Chapter Text
In all honesty, the circumstances leading up to its fate had to be the only funny parts of the snowglobe situation.
It had been collecting dust, you see. Taking up too much room in the shack.
On their cleaning day, the girls had debated as fiercely as two apathetic 17 year old Inklings could about its fate.
The magenta and ebony haired one, Agent 1, had wanted to furnish the orb with lots of decorations; vibrant (plastic) plantlife, colorful rocks, water-sealed stickers, (likely caked in glitter, if her phone case was any indicator.) An art piece, as most snowglobes tend to be.
The green and gray haired one, Agent 2, however, had wanted to refurbish the glorified cage into more of an enclosure for sea life. Perhaps, with some extra TLC, and the right type of treated water, they could cultivate a miniature biosphere of unevolved fish and mollusks! A slice of natural beauty, mixed in with the inevitable morbidity of trying to take care of wild fish.
But neither of those desires had come to fruition. If they had, then Octavio wouldn’t have been there in the first place, would he?
No, Cuttlefish likely would have just stowed him away into a nonfunctional kettle, cut off from the rest of the underground. That or just outright put him out of his misery.
Perhaps that would have been more merciful of a choice.
But, no. The old-timer had popped the half-conscious royal right into the globe with a satisfied grunt, locking the container with a snap .
“Gramps,” Agent 2 had begun warily, “are you… sure this is a good idea?” The Inkling kept her crisp amber glare locked onto the glass in skepticism.
“Yeah!” Agent 1 chirped in concerned agreement. “Like, didn’t he just kidnap you, Gramps? Isn’t keeping him here like this just gonna give him the chance to do it again?”
“Now don’t tell me you girls already forgot my golden rule,” Cuttlefish chided with not a hint of real disappointment directed towards the Inklings. “‘Keep your enemy close; you’ll figure out their next plan of action quicker!’”
He had tilted his head toward the globe quickly, whipping his neck around too erratically for Octavio to fully catch before the Inkling had returned to staring at his students expectantly.
While the two older teens simply shrugged apathetically, Agent 2 even rolling her eyes a bit, the younger teen that quietly stood behind them had nodded sagely.
From the moment that the Boss Kettle had sent them into the arena, Agent 3’s fierce gaze never once dulled their glare from piercing into Octavio’s head.
At least- that was what he had observed when his vision wasn’t spinning, spinning, spinning around to the infectious beat of the past hour.
The youngest of the three Agents seemed to hold the most animosity towards the defeated royal, at the very least. Beneath lemon-lime colored bangs, their eyebrows stayed hidden away. It was impossible to tell if their brow was furrowed, if their eyes were even narrowed in suspicion at all! The kid was scary.
But kids (and, by extension, squids) aren’t born scary. It’s taught to them.
"Extra kudos go to you for today, Agent 3! Especially for bein' such a great pupil!"
No, kids are not born scary, threatening, or similar. It’s taught to them by the authority figures in their lives. Their mentors, teachers, trusted adults.
Their elders.
As Captain Cuttlefish continued to prattle on about the snowglobe, its prisoner , and the training he had oh, so lovingly thrust upon his grandsquids and their cohort, Octavio huffed out a silent trail of bubbles into the oxygenated water of his cell.
He shot two final, assertive, glares towards the Agent and their mentor, his captors, before rolling over onto his side and shutting his eyes.
His consciousness faded easily.
His spite, however? Not so much.
As soon as the royal had awoken once more, he slipped back into the mindset of the day prior.
Well, moreso, Octavio just went back to antagonizing the man he had to thank for his imprisonment. There wasn’t much else for him to do at that point, besides nibble at his vast reserve of wasabi stalks.
After what had to have been nearly a week and a half following his capture, one morning began a bit differently from the rest.
With a long night of observing the surroundings of the snowglobe in the moonlight behind him, the creak of the rickety old shack’s door opening an hour or two earlier than usual had not slipped past Octavio’s keen senses.
“Do you really think you got the beat-drop on me with that shoddy entrance?” he had snarled, venom dripping from nearly every other word. “‘Cuz believe me , Cuttlefish, you’ve gotta be one-”
“The kids ain’t here, ‘Tavi,” Cuttlefish interrupted unceremoniously. And rudely. “You don’t have to talk like that the whole time.” Very rudely.
The Inkling shuffled over to a pop-up table that had been set up beneath the eaves of the shack a few days ago, setting down a glass of iced tea and what was most likely a crabby cake from the corner store. Specifically one that Agent 3 had dropped off before they’d left for home the night before.
Octavio huffed indignantly, before promptly doing exactly what Cuttlefish had advised him to do.
“And why should I-” he began before backtracking quickly.
“No, first off, do not call me that,” he snarled again, making sure to add extra venom to the heaping pile from before. “Second off, why the hell do you care so much about how I present myself?”
“Because,” Cuttlefish took a big gulp of his tea, taking a few excruciatingly long seconds to sigh in refreshment before continuing his thought, “it’s getting mighty grating on the ears, wouldn’t you agree?” He shot an impish side-eye at Octavio, taking another sip from the glass.
Oh, so they were back to this stage, eh?
“Are you inviting me to grind you into a pulp once I’m out of here, you putrid little- ”
As Octavio swelled close to the glass of the globe, he was, once again, cut off quite unceremoniously.
This time, by a giddy burst of chuckles.
“HEY!” He snapped at the Inkling, pounding on the glass with a tentacle.
“Eeheheh… You wouldn’t believe how much I missed this,” Cuttlefish confessed, taking another sip from his tea as he practically wrestled with the finicky wrapper of the crabby cake.
“Missed what?! ” Octavio snarled back. “ Taunting me for getting beaten and confined into another prison? Like you did to the rest of us?”
“Mm…” the Inkling hummed thoughtfully. “Not entirely.”
“It’s moreso being able to… mm…”
The water in the globe whirled around fiercely, propelled by restless tentacles.
“To enjoy the status quo, y’know?” He shot another shamelessly smug look at Octavio. “It sure has been a long time since we’ve been able to just sit down and spend time alone together, hasn’t it?”
Octavio’s lesser tentacles stilled their motion, beginning to curl in as a cold, rotten feeling welled up in his deepest heart.
“To enjoy the status quo of me and my people always being beneath you, huh?” he stated testily. “Because winning one time just wasn’t enough for you, was it?”
Cuttlefish’s expression dimmed, albeit only a bit. He may have aged into a crazy, old squid, but he wasn’t stupid.
Well, not as stupid as he used to be, Octavio assumed.
(Hoped, even, if we he was being generous.)
“That’s about enough of that,” the Inkling chided patronizingly. “The two of us both know that this is how things oughtta be. You lost, and we won. No stealin’ of any zapfish is gonna reverse that, ‘Tavi!”
Dumbfounded, the royal remained silent.
The audacity, the gall of the man before him…
The man who-
Crinkle crinkle.
The.
The man who still couldn’t get the wrapper of his crabby cake open.
(Octavio scolded the little part of his mind that considered, traitorously, that he’d be able to get it open for him.)
“Then that just makes you lucky,” he murmured low, venomous in his tone. “Lucky that you don’t want, or need, to reverse it, Craig. ”
The sound of plastic, unyielding adhesive, and a dropped smile were the only replies Octavio received.
The world outside of the snowglobe went on.
Agent 3 and the Captain fell into a simple routine; meet up a quarter of an hour after sunrise, plot out which sector of Inkopolis’s outskirts they would tackle that day, and then set out to figure out just how the Great Zapfish had been stolen in the first place.
To say that the King was just proud of the elite task force he had assigned to the heist would be the understatement of the century.
That pride was most of what kept his lips sealed when it came to being interrogated, too.
Well, maybe ‘interrogated’ was giving one of the two Inklings too much credit.
Agent 3 was the one pulling most of the weight when it came to actively intimidating Octavio.
Between sharp glares and dirty looks, the Octarian played his cards close to his chest and remained passive. It was really all he could do at the moment, anyways.
But, as he waited, Octavio listened. He listened, watched, and observed the Inkling teen and their schedule.
And the intimidating facade of a kid-turned-soldier melted away as quick as it had crystallized on the day of his capture.
You see, Agent 3 was a lonely squid. Why else would they have listened to that blathering old man’s pleas for help in continuing a century old war?
…Okay, that was a bit harsh. The kid was lonely, though. That much was quite clear. They didn’t spend much time with the other two agents, whom of which were consistently absent (much to their gramps’s chagrin,) nor did they seem to have many friends back in Inkopolis, let alone much going for them at all worth talking about.
Er… Scratch that, the kid didn’t seem to talk at all. At first, Octavio wasn’t sure if it was a condition they inherited, or selective, but that didn’t matter in the grand scheme. It was quite clear that Agent 3 did not talk. End of story.
Which made the agent’s antagonism of the imprisoned royal all the more difficult to-
Taptaptap.
“GYAH!” Octavio roared, whirling around reflexively to face the teen.
Agent 3 simply snickered quietly under their breath, narrowing their eyes at him dangerously.
Grumbling and crossing his main tentacles, the Octarian shot a glare back as he spoke.
“Are all of you like this?” he snarled, “Slimy little hipsters whose parents never taught them not to be such little weirdos?! ”
Agent 3’s smug glare dropped into a cold scowl.
(Mentally, that same little part of Octavio’s mind from before slapped him for being so insensitive to a kid.)
…And when Agent 3 whipped out their Hero Shot to point the muzzle at the Octarian behind the glass, he could only flinch back guiltily.
Perhaps mentioning parents to the teen was… a bit foolish of him to do.
Especially so soon after…
Well, after a conversation Octavio had happened to eavesdrop on accidentally a few nights prior.
The teen had burst out of the grate hurriedly, rushing over to the shack with a shaky gait.
Lucky for them, Cuttlefish hadn’t yet gone to bed.
“Hwuh? Agent 3?” he had begun, sleepiness strengthening the drawl of his accent a tad. “Whuzzah- why are-”
A hushed and tearful jumble of words, too wobbly for Octavio to make out, silenced the older squid.
“Can you- What?!” he cried incredulously, causing the teen to flinch. “What in the world happened?!”
While Octavio couldn’t quite hear what the Inkling was saying, Cuttlefish’s reactions and repetitions of their tearful story were more than enough context needed to gather what was going on;
Agent 3 had run away from home. And, by the looks of how heavy the backpack slung over their shoulder was, they were not planning on going back any time soon.
“Well, of course you can stay here, squiddo!” Cuttlefish had offered warmly. An awful, slimy, little grin that Octavio couldn’t see beneath that scraggly beard, but knew was there, laced his tone with an embarrassing amount of excitement and gratitude.
His granddaughters both seemed like they would have rathered hike up and down Mount Nantai twice in a row before they ever willingly stayed with their gramps, after all.
(Traitorously, Octavio’s mind had thought that last bit with a hint of indignation for the older Inkling’s sake. And to think that he spoke so highly of those two brats!)
The two Inklings had stepped into the shack, out of Octavio’s sight.
“Now just set your bags down here, alright?” A shuffle that most likely would have been a CRASH had the teen not been there followed.
Slowly, the quiet sniffles and hiccups faded away, as the shack was slowly cleaned up a bit. The sounds of things being adjusted and moved, muffling small talk, nearly lulled Octavio to sleep a couple times. His curiosity was what kept him awake, though.
“Well, as silly as I’m sure this sounds, it just doesn’t feel quite right to me to keep callin’ you Agent while we’re off the clock like this,” the older Inkling had eventually admitted. “Is there a name you’d rather me call you, squiddo? One you’d prefer over, well…”
No soft murmurs met Octavio’s ears. The kid was back to being quiet, it seemed.
“Three? Well, jeez, Three! Ya sure are keepin’ it easy for me!” he chortled, eliciting an amused hum from the teen.
“Gah, I really never shoulda given up on my poetry! I didn’t even mean for that one to rhyme!”
Octavio had stopped listening at the word poetry.
He listened again, though, as he stared down the muzzle of the modified Splattershot before him in the present.
“Now, don’t scare him too bad, Agent 3!” Cuttlefish had chided, amusement in his tone at the teen’s antics. “He’s just doin’ his time! We’re not gonna torture the poor soul!” A chuckle came from the shack.
Octavio glared at Agent 3.
Three glared back at him.
As the Inkling lowered their weapon and stalked off, the taptaptap of gentle rain began to knock at the top of the snowglobe.
Octavio flinched at the sound once more.
For the next few weeks, it had rained off and on. The weather that summer had to have been the best that the Valley had seen in decades!
Above ground, that is.
The King didn’t dare to spare a moment considering what was going on back home. The thought of the domes dealing with such a torrent of water made him sick to his already empty stomach.
With that curse, though, did come a blessing, Octavio supposed.
After just a few days of rain, every single storm drain, stray kettle, nook and cranny, and the like had been flooded to the brim with the product of the downpour. So much so, that Cuttlefish and the Agent had entirely given up on their scouring of Inkopolis’s outskirts.
Hah! Not like they even would have found what they were looking for in the first place, with how skilled Octavio’s team had been!
Regardless, the search had been put on indefinite hold.
In the meantime, the older Inkling and his protege had taken to spending most of their time around the shack, making the excuse that it was to ‘keep a better eye on their prisoner.’
Most of their time spent, though, was trying to fix the seemingly hundreds of leaky spots in the roof of the shack.
(...And Cuttlefish had been living in there? For how long, now?)
The process sped up exponentially once the other two Agents were roped into the process, with Agent 2 lugging along with her a plethora of sturdy, rubber umbrellas. Agent 1 was, of course, the authority when it came to where to put said umbrellas in order to make the exterior of the shack look the most visually appealing.
With the two older teens pitching in, the shack quickly became much more lively and livable than it had been just days prior, even with the rain doing its best to try to wash the Inklings away at times.
The Agents stuck around more frequently as well, likely because of Three’s newly permanent presence being a reliable buffer between the girls and their grandfather’s inevitable, unpredictable antics.
Luckily, his impulsive tendencies were easily pacified with a bit of quality, family bonding time for an afternoon or so.
Like, for instance, a few rounds of his favorite board game!
(That was all it took? The poor, old lunatic…)
“Now, these two know pretty darn well how to play this game,” Cuttlefish prattled, “but I’d betcha you don’t! So myself and my lovely assistants are gonna teach ya!”
As the girls began to unpack the worn old box that had just recently been freed from its prison under a pile in the shack, something about it caught Octavio’s eye.
Was that…? No way.
“This, Three, is Pai Shoal!”
The royal shifted around to float upright in the globe, his eyes widening as he stared at the box.
(At his Pai Shoal box. Octavio’s Pai Shoal box. )
Oh SCREW pretending he didn’t care! WHAT?!?
He still had it? That was where it ended up after all those decades?! Into Cuttlefish’s hoard of-
“Ah, shoot! I forgot that this set is missing one of the Snapper pieces!” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Eh, that playstyle was always too slow for my liking, anyways…”
… Why did he still have it? Octavio had figured it would’ve gotten given away to one of his kids, eventually.
(And it was quite evident that Craig had had kids. Where the hell else would he have gotten two granddaughters?)
Point is, Cuttlefish loved this game from the moment that he learned all of its rules, ins, and outs. And Octavio was sure that it was the type of love that he would want to pass on to others.
…Right?
“Now that you’ve picked your pieces for this game, we’ll run through a test game, just to get ya used to it!”
The Octarian shot a sneaky glance at the two teens standing beside their grandfather and peer.
Agent 1’s expression was unreadable, as her eyes were covered up by the dull black lenses of her sunglasses. Her lips were pursed as she faced the board game beside her. Perhaps she was observing it? She didn’t seem too much like the studious type. Probably trying to remember how to play before she would inevitably volunteer to go first.
Agent 2, however, seemed to be making much more of the free time she had as the Captain and Three’s game progressed. Her narrowed, amber eyes flitted back and forth as she read something on her phone screen. Judging by what Octavio had seen of the girl before, she was likely looking up the actual written instructions to the game. While she was plenty perceptive, and a quick learner, the teen didn’t have much patience for the tangents and tomfoolery that Cuttlefish’s leadership wrought.
“And that’s how ya play! Think you’ve got it down, Three?”
The teen nodded firmly and quietly, as they always do when asked a question.
“Then, how about you try going against Agent 1 next?” he suggested, standing suddenly and eliciting a small peep of surprise from the girl. “I’d bet the two of you would be quite evenly matched, considering how quickly you got all of that under your belt so quickly!”
So the old coot did pick up on how unprepared she was, eh? Maybe he wasn’t as senile as Octavio had thought.
As Agent 1 sat down in the lawnchair, the group fell into a comfortable, rhythmic cycle. Two would play a game, lasting for the standard 18 turns that most modern Pai Shoal players operated by, before the loser would stand up and make room for whoever wanted to play next.
…After a while, though, a pattern began to make itself clear.
“Ha! And the master, once again, remains undefeated!” the elderly Inkling puffed his chest out proudly, crossing his arms as Agent 1 groaned quietly in defeat.
“It’s like from the first turn, the whole board is locked down as his turf!” she cried, pointing at the table in vain. “How do you do it, gramps?!”
“You’re not gonna get my strats outta me that easily, Agent 1!” he teased gently. “You three will just have to keep practicing! Besides! I wouldn’t give up this chance to relive my glory days of Pai Shoal win streaks for anything!” Cuttlefish boasted. “Not even a crabby cake!”
By that point, Octavio felt that he had seen and heard enough.
(After all, Craig was not the one that had the notoriously unbeatable win streaks, back in the day.)
Enough to gain the spoons to speak up, that is.
“You’re calling this a new win streak?” Octavio scoffed from the snowglobe, drawing the attention of the group. “Pulling into the lead, and then calling it quits after 18 turns? Those are a coward’s tactics.”
That infuriatingly shrewd smile bloomed onto Cuttlefish’s face once again as he turned to face the Octarian.
“Oh really now? And I’d suppose you have an alternative in mind that wouldn’t be a cowardly move?”
As three sets of eyes, (plus one more behind a pair of shades) turned onto the royal, he lifted his head and crossed his main tentacles proudly.
“Yeah. Playing the game how it was made to be played; ” Octavio sneered, “Without the stupid turn limit you keep playing by. The only reason you keep winning is because you know how to set up for the long game faster than any of your opponents. Of course a beginner and two novices wouldn’t beat you.”
A cold, competitive air, (one that Octavio had not seen him bear in a long time,) flashed onto Cuttlefish’s face.
“Quite tough talk coming from the guy in the snowglobe, eh DJ?”
Octavio huffed out a silent, searingly seething breath of bubbles between his teeth. He would not be goaded into an outburst. Not this time.
Not when he knew he had a foothold, for once.
“If you’re so sure that I’m all talk, then prove it, ” he growled, leaning up against the glass keenly.
“Uh, nice try, DJ Octojerk,” Agent 2 cut in deadpannedly. “We’re not letting you out of your cell to play a board game, just to watch you escape when our guard is down.”
Unfortunately for the spiteful teen, those in the Cuttlefish family didn't back down from such challenges so quickly.
…Perhaps her callously cool demeanor had come from whoever's family had married into the Cuttlefish family, in that case?
(Octavio swiftly stopped himself from thinking again about the reality of Craig having grown, adult kids. Plural. What had the world come to?)
"No, no," he dismissed, standing up from his seat with an impatient wobble. "I'd like to prove him wrong.”
There it was. Hook, line, and sinker.
(Just like old times.)
“Gramps, we can’t just-”
“Agent 3! If you’d be so kind as to grab the chairs for me?”
As soon as Cuttlefish opened his mouth, he was jumping up, grabbing the entire pop-up table that the board was set upon, oh so shakily delicately, and marching it right over to the snowglobe.
He set the table down with a clack against the concrete, flashing another steely, competitive glare at Octavio, before turning back around to address the Inklings behind him.
“Just set the chairs back up how they were, if ya will!”
Three did as they were asked.
“I’m not letting this sucker tarnish my good name like this, no I am not!”
“ Gramps, ” Agent 2 tried to cut in again. She held the bridge of her nose, just above her mask, and huffed impatiently. “ How is he even supposed to play without you letting him out?!”
“Hmm…” The Inkling stroked at his bushy beard. “I’d suppose one of you could simply play in his place, if the thought of sittin’ in front of him doesn’t frighten you!”
The group went dead silent.
Agent 2 pressed her finger to the tip of her nose through her mask with a silent, ‘Not it.’
Three pierced the glass with an indecipherable glare.
“...Agent 1?”
The girl squeaked.
“U-um… sure!” she stammered. “It works like… like checkers coordinates, right?”
In Octavio’s periphery, Agent 2 and Three shared a dry look of contempt.
Agent 1 sat down in the lawnchair, flashing a wary glance over her shoulder at the Octarian. Her sunglasses were much cheaper and much more see-through up close.
Octavio simply raised a brow, looking past the girl to the board.
“Now, which composition am I setting out for you?” Cuttlefish inquired, already moving his pieces from the previous game back into formation. “Or, y’know, if you really wanted to prove yourself I could just pick for- ”
Octavio let out an exasperated sigh.
“Inverted Snapper and Flounder on forward, Trevally and Marlin behind,” he declared. He kept a keen eye on what pieces the Inkling was setting out.
“Ah, I’d suppose you weren’t listening earlier,” Cuttlefish began as he set out the opposing pieces. “This box is missing a Snap-”
“Then replace it with a Tidal piece,” Octavio snapped impatiently. “I can manage.”
Another shrewd smile narrowed Cuttlefish’s eyes as he stifled a snicker.
“Suit yourself!”
And, with that, the game began.
Though at first, Octavio was a bit rusty, (as anyone would be, considering just how many decades it had been since he’d last played this game,) he soon caught on to the pace and patterns of his opponent.
(...After a few more turns than he would ever admit it took.)
The middle of the board had gone back and forth between each side at least a dozen times, never remaining under the control of one player for too long.
It had become a continuous cycle. One side would claim the middle, but wouldn’t be able to secure the whole thing. The other side would break through the first’s defense, looping around to flank and reclaim the middle. By the time the middle would be reclaimed, though, there would be just enough time for that which had been lost to be reclaimed once more.
It was a seemingly endless marching cycle of wooden game pieces. An ouroboros of little, made up creatures that only the players could seem to comprehend the machinations, the pathways, the logic of.
Because war, the cycle, it never truly changes at the core, does it?
A steady huff from Cuttlefish broke Octavio from his poetic thoughts as the former slid one of his prized, Inverted Marlins forward, securing yet another chunk of the middle of the board for his turf.
“F8, to the direct upper-right.”
Agent 1, the poor girl, gulped quietly and moved the piece accordingly. By the thirtieth or so turn, she began to look as though she’d completely lost track of what was going on in the game. The threat looming behind her shoulder likely did not help her focus in the slightest, either.
Her grandfather hummed inquisitively, but moved his next piece, an Arowana, as well. It slipped right next to the piece Octavio had moved, as if in hot pursuit.
“G7, I knock the Cherry on I6 off of the board and take its square.”
Cuttlefish reached for a piece, but then pulled his hand back defensively. He grumbled quietly beneath his breath before moving that same Arowana onto the square that Octavio’s piece had previously occupied.
“My Trevally on B6 knocks the Cherry on D4 off of the board. I6 moves to the direct upper-left.”
The older Inkling narrowed his eyes, watching his Cherry get placed beside its sister piece on the side of the board by Agent 1’s unsure, twitchy fingers.
After a few more prolonged moments of contemplation, he finally spoke.
“Just what are you even doing?!? ” he demanded. A piece near the top of the board was moved over hastily.
“ Dubstomping you into the ground at your own game,” Octavio snarled giddily at the Inkling’s tone of disbelief. “Or, as you would call it-”
He paused and hummed, sparing a dramatic glance at the board as he interjected into his own declaration.
“H5 takes H3.”
Agent 1 placed the Inverted Marlin beside the Cherries.
“As you would call it, winning. ”
“ Winning, eh? I’d call it WINNING, you say?!” Cuttlefish barked back, frantically moving that same piece near the top once more. It blocked off the entrance to the small pocket of board that Octavio had snuck into with his Flounder piece. “All you’re doin’ is running yourself into a death trap!”
A low, sardonic rumble of a laugh bubbled out of Octavio.
“And you’d know all about those, wouldn’tcha, ya slimy whelp of a squid?” he spat.
“Marlin on F10 takes F7, C4 moves directly upper-right.”
Cuttlefish huffed and blubbered testily beneath his breath, finally moving that Bass he had been progressing along the top to take the Flounder. He returned the Inverted Marlin to the board in a hasty manner.
“Those are some strong words for a prisoner to be using, wouldn’t you reckon?”
Agent 2 murmured something that Octavio couldn’t hear over the roaring of his blood behind his ears.
“Would you shut up and play your damn game, Cuttlefish?” Octavio shot back, pounding a balled up tentacle against the glass.
He didn’t even need to look past Agent 1 for his next move.
“Tidal nullifies G5’s next attack. D3 directly up.”
“I AM playing it, dagnabbit!” Cuttlefish howled back, his stupid looking googly eyes narrowing as his brow furrowed. “It’s not my fault you’re too much of a sore loser to even consider the concept of having fun. ” Impulsively, he pushed a piece forward, directly into Octavio’s turf.
“Fun? FUN? ” the Octarian parroted back at Cuttlefish with a deranged cackle. “The esteemed Captain of the Squidbeak Splatoon expects his prisoners of war to have FUN?!? GYAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAH!!!”
Now, by this point in the game, Agent 1 had all but half-melted out of her lawnchair, resting the back of her squid form’s head against the seat as she shivered with dread.
“Okay, I think we’re gonna cut this short.” Agent 2 stalked over to the chair and picked her poor, whimpering cousin up. “Not that whatever you two have…” she set Agent 1 down and waved her hands vaguely, “going on here… in terms of past beef isn’t incredibly juicy, but-”
Taptaptap at the top of the snowglobe made Octavio flinch back in surprise.
“The weather app says this rainstorm’s gonna hit pretty hard. And we’re not sticking around for that.”
“We’re not?” Agent 1 shifted back into her bipedal form and tilted her head, before proceeding to get spooked herself by a stray raindrop smacking itself against one of the lenses of her sunglasses. “ EEP! ”
“Hey, Three, you wanna wait out the storm at our apartment?” Agent 2 offered dryly, albeit genuinely.
The quiet Agent shrugged agreeably, but shot a concerned glance at their Captain.
Cuttlefish took a deep, deep breath in, before puffing it all back out in a comedic fashion.
“Well I’m quite sorry that you girls had to sit around and listen to that!” he chirped, just as chipperly as he had before the game had even begun. “Make sure ya get home safe! And remember, if you ever need your Gramps’s help with something, you can always give him a quick call on his handy dandy cellular-”
“Thanks, Gramps, we know,” Agent 2 cut him off flatly, practically dragging her cousin and Three over to the grate. “We’ll see you later.”
“Stay safe, Gramps!” Agent 1 called out, waving over her shoulder quickly.
Three nodded back at him before the trio slipped through the grate.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some reorganizing of my things to do!”
The rain began to pour down just the slightest bit more heavily.
Octavio watched Cuttlefish pack up the Pai Shoal board, the table, and the lawnchairs in silence. Neither man’s gaze met the other’s. Octavio turned away from the shack and floated on his side.
Besides the persistent taps of the rain atop the snowglobe, there really wasn’t much else for the Octarian to occupy his mind with.
The sounds of items being moved around, clacking against each other as Cuttlefish likely stacked them all back into their original, nail-bitingly precarious pile, and assorted huffs and mumbles were all that filled the void behind the raindrops.
Now that Octavio had thought about it, this was the first time he’d seen rain since before The War.
‘Seen’ was the key word in this case. There was no airborne water to be directly seen beneath the surface. It was all just surges of floodwater by the time that it reached the people below.
The domes took a few decades to truly adjust to the underground flooding once the Octarian race had made themselves home there. Even in the present day, the outer areas of the structures still faced a very real danger when it came to floodwater after the rainy seasons.
Octavio’s eye followed a raindrop as it streaked down the side of the snowglobe. It ran into a stationary one, tugging it along with the first as they raced down the side of the glass. More followed suit as the downpour intensified.
He let his mind slip down to those thoughts he had swallowed down hours, even days, prior.
Were his people okay? They were going into their, what, third month with no leader in sight? Sure, that doesn’t spell the end of the world for all of them, per say. Each dome had their own separate government that attended to the individual needs of everyone at a smaller level, but…
But… he wanted to be there to see them succeed. He wanted to know his people were okay, the people that he had gone to all of this damn trouble to steal a Great Zapfish for!
(The people that he himself had led down into those domes, fleeing their own white flags, all of those decades ago. That he’d dedicated himself to before war was even a possibility.)
Octavio’s stomach rolled irritably. He debated whether or not it would be worth it to take another nibble off of the last few wasabi stalks he had been rationing.
The downpour just outside of the glass was not helping in the slightest. It reminded him far too much of the natural springs he would drink from while on hikes as a young, fledgeling king.
(On hikes, unpermitted by the council, when he would sneak out with-)
Another sharp pang of what Octavio told himself was hunger, not anything else, made him squeeze his sullen eyes shut.
The racket in the shack had quieted down as the rain grew stronger. When it got this quiet, Cuttlefish was usually brewing himself some kind of drink. After that, if he was alone like he was now, he would either read some dingy, beat up looking old novel, or take a nap.
Octavio hated to admit it, but the valley was so, so quiet without Three around.
He still held a bit of contempt for the kid for being the one to whoop his ass like they did, and then lock him up for good measure, but…
But, they made the place livelier. They made the old lunatic happy, made him yap his face off and tell them stories, give them life advice, anything. It was clear that Three made Cuttlefish feel needed. Not just feel, either. They lived with him! He was their guardian! They even gave the poor guy’s granddaughters, his actual blood family, a reason to actually come visit him! And with those two present, the valley was even more lively! The whole place just felt leagues and leagues more welcoming.
(Even if Octavio himself would never be welcome.)
The rain poured on- no, pounded on the glass above his head.
Agent 2 wasn’t kidding. For the middle of the summer, this was a coddamn crazy storm.
The water had the same unrelenting feeling as a waterfall, soaking the globe and everything outside of it down to its core. The intensity was…
It was getting stronger. Scraping against the top of the glass like it was clawing at it.
Octavio laid his head against the bottom of the snowglobe, shutting his eyes once more. The droning sound of water on glass was overpowering, so he didn’t fight it. Not like he could, even if he wanted to.
It reminded him of the first years underground. The first years, and the last few. The scraping sounds, the hollow ambience. The drip. Drip. Drip. The little clinks and clicks of metal and stone beyond the walls, shifting, bending, breaking. The-
Taptaptap made Octavio flinch once more. Some half-melted chunks of ice slid down the side of the globe.
It was hailing.
It was hailing, and the rain was not relenting. Not even as it began to freeze into little pellets.
No, not little. Big.
The little clinks and clicks grew louder, worming their ways into the Octarian’s ears.
The hail grew stronger.
Octavio curled in on himself, desperately trying to convince himself that the clicking and now creaking he was hearing was not above him.
The glass on the snowglobe was plenty thick, he’d seen it himself! Hell, he’d tested it himself on the first real day he’d been conscious! If Octavio couldn’t break it, then surely a bit of falling ice couldn’t either, right?
No way some ice, hurtling down from the sky, being sharpened by the motion of its descent, aiming straight for the top of a hunk of very fragile material could do anything!
Crrrreak!
…Right?
The rain persisted around the torrent of ice. The hollow roar of the water clawing at the globe was inescapable.
Octavio’s scarred tentacle began to quiver.
He’d. He’d be fine. Right?
It had to let up soon, right? Nothing bad would happen.
He’d survive, he had to! He had people to return to! He was a king, coddamnit!
…
Tink!
Oh gods he was going to die he was going to die right then and there he was going to die in captivity alone and defeated all because his stupid captor put him into a glass prison he-
Something shoved into the side of the snowglobe, jostling it to the side. Octavio was swept to the side as the water moved along with the globe. He bit his tongue as to not shriek aloud in terror.
Pressed against the murky glass, only protected from the elements by a shabby, crooked, rubber umbrella, stood Craig Cuttlefish.
The Inkling dug his heels into the soggy dirt, wobbling as he began to push the globe towards the shack with all of his elderly might.
Octavio stammered a bit before he could find the words he needed.
“Wh.. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?”
Cuttlefish heaved the snowglobe forward a few more inches, not meeting the Octarian’s gaze.
“Getting us out of the hail! What’dya think it looked like!?”
“Why are YOU out in it?!?” Octavio retorted, letting a bit of indignation seep into his demands. “Weren’t you busy with your pile of junk in there?!”
“Well, I’ve got a pile of junk out here– ” Cuttlefish pushed the globe another inch or so along with a grunt. “–that I need to attend to!”
The icy fear that shot through Octavio’s blood one second boiled over into fury after another. He surged up to the glass, rushing Cuttlefish.
“It’s the damn SNOWGLOBE you care about?!?” he roared. “The PRISON CELL?!?”
“Gwuh- NO!” the Inkling yelped indignantly, putting in another weak shove. “I was just makin’ a joke! I meant you!”
Octavio laughed in Cuttlefish’s face, forced and bitter.
“That’s all this is to you, isn’t it? Just one big, long joke!” He puffed up, crossing his tentacles. “That’s what it’s always been, hasn’t it!? HASN’T IT!?!?”
The Inkling carried on, adjusting the umbrella a bit as he wiped some slush off of his forehead.
“It’s always YOU getting the last laugh! That’s the ONLY REASON I’M HERE!”
The rest of Octavio’s tentacles were quivering now.
“So that you can have a little chuckle as you FINISH THE JOB ON ME! ”
Something about that last bit seemed to make something click for Cuttlefish. His spindly, wrinkled hands balled up into fists as he desperately pushed at the container. The base barely moved, likely caught in some slippery mud.
A strained, unreadable expression clouded his dumb, sad little eyes as he finally looked to Octavio when he spoke.
“ NO!!! ” He damn near wailed. “I’m not- I’d never finish the job, I-” Cuttlefish- no, Craig, stammered a bit, his voice breaking. “I- I just wanted to put you in your place! I don’t want you to die! ”
The roaring, thumping terror of Octavio’s hearts pounding drowned out the sound of the hail for a few moments.
“You’re not wrong about a- a lot of that but I- I’d never want you to die! I never have! ”
The snowglobe did not budge, and neither did the hailstorm above them.
Octavio forced himself to watch the umbrella above Craig’s head, unable to maintain eye contact. The rubber caved in as hail pelted its flimsy canopy dangerously.
“Can- can we unpack this when neither of us are in immediate danger of being ground into pulp?” Octavio croaked out, before his brain even realized he’d spoken in the first place.
Craig dipped his head in agreement, shifting his stance a bit to try once more.
“You push one more time, I’ll move the water and get us some momentum going, alright?” Octavio half offered, half barked out over the sounds around them.
Craig counted up to three beneath his breath and pushed, the Octarian rolling himself and the water in the globe backwards in sync. The base freed itself from the bit of ground it seemed to be stuck in, sliding towards the concrete base beneath the shack.
Octavio jostled the water once more, tipping the globe back. The very edge of the base landed up, onto the concrete.
Craig pushed it the rest of the way up, under the makeshift canopy of the eaves. He flopped down onto the ground with an exhausted, yet relieved, huff.
Octavio sank down to the bottom of the snowglobe, reacting similarly to their narrow escape from the peril.
“If I can be frank, I was thinkin’ for a few moments that we were goners!” Craig admitted, shaking his head like a nudibranch after a bath.
(For once, Octavio was glad he was behind the glass.)
“The world just can’t seem to kill either of us yet, I guess,” Octavio murmured. He didn’t meet the Inkling’s gaze when Craig turned to look at him.
“I would suppose not, eh…” he concurred.
The quiet that followed his words only lasted for a few, excruciatingly long seconds.
“I… I meant what I said, y’know?”
Octavio huffed. The trail of bubbles he let out was the only real response he gave.
Craig went on.
“I don’t… I- I’ve never wanted to kill you, ‘Tavi. I never have, and never will.”
At the nickname, the royal offered an unconvinced gaze.
“I just thought… It felt like I needed to get back at ya somehow after the Zapfish and the squidnapping and all that, to make it all even again,” he reasoned, “but I promise you, cross all of my hearts, I’d never want to do that to you.”
“...Why?” Octavio murmured after a pause.
The longer he spent taking in Craig’s words, (not to mention just how genuine his tone sounded,) the less it all made sense.
Why wouldn’t he want him dead? Why hadn’t he just sicced the kid on Octavio and ended it all there, back on the stage?
The Inkling scratched his head, meeting the other’s gaze once again.
“‘Cause you’re, well…” He smiled weakly. “You’re you! ”
Octavio blinked.
“What?” he demanded. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means- I mean…” Craig looked away, reaching down to start wringing out his ratty patchwork of a cloak.
“It means that… If one day, I woke up, and suddenly wished that you were dead, then…”
(As Craig’s eyes, greyed from their original amber, met his once more, Octavio saw a spark of something he’d not seen in decades.)
“Then that squid that woke up and got out of bed wouldn’t be me. Not in any way shape or form, no matter what reasons I’ve got to consider you my enemy, ‘Tavi.”
Once again, Octavio spoke the first thing that came to his mind in an attempt to drown out how loudly his hearts were pounding.
(Pounding from what?)
“Okay? Do you want me to thank you or something for this?” he snapped, crossing his tentacles once more.
Craig gave a hearty chuckle, patting his knee a few times.
“There’s the DJ I know!” he quipped with a smirk. “Mno, I’d never expect that much from you of all people. It was moreso I think you were owed that much of an explanation.”
Octavio raised his brow.
“It wasn’t very right of… of me to treat you the way I’ve been, even as a prisoner,” he admitted. “‘Specially if you thought I was plannin’ on killing you!”
An exasperated groan rolled from the tank.
“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re above the act of killing people now,” he spat. “Good for you. Is that what you want me to say? Or do you have some other point you want to make first?”
“Hmm…”
“That was rhetorical, you lunatic!” he snapped. “Don’t you dare start aga-”
“Y’know, while we’re sitting here,” Craig began again, “all buddy buddy and the like, I do have a suggestion!”
Octavio roared in annoyance.
“Takin’ into account the fact that the two of us would’ve nearly gotten turned to two measley piles of ink out there, had we not worked together…”
Oh cod. Oh cod.
“Perhaps, the two of us could consider some shape or form of a temporary-”
“GET TO THE POINT ALREADY, CRAIG!”
Not missing a beat, Craig continued from where he’d been cut off.
“Truce?”
He shot a stupidly bright grin through the glass, paired with two shaky finger guns. He even wiggled his eyebrows, to add insult to injury.
A loud, labored groan of indignation filled the valley, drowning out the sounds of the fading rain.
“ Fine. Truce.”
And thus, the denizens of the valley came to an agreement of peace; actual peace, not just the false type put up to feign politeness.
As to not alienate him to the point of what could, in the future, be considered torturing a prisoner, Octavio was given a belatedly warm, finally formal welcome to the basecamp of the New Squidbeak Splatoon.
…If you could call telling Three not to threaten him a welcome, of course.
Really, the biggest change was just the fact that Octavio got meals again.
(Those poor, poor fallen wasabi stalks… He’d have to honor their sacrifices in some way once he got out of there…)
Calling them ‘meals’ was giving the Inklings a bit too much credit, though. Breakfast usually consisted of some form of light meal, sometimes eggs, toast, or sea-bacon. The food was surprisingly rich, though. It often arrived with the sparse aroma of rich coffee beans and the sweetest sugar Octavio had tasted in years.
(Where were those cousins getting this stuff?)
Lunch didn’t look like it could’ve been found anywhere outside of a highschool cafeteria.
(Which made sense, considering that Three was usually in charge of that meal.)
And dinner? Well, dinner happened when Cuttlefish would remember to share his crabby cakes.
(“HWAH?!? How in the hell did you get the packaging open that quickly?!?” he would yelp.
“Well, first I start by not having weak little old man hands. ” Octavio snarked back. “Then, I just-”
“YOU’RE A WHOLE YEAR AND A HALF OLDER THAN ME, ‘TAVI!”)
All in all, though, the situation had gotten better.
Months went by, seasons flying past like leaves in the wind.
The snowglobe never left its new spot beneath the eaves, especially not when the winter came. As infuriating as it was to exist in such close proximity to the shack, let alone Cuttlefish, it could have been much, much worse.
The sparse banter was tolerable. The silence was comfortable. Octavio couldn’t say he’d experienced such a thing in a long time.
(Nothing like living with your arch nemesis, who is currently taking a teenager nearly as odd as himself under his wing as his ward.)
No, he hadn’t spent months on end in the same place, only to feel calm and safe.
Not since before the fight, before the domes, before even The War.
It…
(It was nice.)
Speaking of the Captain and his Protege, though…
By the time that spring rolled back around, on the coattails of a mild winter, the Splatoon seemed to be fresh out of luck.
No matter where they searched, how many nooks and crannies and the likes that they scoured, there was just no sign of how the Great Zapfish had been stolen! Not even after further, fruitless interrogation could they get a peep out of Octavio on the matter, either!
There was nothing left to patrol near Inkopolis, so the Splatoon was moving further outwards, beginning to explore the remains of the lands where The War was fought.
Cuttlefish had reasoned that it would be a good chance for both reconnaissance, as well as a history lesson for Three. The schools didn’t seem to teach them much about what came before and during The War, after all.
“Alrighty, neither of us are forgettin’ anything, are we?” he’d mused aloud the day before they were to depart out to the craters.
Three hummed in affirmation, shaking their head and seeming to sign something with their hands.
“No, we’re ready.”
Octavio had picked up… snippets of the gameplan a few days prior. The two would be leaving the shack fully. They were hiking over to the land inland, just behind the Cape, you see. On foot, they’d reckoned it would be at least a week, minimum, of camping on their way over. The whole place would be entirely unmonitored.
The snowglobe included.
“Excellent!” Cuttlefish exclaimed. “You can go on ahead of me while I close up shop, bucko.”
Three tilted their head.
“Didn’t we just close everything up?”
The older Inkling smiled back at them shrewdly.
“Not quite! Just a few personal things of mine I wanna batten down the hatches on!”
They hummed, nodding and turning heel to make their way over to the grate.
Three shot a chilling glance at Octavio on their way out.
Staying true to his word, Cuttlefish slipped into the cabin to dig around in the seemingly infinite pile of junk. He moved some boxes around, slipping others underneath tables and crates so that anyone looking through the mess would really have to dig for what he was hiding.
Octavio rolled onto his side, only sparing half a glower at the Inkling.
“That should do it!” he called out. “I’ll be with ya in just a moment, squiddo!”
A distinct snap sound drew Octavio’s attention, though.
“Now, don’t make it look like you’ve killed me before you go, alright?” Cuttlefish murmured in… warning? What?
Before the Octarian could get in even a word of confusion, Craig Cuttlefish speed-walked out of his sight.
…What?
Octavio looked down to where the sound had come from.
To see that the hatch was open.
The hatch was open, and he was all alone.
With nobody there to keep him from escaping.
…
…Huh.
(Talk about a strange way to extend an olive branch.)