Parasite

Jaymurder! Don't You Agree?

Not even ten seconds after Jay had entered the room, something grabbed him and lifted him to the ceiling. He was dropped on invisible turf before some kind of ink covered it, though not completely. He looked around to try to see what had happened and looked through a spot where the ink did not cover. His roller was just sitting where he had dropped it. The group walked in and looked at the roller, saying something that Jay couldn't hear through the walls he was trapped in. Then they left. Jay suddenly dropped to the floor, practically landing on his roller. He grabbed it and laid on his back to try to fight whatever had been on the ceiling. Upon seeing nothing there, he lowered it and got to his feet. He looked around for a bit, then heard a small splash behind him. Jay whirled around and asked, "Who's there?"
The quiet response was "You." before everything went dark.
Jay reopened his eyes next in a small... test tube? If he had to say something more specific, a blender without the blades. Outside of it was an inkling with a helmet that covered their entire head with a control table. Some kind of recording played all around Jay, making him jump when it suddenly started.
"Welcome. As you know, Chaos won this Splatfest and created an Inkopolis of terror. Order's job is to return peace to Inkopolis and let Order reign better than ever before. First we must turn Chaos supporters, you, to see the light. And that may take some sacrifice."
Something cold somehow dropped onto his back, causing Jay to spin and try to get it off. Quickly, though, it spread out in a tentacle-like way, reaching around Jay to clamp onto him. A small bit of it got the side of his glasses, causing them to crack. It stopped moving along with Jay, who just stood up straight. For some reason, he no longer had any remote control over his actions. The blender-thing opened up and he walked out, stopping before the inkling. They pointed behind themself and Jay followed the instruction. He ended up at a ledge, looking out at a crazy wasteland with the wind throwing random sand particles in his face.
He stood there for a long time, but eventually someone walked up behind him and asked, "Jay?"
...
The group had taken this information hard. They would never see Jay again and with a small slip-up they'd be next. Callie made them go on another mission anyways, claiming that they could all save their sulking for later. This time they'd be jumping into deep enemy territory. Fyrus and Etce changed their weapons to an Inkbrush and Splattershot Pro. Once they were ready, they rode to the base. It was a long, silent ride until GG suggested they play Would You Rather.
Gabriel started, "Vian, would you rather be Etce's son or sons?"
Vian laughed, but Etce groaned. Vian answered, "Son. Etce, would you rather try to make a scream compilation or translate what Timo is saying?"
"Vee-yo!" Octoboy protested.
"Compilation." Etce decided. "Dan, Minecraft or Splatoon?"
Failboat rolled his eyes, "Okay, I can't say no to the game we're stuck in. Splatoon. Fyrus, hotdogs or corn dogs?" Fyrus didn't even bother to respond. He just glanced back before continuing to stare out. His hair was being blown in his face from the extreme amount of wind. Daniel looked like he wanted to take back saying anything.
"We're here." Pearl informed them. They looked out, seeing a massive fortress-looking thing.
"Buda..." Octoboy said holding his Sploosh-o-Matic up.
"Yeah..." Etce agreed, confusing every party and drawing eyes to himself in the process.
Marina pushed open one of the massive doors and Pearl commented, "I thought it'd be harder."
"Looks abandoned. We shouldn't be here." Callie suggested.
"No, they may have known we were coming but they may have left something behind." Marie objected.
"I think away is the way to go." Daniel stated quietly as they walked inside.
It was dark inside, the only thing visible with the light from the door was an open blender with some kind of purple liquid dripping from it. The liquid led to another place in the darkness. Callie pulled out a pair of sunglasses with a glowing pattern, using them to see the strange liquid.
"I thought you got rid of those!" Marie exclaimed.
"How could I? They look fresh!" Callie continued to light the liquid until the room opened up. There was an opening that led to a wasteland, with an octoling standing in the opening. Their back had something that was pulsing with purple light, lighting up a blue hoodie and purple hair.
Fyrus asked, "Jay?"
They tilted their head at the name, then scoffed. They slowly turned around, stating, "Depends who you're asking." When their eyes and the thing on their back lit up their face, they found that it was Jay. He was grinning and one of his eyes were twitching. "I never thought you'd make it. I vote lights." By command, the lights loudly clicked on. Now they could see what had changed. Jay had two spike-like pieces of the pulsing parasite from his back on his face, along with two on his shoulder and three branching off his leg. The glass lens on his glasses was chipped and cracked where it went over it. There were black stains on his jacket where the strange limbs held onto him, though it just dripped off where his skin was. His eyes had changed a bit; the one where the parasite clung was dotted with back and dripping the black substance like tears. His glowing purple eyes stared at them, waiting for something.
"That's gotta hurt..." GG commented, remembering just having ink on one hand.
"What happened to you?" Fyrus asked.
Jay didn't answer, but held out his hand. From his hand came large black droplets, which came together to form an image. It was a silhouette putting its hand out, as if against something. Another drop fell on it, causing it to spin around and reach around to try and get the drop off. It suddenly stopped and fell on its knees, then was swept up by Jay. He closed his hand they were gone, just like that.
"You need to get that off of you." Callie told him.
He was quick to respond, "Says the one who keeps a pair of glasses that she knows endangers everyone around." Now he held out his hand again, as if for a hand shake. "You should join me. Everyone knows chaos leads to no good."
"Voomy!" Octoboy protested.
Etce asked, "How can you keep complete order anyways? People act out in the world we have now."
"No will can change anything if there's no will to begin with."
Vian looked confused, "Now, how would you do that?"
"Replace the host." He walked to the left of them. The dark substance spread out around him while he walked, and he stopped behind them. He turned around and looked at their shocked and slightly scared faces. Jay brought his hand up to face and laughed, "I'm kidding."
"What do you want?" Marie demanded.
He smiled again and held up his hand as a roller was made out of the goop. "Nothing. I will ask nothing of you, but I am going to take everything." He put down his roller and ran forward, right through them. When Gab wasn't quite fast enough, Vian rolled through the space to take both of them out of the way. The roller burst into droplets as he turned around, reforming to a charger to aim at Marie(who was aiming hers at him). He shot immediately, but since she hesitated she had to duck down to dodge it. His charger turned to tentamissiles, which everyone avoided except Vian. He was purple at the time, though, so it didn't matter.
"Vian!" GG called while Jay went after Etce with a splattershot. "You're going to need to go after him. You're the only one who can last his ink."
Vian looked at Jay again and at GG. "... I'm going to try." However, as Vian aimed his dualies at Jay, Jay appeared in front his him with a new, obnoxious smile. He was blocking the dualies with his octobrush and tilting his head.
"Go for it. I dare you." He ordered. Before he could, though, Jay ducked to avoid a shot from Daniel's tentabrella, letting it hit Vian in the face. Jay snickered and jumped to the ceiling.
"I'm sorry!" Daniel apologized to Vian, who dropped his dualies while trying to get ink out of his eyes.
"It's okay!"
Jay dropped down again behind Pearl, but Marina blocked his roller with a particular bomb that blew up in his face. Jay stumbled back and Timo shot at him with his Sploosh-o-Matic. Jay instead used a baller to hide away from Timo's shots temporarily. The baller filled with ink and exploded, knocking most of the group down. Jay went to the nearest person, pointing a charger at them. When he looked down and saw Fyrus, though, he froze. When the group realized that he stopped moving, they just watched. His eye that wasn't covered by the parasite stopped glowing and turned to brown, and he lowered his charger slightly.
In the silence, the parasite suddenly tightened itself on Jay and dropped more of the dark liquid that stained his clothes. Jay dropped the charger, which burst into black droplets just before hitting the ground. He stumbled backwards while his glass lens cracked further and looked at his hands before yelling out in pain and falling on his side. His eye returned to its glowing lavender and he stood up, glaring at Fyrus.
"What just happened?" Etce asked loudly.
Jay, ignoring the question, used tentamissiles and followed it with a booyah bomb. When the ink cleared, Jay was nowhere to be found. When they confirmed he was gone, Marie deduced that "Jaymoji seems to be sensitive to Fyrus. If we encounter him again, he may have to fight him alone."
"I don't think that's—" Fyrus was cut off by Pearl.
"Remember Agent 3? We had to knock that off of them!"
"I still don't—"
Callie interrupted, "Where do you think he'll show up next?"
"VEE-MO-NI!" Octoboy shouted, then gestured to Fyrus.
"Why do you think that actually happened?" Marina asked him.
"That would have been a killing shot." Fyrus argued, "He wouldn't have had the heart to do that to any of us."
"I don't know..." Vian wondered. "The tentamissiles, baller, roller and pretty much everything else could've done that, too. The charger wasn't really much different."
Fyrus didn't say anything else, so Etce asked, "Where's next?"
"The plan was that if nothing was here we'd go after the next best place." Marina said. "I'm now seeing that it may not be a wonderful option..."
"No." Callie decided. "We need to see if any of the other players made it."
"Are we really going to ignore what just happened?" Daniel questioned.
"Let's go!" GG exclaimed.
Etce sighed, "Apparrently?"
Yep. Daniel was right. They began on their way and Marina unloaded small devices from a bag no one realized she was carrying. "These are for all of you. You should be invisible to any eye as long as they're activated. I made them for this specific mission. We need to split up. You must not be seen. This time we just need information. If you could steal something, though, that would be fine." By then she had given everyone one. "You'll be able to see each other, even though no one can see you. If that's clear, you're welcome to choose the group sizes."
"De-bo-rote-su?" Octoboy suggested, saying more words than it seemed like.
Pearl nodded, "Good plan. So, the groups are Viantastic, GG and Failboat, then Fyrus, Etce and Octoboy. That leaves the rest of us as a group."
"Nice." Etce commented.
"We're here. Now, remember that they can still hear you. Don't be too loud." Marina reminded them. Within moments of landing, the four characters had left.
The six activated the devices and followed a group of inklings through the large gates at the front of the structure, effectively making it in.