"Hey. You alright?"
"I'm fine." Samantha tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn, blinking away her bleary eyes as she leaned back in her seat. "Jacent had some bad dreams last night, and needed a little comforting."
"Sheesh, again, huh?" Erwin nodded sympathetically. "Just be on your toes. You-know-who's gonna show up any minute."
The Town Meet was in full swing, and many more than usual had attended personally. "But who, Arbitrator Melliode?" asked a very concerned and angry young shrew. "Who else gave the New Locksmouth Militia those weapons? It couldn't have just been one person!"
The owl sighed. "We're still investigating this, it's unclear who else had foreknowledge of the fusion weapons in question."
This did nothing to calm her anger. "The fact that Locksmouth effectively never complied with the Great Disarming is a huge, century-long scandal! The only reason we haven't been put under incredible scrutiny is because the other domes don't want to deal with the inkling situation, and everyone knows it!"
Melliode nodded. "We're aware, Ellie, and thus the investigation is underway."
"Most of the police were in the Militia! How can we trust them to be impartial??"
"Geez," Nat noticed. "I've never seen Ellie this fired up before."
"Yes, I'm aware. That's why the investigation is being done by an officer that wasn't present during that debacle. There won't be any cover-ups, nobody's trying to excuse anything. We just need more time."
When the shrew sighed and took her seat, Sal Silverfish stood up again. "Alright! Well it's getting pretty heated in here, make sure everybody's getting refreshments! Does anyone else want to weigh in?" The grasshopper waited the allotted time. "Alright then, that's all on that for now! Next on the agenda is a special announcement from someone who's never participated in the Town Meet format before!"
"Alright," Natalie nodded to her friends. "See you after this." She slipped out the back exit of their seating section and into the theater-like darkness.
"Please welcome our guest today, who I'll let introduce himself as per his request!"
A lava-colored inkling stepped onto the stage and regarded the gathering of surprised people. "Please, don't be alarmed."
Most of Natalie's pack reacted with shock. The majority of others weren't much better, simply apprehensive.
"It's not my intention to scare anybody today. My name is Emnas. You may recognize me from several instances that occurred during the Locksmouth Incident. My initial appearances, my struggles under the control of Empress Osoth, and most notably I would hope, my final efforts against our previous dictator."
"Trying to take some of the credit, huh?" Carrie hissed to herself.
"Though we have our differences, I recognize that it was Echelon's forces who finally ended our struggle against Osoth. There are none who can say they weren't instrumental in her defeat. However... that time has passed, and my people are suffering." He gestured and a hologram appeared showing a house full of monsters that was very familiar to Natalie. "Without hosts to give them a steady supply of prana, my fellow inklings- the ones referred to as 'Greys'- are forced to inhabit lowly creatures two and three at a time, muddling their minds and starving their bodies."
"And kidnapping innocent people to further feed on," Echelon noted, appearing from the shadows.
"Ah, Echelon. So... good to see you." Emnas looked away from her purposefully. "There have been incidents, yes. Very unfortunate, those, but brought on by a scarcity that you yourself exacerbated."
"Is that what you call freeing forced hosts?" she cut right back.
"If you could let your bloodlust subside, then I'd like to make these people an offer." His gaze intensified, like a flame. "During your outing at the exhibit, I noticed something that apparently slipped you by. Some in that crowd asked to host you. One in particular asked how they could have an inkling of their very own. The obvious solution to our host shortage is to offer inklings to those who want them."
"W-... What?" Echelon was taken aback. "You mean to just... hand out symbiotic organisms to people like gift bags??"
"I mean to hand a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to people who want to experience it!" Emnas countered. "It's easier to understand if you don't hate yourself and your people."
A sputtering snarl exploded from her. "Pompous ass! My deeds speak louder than your words."
"Indeed?" He smirked. "Then what will your deeds be this time? Will you stop our people from gaining hosts who want them?"
Echelon frowned. She'd played right into his hand by taking him on publicly. "I mean... as long as it was consensual, then... of course not. I couldn't prevent that."
Emnas smiled- an uncomfortable look on him. "Perhaps you're a friend to the people of Canvas after all." He turned to the gathering of people who had up to this point simply watched with fascination, as if taking in a show. "Any who wish to be bonded with an inkling and experience life in full duality, meet me at Park Circle in three hours." He paused. "And if anyone attempts to stop this peaceable event, they will be dealt with. Harshly."
-
- -
-
Mandy loved the feel of the cool grass between her toes after a long stretch of delivering groceries for her grandfather's store. It was a great way to get more scratch, but some days were awfully tiring. "Sorry I'm late guys!" She waved to her pack as well as Greg's- they'd been hanging out a lot ever since the two of them got together- who were in the midst of having a picnic on the grass just outside of Penceworth Estates. Greg patted a patch of blanketed ground beside him and she graciously accepted, getting pulled into a hug by his big arms. "Nnn, squeeze me!" He complied and she made a pleased, if somewhat silly sound.
"Nnnnngh don't bug her eyes out!" Geoff said, though he sounded unconvincing.
"What you mean like this?!" Mandy opened her eyes unnaturally extra-wide right at the beaver, who rolled onto his back laughing.
"Ohmigodthat'ssogross!" shrieked Claire, giggling all the same.
"One of my many talents," The panda snickered, reaching into the basket. "Now what's for lunch, I'm starved! Sandwich, sandwich, ooh! What's this?" She pulled out a small insulated heat box, long lights pulsing red to show the contents were being kept piping hot, and sniffed the contents.
Bo looked up from her PET. "Oh, that's something Jacent made, uh, he called it 'Orange Chicken' I think? He makes too much food all the time, so he comes downstairs to share it with me a lot."
"Never heard of it," Mandy admitted, taking a bite. "Oh wow that's tasty. I gotta move in to your place!" she joked, wolfing it down and enjoying the surprising array of flavors.
Joseph scratched his back on a tree. "Isn't it weird to have that guy as a neighbor?"
"Oh, no way, he's really nice; you'd like him." Bo stood up a little awkwardly, trying not to bump anyone else. "Now..." She smirked, looking around. "If you wanna talk about somebody hard to live with?" She extended her arms out to her sides. Her fingertips coated with drab grey, a skin of muffled, color-sucking pigment crawling up her arms and coating her chest, then lower torso, then legs. Finally, her head was enveloped, eyes and mouth represented by simplistic lighter colored patches of liquid. "This guy's impossible."
She'd struck her friends dumb. "Bo. You... you didn't go," Mandy observed the obvious. "When Echelon was separating inklings, you said you were going to-"
"I know! I know." She admitted hesitantly. "I was scared. When it happened, when Echelon asked me to keep him, when Shelly's party happened, then afterward with Authoritus. But when I was safe in my apartment, it really just showed me how helpless he was. He didn't have any more control over it than I did. I started thinking about how horrible that is, to not be able to control your own body. And then... he spoke to me in my dreams." She walked in the inkling's feet, feeling every part of the grass underfoot, putting the liquid hand on a tree. "He told me about a lot of things. His long life, all the places he's been, the memories he worked so hard to hold onto. Guys, there's so much out there," she said, impassioned. "But. He also said... that he was grateful to me, for not throwing him out. So... I've decided to let him stay."
Geoff tilted his head. "But... aren't you scared?"
She nodded and smiled sympathetically, feeling a little wiser for it. "Anything new is scary, Geoffy. You just have to have a little faith that things will work out."
"Well." Greg considered his little sister for a moment. "I can understand if you don't wanna let 'em go. Just be careful, alright?" He flashed her a big-brotherly smile of support laced with just a bit of concern.
"Yeah." She chuckled, her friendly features visible even in ink. "No problem." She took Mandy's empty food carton and strolled around the apartment building, thinking on it. Her reveal had gone a lot better than she'd expected. Maybe she really didn't have anything to fear. Maybe things really were turning around. She tossed the carton into a bin... at least, that's what she tried to do, instead watching it bounce off an invisible wall and tumble to her feet in an orange sauce-smeared heap. "Mmh?" She hit her head bending over to pick it up before she realized exactly what had transpired.
"Ink Tank Unit 5 reporting a capture," a large faceless officer in power armor reported. "Transporting back to the precinct."
-
- -
-
Jacent's apartment was a spartan arrangement by post-splice standards. Decorations existed-bamboo plants, a waterfall facade that burbled soothingly, and a number of books here and there- but it made positively no use of any holograms, by his own insistence. Illusions made him uneasy.
His friends and their hunger, however, were quite real, and both were going to arrive soon. He lifted the translucent handles of the large wok with practiced ease, a mass of rice, pork and vegetables land-sliding within it continually. It sobered him a bit to think about how not long ago, he'd have eaten the entire dish meant to feed all of his friends, by himself. Those days were behind him now; the threats of his day were gone for good, and his powers were too dangerous to use. "It's not selfish," he said evenly. "I'm still helping like this. Besides, I'd just muddy up political issues between aliens."
"Now that doesn't sound like the Cap'n Comet I knew," Widget remarked with a knowing smirk as she played a digital card game against Gren and Ten on the couch.
"Yes. Because Cap'n Comet is gone," he said with decisiveness, coming in to witness their game. She was playing a two-monster battle against the kids' own and doing questionably. "It's just Jacent, now."
Widget looked back at Jacent with the kind of unreadable expression only a machine could perfect. "... Mmh." She laid down another card and the kids cheered.
"No more healing! I attack this turn, which means we win!" Gren announced happily.
Ten grinned and high-fived the goat girl. "Team Reactor chalks up another victory!"
"Team Reactor?" Widget whispered to the others as Jacent went back to tend to his stir-fry. "Is that what we are now?"
"You like it??" Aren beamed. "I came up with it myself!"
She rolled her eyes, or at least probably did, and smirked. None of the three of them did anything to warrant it, but it made them feel included. "So does that mean you're ready to tell everybody about you-know-who?"
"Erh," he stammered. "Well, I mean, almost."
"It's hard to bring up!" Gren complained.
The freckled robot nodded knowingly. "Uh-huh. Gimme a rematch."
Jacent's door slammed open when Carrie stormed in, overpowering the automatic mechanisms for the satisfaction of banging it against the frame. "When I see that grumpy piss bucket, I'm gonna pile drive a train buoy down his peehole!"
"I can't believe I let him get the best of me," Natalie complained, plopping down on the couch with an exasperated sigh. She raised her head from her hands as her nose wiggled, sniffing at the air. "What's that?"
"Food," Jacent answered, dishing her- and the rest of the pack- out plenty of the stuff.
"Oh man, thanks Jacent, I'm starving!" The wolf dug in happily, tail wagging in approval.
Erwin inspected his plate closely before taking a cautious bite. "So... I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really confused about what happened in there. Is Cedric trying to be a good guy now? Again? Kind of?"
Natalie tried to fit her explanation in between bites. "No way, mrfnh... he's just, glmnh... Echelon, you explain it, I'm so hungry."
The inkling slid out of her host with ease, lying on her belly in the middle of the floor, examining Ten's shoes. "He's posturing. As long as I can remember, Emnas has been what you might compare to an old-world power broker. He's not afraid to get his own hands dirty, but he wants to be the one calling the shots at the end of the day. So if he's making overtures of leadership and strength, it's because he senses a weakness in my own."
"Little wonder," Arus admitted, having taken a cat-like position atop the backrest of the love seat. "We haven't made a definitive move yet. Even I know we've given mixed signals at best. We should've been projecting strength from day one."
"Easy enough to say," Phactys stretched his metaphorical legs, going dry a very recent development for him. "But what does that actually mean? If Echelon imposes her will over everyone else after defeating Osoth, she's just another tyrant. But on the other hand, the Greys don't appear to have the faculties to rule themselves..."
Mhend found herself taking over Sam's flesh like being pushed onstage; she was still incredibly shy about such things. "And yet, as confused and pitiable as they are, the Greys don't appear to be the biggest problem."
"Ahhh~" Natalie wiped her mouth, having demolished an entire plate of stir-fry. "Ever since Osoth fell the first time, it's been a bloodthirsty mad dash to be the most powerful Elite on Canvas."
"That's dumb," Max judged glibly. "Koralo already is! Duh."
A knock came at the door, but said door was already open. Kelvalde stood in the doorway, handling a couple of objects. "Hey there! Got something for you."
"Oh, it's done??" Sam inquired.
"Sure is." He tossed a small squarish object toward the bat. She tried and failed to catch it with a surprised sound, but once she picked it up out of her lap, she was too fascinated by it to be bothered by anything else. "The modifications should work fine. Just point and squeeze! Just... not indoors if you can help it."
Samantha held the small object in her hands, pointing one protrusion of it forward. "Much appreciated," she nodded satisfactorily, opening up the storage panel in her leg and placing it within the pocket.
"So there's no way you weren't listening in to the entire conversation," Carrie remarked glibly.
"Yeah," Nat agreed, more curious than anything. "What do you think of all this?"
He took an offered plate of stir fry and sat on the arm of the couch. "Well. If it were me, I'd disappear and wash my hands of the whole thing. But then, that's been my strategy from the start! Seriously, haven't you done enough?"
Natalie folded her arms. "Out of the question. They're causing problems, sure, but if we ignore the problem, it'll only get worse." She frowned and glanced down at Echelon, conflicted. "I feel bad for people, but I feel bad for the inklings, too. Nobody asked for this, and I don't... really know how to be the good guy in this situation."
"I know, right?" Carrie stretched, reclining and putting an arm around her girlfriend. "If only Canvas wasn't such a shitty place to live."
Natalie hugged her as well, letting Cat's head rest on her shoulder in post-meal relaxation. She played with Carrie's tail, letting it slide through her grip as she looked around at Jacent's apartment. He seemed relatively happy there, not being exposed to the elements. He still seemed to be struggling with some things, but- "... Wait. Waaait. That's it."
"Huh? What?" Cat blinked.
"I've got it. I know exactly what we need to do!" Nat stood up with a sense of purpose. "Max, Carrie, I need you to come with me. We're going to Canvas." She looked over at the "Erwin, if anything happens, I'm putting you in charge of things planet-side. Jacent?"
"Use the mirror in the bedroom; it's already marked," he responded, taking off an oven mitt. "Good luck."
"B-But Na-a-atalie!" Gren bleated, looking back at Ten. "We had something to tell you!"
"It'll have to wait guys, sorry," she said genuinely, leading the team toward Jacent's bedroom with many a confused mutter and disappearing moments afterward to a familiar otherworldly sucking sound.
Jacent patted the kids as they knit their brows in frustration. "More stir fry?" His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Who could that be?" He shooed Phactys and Mhend, who dove back to their hosts. When the door opened, one Mr. Alpine was standing there, looking pensive. "Oh, Jordan. Hello."
"Jacent, I know I'm on assignment for you, but I need your help now," he said pressingly. "Bo's been taken by police... and I don't think she's under arrest."
-
- -
-
It was hard to describe Canvas in any way that would satisfy one who had not laid eyes on it. Part storybook, part dream, it coalesced elements that teased at the periphery of the human mind in a fashion that defied explanation. It was at once full of objects and yet un-mired by their concrete existence, able to exude potential in specific and general.
When Natalie, Carrie and Max exited the now familiar backdrop of Echelon's castle, they traversed a land unknown. Paths were beaten through the impossible fog of wild structure masquerading as flora, and the green, multi-hued sky was an ever-present yet forgotten aspect. It was unclear what a sky even meant in such a place, untethered by the rules of the other, deeper reality.
"Oh man..." Max's inked eyes widened with wonder. "This place is amazing..."
"It figures you'd like this," Cat sniffed.
"Don't you think it's cool??" the iguana asked. "Everything's so different!"
Carrie lifted a foot, which the ground had stuck to like plaster. "A little too different. Anyway, what're we doing here?"
Natalie took the lead into further and further foliage. "We're looking for the Greys that we banished back to Canvas."
"What? Why??" Cat became incredulous. "They're gonna be fuckin' furious; did we come here just to start a fight?"
"No," she denied. "We came to offer them shelter."
"Ooh, we're gonna build it with blocks of cobblestone, right??" asked Max.
"With prana." Echelon guided Natalie's instincts. She thought about the direction the Greys would be in and walked that way. It wasn't clear exactly how that accomplished what she wanted, but somehow it did. "See, even when they're hosted, Arus, Echelon and Koralo are still living on Canvas- unless we call them to Earth. The difference is, they're able to keep their memories."
"Whoooa..." Max grinned as they entered a very unfocused part of Canvas, where reality itself seemed to blur. They carefully made their way through, their ink-protected bodies squirming through brush-like swirls of color. "Freaky!"
"I used to think that being anchored to us made inklings unaffected by Canvas." Natalie emerged from the other side of the distortion, making it into a rough but more concrete part of the place. "But we have nothing to do with it. What I'm thinking-"
"- Is that prana lets inklings affect Canvas, instead of the other way around!" Max finished excitedly.
"Wait a minute," Carrie protested. "So how does that translate to shelter?"
"No wait, I get it, lemme!" Max grinned. "Echelon's castle only exists 'cuz she's all fulla prana alla time, yeah? Not errybody in her group always had hosts, but 'cuz she always had a bunch left over, the castle was always a safe place."
"Ohhhh, okay." Cat blinked. "So now that everybody's hosts are making way more prana than they need-"
"- We're gonna start protecting the Greys with it," Natalie confirmed. "Prana's the food and shelter of this world, and we've got plenty. Whoa!" She stopped her friends as they came to a writhing mass of grey goo in a filthy basin. "There they are." Nat cleared her throat and let Echelon take voice. "Fellow inklings! I come before you again!"
One of them came forward, separating from the group and assuming a strange quintaped form. "Oh good. Another saturated blot, come to lead us around by the neck." The mass of Grey behind them began to bubble in discontent.
"I am not here to take advantage of you. I know you've been wronged in the past, and I'm not going to repeat that mistake."
"Sure you aren't," they sneered. "Neither were Authoritus, and look how they dropped us as soon as it was convenient. Emnas has said the same thing, and yet we're sure he'll be using us some way sooner or later!" Their mass discontent began intensifying.
"Whoa, chill!" Koralo said. "We're not like them!"
"You're all alike! All elites are out to exploit us!" They began boiling violently as their spokesperson pointed toward Echelon. "You already broke your promise to us, race traitor!"
"I betrayed NO ONE!" She stamped her foot and sent a shockwave through the air, scaring the lot of them into cowed silence. "Save for the murderous Osoth, who treated you worse than any! And if it seems I've broken a promise, then Canvas must have done much to you already, because not a single one of you left your hosts willingly! I offered you so much and you snubbed me, so I came after you like I said I would!" Echelon was seething. "If anything, you're angry that I've kept my word!" Arus put a hand on her shoulder, snapping her out of her anger and pointing toward the crowd again, from which a second had emerged.
"That's true for most, yes, but... my host wanted me. The other humans, they... ripped me out..." they shrunk back in fear and sadness, to the comfort of the group.
"What??" Echelon leaned in, baffled. "What humans? Where??"
"There's no way," Koralo concluded sadly. "They're totally hysterical, even if they could remember it'd be a huge mess."
Arus stepped forward toward the frightened mass of inklings. They edged away from her heavy bootsteps. "Ahem." She looked over them. "Echelon?"
"Oh. I'm... sorry I got angry and scared you," she said awkwardly, but with sincerity. "I didn't come here to make you afraid."
"... But then... why are you here?"
"Why indeed." Arus smiled, a genuine expression they'd never seen on her. "We don't need you to siphon prana; our hosts give us more than we need. Our strength is great, so we don't want you as a cudgel. The fact is... we want you to help us finally settle this world we call home."
-
- -
-
"We're here," Sam announced with the same sing-song lilt in her voice that accompanied a destination like the beach or a friend's house. This time, however, they'd stopped a short way from the police station, and it was clear that she'd only done it out of habit. "Erm. Yes."
"Yeah, I'm nervous, too," Erwin assured her, casting dreading glances toward the police station. It was a place not unlike the Principal's office: somewhere you didn't go unless you did something wrong. And while it was the natural place to go when trying to find a missing person, they were there to interrogate the police- a perverse and intimidating job. "How're we gonna get them to talk? If they're in on it they'll just deny it... and if they're not, they'll think we're crazy."
"But like, maybe they'll feel bad about lying and tell us anyway?" Shelly hazarded.
"They're not going to tell us anything," Sam concluded. "And we're not going to ask. If Miss Murphy hasn't contacted us once throughout this entire ordeal, we can conclude that she's probably being watched. Seeing as that's true, we'll need to get our own answers."
"It is weird that she hasn't said anything," Erwin agreed. "But how're we supposed to find out anything if we can't ask questions?"
"Well." She considered it momentarily. "Currently, we have no information, and they have all of it. So, all three of us are going to go inked, sneak into the back of the police station and recover whatever information we can about Bo's disappearance. Files, reports, anything would help. But stay incongruous!"
"Incognito," Erwin corrected. "Also, this is Team Reference's first recon mission; I think you're overestimating our ability to be super-spies really hard."
"Like as well, reports go in files. They're like, an organizational tiering," Shelly added.
Sam cocked a brow at Shelly only momentarily. "We're going to be inked so that the police don't show up at our parents' houses if we're seen. And as for the sneaking part... well, just follow my lead."
They got out of the car, sneaking around the corner of a public building in a private grove, at which point they made sure the coast was clear before nodding to each other and inking over. Their inklings' smooth wet flesh felt good to them now. Sam recounted how at first it had been an alien sensation that made her flesh crawl, but now Mhend's liquid skin was not unlike a hot pink suit of viscous gel insulating her from the rest of the world. It was empowering, and made her feel at once more confident in the outcome of the mission. Mhend herself now wore a large white scarf, which she knew to be the true proof she'd been accepted by her host: Sam had accessorized her.
The police station was a rather squat building, not at all like the other, much taller places around it. Wide but smooth, it shared the same lack of sharp corners that most of their architecture did, lending to it in this particular case a look not unlike armor. It was a fortification and did not wish to be breached.
To simply open a door, even a back way, would be foolish. "Can you give us a peek inside?"
Erwin nodded, pulling out his PET from the allotted storage Phactys provided him. "Just a minute while I tune in." It took some time while he played with the settings, but after some effort they had a working hologram of the police building as captured by its own cameras. "There's only one person guarding the jail right now." There were many police working behind counters and desks, and a few of them were standing around talking. "It's gonna be hard not to get spotted if we go for the desks."
"I'll take that job, then," Sam decided. "You stick to the back hallways and side-offices. Shelly, the jail is the emptiest; you check if anything's there. I don't think I need to tell you how important it is that we don't get caught."
They all made their way to the back entrance, making sure to stay behind vehicles and other obstacles as much as possible. When the time came to open the door, Sam took point. Her friends watched anxiously as she ducked into the back hallway and crept slowly toward a tired-looking horse sitting at a desk watching a large series of holographic displays- he was on monitor duty. Ever so slowly, she silently crouch-walked over to him, put a hand on his back and activated Mhend's anesthetic touch. He let out a relaxed, tired sigh and his head tilted gently back and to the side. Sam looked around to ensure the coast was clear, noted that most everyone else was filing paperwork or elsewhere, and crept back to the large decorative plants in the back hallway.
"S-... Sam, where did you learn to do that??" whispered Erwin with some marvel.
She tossed the tail of the scarf over her shoulder, shrouding her face with flair. "My interactive spy novels aren't just dirty fluff, Erwin dear. Now hurry and check what you can, you two; I'm going to go for Officer Murphy's desk."
"You're nuts," the ferret disbelieved.
She smirked. "I know, I'm even more attractive now; try to cope."
Erwin quietly made his way into an empty back office. It was an administrative office filled with official records and cluttered with files. He opened up a drawer and pulled out a tablet out of dozens arranged like papers would have been centuries before. Arrests, investigations, personal notes... the information here was extensive. "It'll take forever to root through all this, I'll get caught before I have time." He tilted his head. "Unless..."
"Already on it," Phactys said with a conspiratorial whisper. "Let's do a little homework." Time, as Erwin perceived it, slowed down tremendously. His eyes pored over the information outlined in the documents in front of him, looking for anything having to do with Bo, Murphy or inklings in general. For him it was like a trip to the school library, but in reality he was rapidly changing pages as quickly as they displayed. He finished an entire tablet's contents in moments.
"... I bet I could speed this up," Erwin said with a grin, pulling multiple tablets out of the drawers between his fingers and laying them all out on the desk. "Now this is interesting..."
-
- -
-
Back in the hallway, Shelly managed to choose her time carefully- probably too carefully, jumping at every sound and missing plenty of perfectly good opportunities to skip between bored officers- and made her way into the jail after a slow-closing door. The only place that mirrored pre-splice punitive incarceration, it nevertheless only resembled its predecessor in function. A long hallway with a series of side-rooms fully visible from the side they entered, the tiled cells closed off by the same fields that domed Locksmouth. Shelly had folded her wings down into quarters, ducking into a small supply closet between the door and the cells. Thankfully, neither of the two police in the room had seen her.
The entering officer, a bear, walked over to the one sitting at the desk, a bee. "Hey Combs. You can knock off now, I'm here to relieve you."
"Not much of a relief, Sanders," muttered the yellow officer, shaking his head and getting his things together.
Sanders frowned. "It's really eating you, isn't it?"
"I don't see how it's not eating you too. I mean... you know me. When the New Locksmouth Militia started up, I was the first to sign on. It felt right. Those were desperate times and nobody knew anything."
"But now?"
"But now we're not soldiers anymore, and now... those people didn't do anything. They're here illegally."
Shelly craned her neck out slightly. Her view was limited, but she could see a lot of people in those cells, some she recognized and some she didn't, all looking quietly upset with their predicament.
"Look, Combs, don't get so worked up. I know what you mean, but-"
"But nothing! And now we're getting put in the middle of a political thing in those fucking- I hate those power suits. They were supposed to be a tool, not a uniform. You can't see anybody's face in 'em. What are we, the Valtric Crownsguard?"
"Just... I'm sure it'll be fine. This'll all blow over soon..."
"Whatever. I'm getting out of here. I don't know if I'll be back. This isn't why I became a cop..."
Combs rose from his desk and made his way to the closet, sending Shelly into a small panic. He opened the door, reached in for his cap, and lingered. "... Hey, Sanders." He poked a brightly colored tube leaning against the wall. "Did you bring orange wrapping paper?" The bear only shook his head. "... Ugly as hell. Must've been Dunston."
When Combs left, Shelly unraveled from her flat, spooled shape and sighed with relief. Manipulating that shape to such a degree was extremely difficult and took incredible concentration- it was the flattest she'd ever been. After gathering her thoughts, however, something new caught her attention. A door she hadn't noticed slid open, and Sanders got up, nodding to an unseen figure.
"Ready for the next one?"
"Go ahead and bring them here."
The butterfly watched as Bo Briggs walked through the field and became encased in one all her own. An opossum replaced her in the cell, and the sheep twitched. "You can't do this. It's evil!" she declared. "You're gonna regret this!" As she neared the door, however, her defiant face fell to fear. "Don't-... don't do this..." It closed behind her, and the place was silent again.
-
- -
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Hiding under desks was a skill of Samantha's. She'd played hide-and-seek with her father many times, and her small size- even for a child- had enabled her to keep hidden in many unorthodox places. If she got caught here, however, the consequences would be much more dire than a rare string of laughter from her father and a mild punitive tickling.
She clicked her tongue, an innocuous sound that nonetheless bounced all around the room and returned to her ears, creating a rough map of the room and, more importantly, everyone in it. The office part of the police department had a smattering of officers that day, all spread across different parts of it. She'd managed to slink from desk to desk, but to get to Murphy's, she'd need to cross the aisle dividing them. "Careful..." she said to herself in the lightest of whispers, closing her eyes and focusing in on the sonar map that was coalescing in her mind. She wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to see, but the nature of it was known to her. It made itself perfectly clear when an officer came in, radio squawking about something or other, and she took the chance.
Everyone's eyes were on the newcomer, their noise masking her own movements as she made her way over in a hurry. She banged her knee- the flesh one- on the way, and clenched most of her body suppressing the urge to hiss about it, instead coiling up underneath the shadows of Murphy's desk and waiting to see if anybody was coming. Close footsteps made her extremely nervous. Her breathing paused. When they kept on going past her, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Murphy's desk was a private one, up against a wall. This afforded her the ability to open the drawers without drawing a bunch of attention, which she did, blindly grabbing anything and everything she could out of them. There were a few vintage model neurods, one in a curious jungle camo with cut metal diamond grip; an old, grimey detective novel, dog-eared and spine-broken; and a feed-frame picture of her son's eighth birthday, held at Mega Molly's. "That's can't be it," she whispered almost inaudibly, before noting that the back of the frame had a strange weight to it. She flipped it around to find a police PET stuck to the back of it. After a moment of investigation, the small computer was opened to a note program that featured one singular phrase: 'Look for bugles.' "That's strange..." she investigated by searching the files on the device- a simple task even for someone casually acquainted with the everyday items- and found a single document with that one keyword tagged to it. "... Oh, no."
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Erwin's eyes were getting bleary. His head hurt from concentrating so much, speed-reading incredibly dry information under the influence of what felt like quantum slow-down.
"You're going to start getting mental bleed if you keep going," Phactys said in the reflection of his glasses.
The ferret didn't know what that was, but it sounded terrible. "I never realized before this moment how hard they work to make homework fun," he whispered. "Fine, I'll stop in just a second. I just need to-... wait a minute." He spotted something out of the ordinary. A directive straight from the Chief of Police. "Blah blah, contingency due to recent events, yada yada, ordering all officers to take part in... Operation Roundup? What..." His eyes widened as he read the details. "I-... I've gotta find the others..."
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[Classybat: Is the way clear?
Rubberfly: Yeah, for now...
Brushferret: Good, then open the door.]
The security door opened and both of them shuffled inside, shutting it behind them. It was strange to feel safe locking oneself in jail, but those were the particulars of the moment.
"Alright," Sam started. "Officer Murphy has been placed on assignment on the outskirts of Locksmouth. She's not allowed to leave the beach until she can solve the Mystery of Dead Man's Bay."
"The folk story?" Erwin cocked a brow. "That's two and a half centuries old. This is definitely a smokescreen to stop her from being around town."
"Probably 'cause they wanted to keep all eyes off this," Shelly motioned to the destitute people around them. Some were talking, but they couldn't hear them.
"Operation Roundup," Erwin supplied. "Chief Ironwood ordered all Greys to be captured and 'processed.' I don't know what that means, but it can't be good. And either way they're taking people and putting them into prison just for walking around."
"Actually like, this isn't a prison, it's a jail; a prison is where you keep people for a long time, but a jail-"
"Shelly!"
"What?? Did I do something wrong, what did I do??"
"Erwin is upset that you're spending time on semantics, Shelly dear," Samantha patiently explained, quelling her confusion. "It doesn't matter at the moment; can you free these people?"
"I'm pretty sure I can," Erwin nodded, sitting behind the desk and popping his PET into the console.
"Like we have to help Bo, though!" urged Shelly. "They took her in the room behind that door and she sounded really scared!"
"I can't do more than one thing at a time," Erwin said with some frustration.
"Don't worry about it, I'll totally get past the door," Shelly assured him, getting a good look at the hefty portal and placing her fingers over the sliding mechanism. "See you in a minute." Her inked body stretched and flattened gradually as she concentrated, conforming to a paper-thin shape. She pressed in carefully, like trying to thread a needle, and ever so slowly made her way to the other side. The door slid open, and a much bulgier Shelly beckoned them in. "C'mon!"
"Good work, Shelly dear!" Sam praised her infiltration work. "I think Erwin should have the people free in a moment. I hope there are no real criminals stuck in here with them."
The cells opened, and dozens of people piled out, anxious and unsure.
"It's okay!" Sam said through Mhend with a smile. "We're here to set you free. You've been detained illegally, they have no right to keep you. Just stay here while we arrange an escape route and we'll all be on our way."
Ellie stepped forward, tears streaming down from her puffy eyes. "You have to rescue Bo! They're going to take away her inkling, like they did-..." she choked back a sob. "... Like they did mine."
Sam nodded with what she hoped was authority. This exciting spy novel experience- and the adrenaline rush that had seen her through it- was spiraling into something completely out of her depth, and she was trying her best not to show it. "We'll do what we can."
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The journey had been long, unexpectedly so for how short a time it had taken them before, but Echelon and her allies- no, not allies, friends- had led the Greys to her castle. "Come now, it's not far to get inside."
In minutes, the dark, lonely fortress that served as Echelon's basis of stability within Canvas was bustling. The enormous amorphous mass of drab inkling flesh began separating, and into vaguely humanoid shapes, no less.
"It's strange to be back here."
"The walls seem so much higher than last time." "It's so cold..."
"I can fix that." Echelon smiled and nodded at her compatriots, traveling quickly and comfortably through mirrors in various places throughout the castle, lighting torches, sconces and fireplaces. Though not literal fire, they represented a slow burn, the flow of prana throughout parts of the castle that normally didn't get or need any. The cold black place danced with warm amber light, giving the entire structure a new look, a fresh feeling that all the Greys present seemed to react to favorably.
"Ohhh!"
"It's so nice..."
"I feel like I can breathe again!"
One of them shuddered happily. "Ohhhh... to drink so deeply, and for there to be more waiting!"
Another nodded. "Yes, but... what do we have to do to keep it flowing? I don't want to be part of any schemes."
Koralo smoothed his frills out with a grin. "Good, 'cause rule number one is that you can't be part of any schemes."
"Mmnh... it feels too good to be true," they winced.
"It's okay. You're slow to trust, and that's understandable," Echelon assured. "But I'm after something bigger than conquest, or power. I want... civilization. A place on Canvas where we can live without hosts... or at least a minimal number of them." She turned away from the mirror. "But that reminds me. You said that some of you were taken from your hosts even though they wanted you. Do you remember how?"
A familiar Grey stepped forward. "It was them... the soldiers. Ah, no. Umn... police. The Police did it."
"The Police??" Echelon flinched. "You're sure?"
"Yes... there was a room. They took us there, behind lots of doors. A room with angry holes everywhere. I couldn't help but surface, something drove me to... and then... they bludgeoned me endlessly, until I was forced away... they used your mirror. That's why we thought you were in league with them. Even now... I can hear the shots."
"Unbelievable... is this what they were doing with the people captured by the Ink Tank squads?" Arus asked.
"I don't know, but either way we need to get back to Earth. Now."
"Okay, but hold on a sec!" Koralo said suddenly, running off. "I gotta adjust a mirror!"
"Koralo!" Echelon called after him, but he was already gone. Sigh.
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"Stop! Stop this!"
They weren't listening. Bo had to watch every moment of preparation as she was strapped into a chair inside of a tall but narrow cylindrical room. Every angle of the circular walls featured round protrusions that pointed directly at her, like the eyes of predators.
"Don't take my inkling! He can't live without me!" She stomped her feet, as it was all she could do. "You don't understand!" She felt herself close to tears, frustrated and sad and afraid. "What's going on? HNGH!" The entire room lit up in a strange purple light, and her flesh crawled. Something agitated her inside, almost literally, for within moments, her flesh was covered in grey liquid. It was at this point that the various openings began to glow and hum with power. "Nnh! No! NO!" She clenched her eyes shut and grimaced, bracing. "STOP, PLEASE!!"
A deafening blast sounded throughout. Then, silence.
"... Uh?" Bo looked around, noticing the room had dimmed, the high-pitched whining having died abruptly. When her eyes adjusted, she saw that the door was open.
A familiar pink inkling walked through, blowing the dust off of what looked like a modified bicycle tire pump. "Terribly sorry to have kept you waiting."
"Mhend??"
She turned, hiding the device behind her unseen side, and with a mechanical whirring, turned back to her, the thing having disappeared like a sleight of hand trick. "And my associates," she motioned as they entered behind her, "Phactys. Lastik."
"These are modified fusion canons," Shelly immediately noticed, poking at the protrusions on the walls. "Force pulse only. That must be how they're removing inklings."
Erwin frowned, freeing Bo from the chair. "But... Greys almost never hard-surface. They're usually totally under, or stuck in that halfway state. It'd be too dangerous to remove them that way."
"The sheep girl panted, her heart still racing. "There was this light... and I suddenly felt really excited in a bad way. It's hard to explain, but he was... surfaced on me."
"Wait a minute." The ferret looked behind the control panel. "Power conduits, frequency generator... this is a SCIFI." He slammed the console angrily. "They're using my invention to stimulate inklings so they can remove them! ... Ow."
"That is most uncouth," Sam agreed, stepping over an unconscious pair of officers into a crowded hallway full of prisoners.
Bo gasped. "Are they..."
"Just a little sleepy after taking a tumble," the bat returned mischievously. "Now how do we get out of here? We need a brilliant plan, and swiftly."
Erwin rubbed his chin. "Well, if they're sending inklings to Canvas..."
"... They must have a doorway!" Shelly finished, as if she were going to win a prize.
"Here we are," Sam spotted the reflective surface, noticing it propped up against the wall. "We have a route, potentially. Just a moment, however, while I see where it goes."
"Wow, going in first?" Erwin smirked.
She tossed her scarf over her shoulder, smiling wryly. "I don't remember requesting sass." All the same, her face became more serious when she crouched, placing her hands against the mirror, tensed and unsure what awaited her. Mhend's flesh melted into its reflective surface, followed by the usual gut-wrenching slide. When she surfaced, it wasn't into two-dimensional space, but three again, getting dumped into a familiar chair in a familiar room, and summarily being ejected from that springy chair, landing on a simple bed. "Oh!" She looked around, confused, before realizing where she was. "... Ah." Sam giggled. "Finally found a place for that chair, did you?"
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Park Circle was filled with people. It was nowhere near the kind of clustering it had seen during the Locksmouth Incident, but people crowded around all the same, onlookers and participants both. At the center of all the attention, three inklings curated a cage full of inked alien creatures, stacked on top of each other like goods and sundry. The magma-like leader, Emnas, directed the other two as they began unpacking various effects for the purposes of distribution. "Empty them into the individual cages one at a time, we don't want any of them getting loose in the chaos," he reminded Floe and Vissage, who worked quickly to get everything underway. "Attention! Those who are here to receive and bond with an inkling, line up in the middle! Spectators- if you must gawk- will stay to the sides without interfering!"
Alliston put down a box and veered from her course a moment to menace Jacent, who stood on the sidelines, still in street clothes and an apron. "That goes double for you! Don't even think of meddlin' in our business!"
He looked evenly down at her, pausing momentarily before responding. "Threatening someone who is no threat to you projects only weakness. True strength is silent and assured."
The vixen blinked, confused, and returned to her task, but stopped momentarily. "... Heeey, he told me to shut up!"
"What, do you only like it when I say it?" Cedric returned, annoyed. "Now pipe down and get everything set up, we don't have all day!"
"Aye-aye!" Alliston acknowledged, quickly getting back into the rhythm.
Natalie ran toward Park Circle with a renewed sense of urgency. It was some small measure of relief when she noticed Team Reference standing on the other side of the place. "C'mon, guys! Hurry." They circled around and reunited with their team members.
"Thank goodness you're here," Erwin breathed, not used to the exertion he'd been putting himself through. "We have something earth-shattering to tell you!"
"As earth-shattering as the police rounding up inked people and separating them?" Carrie guessed.
"So you've heard as much," Sam intuited. "Not bad. But did you also know that the order came from Chief Ironwood himself, that Officer Murphy has been sent out on assignment in the city limits, and that they're using a modified version of Erwin's machine to force surfacing before they separate them via firing line?"
"Oh god..." Natalie grimaced.
The bat nodded. "Fortunately, while we gathered this information, we were also able to free the prisoners, including Bo."
"Really?? Fantastic work, guys!" Nat grinned and laid hands on their shoulders.
Shelly smiled. "Yeah, we like, found out that the mirror they were using empties out into Jacent's bedroom for whatever reason, so we took them there."
"Oh man that was me! I was totally right!" Max exclaimed. "I thought they were gonna use prisoners as secret zombie experiments using a giant alien artifact that only speaks through your fingernails, so I put the mirrors together in Echelon's castle!"
"What??" Jacent winced. "You routed a prison into my bedroom so that monsters would go there?? On a hunch?!"
The inked iguana looked at him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course dude, my room is full."
"Well, either way it worked out," Natalie offered. "But unfortunately we've still got problems..." She looked into the distance. "... And here they come."
Ink-Tank units pulled up in numbers- big numbers. Numbers that suggested that probably the entire available force had been mobilized in this one location. Out of the various modified police trans came the faceless armored officers, creating a line not unlike that of a small army. And the general of that army stepped out of his own trans, a permanent scowl on his face. "Locksmouth Police Department!" he said gruffly into his amplifier. "This operation is officially shut down. Go back to your homes. Do not under any circumstances attempt to bond with one of the aliens."
"You have no right to do this!" Coul exclaimed. "There's nothing illegal about this!"
"I have all of the authority to protect the city of Locksmouth from all sources of trouble inside and out!" the Chief of Police shouted him down intensely.
"You're the only source of trouble in this city!" Ellie screamed from the crowd of people. "You ripped my inkling from me, after illegally imprisoning me! Just like you did the others!"
"Return to your homes," he repeated.
"I'm sorry!" Sam interjected. "But I have all of the evidence backing up her claims! You've done unethical, immoral things with your station, Mr. Nineiron!"
"Return to your homes!" Ironwood barked. "Any previous bargains are forfeit! Any attempt to circumvent this order will be considered a criminal act and will be met with force!"
Cedric dumped a crate from his inked hands and shook his head threateningly. "You don't know how little that means to me."
Natalie drew a tense breath. "Oh, no."
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Cedric's forces and the police clashed. What should have been an easily quelled matter of number advantage splashed outward into a chaotic sprawl. Emnas called forth large pockets of magma, forcing area denial while Floe froze the strength-augmented Ink Tank units' boots to the ground, slowing them considerably. Meanwhile, Vissage was nowhere to be seen- though a telling number of officers suddenly found themselves tripping over their own feet inexplicably as they tried to advance.
"Surround them! They can't defend every side!" Ironwood barked into his PET, orders echoing in the earpieces of each and every officer under his command. They spread out, coming in at all sides, even behind them, filtering through trees and brush to get the jump on the trio.
"I got one!" A unit cried, holding Vissage's increasingly-visible arm in the air as he struggled to get free.
"Quick, bring him here!" cried another. "I'll get the tank on him- AARGH!!" They toppled over as a bone-searing blast of volcanic steam washed over them. Coul used his captor as a shield and quickly made away, regrouping with the other two.
"Damn it!" Ironwood snarled. "Units eight and eleven, are you critical??" "Negative, Chief! Suit defenses held!"
"Fall back and assess the damage while supporting from the trans line! They can't hold out forever..."
It was true, and Cedric knew it. The police were firing nets, which he had to melt through individually, each set of linked fabrics becoming a new layer of bondage and slag. "Come on!" He faced Echelon with something akin to reluctant desperation. "Are you that craven? Are you really going to stand there while this tyrant stamps away our right to exist??"
Ironwood shot a glare toward her as well. "All previous agreements are null and void if you interfere!"
Echelon set her jaw and moved forward into the battle zone, pushing past an Ink Tank unit, all of whom had paused tensely. "Emnas! You caused this. You could have worked with others, but instead chose the most divisive way forward, knowing full well the consequences! Little surprise, you weaseling power-monger."
The magma-colored inkling scowled.
"And you!" She turned toward Chief Ironwood. "I thought we could join forces and help police my people together! But if we're all guilty by default then there's no room for compromise, is there?"
Ironwood's brow furrowed. His facial twitch reached a tremble, and sweat rolled down his face. "... You're monsters," he said finally. "All of you. People are sick to death of lying awake, scared of one of you showing up out of nowhere. I'm sending you home."
His haunted face said it all. His entire department had buckled during the Locksmouth Incident. He'd been king of a useless building, failing to protect his people, and those people had judged him harshly for it. This was less a plan than a last grasp to regain the trust of a scared populace. "You're making a big mistake..."
"Oh god, look!" Sam exclaimed.
Back at Cedric's position, the badger and raccoon were holding onto Alliston's wrists, which had been crossed down in front of her as she gave an uncharacteristically serious look. "Sorry, Echelon," Floe shook her head. "No more games." Emnas and Vissage visibly gave their lifeforce to the ice-blue inkling, both of them looking duller and kneeling down for the effort. She visibly glowed with power, the sheer prana coming off of her like an icy mist. All but a few of the ordinary citizens had left completely by this point.
"She's shaded," Erwin observed with dread. "With double the charge, and using none of her own energy..."
Ironwood was shaken. "Take her down! Containment Order Three!" Officers fired weighted nets at her, burying Floe in looped fabric.
"Not this time." The shape under the nets grew, and twisted violently, shredding the entire multi-layered assortment of heavy duty netting. The inked fox tossed away the last few threads of fabric, dusting it off of her newly formed pirate captain's coat- a thick affair made entirely of ice which also made its owner look much larger- and held a massive gleaming translucent ice-axe in a threatening posture. "This time, I'm the one with all of the power."
"Intercepting!" cried a brazen officer who dashed at her in their Ink Tank armor.
"Idiots!" Floe slammed the axe down in front of her, launching the officer into the air via ice pillar from the ground, and spun around, batting them away with the flat of the axe with violent speed. They slammed into a police trans, the vehicle crushed and ruined, the officer moaning in agony. "Do you not have ears??"
"Natalie, something's wrong," Sam leaned in, whispering. "Allie doesn't talk like that."
Echelon frowned, pacing forward. "Floe, stop this!"
"For who? You?? Feh!" She slashed her axe at another pair of officers, shredding almost completely through their armor and sending them sprawling yards away. "You're all hypocrites. You make exceptions for those you favor..." She knocked another down with a handle-strike to the face, scooping them up with the blade and spinning recklessly until they flew off and into a tree. "... And you use the rules to bludgeon those you don't like!" Pulling the axe back completely, she drove the blunt end into the ground, sending everyone near her to their knees or worse. "The only ones you've ever served and protected are yourselves!"
"That's enough!" Arus ran toward the icy inkling, set on tackling her. Halfway toward her, however, her feet lost all traction; Floe had frozen all the ground near her. "Gah!" She landed on her front, and attempts to get up ended in a progression of slippery failures.
"I got her!" Max leapt into action, running forward until he could leap up and extend his tongue toward Floe. His tongue caught the flat of her axe and brought him to her, landing him on her shoulders. However, his tongue hadn't stopped clinging to the frozen war weapon. "Gleggo!"
"You think you're the heroes." Floe hefted the axe, swung Koralo around and used him as an impromptu paddleball, brutally slamming him into the thing over and over until his tongue came unstuck with one last percussive hit that sent him sliding away with a grunting, pained sound. "Where were you all those years when the system wronged us? Where was all this bravery when Greys needed hosts??"
"Trying to think of a solution!" Echelon clashed with her, hefting an ice shield to meet her axe. Shards of ice flew from both as she was battered over and over by it. She was able to structure it strongly, but the sheer power of Floe's cryokinesis was overwhelming. "Nnh! Not making a rash decision- grngh- i-isn't the same as inaction!"
Sam had already knelt down beside Max. Though Koralo had taken the majority of the beating, he'd been brutalized pretty badly. "Easy now, I know it hurts." She grabbed a dollop of her own inkling flesh from her hair- which regenerated near instantly- and smoothed it over the inked iguana, replacing lost material. "There, how's that?"
Max got up, however woozily, and let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks, bat buddy! You're the best. Hwhoooa~" He stumbled.
"Just a moment, the anesthetic effect takes some time to wear off." She looked up to see how the battle was going, and gasped. "Oh dear."
Floe was an absolute monster on the battlefield. From a leaky sprinkler system she summoned an enormous anchor, holding it by the top loop and smashed it into Echelon's shield, shattering it. "You're nothing to me!" She swung the axe at Echelon's midsection blade-first, nearly bisecting her... but her armor held through and instead she was sent sprawling painfully away, the wind thoroughly knocked out of her.
"Try that again!" Carrie cried in challenge, sneering as she advanced slowly.
The ice blue inkling hefted the anchor again, this time by the chain end, spinning around in a circle that terminated in the enormous thing's chain wrapping around Arus completely several times, binding her arms before knocking her aside violently when the anchor hit.
"Gah!" Cat tried to break free, but just a bit of slack prevented her from getting the necessary leverage to use her strength. She tried to crush the individual links, but her fingers kept slipping just shy of grip. "Damn it!"
"Floe!" Coul called, out of breath amidst a nervous but happy crowd of familiar people, free of their cells. "We did it! We got all of the inklings into hosts! Let's get out of here!"
"No."
He paused, flummoxed. "What do you mean 'no??' We're outnumbered, we need to beat it! C'mon!"
"I'm through running!" she declared. "I'm through being bullied by a system that doesn't care! I have the power now, and I'll make them pay for everything!"
Cedric sighed aggressively. "Stand down already, knucklehead, that's an order! HNGFH!"
Floe repositioned her axe, having knocked him across the park with it. "... You've failed, Emnas." She slammed her axe into a group of armored police, almost dismembering one who nearly didn't get out of the way in time. "Following you is a sentence to live in Echelon's shadow! Now rise, my inklings, follow your new leader!"
"Urgh..." Ellie winced. "I-I don't... f-feel so good..." Her inkling began to surface, pulled almost as if by force over her flesh. "No! N-No, stop! AIIEEEE!!!" The inkling's grey pseudopod soon covered all of Ellie's body, but with a small, unsettling difference: a bit of ice blue on her extremities, as if she were frosted.
"This is madness! What-... oh no." Chief Ironwood stared, horrified, down at his hands, which began to bubble with grey as well, the few police left on their feet stricken with terror. "The nightmares... they... AAARRGH!!!" Tortured and twisted, he shuddered as his body was taken over as well, and frosted to boot.
If Echelon could have blanched, she would have. "She's... no! How is this possible?? Only Osoth... could..." Floe's words echoed in her mind. "What happens when an inkling dies? Do you know?" Her heart sank as she considered the only answer that made sense, in all of its terrible truth. "No..."
"Would you hold still for one moment?!" cried a frustrated Sam, slapping a pink blob of healing gel directly into Echelon's torso.
Floe was the victim in this, but she couldn't be allowed to run amok, and with no spare prana, Emnas and Vissage weren't going to take her down. Max was trying his best to free Carrie, which left her. "... Actima."
"Gwargh!" The ice-blue inkling grunted loudly when she was clumsily slammed into by the super-fast Echelon, who had run into her with equal force and had honestly come out worse for the exchange. "You'll regret that!" She swung at her again, but this time she spun out of the way in a dodge that overcompensated monstrously.
"Hngh, dammit Actima!" The downside of being unable to think as fast as she moved made the entire thing a liability. She momentarily considered combining it with Phactys' ability, but the idea of half a dozen swinging ghost axes while she ran at breakneck speed sounded infinitely unwise. "Arus!" She blocked a hit of the swinging ice weapon, then grabbed the handle on the rebound with a grin, yanking it away. "Ah ha!"
Floe only smiled cruelly, the axe lifting her up into the air by her grip, then slamming her onto the ground before slipping out of her grasp and returning to her hand.
"O-Ow... Gah!" Natalie managed to get away as the axe came down in a clumsy swing meant more likely to intimidate than kill, careening down the hill in a slide.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself at Jacent's feet, his concerned face staring down at her. "... Are you okay?"
"Yeah." She grabbed his hand and let him help her up. "... Thanks." Without hesitation, she immediately ran for Floe again.
His eyes widened. "Wait! No! DON'T!!"
Floe's tinted Greys came to intercept Natalie on her way over. "I don't think so!" A pair of fluidly executed palm strikes later, they were sliding away on the ice. "They work! Oh yeah! Feels good!" She grinned, excited to be using Comet powers again.
"You just don't get it; you can't beat me!" Floe swung her axe front to back in a wild overhead motion, a wall of ice forming and sliding toward her at high speeds.
"A little extra prana's nothing-" She crashed through it, hitting the ground running. "-Compared to the power of a legend! Eat it!" She sent a spine-shattering uppercut into the head of the enormous axe, cracking it and sending its pieces to the ground. Her fists pounded into Floe's chest, gut and face as she was worked over with force.
"Nngh, NO!!" The inked fox covered herself in extra plates of ice armor, but Natalie's punches landed with devastating force. "I'm the new leader! ME!!"
"You crazy bastards." Natalie's inked face grew weary, angry. "I've worked so hard, done so much, given everything I've got, and and all you can think about is who gets to wear the crown!" Her fist slammed into Floe's gut, cracking plates of ice loudly. "No one!" Another hit, brutal and ruthless. "You hear me?! No! One! Gets! It!!" She punctuated each word with a savage blow, doubling them each time, until red-hot flames licked across her fists as she pounded Floe's face and chest, the heat burning her flesh and the force pelting it away, destabilizing her.
"Nngh, hanh, gurngh, aaaah!!" Alliston braced herself as her inkling was blasted off of her. And then she cringed in terror as Echelon wound her fist back one more time, enraged.
And slipped forward, falling on her back. "Unh?!"
Arus had grabbed her by the wrist and let her fall by her own misdirection of force. "... Stop. It's over."
Natalie sat up to see Alliston, sitting on her legs, hands in the puddle that was Floe as she shook, her now weakened inkling slowly rejoining with her. "Ah!" She recoiled in pain, looking down and noticing that she and Echelon both were badly burned. "... Oh god, what happened...?"
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"... So the theory is that Osoth exists as some kind of residual... universal force or something. If they expend too much 'prana,' they start acting like her, and the weaker, uncolored ones are compelled to follow 'em. At least, that's about as well as they could explain it to me without my head exploding," joked Murphy, nursing a cup of coffee and a weary expression.
Chief Ironwood rubbed his eyes tiredly as he filled out forms in his office. "You might want to save it. I don't know if I'll be running the show come tomorrow."
"Oh, they'll nail your ass to the wall," Murphy conceded with some amusement. "They did mine. But at the end of it, you'll still have a job. It wouldn't be just to let off Dr. Grayswift on the 'alien possession' defense and then hold you responsible in full."
"I still can't believe I let it..." he sighed. "I'm just glad to have the damn thing out of me," he admitted, shuddering when he thought back to the inkling that had invaded his body, most likely during the Locksmouth Incident. Echelon had called it a frightened creature when removing it, but it couldn't have been as scared as he was. Then again, they were like their hosts in some ways, weren't they? "... Did they get theirs back?"
"Yeah." Murphy nodded, taking another sip of her creamy caffeine supply. "Yeah, Echelon got them all back where they needed to be. I'll be honest, though, there's gonna be a lot of distrust coming our way from that crowd, and now there's a lot more."
"Can't be helped now." He shook his head. "There's whispers of creating some kind of new dual citizenship category for people with those things in them. Can you believe that? At first they were kill-on-sight, now they're gonna have privileges to collect food they don't eat. How are we supposed to sort out the bad ones from the good ones?"
The dog simply chuckled, finishing her coffee and wiping her mouth on her arm. "Well. Fortunately, we don't have to. Echelon's stepping up to the plate."
"... Police an entire alien race? By herself." He ran a hand through his hair. "She's almost as insane as you are."
"Harsh criticism! Of her." She smiled wryly on her way out, stopping at the door frame. "Oh, by the way, Chief. About the Mystery of Dead Man's Bay?"
Curiosity grabbed him.
She grinned toothily. "... I'm thinking the butler did it."
-
- -
-
Jacent knocked on the door to Natalie's room with the back of his hand. It opened a moment later, and he slowly stepped in to notice the wolf girl was sitting on her bed, eyes closed, flanked by Carrie's concern and Sam's healing attention to her burns.
"Look. I know. I was an idiot." She opened her eyes, the sclera burned black, her red irises the only color in them. "I should've just stolen Cedric's powers, it would've been the smart thing to do, but, I didn't." She sighed and pursed her lips with shame. "I wanted to play around with your powers again, to be you for a minute, and it was just... really stupid, sorry."
Jacent nodded slowly. "It was a foolish decision." His eyes drifted downward. "... One that... was enabled by my cowardice."
Carrie rolled her eyes. "Geez, can't you let anybody else take the blame, you big guilt sponge?"
"I'm afraid not this time." He placed a series of brain scans in Natalie's lap. "Jordan continues to be quite the investigator."
"What are these?" She looked them over. "I don't get it, there's just two copies of your brain scans. And... they really misspelled your name on half of them."
"They aren't scans of my brain. They belong to someone else entirely," he said. "Dr. Masterson saw how harmful my abilities were on the whole to my own body, and simply made up the entire story."
"What?? Papa lied?" Sam asked with great alarm. "That's why I couldn't heal the injury... there wasn't one. He lied about it..."
"Yes. To protect me." He nodded. "And... I went along with it despite my suspicions, because... I wanted out. Out of the responsibilities of being a super hero. Out of the expectations that come with power. Out of the problems of my past."
"That doesn't make any goddamn sense," Carrie said flatly. "One, you're so noble it makes me puke. Two, your powers do actually hurt you. Obviously." She squeezed Natalie possessively.
"Indeed," he agreed sadly. "The Dragon burns me because I fear it. I avoided this in the past by having nothing to lose, but now there's just so much I care about, and I don't want to risk it." He found himself being impulsively hugged by Samantha, and took her into his embrace.
Echelon made herself known, having sat in the corner quietly for the duration. "Trying to reconcile the past... being forced to police everybody else like you... struggling with a power that threatens to ruin you... sounds familiar." She chuckled and rose. "... I know you're still not quite sure what to think of me, Jacent, but I'm about to take on a terrifying amount of responsibility, and I could use some counsel on how to not completely suck at it. In return?" She flashed a smile. "I'll help tame your dragon."
...
Carrie snickered so hard her eyes bulged, breaking the silence and earning a volley of angrily thrown pillows. "I was not the only one thinking it! C'mon!"
