Day 4: Some Part of Me is Still Down There

The Octoling who would become Agent 8 was an exceptional soldier in every metric; his combat prowess allowed him to stand on equal footing with the dreaded Green Demon, his tactical knowledge was sharper then any blade, and his constitution was nothing short of diamon firm. He fought well, he thought better, and nothing could phase him.

The same could not be said of his immediate predecessor, Applicant 10,007; Troubadour.

Troubadour was an outcast back home; a bundle of insecurities wraped up in ink and a deliberately acerbic and confrontational disposition that won her no friends. She was not a soldier, but a software and hardware engineer; her programming skills were second to none and she's a dab hand at building machines. Very little down in the Deepsea Metro was tailored to her skillset.

And so, after years of steeling herself for an escape attempt from a home that never felt like home, she languished in that accursed place. Constantly trying- and painfully failing- nearly every test she tried. Harrowing enough on its own, but it was who she had to fight that really haunted her; other Octolings. Or, at least, the pallid, rotten forms of what once were Octolings; transformed and disfigured by that accursed teal ooze masquarading as "ink". Even seeing endless reems of Octarian grunts- generally considered second-class citizens in modern Octaria due to their lower (but not non-existent) degree of sapience- mutated by the slime shook her to her core; they did not deserve that. None of them did. She did not want to fight them, to kill them, even if they were already dead and merely walked. But she had to. She tried to. She always managed a few, but never enough; they would always get her in the end. She had the mercy of functioning respawn points, certainly, but on some days, she almost wished she didn't.

And lords above, the pain that stuff inflicted on her skin upon contact. It burned, hotter and more intense then any open flame. Her paltry scavanged clothes didn't offer much protection from it- she swears she could still feel it's sting through her battered sneakers, her well worn jeans and so-called sturdy jacket. She can't imagine how painful it must have felt on the Green De- on Avex's face for such long periods.

These things, they stick with you. They hang over you like a shadow, shade which the sun cannot pierce through. It's like a part of you never left that wretched place.

But... it does get better. It does get easier. She's above, now; fresh air fills her lungs every single day. The lackadaisical atmosphere of the City of Colours fills her hearts with a sense of peace that the domes never could. And she is blessed with good friends; people who want to understand her, people who want to be in her company, who can weather her softening-but-still-sheer nature.

One does not overcome trauma in a single night. But when you're truly Home, it gets easier.

(a rough first-pass of this image is included below, as a bonus)

~ Decon 22/10/21