Chapter Text
Neo could hardly see her hands in front of her face.
The testing chamber past the decontamination gates were covered in a thick fog, making it nearly impossible to see anything more than a couple feet away. The test had already gone through several confusing twists and turns, disorienting her even more; but she had to be close to the end by now.
A movement in the distance causes her to pause. It wasn't easy to make out what it was with all of the mist, but Neo had been through enough kettles to know that it was most likely yet another enemy.
Firing a few spurts of ink on the ground, the inkling lowers into her swim form, moving slowly so as to not get detected. Turf wars were too fast paced to mess around very much- but in Alterna, she liked to make a game out of how close she could get to an enemy with only the hero shot before it finally noticed her.
The inkling takes her time, shooting and swimming, shooting and swimming, until she can finally see the silhouette of an octoling through the fog. It was fuzzified, covered in fur like the rest of them, pacing slow, mindless circles.
Neo clicks her beak in frustration. Octolings were much harder to sneak up on than an octotrooper, on account of having an actual brain. But the agent was never one to back down from a challenge! So she continues to sneak forwards, hiding in her lemon yellow ink.
Closer… and closer…
Almost there…
…
…Huh?
Neo pauses a few feet away from the soldier, a shiny metal object on the ground catching her attention. The octoling's goggles were broken, laying on the floor near her feet where she paced back and forth. And now that Neo looked, she could see her bright pink and purple eyes, glazed over and unfocused.
The inkling had never seen an octoling soldier out of uniform. In fact, she had never seen an octoling soldier acting like this at all. The more she thought about it, the more this was weird. Maybe she should just splat them and get it over with.
Just as the agent was thinking, however, the octoling suddenly stops in her tracks, raising her head to sniff the air. Her gaze settles directly onto the hidden squid as she approaches her ink trail, a growl rumbling from her throat.
…Holy shit, did that thing just smell her!?
Neo quickly rises from the ink, attempting to fire at it; but before she can even press the trigger she's back on the floor as the fuzzy octoling pounces on her, knocking the wind from her chest and the weapon from her hand. The resulting scuffle only lasts a few seconds, but time seems to freeze as a sharp pain stabs into Neo's arm, and she looks down to see the octoling with her beak sunk into her skin.
The two tiny pinpricks of pain quickly spread into a searing burn throughout her entire forearm, causing the inkling to cry out. She tries to reach for her discarded gun; but the octoling was latched on and seemingly uninterested in letting go, and pulling her arm away only made it hurt that much more.
“Get off!” She yells, elbowing the octoling hard in the side of the head. It releases her with a pained hiss- allowing the agent time to scramble backwards and grab her weapon. The soldier lunges forwards, attempting to bite her again, but Neo stuns the octoling with a blow from the butt of her gun- and with a quick volley of shots, it was over.
"Neo?!" The voice of Agent 1 crackled in through her headphones. "What happened? Are you okay?!"
With hands that shook much more than she would like to admit, Neo reaches up to press the speaker on their headset. "I- um." They swallow. "I-I'm okay. But one of those octolings bit me."
"Alright Agent 3, we're pulling you out of there." Agent 2 says. "Stay put."
Neo stares down at the splatted remains of their enemy, still bubbling by their feet. She didn't feel much like moving, after what might've been the worst fight of her life. But it didn't take very long for her to see Agent 2 superjumping in anyways, the idol jogging over and trying to hide her wince at the injury on her arm. "How are you holding up? You're not hurt anywhere else, are you?" She offers her a hand, and Neo takes it, standing up.
"No, just the bite." She replies. "I'm fine, really. Buddy bites me all the time."
"I don't think this is quite on the same level, but sure." Agent 2 sighs. "We gotta get that cleaned up as soon as possible. Think you can superjump? The beakon is already set up there."
Neo nods, and the two shrink down into their swim forms. Her injured tentacle still throbbed with pain every time she moved it, making her head swim, but she closes her eyes and focuses on the signal, shooting herself upwards to the surface.
"There. All clean and wrapped up." Agent 2 says, removing the plastic gloves from her hands. Neo was pretty sure she had bitten holes into the cloth the Captain gave her, but they were finally done. "How do you feel?"
She shrugs. "It still feels all tingly…" She looks down at her smallfry sat on her lap, who looks back up at her with big, sad eyes. At the very least, her arm was good enough to comfortingly pat his head.
"It's probably just the venom. Not very dangerous, usually- but it will have an effect. It should only take a couple hours for the dizziness to wear off."
Agent 1 chooses this time to lean into the tent, a colorful box in her hands. "And until you feel better, it's Callie and Neo time! Which meeeans…!"
Neo groans, rolling her eyes. Having Agent 1 babysit her meant only one thing. "Please don't tell me we're doing more-"
"More puzzles!"