Aftermath of Failure (Agent 8)
“Heinous 8-Ball Station” is right… Agent 8 thought to herself, now on her third attempt at completing this test. If she thought the other 8-Ball Stations were bad, they were nothing compared to this one. She didn’t want to ask for help, despite knowing her new friends would gladly provide assistance. But she was getting so tired of this place, and the persistent, burning pain in her lower back from previous failures was not helping. No matter what she tried, the ball just kept falling off the edge of some platform along the way, and the goal was still nowhere in sight. She was spending more points on this one than she was going to earn at this point, and she was about ready to just give up and head back to the train.
One more try… She decided as she once again scanned her CQ Card at the turnstile and entered the test area. The Bamboozler was definitely easier to wrangle than the splatling, so that was what Eight had chosen (chargers were more her style anyway). Easing her way down the awkwardly shaped path, she took extra care to not fire too soon or at the wrong angle. Wherever enemies appeared, she temporarily abandoned the ball and went to deal with them first. The spongy foam platforms, while normally a nuisance, proved to be a godsend in this situation.
She was finally getting the hang of this! She might be able to make it this time! She could actually see the goal in the distance. She’d made it farther than she had in any of her previous attempts. Just a little longer, and this awful station would finally be behind her.
Then came the inkfurlers. So many of them, bridging a massive gap in a sort of staircase pattern. On the other side were more of those freaky Sanitized Octarians, and she knew they would attack the moment she unrolled the first inkfurler. This was going to suck…
Nevertheless, Eight fired at the first inkfurler, then quickly pushed the ball off the solid platform onto it. The end began to wiggle, indicating it was about to roll back up, but Eight shot it again to buy herself a few more seconds, then repeated the process with the second inkfurler. Then the third. The enemies lying in wait finally noticed her, and began firing their own ink in her direction. She took aim at them and tried to take them out before they messed her up, but cursed under her breath as she realized they were just out of range.
The inkfurler rolled up. Eight shot it again before it knocked her and the ball off. Enemy ink hit it, and it rolled up again. Eight shot it repeatedly. This was a waste of ink, but she had to keep the ball from falling until she could figure out a plan… Unfortunately she didn’t see a way out of this. Unless…?
She had a crazy plan, but it might just work if she did it right. She shot the inkfurler one more time, then fired to unroll the one in front of her, quickly jumping forward to where she would be within range of the enemies. Alternating between firing at the enemies and firing at the ball’s temporary platform, Eight felt like she was finally making progress. She ran out of ink, but was able to get enough of a refill for one more shot, which took out the last of the enemies. She turned around to jump back and get the ball moving again, only to find the inkfurler rolling up. She scrambled to shoot it again, but it had already hit the ball, knocking it down and into the abyss below.
Eight squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the pain to come. She thought about just jumping into the void so that the splat would be less painful, but had not made up her mind in time.
“You let the 8-Ball fall. Test failed.” CQ Cumber spoke. Her ink tank grew heavier as the bomb tied to it filled with Sanitized Ink, and exploded.
Eight reemerged from the last checkpoint she had activated, just before the inkfurlers. Her body felt like it was on fire. Her back felt like it had been cut with a hundred razor blades then had boiling lemon juice poured over it. It stung so bad, she couldn’t get herself to stand up again. Eight often prided herself on her impressive pain tolerance and her ability to get up again and again no matter how much she hurt. This, however, was too much. Her vision went white. She lost her grip on her weapon. All sounds around her were muffled as the only sensation her brain could focus on now was the pain. The horrible, unbearable, searing pain in her back from that stupid bomb.
She couldn’t do this anymore. She just wanted to go back to the train. She would even take returning to the Domes over this. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she curled into a sobbing ball on the floor.
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Pearl and Marina saw all of this, and knew they had to do something. The poor girl was hurting, more than she had let on to anyone’s face. And they could only guess at what would happen to her if she didn’t get back up or couldn’t pass this test. There was only one other option from here.
“We promised we’d only do it if she gave permission! She wants to do it herself!” Marina argued.
“She is literally killing herself for these awful tests! She’s in pain. She can’t move. And I don’t wanna find out what’ll happen if she doesn’t get out of there and back to the train. You have to hack in there and pass her, Rina.” Pearl begged.
“But—!”
“Eight needs our help, whether she will admit it or not.”
“I’m going to ask her anyway.” Marina hit the audio button on the call with Eight and Captain Cuttlefish, “Agent 8? You seem to be having a hard time. Would you like us to help?”
There was no response at first. The two girls waited. About a minute later, almost inaudible among the panicked breathing and sobbing, they heard a small voice reply,
“Yes please…”
Marina began hacking into Kamabo’s systems and uploaded the data gathered from Agent 8’s previous attempts.
Test passed!