Chapter Text
It takes around a minute for you to process what happened.
The first thing you feel is sand. You know it’s sand because it's somehow snuck its way up under your gloves and flight suit onto your skin. Actually, maybe the first thing you noticed was the flight suit, but your brain simply ignored that feeling since it was present on your whole body, or maybe just familiar. Your first reaction to the irritation is mild annoyance, understandably, but you quickly realize that you may have bigger fish to fry. After all, you just woke up on what must be a beach and you have no idea where you are.
The second thing you feel is metal. You technically don’t feel the metal itself, but you can feel through your glove that the cool, solid object your hand is laid limp on is metal. Right, the helicopter, idiots, and tornado. At least you don’t have memory loss, but trying to remember exact details spikes a headache, so maybe that would be preferable. You’re able to force an eye open. At first, you think you must have lost your vision, but…
The third thing you feel is the helmet pressing against and around your head. Strange how the feeling wasn’t even present for a moment, but as soon as you looked out of the tinted visor the sensation pressed around your head was suffocating. Your eyes don’t take too long to adjust, and you’re quickly able to confirm a few things without moving your head. The most important of which is that it is in fact a beach, which you could have just as easily been able to tell from the waves washing gently at the nearby shore if you had focused at all on using your ears.
“Pilot! Nooooooo!” You hear a shout using those same ears, presumably from one of the idiots. You hear their footsteps running up, approaching quickly. You try to push yourself up to show that you are in fact alive, and that the shouting is unnecessary. However, you quickly find difficulty in moving any of your limbs. A slight pang of panic runs through you, before you feel a small movement in your fingers. It's small, but enough of a reassurance that you’re not permanently stuck like this and you just need to come to consciousness still.
The fourth thing you feel is someone hoisting you up and swinging your arm around their shoulder, taking a good portion of your weight off the ground and putting you in a position to begin trying to stand. Admittedly, listening to them chatter about on the helicopter earlier, you didn’t exactly expect them to be caring. With a sigh, you have to admit that despite the fact that they drug you all the way out to loot this island and got you into some sort of mess, they may actually be stand-up people. That’s a good thing, you suppose, since you wouldn’t want to be trapped with a bunch of jerks. However, it’s harder to be upset with some clueless, well-intentioned idiots than some miscreant pillagers.
“Are you okay?!” The same voice repeats, slightly more urgent. Yes, you just want to be limp and carried around by someone you barely know, thanks for asking. Only able to meaningfully move your eyes hidden under your visor, you glance over to your right to look at your captor. You’re able to see a brown-skinned inkling with yellow tentacles, golden eyes, and the most intense negative canthal tilt you’ve ever seen. For her sake, you decide to ignore the forehead and leave your observations at that. Before you get a chance to respond, not that you would be able to, a strong gust blows through. Your eyes dart forward as the glowing yellow pillar of light fades out of the sky in the distance. With it goes the twirling winds of a tornado peetering out, and an odd sense of calm is now washed over the island. Not for you, of course, as now only more confusion arises. Your mind goes back to the flight here. As soon as you got close to the island, that same beacon beamed up, summoned a waterspout, and now it disappears as soon as you land? That’s one hell of a coincidence.
And that’s your minute. Time to get to work.
It takes a lot of strain, but you are able to dive your feet into the ground to take most of your weight up on your own. Despite yourself, you still let your arm hang over the side of the yellow inkling’s shoulder for a moment as a failsafe.
“Pilot! You live!” she cries out in joy, beaming a smile that only someone unaware of the gravity of their situation could manage. “I was so worried we were going to have to eat you…”
“Ay?! (Why would we eat them?!)” Your eyes catch the gray shape of a manta ray as he swings his fins up in shock and confusion.
“That’s what they always do in the movies.” The yellow inking speaks matter-of-factly, closing her eyes for a moment as she nods her head solemnly. “But we don’t have to now!” She instantly perks back up.
After standing mostly stable for a little bit, with only a bit of help, you elect to move your hand off the yellow inkings shoulder. You grab the helmet with both of your hands and, summoning all of the strength you can currently muster, you pull it straight up off of your head. It pops off with relative ease, actually. As one last act of aggravation before you decide to compose yourself, you slam it down with a hand off to the side. It bounces off a piece of scrap metal, and the crack of plastic on the top of the helmet is very audible. Turns out you didn’t need to use all that much strength after all. Everyone is silent for a brief moment, unwilling to acknowledge the now-broken helmet.
“Well, finally decided to show your face now, did you?” The smug new voice comes from a pale octoling with blue tentacles and thin-slitted red eyes that were sharp as the scrap metal lying on the ground. She looks like she’s constantly trying to look down on you, a struggle considering her shorter height relative to yours. However, after a moment, her face twists. For a second, it registers as disgust in your mind, but you soon realize it looks more like… worry?
You feel where your messy hair covers your face, and you brush it gently out of the way on instinct. When your hand moves across your face, though, you feel a sizable wet spot dripping down the side of your forehead just above your left eye. Well, that explains the weird look at least. Suddenly, it makes all the more sense why you’ve been struggling to use your senses, move, and think. You’ve been bleeding out. If you cared to look over at your helmet, you’re positive there would be a massive ink stain along the left half of it as well, as you can feel where it has stuck along the side of your face as well.
You have a real moment of panic when you hear all three of the idiots beginning to process your current state as well. Not because they’re worried, but because you're struggling to understand what they’re saying. You must be still bleeding out then, and there’s no way that your struggling has been helpful. It’s at this point you realize you may have pushed yourself a little too far, as your left knee buckles and sends you crashing down forward into the sand.