#7 - Sanitized

SEEK AND DESTROY

The next day, I gathered all the Agents in the Deepsea Metro's central station. It was completely pinkish-red, my ink color.  

"Okay, everyone!" I called. "You should change your ink color to match mine now, because we're gonna work as a TEAM to destroy that stupid old telephone!"

The Agents quickly switched color and looked around. "Wow, you really did cover this whole place..." Marie ran her hand across the side of the painted train car. I still couldn't believe that C.Q. Cumber had let me paint it, but I guess even he was getting sick of Tartar's rules. 

We ran around the test chambers, placing as many of Marina's now-finished Hyperbombs as we could. At the end of the day, every test chamber was completely painted. Tartar would have to notice. We had sent our message.

The next day

We went back to the Metro.

All our ink was gone. Every chamber was empty. Not just the ink was gone, though. Everything else was gone. too. When we had checked the tests, we realized that everyone in Girl Power was missing. We checked all the others with Sanitized Octarians, too. Gone. 

Even C.Q. Cumber and the Thangs were gone.

"Oh my cod..." Marina was deep in thought. "How would a Squee-G do this all overnight? Oh no..." She suddenly looked like she had seen a ghost, which was silly because she probably had seen many ghosts in her lifetime whenever she splatted someone and their souls left to respawn. "Wh...what is it?" I asked.

"What if...the Squee-Gs...killed everyone?"

I thought about it. They were attracted to ink. Inklings are made mostly of ink. So are Octolings. And Sanitized Octolings. AND Sanitized Octarians. And Squee-Gs don't think.

Oh no.
Marina's theory was making too much sense. It was horrible, and it made sense.

"B-but wait!" I said. "Th...there's no way...they could get ahold of one THAT big!"

Marina sighed. "They were able to recreate GIANT human tech. For no reason.
I'm sure that if they were able to make stuff that we barely know anything about, they could certainly make a giant Inklish robot."

We stood in silence for a while. Until, for some reason, it wasn't silent. There was a loud WHIRR and a lot of clanging, and then a giant, ooze-y cyan blob fell from the ceiling. 

Tartar.

But we were fast thinkers. We had prepared for this. We pulled out all of Agent 3's old, overpowered Special cans and a bunch of the new ones that Marina had made: Hyperbomb Launchers. And of course, Pearl brought her Princess Killer Wail. And for the first time ever, I saw that old, rusty Telephone look surprised.

...
This is...more formidable than I would have liked, he said. But I am also prepared.

We all pointed our Killer Wails at him. "You..." I couldn't speak. "You killed them all,"

I did. To end this madness, I knew I would need more power. Hence why I had to make more Sanitized Ink. I knew you would come back at some point, so I had to prepare for this moment.

"You're doing this to end...this madness?" I asked. "The only way you could end it would be to end YOUR OWN LIFE, dude!" Pearl yelled.

Your threats mean nothing to me, although I admit that at times I do feel like ending myself, he said. But only because YOUR existence already annoys me to death! And I do find that a bit counterproductive. After all, if I'm not around to end your species, who will? Peace has been made between Inklings and Octolings, so certainly not you.

"I will ignore all your strange word choices. However, I will NOT just stand around and listen to your monologuing," said Marina. "If we are to fight each other, I'd rather get it done quickly."

And...I don't remember much after that. 

The only thing I remembered was everyone all using their specials, and...

Victory.

We had won.

But...why did I feel so empty now?

We had won. We did it.

...

Oh, stop thinking about it. 

What Octavio/Tartar said can't really be trusted.

Still...

What if Marissa really was...?

No. 

I don't want to think about what-ifs.

And I know that no matter how I hope and theorize, it's not gonna bring her back to life.

Even if she really DID respawn and get Sanitized, she would have been...

Blended.

In an attempt to kill me.

Ohhhh god. What if Eight had already killed her in a test chamber? What if she never respawned and really did get killed by that awful Elite? What if...!?

No. 

No, I'm not thinking about this. I took a little bit of Low-Tide ink (Since I had been slightly Re-Sanitized after I was hit by a giant glob of Sanitized Ink earlier) and fell asleep quickly.

We would have a long day of packing tomorrow. After all, we were leaving for the Splatlands.