It had been several more hours when the three inklings finally found the last zapfish. As they approached, Aloha persistently expressed concern over Army's disappearance.
"Shouldn't he have come back by now?" His dualies swung idly at his sides, too focused on watching for that familiar purple beret to bother spinning them. "What if something really bad happened?"
"He's fine", Skull reassured him. "Those Octarians don't know who they're messing with." He paused. "They don't seem to know anything, for that matter. That illness is really weighing them down...They don't even flinch when they're shot at."
"One almost got the zaaapfish", Mask huffed. "But they were just staaanding there, menaciiingly. They didn't even notice me come up behiiind them. My swimming was very louuud. Aaanyone would have noticed." The zapfish in his arms warbled in what appeared to be agreement.
"You aren't making a very good argument here", Aloha said impatiently. "Army is GONE. We are down a whole member, and it should be bothering you!"
"Like I said, he's fine." Aloha muttered under his breath as Skull continued. "We will meet him at the next zapfish. Speaking of which..." Everyone came to a halt as he raised an arm and pointed ahead of them.
A large, dark gray, steel building stood in front of what looked like a clearing, which gradually sloped to the center, where the zapfish was held. Neon purple lights were strung up and around the tower, flashing on and off at a fixed interval. Three octosnipers were stationed at the top of the building, too far out of their fields of vision to see the three inklings below them as they swept their crosshairs methodically across the ground. Skull crouched, looking over his shoulder.
"Wait here. I'll signal when to come to the base of the tower. Once you make it, hide in the ink." Mask and Aloha nodded before he loaded his charger, firing a straight shot across the pavement before diving in in his squid form, surging towards the structure. The octosnipers didn't see him as he quickly submerged at the end of his trail, only to fire another shot and recover himself in the purple substance. Eventually, he reached the base. At this point, he jumped up against the side, firing ink straight up. It stuck to the wall with ease, as did he as he scaled it, still invisible to the octosnipers. He had to jump out several times to extend the trail before he was finally a foot from the top. The end of the purple extension was motionless for a few seconds before a squid could be seen popping in and out of it enthusiastically: their signal.
"Let's gooo." Aloha entered his ink trail and swam up to the base of the tower, while Mask rolled after him, zapfish on his shoulder. Skull quickly flung himself to the surface, taking out the octosniper directly in front of him and surprising the other two. He had enough time to reload once more and splat the one to his right before dodging the one on the left. He managed to take this one down, as well, and started for the other end of the rooftop before stopping in his tracks. A large pool of cyan ink covered the other half of the building. He gasped quietly as it began bubbling in several places. 'They're hiding!' Quickly, he fell back into his own ink, obscuring his presence, as a dozen Octarians rose from the sea of cyan. Two cried out in wobbly voices before falling into confused hums as they looked around for the inkling they could have sworn had just swam up. With no enemies in sight, only three completely normal purple streaks of ink adjacent to where their three comrades had gone, they rumbled in discontent and descended back into the depths.
While Skull sat petrified in his murky curtain, trying to determine a plan to successfully win a one-versus-twelve battle, Mask and Aloha reached the building. As Skull had instructed, they remained in the trail, staying completely still, the zapfish tucked against the wall on clean ground. Mask rolled his eyes as Aloha eventually broke the silence, his voice high-pitched and broken under the ink. "I don't think waiting for Army to find us is a good idea."
