Grunt Work

Orientation

Hiya, I'm Kaia!

Oh sweet, that rhymes.

First day on the job and I'm a bit nervous, to be honest with you. I hear Kaptain Kraken has got a bit of a reputation for getting through his grunts, but hey, it's paid work and there's not much work going for ex soldiers (i.e. me). Supervisor's a bit of a witch, though I guess that's to be expected, being the right hand woman to a supervillain.

Also I'm pretty sure she is an actual witch.

Like her safety helmet is kinda pointy, and she has a pointer that looks suspiciously like a magic twig.

It's probably fine.

First day on the job she had us new recruits line up for inspection. 'My name,' she said, walking up and down the line, 'is Winifred. I am your supervisor, and if you have any issues that aren't immediately resolved by your death, you are to report directly to me. At no point are you to approach his lordship about your issues. At no point are you to speak to him unless spoken to, and speak plainly and to the point, and always respectfully. If you are French, or know French, you are to speak only in French. His Lordship is learning and needs the practice.'

Gotta be honest, I was a little bit nervous by that speech. My French is a little bit very rusty. Should I say something? Je ne said quoi. That's French. I don't know what it means.

Winnie carried on talking. She sounded a bit strict, a bit terse, but judging by her accent I'm pretty sure she's from New Zealand's north island, same as me, so I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. She's probably a bit stressed, after all. I heard they had a big fight with Qi Force the other day. Hence the need for new recruits, you know? 'You will all be assigned roles within the organisation, perhaps to a specific department - or tentacle, as we like to call them. In the coming weeks, you will be assessed for your assignation, but for now you will be given general duties.'

And then she gave out the roles, going from the top of the line, down to the bottom. I was pretty nervous when she got to me. She didn't lift her two eyes from her tablet the entire time she spoke, but her third eye just stared at me. Unblinking. I think it's a prosthetic, thinking about it. It is a little bit glassy, and yellow. Oh no wait, it blinked. She blinked. I wonder if it's a coloured contact lens. Maybe it's prescription? My sister's an opthalmologist, I could hook her up.

Ah, bollocks. She's already moved on. Well, I'm sure I could bring it up later.

So, do you want to know what my job is in Kaptain Kraken's secret lair?

Sanitation.

Pretty sweet gig, not gonna lie. And I get to live on the island, rent free.

We did have to go through a live fire obstacle course first. Not sure why it was live fire, because the guy who was standing in line next to me got it. He wasn't even a soldier; I think he wanted to work in IT? Sorry, bro. No Galaga for you. But it was good to get stuck into my new role, cleaning the new guy up. Blood stains are just the worst to get out, if they dry.

I'd just finished picking up the last of the IT guy's teeth when there was a call over the speaker:

'Clean up, level 8.'

So I knew it was my job, but I still wasn't sure if I should go. Like things were going pretty quickly, orientation, as disorienting as it was, was still going on and so I looked at Winnie for clarification.

'Go,' she said, not looking at me. She flicked her pointer and I flew off to the lift. Literally. First time I flew outside of a plane. Probably shouldn't get used to it, which is a shame because it was a lot of fun. Need to work on my landing though. And I should have realised my mop and bucket would have followed me in. Took a bit of a bump to the head with that. I'm sure I can pop by the infirmary once I was done on level 8. I checked my tablet to find the infirmary on the map app, and was still looking when the lift doors open and I fell on my arse because some idiot left a great big puddle of water on the floor.

So I should mention again that, yes, I was a soldier. And yes, soldiers do swear quite a bit. I promise you, I'm not much of a swearer. but I did swear a bit because it really fucking hurt. Not to mention that I dropped my tablet in the puddle, but luckily it's one of those fancy waterproof ones so it wasn't broken. Screen was cracked, but I'm used to that. I wiped off my tablet, pocketed it, and got out my mop and bucket and began cleaning up. Also, it wouldn't have been a problem if the lights were on, but I notice that a lot of the secret base has low lighting. I wonder if Kraken has a light sensitivity issue. It would explain the goggles.

Oh hey. A pool.

Sweet.

Now I'm not much of a swimmer. I know, that's a bit weird, since my name means the sea. And being of Maori descent, you might expect that, I don't know, the sea calls to me or some shit like that. Nah, bro. I like the feeling of a nice warm beach beneath my feet. That's the closest I like to get to the ocean. Gimme a lounger and a daquiri any day over that.

For some stupid reason, though, maybe I was just curious because it was big and there was this strange light coming out of the water, but I decided to have a closer look. And then I realised something - this pool is absolutely fucking massive. I've seen some big pools in my day but this one is huge. Even with that strange light, I couldn't see the bottom, or even the far end. Mind you, once again, that could just be the lack of lighting. But I did see the bubbles.

There were just a few at first, a good ten feet in from where I was. But then there were more, and bigger. It was like the water had started boiling, or like something had let off a massive fart. I was starting to become concerned when the surface broke and this huge kraken erupted from out of the water.

And that's how I met Mr Huggles. I call him that because he seems to really like hugging me.