Splatoon Manga: CybeRun

Chapter 17: Restore Memories

⚙️Chapter 17: Restore Memories

L1-V3 wasn't stupid. She'd kept watch of these new civilians as they entered the city. She'd seen the blue one try to take on her elite squadron of fighters before the smokescreen made everything cloudy. She even could've sworn she saw the figure who started it.

But most importantly...

She knew her elites were being taken down.

She had a special program she could use to see what they were seeing on a computer. She didn't use it often, but she'd decided to check up on it recently. She was stunned when she found that PR1-NC3 wasn't responding, eyes widening in concern. He had no camera feed, it was an error screen and static. She shouldn't have underestimated that cephalopod group.

She watched for a little while longer, just to see what the others were up to. Even though she technically controlled them, she let them roam around the city freely with a list of things to do, some being urgent and some being casual. They were all mostly patrolling streets and areas, but then G10-V35's screen went off and the same screen with static showed up. L1-V3 leapt out of her seat and stared at the screen in front of her. She wasn't about to send all of her droids at once to those cephalopods, that would create too much of a disturbance and they needed to be away from the public. Couldn't have strangers influencing them and rebellions starting, L1-V3 had already dealt with the earlier rebels, killing them off.

She sighed as she began to instruct the next robot on finding and destroying the cephalopod group.

If she had to, she was going to kill that group herself.

-----

"Rider...I want you to be honest wth me," Flip said.

The group was currently on their way through the city, still split up from the other 4. They were about halfway to the HQ now, as N35 had helped them with shortcuts around the city.

"Ugh, what do you want?" Rider sighed.

"What am I to you? To the team?" Flip asked, getting directly to the point. "I know I'm a team player but I was just thinking-"

"Flip. You know how I feel after what happened when we were kids, right?"

"But didn't we get over that when Nemesis tried to take over Inkopolis that one time?!" Flip exclaimed. "Are you...still not over it? I'm not gonna do that again, you know..."

She reached out her hand to place it on Rider's shoulder, but he smacked it away.

"Listen. You're in this because Nana begged and begged for you and we needed a person with the Passion trait. Yeah, you deserve the credit you get from fighting Quartz and Heise and Cerise and all those other villains, but...you're also still the "newest" member to the team," Rider explained, a somewhat hesitant but stern expression on his face.

He was about to look away, but Flip talking kept his focus on her as the group kept walking.

"But...you were okay with me all those months ago! Why bring this up now, because I asked?" Flip asked, trying not to shout or start a fight.

"Well, I've been thinking recently about you and how you affect the team. This situation is nothing in comparison to what we've tackled so far, heck, we don't even know how to stop the villain from getting to us in the past! I know you're capable, Flip, but just...don't make a reckless mistake."

Rider sped up his pace as he walked ahead, and the others followed. Flip decided it was best to leave it at that before Rider got mad and the group split even more.

Right, no reckless mistakes.

...

So don't use the charger.

-----

Meanwhile, the second half of the squidbeak was continuing on their walk, with Gloves having rejoined their group. He was injured, but the group figured it was best not to buy things from stores. Instead, Hachi and Nana made makeshift bandages with clean cloth scraps they found in the city to stop the bleeding and cover wounds. Emperor wondered how Prince was doing, especially since Hachi and Nana hadn't treated those wounds yet...darn, they really needed to do that. He told Hachi and Nana about it, and they agreed to bandage Prince the second they could find decent material.

The group was about halfway to the HQ, though Hachi had found out that there was a border of sorts around it. He said he could hack into it, but the others would have to cover for him while he did so. Also, the group still had the mission of joining up with the others on their hands. Gloves was in the back area as Hachi and Emperor were in the front, though Nana kept an eye on the green Inkling. Before long, Nana's attention was redirected to the front as Emperor shouted.

"I think I see them just up ahead!"

Indeed, the group could see a bunch of brightly colored humanoids that weren't very blended in with the few citizens passing by here. Hachi and Nana nodded to each other as they ran forwards to get to them. Just then, a super jump arrow appeared in front of the streets ahead. Emperor saw it in time and tackled Hachi and Nana down as a figure landed with a powered-up splashdown. Nobody was hit with the ink, and the trio scrambled to get up with Gloves hanging back due to injuries.

As the ink cleared, the group could see that their foe was robot Hachi. As they started to spread out, the robot shot at their sides with modified blaster shots. The radius and power was enhanced, so the trio could feel the ink stinging the exposed parts of them as they stopped themselves from moving. This robot could predict their moves, so they had to be careful in what they did.

"Maintain operation DESTROY INTRUDERS!" robot Hachi shouted, holding up their blaster. "H4-CH1 REPORTING, LOCKED TARGETS!"

The group needed a way to get around the robot, but in a way so that Hachi could take them on. They couldn't split up, but maybe...

"Oh thank goodness, our friends are here to save us!" Nana said happily, looking up at a building.

"Fools. You cannot trick me. Scans indicate that there are no life forms up there that could possibly be of any use to you!" the robot Hachi replied.

"Even...bugs?" Emperor grinned smugly.

"What?!"

The robot Hachi quickly turned around to re-scan the area, which allowed Hachi to quickly get away from the group. His robot counterpart was quickly alerted and focused on him instead.

"You got this, Hachi! Use your smarts and out-wit the robot!" Gloves cheered.

"On it!" Hachi replied as he kept running.

Ah...outsmarting a robot.

What fun.