Work Text:
-yu mirekerason.
Kire hyari yoriherahe nyurahera
Nunnyura unera yurawera nyimerani.
Chopperipo shurashurafe-
“Oi! Get up!”
Blue eyes flicker open, confusion painted in them, meeting angry green eyes almost immediately.
“We’re not done here. Get up-“ the caped teen’s motion - presumably to lift his weapon - is stopped by a sharp intake of air, arm immediately dropping back down while his other hand goes back to rub his shoulder. “...or not.”
“Are you okay?” The voice that leaves him sounds almost foreign, but he ignores the feeling, blue-tipped fingers pushing a small body off the ground to blink at the taller squid. His head throbs, but he tries to ignore that too.
“I’m fine,” the green squid snaps, hand still resting on his own shoulder. “Where are we?”
The blue cephalopod stares back blankly in return. The green squid raises his eyebrow a the silence persists. “Do you know?”
“No.” The word is blunt, following only a small pause. The boy pushes himself to stand, wobbling unsteadily for a moment before settling on his feet. “...who are you?”
He gets squinted at for a moment before he can finally put at least some name to a face. “Agent Three. Who are you?”
The boy opens his mouth. Closes it after a moment. “I don’t know.”
“...you don’t know ?” He only gives a shake of his head in return, dulled panic squeezing his chest. He should know who he is, but…
Three sighs, rubbing the back of his head. “Must’ve clocked your head on the way here.” Green eyes scan over his appearance for a moment before Three huffs out a breath. “I’m just gonna call you Goggles.”
“Goggles?” The blue one echoes, head tilting, tentacle flopping over his forehead with the motion.
Three sighs, gesturing at his own forehead. “Those are pilot goggles, right?” Goggles blinks at Three again, hand lifting to feel the goggles resting on his head with a soft ‘oh’. “So. Goggles.”
“Huh.” There’s a moment where Goggles contemplates that, before giving a tiny laugh, only audible because of the silence surrounding them. “Okay. Goggles. I like it.”
“You don’t need to say it so many times,” Three mutters, green eyes rolling. Goggles just laughs again, another ‘Goggles!’ leaving his lips, more cheerful than the last. Three sighs, which just makes Goggles giggle again, before turning away from the blue-inked boy. “C’mon. We should try and find a way out of here.” He takes off before Goggles can answer, leaving the smaller cephalopod to hurry to catch up with him before matching his careful pace.
Goggles and Three both look around, Goggles with curiosity and Three with impatience to get out. They pass an empty, pitch-black window, and Goggles stops, eyes trailing over his own reflection.
His outfit is black, the top sleeveless with a high collar. It seems to seamlessly connect to his pants, boots tall enough that he can just notice that he’s wearing shorts instead of full length pants. His boots have hardly-noticeable lifts. The biggest thing that seems off about the outfit is the yellow tags on his left wrist and right ankle.
His eyes belatedly shoot up to look at his face, and he’s momentarily surprised by it. A blue tentacle rests on his head, and he brushes it aside for a moment to confirm the goggles resting on his forehead. Three tentacles are tied atop his head as well. He turns his head to confirm it, noting his rounded ears as well. Goggles looks at his own face with interest, mismatched blue and green eyes sparkling back at him. Goggles brushes his fingers between his eyes, noting with interest that he doesn’t have the same line Three has connecting his eyes. If he looks closely enough, with how dark it is, Goggles thinks he sees freckles scattered across his face.
“Hey.” Goggles turns to blink at Three, who stopped a few moments after he did, unnoticed by the blue octopus. “Are you coming or not?”
“I’m coming!” He hurries to catch up with Three before they start walking again, and Goggles looks over Three while they walk through a tunnel, tiptoeing across puddles of hot pink ink.
Two green tentacles are tied atop his head in a similar fashion to Goggles’, the lighter color matching his dark complexion rather well. He has a headset for reasons unknown to the octoling, but it rests around his neck instead of over his pointed ears, atop the collar for his black jacket and where his cape is tied around his neck. Oddly enough, he has a second jacket on, a yellow one that seems to reflect the small amounts of light they pass. His boots have yellow on them as well, on the soles and going up the back of the boots. One of his hands clutches the handle of a large weapon, but he carries it easily, letting it rest on his shoulder.
Goggles meets annoyed green eyes when the agent says his name, giving a small hum to indicate he’s listening. “What are you doing.”
Goggles takes a pause, trying to find the words he wants to use, and just ends up telling Three, “you’re pretty.” And even in the dark, the faint glow of a green blush is hard to miss. Though Three sighs instead of dignifying that with a response, turning to look ahead of them again.
They walk in silence for the remainder of their walk, and Goggles lets his eyes trail over the puddles of ink they keep passing, wondering where in the world they came from.
Eventually, they make it to an area with a large platform, and Three has to swing himself up off the tracks they were walking along to get on the platform. When he helps pull Goggles up, there’s a moment to reorient themselves before Goggles asks, “do you hear that?”
Three pauses to listen for what the octopus means. He turns his head in the direction of the faint ringing they can both hear, eyebrows furrowing in confusion when he sees an old phone sitting in the middle of the empty platform. Goggles follows him to it slowly, blue eyes not leaving it as they get closer. It doesn’t take long for both boys to be parked in front of it, and they share a look before Goggles reaches up to try and answer it.
They both jump when it speaks to them instead.
“ SEARCHING FOR USER ID… USER 10008 CONFIRMED .”
Three gives Goggles the most confused look he’s had since they got down here. Goggles helplessly shrugs at him.
“Greetings, 10,008.” Goggles blinks at the phone, assuming he’s the one being spoken to, as he answered the phone. “Your current location is: Deepsea Metro Central Station. My primary function is to facilitate your journey to the promised land.” Both boys light up a bit at ‘the promised land’, Three speaking up. “The surface?”
The phone does not answer him, as expected, only giving a “pleased to make your acquaintance.” Three scowls at it anyway, and Goggles giggles.
“ ASSESSING COMMUNICATION EFFICIENCY… EFFICIENCY: 12.42%. ENABLING CONTEMPORARY SPEECH MODE …”
Three squints distrustfully at the phone.
“What is crackalacking, home skillet? Let us bounce to the promised land fo sho.” The flat drone of the phone doesn’t change.
“What the fuck,” Three deadpans, while Goggles snorts.
“I am bout it bout it, so listen while I SLANG NOT FOUND you the facts.”
Three looks like he’d rather die than listen to this any longer.
They listen to the phone talk about the promised land, including the phrase ‘cool beans’ and saying it will take them there, immediately followed by “NOT!” which makes Three sigh at it.
Eventually, the phone directs its words to ‘10,008’. “Here is your CQ-80 and CQ card. They are so bad.”
It quite literally spits the card out of a card slot, and then a controller-like objects spits out of...the speaker.
Weird .
“Guard them with your lizzife, because if you lose them, you will be ERROR.”
A sound on the tracks accompanies the phone’s “now come on ride the train”. Both boys turn to the new sound, indeed seeing a train coming down the subway tracks, coming to a stop beside them.
Three says, with no amount of uncertainty in his statement, “I don’t trust this thing.”
Goggles makes a noise at him, bending down to pick up the card and device he was given.
Three huffs, eyeing the train with more suspicion than he even looked at Goggles with earlier. “It might just try to kill us.”
“We don’t really seem t’ have a choice, Three,” Goggles says, passing him to step on the train. Three gives another annoyed breath before following him on, the doors closing immediately when he does. The train starts moving almost as soon, Goggles stumbling while Three’s free hand shoots up to one of the ceiling grips for standing passengers.
“You’re an idiot,” Three helpfully tells Goggles, watching him pull himself off the ground. Goggles just laughs, and Three rolls his eyes at the reaction.
Three sits down with a sigh, setting his weapon to one side of him and stretching his shoulder again with a wince.
Before Goggles can ask if he’s alright, there’s the sound of a door opening, and they both turn in confusion to see a tiny blue slug scooting along to get to them. They share a confused glance when the slug speaks up, giving a simple “thank you for using the Deepsea Metro today” and introducing himself as “C.Q. Cumber”. Their confusion must be palpable, because he verbally acknowledges this seems to be their first time riding said metro before scooting closer to explain the metro to them - the corporation it’s operated by, that it’s connected to “test chambers”.
C.Q. turns to Goggles after mentioning this, asking if their plan is to reach ‘the promised land’, since he has the CQ-80. Three interrupts with a scoff of “obviously.” C.Q. gives him a look (Goggles assumes - he kind of doesn’t have a face), before simply saying “understood.” He goes on another prattle about the promised land, explaining the ‘thangs’ a bit more - “when all four thangs have been gathered, the door to the promised land shall open.”
Three speaks up again, barely trying to hide the irritation in his words. “So we have to pass a bunch of tests and find these four things before we can get out?” C.Q. gives the squid a nod, turning to Goggles to explain the CQ-80 to him more, either missing or entirely ignoring Three’s scowl at the confirmation.
He tells him to choose a station - Fake Plastic Station, which is not very reassuring - and then they set off for the station. When they get there, C.Q. explains the equipper (which Goggles finds silly) and the test fees and CQ points. Goggles glances back to Three, leaning on the wall to watch, who looks irritated at the thought of keeping track of a currency.
C.Q. explains...practically everything else to Goggles, as well, who appreciates it somewhat, despite Three looking irritated at how long it’s taking to get into the test itself. And yet, Three stops him before he can go in, earning a confused glance from the smaller octopus. “Three?”
Three hesitates to speak, looking irritated once more (or nervous), before huffing a breath. “...be careful,” he says shortly, glancing through the glass turnstyle before them at the trees in the area before them. “Can’t have you dying while I can’t do these myself.”
Goggles feels an odd burst of amusement, but just settles for giving the green squid a bright grin, who scoffs at the out of place joy. “I will, I will!” he reassures, almost giggling through his words. “Be back soon!” Goggles gives the squid another grin before swiping his card across the turnstyle scanner, practically launching himself into the testing area when the machine dings a confirmation for him to go.
Despite lacking any idea on who he exactly is and what could be waiting ahead, in the immediate and far future, Goggles feels more than ready to take on the challenges ahead.