The Resurgence AU

Operator

"Wh-What? Who would–?" Everest stopped, the look in Tartar's eyes changed as well. They both had an idea who stole the book from right under Tartar's horn.

"The stingray...?"

"The stingray..." Tartar's voice oozed with hatred, "I'm going to make a coat out of that creature!" Tartar slammed its fist into the palm of its hand. "First they kill you and then they steal my professor's final words right under me! That beast!"

"Let me go get them. I'll make sure they pay!" Everest said, sitting up quickly in bed.

"No. Not happening, Everest. She already killed you once. I'll go out and get her myself. I also have some form of disguise, you do not."

"I-I was fine going out there the first time! Dad, please, let me prove myself to you," Everest crawled out of bed, carefully removing the blood drip from her arm, ouch-! "I will find that stingray and deliver them to you."

Tartar only stared at Everest silently before shaking his head and turning away, "It's too risky. At least if I'm captured, they'll only deactivate me. It won't be a huge panic if I'm discovered. ...You can take my place as the boss of this company if I disappear..." Tartar didn't let Everest speak a word as he strided out of the room and the Kamabo Labs entirely.

Everest stood there and only sighed softly. "...I won't let you down again. I promised it."

Everest left the room and rubbed where the needle was, noticing how the ache rubbed away faster than expected. Everest's coldness seemed to have attracted the attention of the other octolings and octarians. They slowly crept out of the rooms all confused. Tartar had originally planned something, that's why they were so awake. What was going on? Tartar hadn't placed the entire place into a rush like they did last time they had attempted to destroy Inkopolis.

"Where is my golf club?" Everest started to tear up her room searching for her golf club. No way she was going out in those damn streets without it. So many- too many spawn of the leviathan could be wandering those streets at these hours. Everest would never go back out there unprotected. There were too many things that were pokey or poisonous or dangerous in that crowd when she first entered Inkopolis. Too many things in that concert crowd. It was a miracle that she got through it without getting hurt!

Not that Everest would go out onto the world above during the day without a disguise either!

If Everest remembered correctly, about a month ago, some...some creature had apparently made a stir that humanity was coming back. Everest had heard all about it from Tartar who even asked if Everest had been going outside against its rules. Everest brought up the cameras to Tartar pretty quickly and when they went to check, it found the closest Everest had gotten to going outside the metro was leaving the labs to do tests at ungodly hours to "prove herself". Yeah, Tartar still got after her for that. It even gave CQ a message to not take Everest to any station/test hours 10pm-7am.

Admittedly though, that was the only thing CQ was willing to do for Everest even if it was against Tartar's rule. "Just don't rat me out to him, got it? And get back before 7 because he will be riding the trains to the many tests to make sure I'm not breaking the rules! Tartar did that last night!" So Everest had to give credit where credit was due as much as she disliked CQ.

Finally, as Everest checked under her bed for her golf club, she found it, tangled up in sheets and random objects as if Tartar was trying to hide it from her. ...Did they predict that Everest would try to help them get their journal back from that little thief? Tartar had to have, Everest would never put her golf club in such a hidden place.

Oh well, Everest supposed. She had her golf club now and that meant she was now safe to leave the metro and help Tartar.

Everest stood at the exit to the Kamabo Labs and very quickly picked up on the octarians  (and octolings like 202 and even 1,869 of all octolings) seemingly trying to tell her to not go out. Everest looked back at them, all 60-70 of them and shook her head. ...Everest was born and named to lead so...