𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄

Pt 6: Doc Ock

"How could you forget something like that?" Kingston demanded, his tone panicky. Griffith shrugged, jumping down from the stairs as several slimy red tentacles suddenly slunk down the stone steps, trapping the three in the chamber. The librarian darted over to the opposite wall, pressing himself into a corner and sucking in his stomach as if that would somehow help. Griffith followed suit, trying to squeeze into the corner with him.

"Get your own corner!" Kingston hissed. They began to squabble but stopped abruptly when the rest of the giant octopus made it down the stairs, a massive yellow eye glaring at them, extending its arms towards them like the auntie that hugs far too hard whenever she sees you and you think your back is going to break. "Hey, you're from Atlantis..." Kingston whispered.

"So?" Griffith muttered.

"Why shouldn't it listen to you?" he demanded. The endling bit his lip, finally sighing and stepping forward.

"Hello, Octavian," he said, waving at the beast. It froze, taken off guard. "Do you remember me? Do you think maybe we can take this one map?" Octavian growled gutturally, his big yellow iris trailing to the scroll in Griffith's hand. He squinted at the Atlantean, as if trying to place his face, recoiling its tentacles a bit. Griffith sighed in relief — far too early. It decided that they couldn't take that one map and suddenly roared, which startled poor Kingston, and darted out an arm so fast that it was a blur as it wrapped round Griffith's waist and pulled him towards it.

"You aren't taking anything from here, Chaser of Storms," it rasped, its pupil shrinking in anger. Kingston hadn't been noticed yet, and he knew he had to do something. Griffith tried to negotiate:

"Wh-why not?" he gasped. "I'm part of Atlantis! I have a key!"

Kingston searched around him frantically, about to throw his shoe at the things eye in desperation when he got an idea as his eyes fell on a piece of driftwood from the pool and a stone that had come loose with Octavian's entry. Griffith was still trying to get out.

"I'll squeeze the Core from your scrawny little body and then eat your fat friend, too," the oversized cephalopod threatened.

"You're supposed to protect Atlantis from outside threats, not other Atlanteans," the endling pointed out meekly. "Anyways, I'm the only one left so really it shouldn't matter if I take a map to North Way —"

Kingston knelt in the corner, frantically scraping two stones together above the piece of wood. He had ripped part of the shirt under his sweater and tied it to the top of the wood, creating a makeshift torch. The wood was fairly dry, fortunately, but the rocks didn't seem to want to make sparks. He rubbed them harder and harder, sure he was going to peel the skin off his hands before he made fire when a couple sparks fell. He rubbed faster and faster, creating more and more sparks until, to his delight, they fell upon the fabric and it caught flame. He grabbed the torch from the ground, holding it by the bottom so he wasn't burned. Minerva had disappeared under a rock, leaving the other two to fight off Octavian, which neither of them were doing well at. Griffith had gone limp in the octopus' arm but was still trying to talk his way out of the situation.

Kingston stared at Octavian's eye, then glanced at his torch. The beast hadn't noticed the fire yet. The librarian's legs felt like jelly, and his heart pumped rapidly with adrenaline as he finally took the plunge and shouted like a maniac, running forward with the torch in front of him – directly at the snapping beak and the eye that looked like the moon. The octopus shrieked, a noise that Kingston thought would blow out his eardrums, but he kept going, plunging the burning wood into the monster's eye. Octavian dropped Griffith, who didn't seem to be able to move, with a thud, the octopus' long red limbs retreating to nurse his burning eye as Kingston darted under them, pure fear giving him the agility he usually lacked.