Oh heavens no. Shelby practically spits out a mouthful of coffee. He adjusts his mic and speaks in a stern voice.

The frantic inkling backs away from the salmonid hoard. They suddenly see not salmonids, but infected inklings, making their way towards them.

"I need to get out of here-"

They scramble to their feet and look for anywhere that could be considered shelter. The streets of Splatsville are highly unfamiliar, and Pyro finds itself lost in the swarms of salmonids.

"Help- HELP!"

A bright flash of light. Suddenly, a small horseshoe crab drops from the air, landing on its feet.

"PYRO! THERE YOU ARE I'VE BEEN LOOKING-"

"Anyone know octarian?" Fisheye calls out, holding a frying pan in hand in case the octarian is infected.

"I know it." Shelby comes out from behind Fisheye, telling the grumpy salmonid he'd take care of the speaking part.

"(What's your business doing here? Are you clean of any illnesses? Do you have an ID card that says you're cleansed? If not, I cannot let you speak with us for the moment.)"

Shelby felt bad for disregarding the octoling in a seemingly harsh nature. He had a hunch they were clear of Ink Rot, but he was genuinely concerned for the safety of Pyro, since inklings have a fragile immune system. He couldn't risk it.

Shelby sips on a cup of coffee while tuning the radio dials. Suddenly a static message pops through, making Shelby squint carefully as the voice becomes clear. He presses a button on his mic and leans in.

*Soon after another message would come up it was the same message again but in Inkling- the language also seemed a bit more broken as if they weren't a native speaker of the language... It looked like this message was intended for a large range of people but definitely not them*

-@asknewthree

The message caught Pyro's attention from dozing off. They squint at the message in their dark office room.

"Shelby come here."

"Hm? Is it another weird message? We've been getting odd signals lately..." Shelby squints at the screen. "I'd still put this in the database for later inspection."

"Agent 8? NSS?? Alterna???"

If they investigate, and tune it just right, they can barely hear half of a conversation.

"...walked in smelling like--I can't even describe it," a nasally, masculine voice says. "They said something about needing their splatana fixed and then just collapsed on the floor. ... Yeah, I called ... hope they're okay ... yes I cleaned everything ... no I didn't actually fix the splatana, it was covered in that gunky ink, I wasn't touching it! ... Yeah, I think I'm okay. Just a little shell-shook, that's all. Didn't sleep great ... I sleep fine sometimes! ... have to go open up ... later."

( @askammoknights )

What? ... No this cannot be-

Pyro rushed over to the radio, nabbing the other members from the break room. All now gathered around the device, the air tense around them.

"Shelby, can you see if you can get this radio to get a clearer signal?"

"I can try. Just give me 5."

The Ammo Knights shopkeeper carefully dialed the radio's buttons carefully, seeing if the radio waves could match the signal. Pyro was sure they heard every detail they could grab from the distorted calls. "Gunky ink" was something very common amongst the infected. They also heard "smell" and "collapsed on the floor".

When the radio waves synced with the signal, the CSS team all heard the horrific message that the radio had begun to relay.

"Could it be...? No-"

"Patient zero," Line and Sinker both usher.

"Impossible! This makes no sense in a scientific or medical matter!"

Shelby furrows his brows, listening in to the static voice.

"Wait, this is someone who runs Ammo Knights. A Shellendorf..."

"He succumbed to Ink Rot centuries ago, didn't he?"

"Yeah..." Shelby replies solemnly. "We can only hope he'll not end up as their universe's Patient Zero."

"Heads up!"

Shelby jumps from wherever he was, pulling out a small pistol and shooting the pipe bomb hurling towards the Inkling. Pyro is unfazed by the shrapnel barely missing them.