Pearl idled in the air, still in her drone form. She didn't feel tired in this form, but even slowing the decent of Marina and Clover had left her feeling overtaxed in the moment. She watched with mild concern as Clover paced back and word below.

"Damn it!" Clover growled in frustration. Pearl could sympathize with her. It had taken hours of trying, but they had finally made it to the top of the tower. They even beat that massive octopus bastard!

"Damn it!" She shouts again, trying to vent frustration. "All for nothing!"

"It wasn't nothing!" Marina defends, dusting off her suit. "Look here!" She reaches into the air, and Pearl's palette appears in her clawed hand. The palette was empty, as they weren't in the tower, but there was something different about it. Thin streams of gold outlined the palette's edges. "We got Pearl's palette back!"

Pearl, flew down, and hovered right beside the palette. "What does that mean?" she asks. The trio look between one another, none of them really sure what exactly it means.

"I've put protections on it, so Order can't get it back" Marina eventually explains.

"Well, that's something at least, right Clover?"

The agitated octoling just huffs. "I'm going to leave to get a snack. Maybe a glass of water to cool down." Clover reaches up and hangs her hands right by her ears. It should be as easy as visualizing the helmet around her head in the real world, and lifting that up. Except, her hands never catch on the helmet. "Uh.. Marina, am I doing this right?"

Marina relinquishes her laptop, the device swapping back into her palette, before vanishing into the digital space around them. "It looks right, you're thinking about the helmet right?"

"Crystal clear."

"Hmm." Marina reaches up to remover her own helmet. She pauses, and reaches again, and a third time. "That's.. that's not right." Her movements grow a bit more frantic.

Pearl's drone form is quickly engulfed in a series of yellow pixels, before she appears in her body a few steps to the left in a similar spray. "Breathe Rina. You both are probably too busy thinking about the tower and everything that just happened. Give it a few minutes to recover."

Both octolings slow down with a huff. "How about you Pearlie, can you get yours off?"

"Pff. Doubt it." Pearl reaches her hands up. "I'm waaay to busy thinking about that Order freak and how many times were gon--" She vanishes in a spray of white pixels as her arms move upwards.

Pearl's consciousness slowly returned to her. It was like she had just had the longest, least helpful sleep of her life, while also having spent the same amount of time running (flying?) around the spire of order. Dully, she heard the thud of something hitting the ground nearby. Her arms lay limply by her head. She instinctually tries to move, but her body doesn't respond. The rising panic certainly doesn't help bring any clarity to her sleep-addled mind, as she attempts to move anything. What the hell is happening? Am I paralyzed? Where'd Marina go? Hello!?

Eventually, her leg jerks. A few more minutes of trying results in her being able to at least somewhat consistently move her body. Ok. Not paralyzed, just... asleep? Ok. I must have been able to log out of the Memverse. That explains the sudden absence of, well everything I guess.

The movement, as janky as it is, is enough to level her head somewhat. With little else to do while her body wakes up, Pearl took stock of her own body. The first thing she noticed, was that she was thirsty, like she hadn't had anything to drink in several days thirsty. The next obvious thing was just how sore she felt. The kind of muscle lethargy that came from laying in one place for too long. The kind that's comfortable after a nap but hellish after a long car ride.

Several minutes of forced patience later, Pearl felt like she finally had the control to start maneuvering her body. A bit haphazard struggle later, she managed to pull herself up into a proper sitting position, perched against the headboard of the bed. It felt like her eyes were glued shut, and if the crust she could feel along her eyelashes when she finally forced them open, that was probably true. This... this isn't right.

The room was nearly pitch black. It was the same hotel room they had started the system tests in. The three of them sat down to enter the Memverse for the first time proper. Clover was laid down on one of the beds, while she and Marina were laid on the other.

Marina.

Pearl flung her head to the right, searching the other side of the bed for her wife. The bed was empty. Panic flooded Pearl's body, giving her the strength to toss herself across the bed, where she desperately searched the other side of the room, and the floor, for Marina.

She was sprawled in the floor, like she had worked her way out of the bed in her sleep. The relief that flooded Pearl's system threatened to put her back to sleep. No. Something's wrong here. Something's not adding up.

Pearl pushed herself off the bed, landing on her feet but needing to take several seconds to stabilize her balance. Waking up is not supposed leave me this desensitized. Stumbling across the room, she finally manages to flick the light switch, brightening the room.

Almost everything was still positioned as it was before they went in. Clover was still on her bed, Marina's laptop was still on the table, Marina was, well, close to the bed. Why was she so damn hungry? They only went in a few hours ago!

...

It was a few hours ago, right? Pearl turned to look out the window. It was pitch black outside.

...

The laptop. Let me check the laptop. Pearl staggered across the room again, practically collapsing into the chair at the table. She absent mindedly grabbed Marina's water bottle off the table, taking deep gulps while she waited for the laptop to wake up. She drained the bottle without a second thought, it tasted heavenly. The screen blinked to life, and Pearl quickly put the password in. Her hearts sank.

Three days. They had been in the Memverse for three days. The implications were slow to dawn on her, instead she just stared blankly at the calendar in the corner of the screen. Her eyes burned, cracked lips mumbled words that didn't make sound. Her body battled her head to see which could hurt more in the moment.

What the fuck.

Pearl turned her gaze over to Marina and Clover, both of whom still had the large memverse helmet on. She couldn't see their heads, but the coloration on their claws was incredibly faint. She felt her hearts press against her chest beating aggressively. She fought to keep herself calm. Ok. Breathe. She fought to keep her breathing steady. I gotta... I gotta... Pearl's mouth moved, but no sound came out. Her limbs shook as she tried to stand. She was spiraling. Oh cod, we nearly STARVED! We almost DIED! What the hell is going on?!

In a moment of clarity, Pearl fought her hand up to slap herself in the face. She screamed, throat ripping itself asunder as her vocal cords were suddenly pushed to the max after several days of disuse. The sound was pitiful, especially compared to the scream that saved the world all those years ago. But it did the job, she had successfully knocked the sense back into herself.

With a hesitant glance towards the others, Pearl turned to the kitchen in the other side of their suite. As much as it pains her, Pearl needs to get herself sorted before she has any chance of helping the other two. She stumbles through the doorway, using the wall to keep her balance. First things first: water. She shoved her way past the fancy fridge and the rows of bottled water, settling instead for lodging her head under the sink and just letting it run straight into her mouth.

Hydration now taken care of, it was time for step two: food. They hadn't stocked much food themselves-- it was just a hotel after all-- but these places usually come with some kind of snacks stowed away somewhere. Wait, isn't there a pizza in the fridge? Pearl scampered across the room, feeling much better having drank all the water. Indeed, inside the fridge was two boxes of pizza, one uneaten and one half eaten. Neither box stood a chance, she didn't even heat it up. She didn't feel particularly good about eating so much food in one go, but the bad feeling paled in comparison to the relief she felt at getting food in her body again.

It took a moment to get back to her feet. Despite how much better she felt, Pearl knew she wasn't in good condition yet. There was one more thing she needed to do before she went back to the others. She shuffled her way to the living room closet, where they had stowed a few items they were sure not to travel without. Opening the door, she was met with three identical hefty gray cases. Each one had a lock far more advanced that the case's plain exterior would suggest it needed. Pearl grabbed the one on the bottom. She inserted a key she always kept on her person into the lock, and after completing a fingerprint scan, the lock clicked open. She unlatched the two latches on either side of the case as well, before lifting the lid.

Immediately on top of the pile was what looked like a bright safety-yellow reflective vest. Without a second thought, Pearl moved, it, as well as the jacket and pants folded underneath. Beneath the clothes were several items; a large ink tank, a pair of headphones, a set of dualies colored the same as the jacket, a large black metal box, and a pair of shoes. Pearl reached for the box, ignoring the other items. She opened it up, and pulled out two empty ability chunks, and two vials of pink ink.

She opened a vial of ink, and carefully poured it onto the ability chunk, which absorbed it all without issue. Pearl wasted no time slapping that patch against the back of her left shoulder, before filling the other patch and slapping it onto the back of her right shoulder. The patches would slowly seep small amounts of the 'healthy' synthetic ink into her system, helping her body jumpstart normal ink production again. She packed everything up quickly, shutting the case and putting it back in the closet.

Giving herself only a moment to catch her breath, she turned and strode back into the kitchen, grabbing four bottles of water as she marched on into the bedroom she had woken up in. Now with her wits about her, the state of the room was even more horrifying. It stank to high hell, which wasn't surprising given they were unable to move for three days. Pearl shoved her disgust down, there were more important things to take care of in the moment.

Step one was to uncrumple her wife. Pearl batted away the small pang of guilt she felt at leaving her crumpled in the floor, but she had hardly been able to move herself, much less the larger octoling at the time. It was a gradual process, but before long, Pearl had her sitting up against a wall. Pearl gently poured water into her Marina's mouth, being extra careful to hold her head at a slight angle so she didn't choke.

Once the first bottle was empty, she stepped back, turning her head towards Clover. It was a similar process, she pulled the girl until she was sitting against the headboard, tilting her head back slightly, and feeding the water. Once the bottle was empty, Pearl stepped away, and fell into the chair at the table. There was so much she needed to do. They both needed to eat, for one, but she needed to get them out of here and clean the room up as well. Thank cod, they had finished their tour at this rate, but they were still hours of flight away from home.

"They don't even know!" The realizations struck Pearl like a bolt of lightning. Neither girl knew what was happening, back in the memverse. Pearl wearily eyed the helmet on the floor between the two beds, the one she had removed in order to bring herself back. One of the first things Marina had told her was that under no circumstances could you remove the helmet from outside, it had to be the user who pulled it off. Did she go back in to tell them, and risk potentially getting stuck inside again? She needed to tell someone else about this before she did that at the very least. She searched for her phone, only to find it sitting on the table right beside the laptop. It was, unfortunately dead. Pearl used a spare cord from the laptop to plug it in.

She slapped herself in the forehead. The laptop! She had signed into it earlier! With a laugh that bordered a bit too close to desperate for comfort, she tapped the spacebar to bring the login screen up again. One password entry later, and Pearl was looking at the desktop again. A few programs had opened while she had been too out of it to notice, one of which was blinking for her attention along the taskbar at the bottom. The memverse console line. Pearl clicked it, pulling up the window.

What she saw was a long line of commands she really didn't know how to read. Marina always handled all the computer stuff, she wasn't ever that into it. What she did notice though, was that these commands were still incoming, and one of them had a typo, like someone was actively typing them. Pearl took a shot in the dark.
[computer terminal format]

O:\users\MIda>find . -name \*.c —exec del Order \{\} /dev/null \;
Access is denied.

O:\users\MIda>rina? can you see this?
'Rina?' is not a recognized or internal command,
operatable program or batch file

O:\users\MIda> PEARL???
'PEARL???' is not a recognized or internal command,
operatable program or batch file

O:\users\MIda> its me.
'It's' is not a recognized or internal command,
operatable program or batch file

O:\users\MIda> Oh thank [Octavio] <-- pick something better]
'Oh' is not a recognized or internal command,
operatable program or batch file

O:\users\MIda> What's happening.
'What's' is not a recognized or internal command,
operatable program or batch file

O:\users\MIda> Is there a better way to talk
'Is' is not a recognized or internal command,
operatable program or batch file

O:\users\MIda> Hold on
'Hold' is not a recognized or internal command,
operatable program or batch file

O:\users\MIda>▮
Copy

The line stopped for a time, the only thing moving is the small blinking box at the start of the next line of code. Another window started flashing along the bottom of the screen, this time for some basic messaging service she's never seen before.
[old internet chat room format]
Pearlie? Can you see this?

sure can!

Oh thank cod you're ok!
You just vanished! We assumed you logged out, but we couldn't follow you!

yeah... rina things arent good

Pearl? What do you mean?

its been 3 days Rina
we were starving
literally
you fell off the bed
i couldn't move when i first woke up
im better now
sore as hell and still very hungry
but i can move

Are we...?

you two are alive
i give you each a bottle of water
ill do food soon

OH PEARL!!!
YOU SAVED US!!

not really
i mean all i did was get lucky enough to wake up

Still! We would DIE if you weren't out there.

...yeah
which is why im worried about going back in
i dont know if ill be able to get back out again

Stay out there for now.
We'll figure something out.
See if you can't get someone else to help

you always have the good ideas rina

Don't use your phone!
Or uhh...
Use your phone as little as possible!
That's how Order drug everyone into this mess
I think you're ok, because we reconfigured your palette
But the others won't have that same protection.

word
just hang in there
ill figure all this out soon

[texting format]
yo! hello? anyone here? i got a big problem

What happened

captain thank cod
ok there's no easy to explain this

?

basically marina and clover are stuck inside the memverse

The what.

marina made a computer simulation to try and help the sanitized people get their memory back
but it went haywire and trapped them inside

Wait a second. I know about this project.
How are they stuck?

idk!!!
but theyre stuck inside it and i cant take their helmets off
were halfway across the world for our tour

Hold on.

Several hours later, Pearl practically fell into the chair at the table. Quinn still hadn't gotten back to her, and no one else had answered her plea. She couldn't talk with Marina at the moment either, because Clover had demanded her palette for another run through the spire. With nothing else to do, Pearl set about feeding her captive companions and cleaning the room up. She had just gotten back from taking a shower when her phone buzzed. Fucking FINALLY.

It's an incoming Call from Quinn. Pearl answers immediately "Hello?"

"Pearl?" The most pathetic voice she's ever heard croaks over the phone.

"Holy shit Marie are you ok?"

"No, Shut up. Some kind of virus has spread through the whole city. I feel awful."

"Well, shit. That's not good. I kinda need your help."

"Quinn explained everything."

"How? I barely told him anything!"

Marie doesn't answer immediately, but Pearl can perfectly picture the lazy shrug she offered in response. "Something's not right about this Pearl."

"What?"

"This sickness. This isn't how any of this works. Nearly the entire city was brought under in three days. And not one person has shown any signs of getting any better. Across the entire population."

"That's..." Pearl's mind wandered through everything that had happened in the memverse. Order, Marina's brainwashing, Grayscaling, it clicked. "It's Order."

"What?"

"Order. The bastard that trapped Rina and Clover in the Memverse. Mar, these aren't separate issues, they're the same thing!"

"I'm going to take your word for it, my head hurts way too much to think right now."

"Is Quinn there?"

"Yeah, he's-- wait. If this isn't a sickness, what's going on with Nora?"

"What's going on with Nora?"

"Right at the start of this "outbreak" I found her face down in her apartment. She hasn't woken up since."

"The timelines add up... I'll ask Rina about it when I can. Ok Quinn, are you there?"

"Yes." Quinn's monotone voice answers from the background.

"Ok. All three of you head to my place. I'm gonna get my two over there soon. This is something a lot bigger than any of us thought. Stay off and away from your phones. Quinn, I think yours is fine because it was made before touch screens were invented. I don't know how safe computers are either. I'll see you soon."

Pearl was about ready to shatter into a billion tiny pieces. In the last several hours she's cooked, deep cleaned a bedroom, organized an expedited flight halfway around the planet, maneuvered two fully unconscious people onto said flight along with all of their luggage from their tour, and researched the extent of the fallout in the real world. All of this on the heels of what had to be one of the most horrifying brushes with mortality anyone besides Quinn and Clover have ever had to experience. She was practically sleepwalking as she moved Marina and Clover into the back seat of a rental car. Traffic was non existent at least, so the biggest challenge was keeping her head up. It took screaming along with some of her really old metal songs at full volume to keep herself conscious but eventually, she finally found herself pulling into the manor's driveway. She pulled up to the front of the house, where she found Quinn waiting. Their eyes met, before they shared a nod of understanding. Pearl turned the car off, and promptly passed out in the driver's seat.

She woke up a long time later. Compared to the last time she woke up, this felt like heaven. She was sore, had a massive headache, and had more tension laced through than hammerhead bridge. But she could move this time. She gave herself three minutes in bed to wallow in her misery. To just bask in the sheer agony of the situation. The city if not more in prominent danger. The near death experience. Marina trapped, prisoner in her own creation. Not with her.

At 181 seconds exactly, the throws the blanket off, and sits up. She's on the couch in the front room, right by the door. No one else is around, but a trail of open doors through the house lead her to where she needs to go. It's quiet inside the halls. None the staff were around, she'd given them paid time off because they were all feeling the effects of Order. Right now she has to make sure Marina is ok.

When she finally finds the small NSS camp, it's near the back of the house in a spare side room. Quinn is sitting idle at a desk, typing away at a computer. Her eyes desperately sweep the room. Marie's slumped over in a chair right next to Nora, looking downright miserable. Nora, for her part, is laid out on a bed, unconscious. Clover's in the bed beside her, equally unconscious, with the VR helmet still on.

Pearl pushes them all for the moment, stopping at the next bed down. Marina lay unmoving, mind still trapped in the Memverse by that Order freak. Pearl tenderly grabbed her hand, locking their fingers, and for just a moment, let herself truly feel the fear that she's barely been keeping at bay. She squeezes Marina's hand, hoping the octoling can still feel the support she wants so badly to give.

She snaps her head up, turning to look to the others in the room. "Alright! What's going down?" Pearl's preparing to launch into a speech about what little they do know, when she notices that Quinn's been working on Marina's laptop. "Why are you on Rina's computer?" is all she asks instead, voice laced with a hint of danger.

Quinn puts his hands up in a sign of surrender. The inkling's face is as neutral and unmoving as ever, a consequence of the sanitization he experienced in the metro. His voice comes out stiff and monotone, like he has to force every word through his mouth before he can say it. "It was separate from the other luggage. Figured it was important." He turns back to the screen and types something else out.

"How did you get it unlocked?"

"Fingerprint."

"Ok, but WHY are you on Rina's computer!?"

Marie buts in from her place across the room. "Easy Tiger. This way we could communicate with our friends in the Memeverse or whatever it's called."

Pearl deflates. "I see you're feeling better."

"Hardly." Pearl doesn't miss the worried glance Marie sends towards Nora.

"We've made progress," Quinn announces, before nodding his head towards Marie.

"Talking to Marina, we've figured out a couple of things. One, is that Nora is probably got pulled in by the Spire's security protocols. She was doing something to help all that out. Two, this is reaching further than we thought. The entirety of the Octarian domes are affected, as well as significant chunks of the Splatlands. We're not sure exactly what the fuck is happening, but it's spreading. Fast."

"Fuck." Pearl shakes her head at the news.

"Yeah, it's bad. Good news though! You're immune to it."

"It it because my palette's been reconfigured or whatever?"

"Yup. So, out of everyone in the county we have one single runt who's not on the edge of being indisposed."

Pearl ignores Marie's snark, tapping a finger to her chin in thought. "Does that mean I can go in and out of the memverse without issue?"

"Yes." Quinn clarifies.

Marie continues, "There's a lot we don't understand about all of this still. We considered putting the helmet on me or Quinn, but we don't know how useful that'd actually be. As far as we know, we only have access to two, palettes? Yours and Marina's. We don't know if putting me inside the machine would result in another palette, me getting locked in like they are, or me being sucked into the system like Nora is."

"That's really not a lot of pieces to work with." Pearl admits with a huff.

"It's not, but we have a lead."

Pearl perks up immediately. "Really? What is it!?"

Quinn reaches over and grabs the remaining Memverse helmet. "Nora."

White particles appeared around her as she spawned in. Before Pearl could get any sense of her surroundings, she was tackled to the ground by a squealing Marina.

"Pearlie! You're back!! I missed you so much." Marina's smile is bright enough to light the entire plaza.

"Gha! Rina gimme a second to get my bearings!" Pearl complains, despite pulling Marina closer in the hug. "I was really worried about you," she admits voice a bit quieter than usual.

Marina wraps her arms even around a squirming pearl. "Oh, me too! But we're here!"

Behind them, Ahato clears their throat. "Are they always like this?" Pearl can only hear someone sigh in response.

"Alright Rina, let's get this show on the road. The world's in danger, ...Again!" Pearl's form is engulfed in a spray of yellow particles, before she appears in her drone form, hovering in the air. Marina giggles from down on the ground, before pulling herself back to her feet.

"Acht, nice to see you again. Sorry for ducking out suddenly." The sanitized octoling just nods in return, already stalking towards the tower.

"Clover!" Pearl shouts as she flies over to the octoling. She admittedly doesn't seem like she's in the best shape. Subtle eyebags sit under her eyes, her tentacles are curled just a bit to tightly, her jaw's set. "You doing ok?" She asks.

The Octoling looks up to her and nods, not saying anything else. Instead, she signs that she's fine in OSL, before turning and walking towards the spire as well. Pearl wasn't particularly surprised, Clover was known to go mute when she was stressed out.

"Yo, Rina. Are they ok?" Pearl asks, flying over by Marina's head. The pair start walking towards the spire as well, albeit not as urgently as the other two.

"Clover didn't take the whole 'almost died' thing very well." Marina admits with a sigh. "I can't blame her. I think the novelty of the Spire's worn of on her too."

"And Acht?"

"I'm not really sure what's happening with them. They seem fine, on edge. It has been a while since I've talked to them though."

"And you?"

Marina stops. Her bottom lip curls up wards and Pearl can tell she's fighting to hold back some tears. "Its all my fault."

"Nuh uh. Nope. We went through this already. Not your fault you got possessed by the living embodiment of a concept." Pearl confidently declares, her drone wings bent downwards, vaguely emulating her hands being on her hips. "Let's go kick some butt so we can get back to the good intentions."

Marina smiles, wiping at the corners of her eyes before standing up straight. "You're right. We need to stop it. There's no time for moping about!"

"There we go!" Pearl cheers, flying in circles around Marina. "Let's go disrupt this order!"

the plan from here was to just break Nora out of the Parallel Canon fight, but then my mind quickly came up with (the basis for) the Side Order plot I have now, and I realized I would not be able to do the concept justice currently.