Octonauts Oneshots

Octonauts in Tokyo Pt.2

Inkling had no idea that the Octonauts were frantically searching for him on the backstreets of Tokyo. He himself was sitting in a particularly pleasant tea houses. Anywhere with "tea" in their name was bound to be a nice environment, but the herbal style of the Japanese really added the extra cherry on top that Inkling was searching for.

A wonderful experience for the palette, mind and body.

It didn't take much convincing to get him off to the "next stage of tea house." Or, at least, that was what Inkling's minimal understanding of Japanese let him pick up on. Perhaps it was some VIP club. Either way he handed over a small amount of cash and followed the men in suits who had promised higher tea...

***

"Where could he be?" panicked Shellington. "I swear we've been here before."

"Calm down," Dashi said, patting her boyfriend's shoulder. "We'll find him. How far could he have gotten?"

"It's been an hour," Shellington said, nearly hyperventilating. "He could be anywhere in Tokyo by now!"

"That's not true." She turned to the Captain for support. "He couldn't be anywhere... could he?"

"No, of course not!" Captain Barnacles reassured them, though he was wondering how far the Professor could have wandered himself. "And besides, isn't Tweak the best tracker ever?"

"Maybe out in the swamps of Florida," muttered the mint-green rabbit. "But tracking people in the city means talking to other people. And that's... That's not my expertise."

"That's mine," grinned Kwazii.

"No it's not," sighed the Captain.

"Yes it is," argued the pirate, looking offended. "I'm quite amazing at it. I can insult anyone in five seconds. Just watch me."

He walked up to a local, a dog who'd evidently had a touch too much to drink, and kicked him in the shin. The intoxicating effects of the alcohol had dulled the pain responses, but the dog got mad all the same, and pulled out a knife, holding it to Kwazii's throat.

The pirate cat immediately took a defensive stance, stepping back with his paws raised and attempting to make some stupid response. The dog growled something and jerked his paw towards the end of the dark street. Then Kwazii stumbled back to the Octonauts.

"There we go," he said, dusting his paws. "He's part of the local gang, you can tell by the style of his knife, and he just threatened to go send us to the Yakuza building down the street. Now, if he were a high-class Yakuza, you know he'd be too smart to give away information like that, and that means that the base is the other way. But judging by his tattoos, he isn't one of the gang's elites, which means he's dumb enough to tell the truth to strangers. The HQ's this way," Kwazii finished, heading off.

"And... You got all that by insulting someone?" Captain Barnacles asked skeptically.

"Trust me," Kwazii said, not even turning around. "I've been up against enough gangs in my pirate days to be able to read a common thug."

That left some questions unanswered, but the Octonauts followed their lieutenant anyways.

The street grew darker and darker, until Kwazii held up a paw and everyone froze, Shellington lifting Tunip up and shielding him with his own body. Thank goodness he had left the other Vegimals on board the Octopod.

"Guard at two' o'clock," Kwazii whispered. "Another at four."

Only now could the crew see the faint silhouettes of two guards standing nonchalantly at the entrance of the warehouse just in front of them.

"That's the building, alright," Tweak muttered, ears twitching. "I can hear some talking. Too far away to figure out what they're saying, and still it'd be in Japanese, but they're definitely talking..."

"We have to get in there," Kwazii said.

"But what if he's not even there?" Peso asked, frightened. "I thought you said it was very unlikely that the Professor had been caught."

"People don't just go missing off the streets of Tokyo..." Kwazii whispered mysteriously, a dangerous sparkle in his eye.

"He's probably just lost in some museum," Peso reasoned.

"But we checked everything that was open--and closed, actually--that he could reasonably get to in an hour. We checked every library, every antique shop, every teahouse..." Dashi trailed off, obviously hoping there was something she missed, but unable to find it.

"And besides," Kwazii said with a leer. "I've heard strange things about some of the teahouses in town. Perhaps the Professor met some... undesirables while having a cup?"

"Either way," Shellington said, piping up for the first time in the conversation. "We need to try every avenue. We can't just... just give up and call it a day. We have to find the Professor."

"Even," sighed the Captain. "If it means doing the incredibly risky."

"I'll have to be the one to break in, Captain," Kwazii said. "If things get nasty, I'm the only one that we know can get out safely. And besides, before I was an Octonaut, I was a pirate. This isn't the first time I've stared down danger."

"I want to go too," Shellington said firmly. "I might not be the fastest, or strongest, or bravest, but if the Professor's in there, I can't just stand around and wait for someone to get hurt."

"But Shel," Dashi said quietly.

"It's alright Princess," the marine biologist sighed. "I'm going to do this. There's nothing you can say to talk me out of it."

And so it was that Kwazii and Shellington, almost soundlessly, slipped into the darkness towards whatever it was in that murky warehouse...