Chapter Text
Something Agent 3 had learned quickly after becoming an Agent, was that her work was never done. Sure, DJ Octavio had been defeated, and all of the zapfish had been reaquired, and all of the Great Octoweapons had been shut down, but that didn’t change the fact that the Octarians were still out there, and they had yet to give up.
Which meant that Agent 3 had to keep going on missions, because she really, really did not like the idea of Octarians coming anywhere near Inkopolis. Naturally, they seemed to love that idea. This difference in opinion had led to her current mission, which happened to be stealing a newly stolen zapfish back from the Octarians. Their security had gone up recently (most likely due to the recent defeat), and the zapfish was on guard, the only viable entrance to it being protected by a row of three snipers, which took up the entire space. She would have to defeat them to get through, which would be easy normally. She could send out a seeker, or swim up to them and splat them.
But not today, no, the Octarians had decided to make her life difficult. Sitting innocently on the ground in front of her were rows and rows of twisted metal points, with small gaps in them to jump between. Agent 3 couldn’t figure out how to get herself past them without alerting the snipers to her presence. Not for the first time today, she wished for a bubbler so she could just walk over them fine.
But nooooo, life just had to be difficult.
She ended up throwing splat bombs at the snipers to distract them before jumping over the spikes to one of the few gaps in between, grinning to herself. Using their confusion to her advantage, she jumped in the air, firing at them, taking one out before her landing and splatting the other two as fast as she could. The zapfish was right in front of her. She just had to break it out-
Ink hit her back. Agent 3 immediately retreated into her own ink to heal, turning around to face her attacker. Standing in front of her on turf newly inked in their color were three Octolings, their faces obscured by the lifeless face masks they wore. The one in the center had kelp in her black tentacles. Agent 3 made a mental note to take out that one first, and jumped into action, firing round after round of ink at her enemy. She had made it all the way to the zapfish, damn it, and there was no way she was giving it up now!
The first to be splatted was not the leader, but one of the two lower ranked Octolings. Agent 3 growled, trying to ignore the panic growing in her chest as the Octolings advanced on her, pushing her up against where the zapfish was held. They were so close, she could almost hit them. And so she did, slamming her gun into the face of the more powerful Octoling and using its surprise to splat it easily.
There was one left now, and Agent 3 was regaining ground. She hit the Octoling directly with her ink, not allowing it to escape. It was panicking now, she could tell by its sporadic movements. The thing was out of turf, and it wouldn’t escape. She fired another round at it hitting it directly in the face.
And then the most bizarre thing happened. It was something Agent 3 had never seen before, and would probably never see again. As it recoiling from her blow, it lost it’s footing on her ink, and promptly fell backwards with a wet crunching sound accompanying its landing on the ground. Agent 3 didn’t move for a full second. The Octoling, she noticed, wasn’t moving either. She found herself inching forwards to investigate.
At first Agent 3 thought it was ink, the liquid bubbling over the Octoling’s chest and stomach. It took her a moment to note it’s blue coloring, how different it’s consistency was from ink, and how its source was the metal spikes that had shoved themselves straight through the Octoling’s body as it had been impaled. It was blood. Agent 3 felt her face go white. She dropped her gun, falling to her knees to check the Octoling’s pulse. It would make sense for it to have one, right? They had similar biology. They could do the same things so their blood would work the same, right?
She relaxed when she felt the beating of the Octoling’s heart. It was faint, but still there. Breathing a sigh of relief, she went to splat it, to send it back, when she realized that there was no guarantee it’s wounds wouldn’t reform, or that it wouldn’t even form correctly because of how damaged it was. Most likely, it would die. Something told her the Octoling knew this too. It hadn’t flinched when she had grabbed her gun, and it didn’t appear scared now. It just stared up at her through its blank mask.
Maybe if she left it, the Octarians would find it and take care of it. Either way, there was no way she would kill it. Agent 3 stood up, turning to leave, when she heard the Octoling give a wet cough.
“...go ahead,” the Octoling spat, “Kill me.” It’s speech was slurred, and it sent a chill down Agent 3’s spine. “I’m dead anyway.”
Agent 3 stared at it, eyes wide. She tightened her grip on the gun, and lifted it, preparing to fire. The Octoling tensed, but made no effort to leave. Staring at the Octoling, Agent 3 aimed her gun, and fired-
-right at the barrier around the zapfish. She shielded the Octoling with her body, making sure none of her ink landed on it. Then, she knelt back down, fastening her gun at her side. Agent 3 took a deep breath, trying to calm her trembling hands as she wondered if this was a good idea or not, and placed an arm under the Octoling’s legs. She placed another under its shoulder, and using body strength that had developed through years of wielding roller brushes in turf wars, lifted it up and off of the spikes, ignoring how it flinched as she did so. She knew it needed medical attention, and she would have to be the one to give it to him. Agents 1 and 2 and Captain Cuttlefish could never know. Agent 3 wasn’t sure of how they would react. Heck, she wasn’t sure of how she was reacting herself. All she knew was that the Octoling would die without her, and there was no way she would ever let that happen.
She grabbed the zapfish just in time, barely making it before the barrier reformed, and then made her way to the nearest kettle. It would be a bit harder to get them both home, and she had to go fast, but she was sure she could make it.
She had to.
It had seemed impossible to get home, but when she let the kettle, she noted that it was night time. Sneaking past a sleeping Captain Cuttlefish was easy, and Inkopolis was all but deserted. Agent 3 made record time getting home to her rather small apartment and immediately went to her bedroom, placing the Octoling down on her bed. It groaned in pain.
It was still losing blood, and fast. Agent 3 grabbed the first aid kit from under her bed and threw it open. She rummaged inside of it with great haste until she found what she was looking for, a roll of gauze, disinfectant, and a shit ton of wipes. Silently thanking herself for taking those first aid classes before she had left to live on her own, Agent 3 dutifully cleaned the blood from the wounds. She would probably have to stitch them back up too, and then hope for the best. She didn’t have any thread, but she did have floss.
The floss would have to do. Agent 3 lit a match and then held the needle over it to clean it before threading it with the floss and getting to work.
“This is going to hurt a little,” she told it, and began threading. It didn’t even flinch when she pierced its skin, slowly knitting it back together, threading the floss back and forth, back and forth. “I’m going to flip you over now,” she told it a little later, once she had finished, and went to work on the back. The Octoling lay there again while Agent 3 wrapped the gauze over the wounds. “I’ve finished now.” she told it, and then stood there.
What was she supposed to do now? Silence permeated the room.
“Uh,” she said, and pointed to her desk, “I’m gonna go sit over there and uh... just... holler if you need me...?” This wasn’t going to end well at all, she just knew it.