Cephalopolis

One - Subway

Marina closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. She zipped up her black hoodie, which wasn't something she'd usually wear. However today, the idol had to stay on the low for a while. She'd go out the back door of the studio, and quickly would put her hood over her big tentacles. Instead of a drop-dead-beauty, now she was just any normal octoling or inkling. She'd creep into the depths below. Hidden from the world, never seeing any sunlight. The subway. She was going to explore with Eight. Agent Eight. Eight didn't exactly know what to have as their name- Marina and Pearl suggested many things, like "Octorina" or "Princess" but the octoling had grown close to the name "Eight." It just sat with them well. They'd perk their head up whenever someone would say "Eight." So that's just how it was from there on out. 

           "Eight! My, you are quite diligent. Always on time, always on task. You're a tidy person, like me! Aha." Marina would give Eight a warm smile. Eight didn't respond. She'd stay still as a tree, and simply turned as the train pulled up. 

           "You can speak if you want to, dearie..." Marina would whisper, but then she pull herself back. "Not that I'm... pressuring you to, or anything- I wouldn't want to sound annoying or.. Uhm-" Marina stopped and silenced herself. Eight ignored her. She simply looked out the window, watching them move farther and farther away from the sun, and deeper into the dark. Marina closed her eyes. She'd hum a lovely and familiar tune. Eight would begin to hum it a little as well, but softer. And they'd sit together singing the life changing tune until the end of the ride.

The doors opened and the 2 octolings would step out. They weren't at a station. They were at the area where Eight woke up with Cap'n when their journey just began. The 2 both wanted to come here to explore it a little more.

           "I'll go over here." Rina would point to a dark corner. Eight nodded, keeping their nonchalant attitude. Marina would squint into the darkness, and something was there. A knob of sorts? Maybe a door into somewhere? She walked over, a little faster. The sound of her big black boots echoed in the long hallway. She'd arrive at the door and tried to open- but it wouldn't. She wiggled the rusty knob, struggling.  Marina would think for a little while, and she touched her tentacle-bang.

           "Oh! Well, maybe it would...?" She'd take the clip out of her tentacle-bang and put it into the hole in the knob. Wiggling it around, the door opened, but only 1/4 of the way. "There must be something in front but I suppose I can fit.." She went sideways, sashaying into the room. It smelled horrid, like fish and dead things. She saw some mold on the walls and when she got in the room, Marina saw what was blocking the door was a chair.

           "Must've not wanted anybody here... How strange." Rina gulped. The dark, disgusting and creepy room send a chill down her back. All 3 of her hearts would beat a little faster. There was needles on the floor, all stuck in different colored sticky substances. Whatever they were, they had begun to rot. Marina put on some rubber gloves and picked a needle up, sticking it in plastic bag. She then used a cue tip to take some of the substance off the floor and put that in a plastic bag. Marina had come prepared. She was looking for anything or anyone that could have been left behind in the metro. But then she turned. A long tube was next to a metal table. You couldn't see inside, but there was a button. She'd creep over, a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead. And she pressed the button.

           "Huh- G-GAAAAH!" Her scream echoed. Pressing the button had revealed the contents of the tube, which was a inkling- no, octoling? A being. A being in the tube, covered in watery ink. They had no garments, and their tentacles weren't normal. It was like they were...

           "An inktoling? Could that be p-possible? To create another form of life? But... how-" Heels clicking. Someone ran into the room. Marina jumped, but it was just Eight. She'd look at Marina and took a deep breath. Speaking in an octoling dialect, Eight asked if Marina was alright.

           "Yes, of course! It's just...well, you see I found-ah-them." Rina pointed to the body in the tube. Then, she'd shudder. "I don't know who or what it is? But... should we take them out? I don't even know if they're alive." Eight would stare at the body for a minute. And then she'd point to the feet. 

           "Hm?" Marina looked in the direction Agent Eight would point to. The bottom of the bodies feet was green, and then ombre up until the knees to a normal, fair skin-tone. Sanitized is what Eight's mind instantly went to. She then spoke again in octarian, warning Marina about the possibility that it might attack. Rina thought for a second.

           "It isn't fully sanitized though... at least that's how it seems. And besides, they seemed knocked out. We have the advantage. Just lock the door, if anything goes wrong you have the weapon I gave you, yeah?" Eight took out her Fresh Squiffer. Snipers seemed to be their specialty.  

           "Maybe you should use some low tide ink though... We don't want to... you know?" Marina gave a worried smile. A very pacifist octoling she was. Couldn't say the same for some others. Eight changed the ink. And they opened the tube, forgetting about the liquidy, green ink. 

           "Agh! Ah... not so fresh." Marina looked around. She saw only dirty rags with ink-blood and other unknown and probably not so safe fluids on them. But she then realized. Her hoodie. The idol was never going to wear something so bland again anyway, and with her newfound fame and career with Pearl, she could buy all the hoodies in every color if she wanted. She wrapped the creature with the hoodie and zipped it up. 

           "Hello? Do you speak inkish?" And she then proceeded to say the same thing, but in octarian. The creature would move a little, and then start to cough rapidly. A blob of cobalt blue ink plopped onto the floor, matching the color of its tentacles. It would whisper something in a language neither Eight nor Marina understood. Some of it was words in inkish and a little octarian, but then gibberish was mixed it. Marina began to talk octarian, asking the thing who or what it was.

           "Jay...La...Name. Jay-la." The creature, "Jayla" would whisper, and then cough again. Marina touched Jayla's head.

          "Jayla. Okay. Name is Jayla." Marina nodded. "You are warm. I will help you." She tried to speak in the clearest way possible with the least words as to not confuse or frighten Jayla. Jayla nodded, and Marina helped her get up. 

          "Eight, can you call the train on your CQ-80? We really need to get her to my house. She doesn't look well." Eight nodded, and pressed a few buttons. About 5 minutes passed and Jayla had started to drool a lighter shade of blue ink. Marina began to panic a little. Just in time, the train pulled up and the trio bolted inside. She'd lay Jayla on the bench on the train and observed her. She then took a napkin and wiped away the ink on her face.

           "OK?" Eight murmured in Marina's ear. She'd then point to Jayla. Eight understood inkish but was still adapting to talking in it.

           "She isn't going to die or anything, at least I hope not... So yeah. But I need to give her something because she seems a little ill... but do you think she's natural? I mean... do you think she was an experiment?" Eight started at the inktoling looking thing. Her tentacles were the color of a sanitized octopus, and the coloring on her legs from before... 

           "Artificial. Sanitized." Eight replied.

           "But inktolings don't exist. So they couldn't have injected an existing being with the sanitation ink, right? They must have created her, but why isn't she fully sanitzied... Oh my...it's just playing with my head." The train came to a stop, and they were closer to the surface once again. Jayla looked directly at Marina.

          "Master?"

(  END OF PART ONE )