty late so the streets will likely be empty.
At this point, Zuri was so sick of walking, each step was beginning to hurt and she could tell Sylpha couldn’t be much better since she couldn’t even stand when she got out of the pod. The travel though inkopolis was uneventful, Sylpha wanted to look around but was wise enough to keep her head low (as low as her tall body allowed her) and try to not be seen too much. Luckily they reached Zuri’s house without being seen even once. To which Zuri celebrated.
Zuri opened the door for Sylpha, who had to slightly lower her head to fit through the door. The first thing Zuri did was to go straight to the kitchen. Zuri was starving and the sounds coming from Sylpha’s stomach were honestly frightening. She emptied two cans on bowls, put them in the microwave, which apparently Sylpha already knew how to use (geez, just how similar where humans to inklings?) and they quickly ate the food.
The only thing Zuri remembers after that are her eyelids getting heavy, and someone placing her in her bed.