Agent 38: In The Making

Chapter 10: Dynasty

(The picture at the top was Emerald before sanitization. She now looks like this, just picture her in sanitized form. Art does not belong to me, but the character does.)
     The Sanitized Octoling dragged him into the darkness, kicking and screaming. He saw the brightness of the hole get darker and darker until it faded into nothing. His eyes widened with rage, and he felt an odd prick on his shoulder. Agent 3 opened his mouth and ruthlessly bit into the tentacle, hoping for a reaction. He grinded his teeth into it until he was sure he cut that bit off, and heard the Octoling scream. The tentacle recoiled away from his mouth, and he spat out the part that he'd bit off. He wrestled his shoulders away from the hands and ran back to where he thought the hole was, hoping to both be found by Sarai and Cuttlefish and get his Hero Shot back. However, it all blended into the same color, same texture, same everything, and he had no idea where the hole went.
     He whirled around furiously and saw the Elite Octoling staring at him with hurt eyes. Wait... She had no goggles on. Her eyes were the same color that Ryu's had been, and she wore a gas mask, a jacket, shorts, and sneakers. Tentacles writhed from her back, two aimed a bit upward, towards her arms, and two aimed a bit downward, towards her legs, and one with a big bite mark in it. Her tentacles were a black and teal, with blue rings dotted throughout. She had two slightly curly, long tentacles hanging from her head, and two other tentacles pulled into a long ponytail.
     "Who are you?" The Octoling questioned, tentacles wriggling like snakes. She pulled her bitten tentacle and slid her hand over the wound with a pained expression.
     "Alexander. You?" He asked.
     "Emerald. Come with me." Emerald reached out and snatched his hand, whirled around, and started running. He watched as the four tentacles that had sprouted from her back slipped right back in, before pulling away with a snort.
     "I don't even KNOW you!" Alexander yelled. "You literally dragged me away from my - my friend! At the very least, tell me why I shouldn't bust through the roof again."
     "There's no time to explain!" Emerald yelled back, throwing her hands in the air. "Unless you want to end up like them, follow me!"
     "Who's 'them'!?" He shouted. "I'm not following you until you tell me what's going on and why I shouldn't go back to Cuttlefish!"
     "Huuuuuaaaagh, you Inklings are so stubborn!" Emerald sighed. "The Sanitized Octarians are coming. Tartar will kill us if he finds us, and you'll end up sanitized if you go back with the Octoling and the old squid! They're doomed already!"
     "All the more reason to go rescue them!" He argued. "Look, I can't follow you - what are you doing?"
     The Octoling had some sort of holographic screen floating above a somewhat glowing wrist band. Emerald was typing something on it. "I'm taking you to go."
     She clicked a button and looked up at him just as he felt that odd prick again. "What did you -"
     "I put a tranqualizing mechanic in you when I grabbed you." She responded, putting her hand on her hips. He dropped to his knees, suddenly weak and drowsy. "You're just going to take a nap while I take you to our headquarters."
     The last thing he saw was the tentacles bursting from her back again, and then he fell to the ground, unconscious.

     Alexander opened his eyes, looking around blurrily. Last thing he remembered, some sanitized bastard named Emerald knocked him out.
     "Emerald, I think he's waking up." Said a male voice. "What if he attacks?"
     "It's 'Ma'am' to you." Said Emerald's voice. "And if he attacks, I can tranqualize him again."
     Alex's rage slowly simmered to a boil, and he sat up slowly, touching his head with a snarl. He was on a low cot that looked like it could collapse at any moment, and, as his vision sharpened, he realized he was in some kind of cave, glowing blue gemstones lighting it up. He looked around and spotted Emerald, narrowing his eyes.
     "You." He growled. Emerald smirked and pulled out a small control with one button on it. Alexander added as much fury and hatred to his glare, which only made the girl smile more. However, the boy slowly edged out of the room with a nervous expression.
     "Welcome back." Emerald said, reaching out a hand to help him up. He smacked it away and stood up, catching himself on the rough rock as he regained his balance.
     "You're lucky I was out," Alexander muttered. "Would've given you the beating of a lifetime.
     "Doubtful." Emerald murmured thoughtfully. "Though you are the best fighter I've seen in a while. You took out several Sanitized Encampments without a weapon on your way to the surface, without any help."
     "You saw that-?" He asked, then cut himself off with a snort. "Just tell me where the hell I am so I can get out of here."
     She barked a laugh, then gently grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the wall to the entrance of the cave. "Alexander, welcome to Dynasty." She pulled away a curtain that hung in front of the cave and revealed a giant, absolutely massive colony of floating hunks of rock, each dusted with glowing blue or pink crystals and littered with curtains as entrances to caves. The rock was of a dark brown, almost black, with hints of shimmering navy blue and carnation pink as fake rays of sunshine reflected off the gemstones. Sanitized Octolings of all shapes and sizes ran through the indents in the craggy rock, some climbing up to higher levels, others finishing chores in their homes, others transporting floating carts into theirs. He noticed that none of them wore the Octoleet Goggles or Octoling Shades, and their clothes were normal, fresh-looking clothes that some squids on the surface wore. Furthermore, what seemed like giant flying rock birds whipped around the rocks, transporting Octos all around the colony, from massive rock to massive rock.
     "Woah." He breathed, eyes wide in awe. He turned to look down at Emerald, who had a big smile plastered on her face. "How did you do this?"
     "You haven't even seen the best part. Hang on!" Suddenly, she gripped both his hands, turned her back to the wide open space beneath them, and let herself fall back off the rock, taking him along with her.
     "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" He yelled. Alexander didn't have a fear of heights, given the fact a even long fall couldn't hurt him, but this was downright insane. "WE'RE BOTH GOING TO DIE!!"
     Emerald smiled at him, tentacles whipping around in the wind. She put two fingers inside her mouth, drew in a deep breath, and whistled a horrifyingly high note, splitting her legs apart. Suddenly, his body smacked against a rock hard surface as the rock bird pulled them both up vertically into the sky, Emerald standing, arms outstretched, on it's beak. She let out a cry of joy, then slid down it's back to help Alexander, who was clutching to it's wing. She grabbed both his wrists, crouched down, and surged back up, using her momentum to launch him onto the bird's neck. The bird took the same shape of pheonix birds from old books, except with horns, so it's spine was coated with broken up bits of extremely detailed crystal feathers. He sat in between one of these crystal feathers, and Emerald held onto it's beak, while having one foot hooked under one of the bird's two horns while crouched down a bit.
     "Grab Moon's horns and push them up a bit!" Emerald said. "It'll make her go down! Push or pull her horns in the opposite direction for where you want to go!"
     "Got it!" He grabbed Moon by the horns and gently pushed them down. The bird ducked into a dive, tucking her wings in. Emerald crouched down a bit more, then leaned to one side. Moon banked to the left, then spiraled upward again as Emerald pulled the beak up. Then, she knocked on the beak twice, and the bird hovered to a stop, rock wings flapping furiously.
     Emerald jumped off the horns and sat down in front of him, huge smile on her face. He realized her eyes had turned an odd mix of blue-ish pink, and they were glowing a bit.
     "What's with the eyes?" Alexander asked curiously. She stood up and tapped her foot three times on the rock bird. It banked to the left and swerved out of the way of another bird, who's rider waved to Emerald. She waved back, and then the bird flew back to a small indent in the rock. It blended in rather well, since it was made out of the same chunk of rock. He wondered how it was alive. Moon lashed her tail, jerking him off onto the jagged rock.
     Emereld reached down and helped him up, and he realized the odd color and glow in her eyes had turned back to the teal and black. "See," Emerald said. "We call these birds CrystalWings, or RockWings. I was the first to make one. Moon is really old, but since rock technically really doesn't decay, she's been alive for a long time. As have I, really."
     "How?" He asked. "How do you make these things? Inanimate objects like rock can't come alive, let alone shape themselves and start flying. How long did you say you've been alive for?"
     "I've been alive for about 1,500 years." Emerald responded simply. His eyes went wide in shock, and she cut him off just as he opened his mouth. "Sanitization elongates the life a lot. I was the first to be sanitized, and I was also the first to escape sanitization. And we need to get you a RockWing if you're going to spend some time here."
     He smiled.

Hello! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I really had fun creating Dynasty, and I'll  definitely feaature it in more chapters!
It's crazy to think that I started the first chapter just a few weeks ago, and now we're on the 10th chapter.
Word count: 1728