Notice: All characters unless stated otherwise are 18+, on top of that, there won't be any horny shit written in this book.

    The squad walks down the street, desolate of any form of life. A breeze occasionally passes, carrying away paper scraps and moving cans down the road. Puddles of sterilized ink occasionally dot the streets, growing in numbers as they move closer to their objective.

    "Hey boss, how long till we get there?" The mohawked octoling carrying the ink bomb rudely shouts from behind Cherep.

    "Calm it private, we're about 1 klick out from the hive."

    "They seriously evacuated everyone a kilometer away from the hive?" Cherep quickly shoots a glance towards the male, "Yes private, Its a part of protocol. There would've been more casualties if it was any shorter."

    "And how bad could it get if we just made it a little shorter?" The octoling sneered.

    Cherep shoots back, "Sterilized from a new hive don't usually move more than 500 meters from the hive, and sometimes they move up to 800 meters from the hive. The 1 kilometer rule is to prevent more casualties from when the hive is initially discovered. We're sent out to terminate it before it grows and gets cocky enough to start attacking actual infrastructure. That work for you private?" 

    "I just asked why they can't make it shorter, not why we're out here." Cherep turns to stare at the male, "Sounds like you're asking for trouble more than anything. Now shut your trap and keep walking."

    The male scoffed and kicked a rock. The squad kept moving without much noise, aside from the occasional grunt or sigh coming from the two males in the back. It had been not too long later until Cherep motioned the squad to stop, spread out, and get down. The squad moved away from each other and began to secure the area, all of them surveying the area they can see. The Male octoling set's the bomb down behind a fence.

    Tanya whispers to Cherep, "What's going on?"

    Cherep motions over towards one of the buildings, inside a cyanish-blue blotch rushes across one of the broken windows. Cherep calls out to it, "Sterilized moving inside a one-story house about 100m from here."

    Ustala questions Cherep, "What are we gonna do here leader?"

    "Alright, Tanya and Johnson will take point..." The afro octoling perks up, "I will be behind them, with Ustala covering my rear alongside Idiot." Cherep peeks over her shoulder and squints her eyes to observe the building.

    Cherep silently swears under her breath, "Its seems to be an older model, anyone know what the layout was like?"

    Ustala started to speak, "Yeah I know the layout. Front door opens into the living room, with the kitchen on the right. Behind the living room is a hallway connecting three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a closet. In the back of the kitchen, behind the dining table there's a backdoor that leads into the backyard. You can also enter the backyard through a gate on the left side."

    Cherep nods, "Alright. We'll go in through the back and clear the building, starting from the kitchen. Any questions?" No one says anything, "Good, lets get started."

    The squad readies their weapons that Tanya was too tired to notice. Idiot raises his mini splatling with a grunt, Johnson bangs the tank on his .52 Gal, Ustala spins the cylinder on a weapon Tanya doesn't recognize, And Cherep slings her octoshot in front of her. Idiot spreads some leaves over the bomb to hide it.

    The squad begins to move to the side of the house, opening the gate leading to the backyard. The squad moves in with Tanya in front, weapon at the ready, and Johnson right behind her. The members in the back checked their rear for any movement as they enter the backyard.

    In the backyard was a simple pool with a diving board and a shed, but nothing much else. The squad moved forward and stacked up near the back door. Cherep taps Tanya and Johnsons shoulders and the two move forward. Tanya quietly nudged the door open and the rumbling of drills could be heard echoing down the halls. The door fully opens and the squad moves in, checking every corner of the room they can.

    The kitchen was devoid of any Sterilized, prompting the squad to move into the living room. In the living room was a Sterilized Octoling crouched by a window. The cyan octoling surveyed the road, looking for any form of life. Tanya took aim and pointed to it with her left hand. Cherep gave a signal to cease fire, and took out a mechanical abomination similar to what Tanya received. It looked to be some sort of over-engineered crossbow.

    Cherep pointed it at the Sterilized and pulled the trigger. The back of the weapon flew forward like a crossbow, sending a metal bolt flying towards the back of the blue octoling. It struck and popped its head like a balloon, sending cyan ink all over the place. The metal rod landed outside on the front lawn.

    "What kind of crossbow is that?" Tanya whispers to the elite octoling.

    "I dunno, Gin gave it to me. She said something about it using air pressure to launch the crossbow sling thingy faster than a normal one." Cherep answers.

    Tanya nods, and the team move into the hallway. The team enter the first bedroom, with a massive bed in the middle and nightstands on each side. Other than that there was nothing else, and no hostiles to be found. The next room didn't possess any enemies. It was adorned with posters of various animated shows such, "Octo's Final Tour" being one of them. (i dont like to interrupt paragraphs, but if you spot the reference i'll give you a cookie :smiley:) Mechanical rumbling and creaking could be heard from the final bedroom.

    "Sounds like they're digging something up in there," Johnson whispers.

    "We know they're in there, lets clear the bathroom and closet first." Cherep orders.

    Everyone nods, Tanya and Johnson move towards the bathroom with the rest going towards the closet. Tanya and Johnson open the door and find nothing inside. Ustala, Cherep, and Idiot find nothing hiding in the closet. The squad reconvenes on the last room, Tanya and Cherep ready their bombs, one yellow and one a light red.

    "Shit." Cherep sharply whispers.

    Tanya's face goes blank, "Out of everything we did, we forgot to sync ink colors."

    Johnson intervenes, "Its all good. Tanya will toss hers first and then me and Cherep will throw ours in. We get more firepower and don't risk paralyzing each other."

    "What about afterwards?" Idiot questions

    "We'll see about afterwards, but for now this works for majority of the squad." Johnson replies.

    Cherep nods towards the door, "Time to work Lemonhead."

    Tanya kicks the door in, revealing about 6 Sterilized octolings working on lifting a box out of the ground. She tosses her bomb towards the back corner of the room, on top of the generator they had set up in place of the bed. Before they could ready their weapons Tanya ducks and moves back, allowing her octoling squad mates to toss their bombs in. The bombs detonate and Johnson moves in.

    Johnson quickly guns down a Sterilized trying to pick up their weapon. Tanya moves in just as one of the sterile octolings takes aim on Johnson. She discharges her weapon at the Sterilized. A beam of yellow ink quickly pounds into the head of the cyan octoling, reducing their head to a mixture of sterile and yellow ink. It drops dead as the other squad members move in.

    Idiot releases the charge on his mini splatling onto two recovering sterilized. Cherep kicks one of them in the head, knocking it into a nearby wall. She then ducks and unloads her octoshot into the sterilized killing it. Ustala moves behind Cherep and fires her weapon at the last octoling, blowing the octoling in half with one shot.

    The squad lower their weapons and observe the aftermath. The carpet around the hole in the floor was a mixture of light red, a dark cyan, and yellow. Cherep and Johnson began to ink the carpet so that it was save to stand on, and the squad began to investigate what the Sterilized were doing.

    In the hole was a light grey box. The box was a long and big rectangle, with the initials "R.J" plastered in gold on the box. Cherep steps in the hole and begins to lift the box out with the help of Ustala. They get it out of the hole and began inspecting it, discovering it was locked on one of the ends with a padlock.

    "Hey, anyone know how to lockpick?" Cherep asks the squad.

    Tanya shakes her head side to side, Ustala simply stares, and Johnson mouths the word 'sorry'. Idiot sighs in annoyance and walks over.

    "I got it, I got it. I used to do this a lot as a kid"

    "What, breaking into shit?" Cherep asks.

    "Whadya think dipshit?" Idiot glares, earning a chuckle from Cherep.

    "Work your magic Octoboy."

    Idiot stares at the padlock for a moment, shaking it a bit before yanking down hard on it. The lock comes apart, allowing access to the box.

    Idiot scoffs, "Seriously? This is the best they had? A cheap ten dollar padlock has more resistance."

    Idiot stares back at Cherep, who motions him to open the box. Inside the box was several books, all of which were in a foreign language Tanya could barely make out. Idiot scratched his head and pulled them out one by one. All the books were unreadable as the text was very broken to her.

    At the bottom, however, was a shiny long object. Idiot pulled it out and handed it to Tanya. The object was long, with a wooden stock and metal trigger. The length of it was comprise of two long barrels that were stuck together, with some sort of lock by the grip that allowed the user to open it, or what she thought it did.

    The object seemed to be some sort of weapon used by the elder race that had walked the Earth before them, but Tanya couldn't make out how it functioned. Before the others could say anything, Mechanical garbles sounded from the doorway where an Elite Sterilized Octoling stood.

    The sterile Elite began to grab for her weapon. Tanya pointed the ancient weapon at the Elite out of instinct and pulled the trigger. A loud bang filled the room, and a fireball came from the end of it.

    The Elite that was in the doorway was struck by what Tanya had shot and was filled with several large holes in its body. The impact of the weapon sent its corpse flying into the wall behind it, and it slid down into a sitting position. The weapon exerted a force Tanya had never felt before, causing her to fall onto her back.

    "Agh! My fucking ears!" Idiot screamed out, muffled by a ringing in Tanya's ears.

    Tanya could barely pick up what everyone else was saying, but she was sure it had something to do with the loud bang from the weapon. Tanya set the gun down next to her and sat up. It took a while, but eventually the ringing subsided.

    Cherep questioned Tanya, "What the hell was that?!"

    "I don't know! We never used anything like this on the surface."

    Ustala piped up from her laying position on the floor, "Whatever that is, we should take it to command for examination, and so that you don't make us go deaf."

    "Sounds good, lets get this stuff back to the truck and go pick the bomb back up. Then we'll continue moving to the hive." Cherep orders to the squad, everyone nods.

    Tanya starts to put the gun back in the box, but is stopped by Cherep, "What's up?"

    "It just might be me, but I have a feeling that this discovery will be a lot more than just finding some Elder Race artifacts."

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oh hi lmao i lied about the delay, that was also a lie too.

hope you enjoyed, im gonna go play video games and read manga.

fuck your word count wattpad

~2063 Words