"So… that happened." David ever so helpfully said as all of them were sitting at the camp having explained the situation to everyone. "I will go and see if I can find my shotgun!" He stopped mid step. "And C4, just in case." He had been acting strange since we came back Hina noted. Very twitchy.

"Wait!" Inky protested, "I don't know what those are but we can't just attack blindly!"

He turned back to her and said. "You misunderstand something here Inky, I am not fighting, I am bunkering down and creating a kill zone around the facility." He explained slowly like talking to a child.

"That isn't any better!" she argued back.

"Well I am not sure what you are doing but that down there reminded me to much of a old horror movie!" he shouted back.

"You think I don't know that!" she actually stood on her toes to reach his face, it wasn't enough. "We need to focus and not panic right now."

"All hail King General DJ Octavio!" Spifi announced from her still prone position.

All of them just looked at her with various stages of shock.

"I vote the first course of action should be to tie her up."

"Agreed."

David took a deep breath and rubbed his face tiredly. "Ok, first. I am fairly sure that Queen Retvi hated the old king. So what is going on."

"I really have no idea." Inky said mimicking him. "Hina you are the smart splat here, any clue what happened?"

"I really don't know..." Hina admitted.

"Well I have no clue what is up with your species, but I haven't heard a word that means controlling someone's actions in our lessons yet." David said rubbing his eyes.

"'Mind Control', what you are looking for is 'Mind Control'." Hina said. "You can't seriously suggesting that is what is going on."

"Let's see, strange music, people acting not like they are supposed to and we have people hailing a guy who supposedly is slowly ruining your people." He recounted. "Sorry but the evidence goes against you."

"But… but… you are trying to tell me that we are in some dumb movie!" Hina protested.

"Hate to break it to you but David is kind of right." Inky said. "And I don't like that at all. First question that comes to my mind is; why aren't we affected." A muffed scream was heard from the tank. "Besides the new girl, that is."

"I think you just answered your own question." He answered thoughtfully. "New girl, she hasn't been with us for very long. Whatever is making this happen didn't happen to those that haven't been down in the city. Although… that music has never played when I was down there." He mused. "You are all military, surely there some old experiments based on controlling the enemy."

"If there is I never got the clearance for it." She admitted.

David sighed. "Ok, priorities. First we need to find out what is going on. Let's,... Let's go back inside for now." They all went inside and placed the tank where we held Spifi was placed on the couch, she was wobbling back and forth inside of it.

They turned on the music and tried to relax with various degrees of success.

"Ok." Hina started. "Let's think about this rationally, what is the difference between here and the city?"

"The Air?" one of the soldiers suggested.

"What, you mean that you are constantly exposed to some kind of gas?" David threw in. "Highly unlikely, remember that I constantly check the air when I enter a new place."

"Maybe food then?"

"We still get our rations from the same place that all other Octarians." Inky pointed out.

"How about music?" David asked with narrowed eyes.

"Music? Now that is just silly." Inky said with a snort. David only responded by pointing at the tank holding Spifi. Inside of it Spifi was slowly going mad by the looks of it, she was swimming around with extreme speed, bumping against the glass with all her might.

David got up and turned of the music player, AC/DC - Back In Black was the current track. The moment it stopped Spifi calmed down. Experimentally he turned it back on and again a violent reaction was what followed.

"What the in the tentacle eating, water drenched name of Cthulhu is that." For some reason David did his best impression of a fish after hearing that.

"Ok, this is a bad idea but David." Hina said confidently. "Turn up the music to max and put Spifi next to the speakers."

He was speaking something under his breath that Hina couldn't quite make out but he followed the instructions nonetheless.

Spifi reacted even more violent the before making the tank actually tumble a bit before David started to hold it in place. The reactions got more and more violent.

Then they stopped and Spifi was calm, the music actually made her form ripple as it passed throught her. Wordlessly David turned of the music, opened the tank and emptied her out on the ground where she remained a blob.

"Spifi?" Hina asked her carefully. Slowly the rookie changed back into her Octoling form.

"What happened?" she asked back.

"We entered Octopolis, there was crappy music everywhere, you started worshiping your old king, we made a get away, put you next to a music box and now you look like you are back with us." David said kneeling next to her. "Did I miss anything?" He asked looking around the room.

"I know that what I asked is why in the watery inksacks this happened!" She shouted without getting up.

"Because someone decided that us humans weren't fucked up enough and decided to make an octopus race manipulated by music." Only Hina understood him as he used his species language.

"Ok, we now know what is going on. We need to stop the King." Inky said with finality. "We need a army."

"Out of interest, how do you intend to get said army." David asked. "Last I checked you were kind of on your own as a species. I highly doubt the Salmonids will help you with the way your diplomacy works, also how would you contact them in the first place?"

They all shared a look and then looked back at David.

"I don't like the looks you guys are giving me."


"I, fucking knew, those looks mean bad things." I was complaining for a while now but ultimately I did agree to this.

This being me, fully geared with multiple Ink-tanks on my person. The battle plan was to get the strongest the Octarians had, that being the Octolings, and getting them back to the base inside the tanks. Then expose them to 24 hours of Hardbass. While shorter exposure dealt with the effects pretty decently we decided to blast them with music until their molecules started shaking, just to be sure.

And because there was no way to storm the palace with our meager eight octolings(heh). It was decided that we would ambush other squads, me being the frontline to make sure that the others didn't go splat.

A decent plan from a strategic perspective.

My issues with it was that it was me who was in that frontline position.

I was supposed to catch them, stuff them into the tanks, and then carry them to the base, with a squad of 4 as backup.

For some reason the King decided to deploy most of the squad around a place called Octo Valley. Apparently it was the main choke point between the Inklings and Octolings. Queen Retvi had only a few squads deployed as scouts but Octavio just went all out.

Then the broadcast came.

Apparently, somehow, King Octavio, in the span of a single week after returning, stole the single most important powersource from the Inklings.

This nearly ripped our little rebellion apart as part of them wanted to go back, consequences be damned. At the end they stayed because of the argument that the last time he managed to do that it got taken back in the same span of time by a Inkling specialist unit. Squidbeak-platoon or something. The translation wasn't to clean on the name.

With that out of the way we made way to Octovaley and ambushed the other Octoling squads. It was relatively easy. We approach under the guise of whatever reason we could pull out of our ass with me representing a new Octarian war robot that is being field tested. As soon as we got close. We stun and pack them in.

It worked pretty decently for the first couple of times.

But no luck lasted forever and we were caught on camera the last time which led me to the current situation.

'I wonder, where did things go so horribly… wrong? strange? Not even sure what to call this.'

'This' being the fact that I was holding two Octolings who tried to murder me down with both hands. The didn't pose any threat to me, being human and all that, but by the end of this, I would have several ink-contaminated clothes and pieces of gear.

"How long does it take to bottle some Octolings over there?!" I asked the squad with annoyance.

"Have some patience, it's not like they can harm you." Inky reprimed me.

I could only sigh at the situation.

Fighting Octolings was… strange. On one hand I felt like I was attacking a bunch of children. But then the Children started pulling out military tactics and started shooting me. Sure it didn't hurt to much, besides the sniper equivalent, that one stung like hell, but it was the principal of things, damn it!

Finally they finished up on the other two and put the ones he had been holding into tanks as well.

They carried them back to the base and started un-brainwashing them.

Explaining to them what was going on was not something I wanted to be part of with how much shouting was involved. Although with the Octolings shouting was more like angry squeaking noises.

Regardless we actually managed to triple our number. Things where going pretty well.


Absolutely nothing was well right now.

"Stay calm Agent 4, I know this is strange but let's not ignore this opportunity." Marie said over the coms.

"Stay calm?" Agent 4 said sarcastically. "This smells of trap so badly that I need a shower!"

"My sense of smell is kind of limited after spending so much time with Agent 3 but I get what you mean." In truth Marie was very nervous. So far everything was just as the last time.

But then they started to encounter arenas. Maria was expecting Octolings same as last time. Instead they were empty, not a single Octoling as far as they could see. It grated on their nerves, and made them waste nearly a full hour looking for traps and hesitating. When nothing happened in the end it didn't calm them at all. Something was wrong.

"Ok, that is the last one." Agent 4 ripped her out of her thoughts.

"Good, come back here for now." He had no complains.

A few minutes later they released the small Zapfish.

"Ok, this is seriously driving me up the walls." Agent 4 complained. "Where are the Octolings."

"I have no idea." She admitted. "We are already at Slimeskin Garrison, there is only one more zone to go until we reach Octavio."

"Maybe he is keeping them all back to protect the Great Zapfish?" Agent 4 guessed. "I mean, it would be the smart thing to do."

"Octavio is many things but smart decision making was never something he was good at." Marie argued. "He is good at direct confrontations and his DJ tech, that in combination with how straight up impossible Octarian tech can be at times is his greatest strength. Besides he didn't do it last time, why start now?"

"Maybe he learned? I am a bit disturbed with how much you seem to be underestimating the leader of a whole race." He accused her.

Marie sighed at that."I am not cut out for this… Grandpa probably would know what to do in this situation." She admitted. "I wish he was here. Callie as well, she would just whip out her roller and charge."

"Doesn't sound like a decent plan either." Agent 4 whispered.

"You said something?"

"Nothing, nothing..." Agent 4 said hurriedly. "Still, I really hope we are just overthinking this." He added. "We DID get so far."

"Yes, but I can not stress this enough. Octolings are NOT the same as fighting Octarians or other Inklings." Maria explained. "Unlike us Inklings they don't just form when a Octarian is old enough. Octarians multiply through cutting off their tentacles, because they have brains in them they are self sustained and grow to a full Octarian over a long amount of time."

"So they reproduce through mitosis?" Agent 4 asked clearly uncomfortable with the idea. "Ok, I guess? What is the big deal for the Octolings then."

"Octolings are actually pretty rare in their society. A Octarian needs to have most of their tentacles to become one. But more than that they need to go through very stressful situation to become full Octolings, that makes them all inherently very aggressive, there is not a single Octolings that doesn't have basic military training, and that is only the bare minimum." Maria explained. "When you see one you are guaranteed that they will try to destroy with all that they have." She shuddered as she remembered the first the she had the displeasure to meeting one up close, she never wanted to repeated that experience, that was the reason why she specializes in the use of Chargers.

Only Callie knew that. And ironically she took up the roller promising that she would make sure that no enemy would come close to her ever again.

A tear rolled down her face and Agent 4 offered her a handkerchief.

"We will find her." He told her confidently.

"T-Thanks."