When Eight popped out of the grate, she was in a sunny area on a large floating island. Scattered around the grate were five inklings and an octoling.

The first three inklings were Keiko, Niika, and Ryo. All the rest were people that Eight didn't know. Ryo was sitting on the ground nearby. She held a yellow, squid-shaped phone in her hands.

The fourth inkling wore a kimono and held an umbrella. She had light gray hair in a hairstyle Eight had never seen with a pink and red bow. The fourth inkling was sitting down on a bench nearby. She had black hair with purple tips, a pink beanie with a star, and a pink cardigan sweater.

Misuno was in a short shirt and skirt, with high-top boots. There was a large golden-yellow ring around her left wrist and right ankle.

"H-hello," Eight said nervously.

"Three, who's this?" The gray-haired inkling asked.

"She's a friend of mine," Keiko said. "Ryo and Misuno have met her already."

"Okay, well some of us don't know her," The gray-haired inkling said. "Quick intro time. I'm Marie."

"You can call me Callie!" The inkling with the beanie said, smiling.

"Wait, as in, the squid sisters Callie and Marie?" Eight asked.

"Yep!" Callie said, beaming.

"And you already know me, Ryo, Misuno, and Keiko," Niika said. "So, what's the problem? Did Ryo drop her weapon again?"

"Sis!" Ryo said. "That happened once and that was a year ago."

"An older sister remembers all her younger siblings' faults," Niika said, laughing.

"Humph," Ryo said, turning away from Niika.

"No, that's not what happened," Marie said. "To properly see it, we need to super jump to Cephalon HQ." She turned into her squid form and launched into the sky. Callie, Ryo, Misuno, and Niika all followed her.

"Ready?" Keiko asked Eight.

"Yeah," Eight said. She took Keiko's hand, who super jumped, pulling Eight along with her. They landed right next to a large kettle that was on a large, circular, metal platform that was surrounded by a sea of purple-pink-colored ink that was the same color as Misuno's hair.

But it wasn't entirely that color. There were large portions of the sea, which filled the bottom of Octo Canyon, that weren't purple-pink, but were instead the same cyan color as sanitized ink.

"This is. . . sanitized ink," Misuno said. Why is there sanitized ink here? No, how is there sanitized ink here?"

"We think that somewhere underneath the DJ's ink sea, there's a connection to the Metro," Callie said. "I called Marina to see if she can do a scanny thingy to find out for sure."

"When is she going to get here?" Ryo asked. "And is Pearl coming?"

"I assume Pearl will accompany her," Marie said. "And we called her about five minutes ago. She should be here any minute now."

"Misu, what are you doing?" Keiko asked. Eight turned to see that Misuno was sitting on the edge of the platform and was dipping her fingers into the purple ink.

"What?" Misuno asked. "I'm just touching the ink. It won't hurt me."

"Right, it's your color of ink," Marie said. Then her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and answered. "Oh, hey, you made it. . . . Yeah, we're in Caphalon HQ. . . . Okay, see you in a sec." She ended the call and put her phone away. "Marina and Pearl are on their way." She said.

Then an inkling and an octoling, presumably Pearl and Marina, landed, having just super jumped to the location.

Marina was tall, with dark brown hair that had teal tips and light brown skin. She wore a short, dark gray skirt, teal pants, a black leather vest with an oversized silver zipper, black fingerless gloves, and large headphones. Her fingertips were the same teal color as the ends of her tentacles.

Pearl was shorter, with cream-colored hair that had pink ends. She wore a crown that resembled her hair and gloves that looked like the octoling's, a white sweater with an oversized golden zipper, pink pants, and thick-soled white boots.

"Yo, this place is sick!" Pearl said. "The atmosphere is cra-zy!"

"Pearl!" Ryo said, perking up. Pearl turned to Ryo and gasped.

"Ryo!?" She asked. The two ran to each other and hugged each other.

"You brought your laptop, right?" Marie asked Marina.

"Yeah," Marina said. "You want me to scan the ink sea for a connection to the Metro, right?"

"Yup!" Callie said. "That's the only explanation that we can think of."

"Makes sense," Marina said. She pulled out her laptop and typed something into it. It beeped after a few seconds. "Kay, done," she said. "The connection to the Metro is somewhere in the wall, over there." She pointed, where Eight could just barely see a tiny hole in the wall that was leaking sanitized ink into the sea of pinkish-purple ink.

"Well, that's not good," Keiko said. "Should we check it out?"

"Yeah, let's do that," Marie said. "Super jump to the fourth level, there's a boat there." The group all super jumped and then got into the boat. Callie drove the boat to where the hole was.

Up close, it was much bigger than it appeared. Around twenty feet across, the sanitized ink oozed out of it, dumping its contents into the basin. When the pinkish-purple ink and the sanitized ink collided, they seemed to evaporate each other. Ever so slowly, the sanitized ink was replacing the ink that the octarians had put.

Keiko seemed to be staring intently at the sanitized ink.

"Keiko?" Eight asked. Keiko started to reach her hand out toward the ink. "Keiko! Stop!"

Keiko's finger touched the ink.

The scar on her face flashed with a bright glow, and she collapsed.