The Escape from Octo Valley (IC)

[Cephalobro]

(They are Ringed Octolings, btw.)

"Just set it by the chair." one of the Ringed Octolings in the room said. Just then a knock on the door is heard, Coral can be heard from the other side.

Coral: Is Silas there? Just checking if he's okay.

 

[Yin_]

Silas yells back “Yeah I’m good, a little busy right now, but I’ll see you later, k?” He says while setting his tuff down and putting the padlock on it.

 

[Cephalobro]

Coral: Alrighty! See you tomorrow.

 

[Yin_]

Silas grabs his eliter and looks towards the crimsons. “This is gonna be a really good time with you guys.” He smokes and walks off towards the practice range. He walks in and is quite impressed.

 

[Cephalobro]

(The Octospartans are the elite Ringed Octolings while the Octamazons are the elite Crimson Octolings, just wanted to make that distinction.)

Coral goes to the General's office, with Kelp following him.

Coral: *knocks on the door* I need to know if the stories of my father protecting my mother from the Crimsons are true.

Kelp: Coral, I know you want to know more about your dad, but don't you think you're better off not remembering him?

Coral: Look Kelp, I know you're worried about me getting sad again, but I just need to know how he managed to fight off many Octamazons by himself to protect my mother.

General Anemone opens the door, "Come in Coral, I know you have something to ask of me." Both Coral and Kelp enter the office and sit down at the chairs in front of Anemone. "What do you ask of me?" Anemone asks.

Coral: Well, I want to know if the stories of my father being "The Bane of the Crimsons" are true.

Kelp: I'm really sorry uncle Anemone, I tried to persuade him to stop being curious.

 

[Cephalobro]

The sniper Octoling notices Silas coming into shooting range room. "I knew you'd show up" he says as he's setting up the targets to move fast. "Now try to shoot those moving targets, if you can hit them when they move fast, then you can defeat an enemy Brush wielder." he says.

 

[Yin_]

“Alrighty then.” Silas nods, falling into setup quickly. He waits for the targets to starts moving before firing. When they do, however, they move extremely fast. “Well crap.” He takes a full 5 seconds before firing the first target, missing it by a hair. He hits the next one but having to take longer, as well as the next one. The final one he tries to do it fast, and barely clips it. All of them are gone. Silas sits there cursing at himself inwardly. “Well they went crappy.” He says to himself shaking his head

 

[Cephalobro]

The sniper Octoling says, "In these situations, you've gotta keep your cool." He then turns on the machine, the targets moving extremely fast, with one single charge of his E-Liter, he lands a clean shot on through all of them. "If you begin to feel desperate, you'll miss the shots."

 

[Cephalobro]

Back at Anemone's office, he begins to tell the story about Coral's father.

General Anemone: It is all true, back when the original leader of the Ringed Octarians was still alive, your father was essentially what inspired me to create our Octospartans unit, never did I see an Octoling have the capability to survive against a group of Octamazons Crimson Octolings all by himself. He was essentially the original Octospartan, he was protecting your mother because she actually had an egg from which you hatched from developing inside her belly, the Crimsons were looking to kidnap young Octoling children and they were going to capture her and force her to give up the egg to try to make you join them.

Coral: So he was the inspiration to make the elite group who kept us safe when a situation gets dire?

General Anemone: Yes, your mother was also aggressively defending herself, whenever we confronted the Crimsons on the battlefield, she would always point her Charger weapon towards the door to make sure no Octamazon or any other Crimson would get near her, she would wear her crop top armor everyday to make sure that she's ready to defend herself, despite her big belly being dangerously exposed to enemy ink.

Kelp: Is this really the reason why many of us got left behind? For us to be protected? Uncle, please tell me the truth.

General Anemone: Unfortunately it is, we had no other choice, especially when our previous leader didn't make the Octospartans group, so I had to do it in order to make sure we escape, as previous battles had too many Octamazons for us to deal with. It was obvious we needed those with incredibly high skills in order to cover our unseen weaknesses, those weaknesses made us lose some very important battles against the Crimsons, without the Octospartans, we did eventually win the first war, but the cost was too much. With that, I needed to take matters into my own tentacles to make sure our species don't become extinct, I have contacted octologists to tell me about the Octarian life cycle, some advisers on how I can create a very skilled group of soldiers who would be able to spot the enemies who managed to slip through and off course, some engineers to create a device that jams enemy signals.

 

[Yin_]

(Man this is some deep lore, I like it :D)

Silas gapes in shock at the marvelous display of skill. “Wha...how...that was amazing!” Silas gets a little giddy, but calms down into a more thoughtful and absorbing mood. “Now how did he do that...” Silas mutters to himself trying to comprehend what just happened. “Um...if you don’t mind...can you, like...well I don’t know, teach me?” He asks trying to seem as humble as possible.

 

[Cephalobro]

The sniper Octoling says, "That's why we are here." The sniper Octoling continues, "Now, you may have seen how I didn't aim directly at the targets, a fast enemy is impossible to splat when a Charger aims directly." The sniper Octoling turns on the machine once again for only one target, still maintaining the speed from the other two times. "To become a 'Supersonic Eye' like me, you will need to see where the enemy intends to go, any fast enemy will keep strafing from side to side." Not following his aim on the target, he shoots as the target moves to the predicted spot that he knew to shoot at, hitting the target. He then says, "Now you see how that target that was strafing got hit from my shot anyways, timing is the key to splatting any moving enemy, but it is especially important for you to land a shot on a fast moving enemy."

 

[Yin_]

“Oh, well that’s definitely a very effective tactic!” He says our loud. He aims another shot, still taking a bit of time, but using this new method and predicting. The first shot is too far past it. “Late” he mutters. Next shot is extremely close, but does not hit. “Mm?” He brightens up. The next one hits the shot near the center but not exactly. “Well, I mean, not terrible...” He shrugs.

 

[Cephalobro]

The sniper Octoling says, "You're improving, keep at it and you'll eventually reach the same level of skill that I have reached." He then gets truthful. "I will be honest, it wasn't easy getting to the same kind of skills I have now, but the reason why I did it is because it was just grinding my gears that a few chumps kept breaking through our defenses, even when our Octosnipers tried their best to splat them, while they did their job nicely in splatting a few more chumps, the few that made it through would learn our weaknesses and tell their leader." He then adds, "I vow to never let that happen again."

 

[Yin_]

Silas takes a moment to look up and listen and sees his stoic face and is impressed. This is a guy who takes his job very seriously. A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him to be courteous. “Um, if you don’t mind, what’s your name? So I can talk to you later...” he tries to ask as politely as possible. “I’m Silas by the way.” “Maybe I know him, or have seen him before? He seems framiliar...like I know him personally or something” Silas thinks to himself

 

[Cephalobro]

The Octoling sniper introduces himself, "The name's Shark, it may be generic, but it definitely fits me as a force to be reckoned with in regards to range, fittingly enough, when a battle is going on, I put on a bandanna with shark teeth markings on it. Very similar to the Skull Bandanna that Inkopolis has in Turf War stores."

 

[Cephalobro]

Meanwhile, Coral and Kelp just got out of Anemone's office, talking about what they are going to do once they get there.

Coral: I want to be able to see how it's like to battle for fun rather than it being a serious thing like we do here.

Kelp: I want to do the same, to be on the same team, hey, we can live together once we're there!

Coral: Well, okay. I would actually like that a lot, the only worry is how Clam is going to deal with this fact.

Kelp: I didn't tell anyone yet, but I caught him and my sister making out.

Coral: What?! No way! He is more focused on protecting me. Besides, how can an Octotrooper smooch an Octobomber on the lips if the Octobomber is flying?

Kelp: My sister wasn't flying, she was on the ground.

Coral: Okay, that makes sense.

Coral and Kelp happily chatted away about their respective siblings.

 

[Yin_]

“Shark, that sounds framiliar...” Silas mumbles while thinking back to his past at the academy. “Wait a minute!” Silas snaps and points. “Wait a minute, were you in squadron B-187 before the Fall? Cause I remember a guy named Shark who looked kinda like you.” He taps his chin before continuing. “I looked up to you when I was a young octoling.”

 

[Cephalobro]

Shark then reminds his past, "Ah, I remember that scar that you had when I was in that squadron." He says, then continues, "Since I found out that I was one of the Ringed Octolings who were captured from birth, I left since it was just wrong to be on the side of the species who keep capturing the young of other species." He then gets a brief period of anger, "Those Crimsons are going to pay for what they did!" Then calms down and remembers the result of the Ringed Octarians' victory over the Crimson Octarians, "Once the Ringed Octarians won the war, all of the captured Ringed Octolings were freed, but while that returned many Octoling children to their parents, I can never forgive that DJ for making me believe a lie my whole life."

 

[Yin_]

Silas holds his head in silent anguish as many painful memories come flooding back, patching in large gaps. Memories of laughter in the rec-room, thoughts of challenging each other for ranks, the regret of past decisions, and the heartbreak and confusion of Shark and many others leaving. “Gah...” He stagers back and lays against the wall. After a couple moments of pain, all clears up and Silas can think again. “Shark...you were a brother to me that I never had.” He looks up, a determined but soft face turned toward the former comrade. “I’m not losing you ever again. I’m going to make sure with that” He picks up his sniper and shoots all 5 targets dead center with 5 shots. He looks back up. “That’s a promise.”

 

[Cephalobro]

Shark feels proud of what what was accomplished tonight, "I'm certainly not leaving this squadron, especially now that I want another expert sniper to help me keep chumps away from our base." He then offers a fist bump, "I want you to help me do that, Silas." He said while smiling. He then realizes that it's getting late. "We should probably go to sleep, a sleepy sniper can't hit fast targets no matter the skill. See you tomorrow." He then gets out of the shooting range, going back to the Octospartan room. He stops in his tracks then looks back at Silas. "Just one more thing." He says as he gives the two Brellas back to Silas along with his backpack. "Don't go losing your supplies now, I also don't want the General to yell at you for leaving a weapon to be too easy for anyone to grab in the middle of the night." He says as he leaves the shooting range.