Ghosts of Memories

by Carvaiine

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

The primordial ooze wakes up to the surface. They're not sure what to do now, but maybe Team Rainbow can help them find their way in a new world.

Chapter 1: Encounter

The horn sounded in the distance, signaling the end to the second wave of salmonids at Sockeye Station. With all the fish sliding back into the water, the employees currently working had a little time to wind down. The four agreed through a lot of vague gesturing and shouting from different places on the outpost that before the next wave started, they would take a little break at the tower and have a snack.

The two octolings on the team dutifully inked the seawater-covered areas and walls on their way back. The inklings did the same, just a lot more casually and with more of a focus on the walls than the floor.

Once the area was sufficiently covered in the shift’s orange color ahead of the final wave, the group gathered at the top of the spiral tower. One octoling with twisting tentacles towered far above the others. Even if the other three were up to average height, Arrow would still be significantly taller without question.

It was Bite, the shorter octoling who slung a backpack off her back. As an experienced Eggsecutive VP Salmon Runner, she had been designated the keeper of the snacks. With Bite, the snacks were unlikely to be destroyed in any way by the salmonids, but it didn’t stop the octoling herself from chewing on the food beforehand, wrappers and all. Bite had a habit of biting things she wasn’t supposed to. She also had a tendency to miss other societal or even safety standards, in part shown by the slopsuit she had torn the sleeves off of. She dumped the food onto the ground. The majority of the food remained mostly in their wrappers or bags, so it would be fine. Probably.

Arrow was hungry, and quickly snatched up more than half of the assorted granola bars and chips and jerky and such before the others had a chance to reach for the food. The octoling pulled her annaki mask down and began to eat ravenously. This was typical for Arrow- exactly the reason why the group brought a whole backpack full in the first place. There was food left, but the inklings picked out a select few packages that hadn’t been torn open and respectfully abstained from the rest. More for Bite and Arrow, they supposed.

Beacon, a young inkling with a short cut of sickly pale tentacles, finished eating the fastest out of everyone on the team. He had the least out of everyone since he didn’t really like to eat the food Bite had chewed on, nor food that had been on the ground. It wasn’t very sanitary, and he was going to eat dinner when the shift was done anyway. He went through the weapons for the shift and scraped out all the gunk that had accumulated from the last two waves while the others talked and ate.

Bandit, the other inkling, ate and chatted. She brushed her one long tentacle over her shoulder and squinted at the sea over Bite’s shoulder. Something wasn’t right. It had been a while and there was no signal of a third wave. It was always so consistent, but the salmonids just didn’t seem to be coming this time. She finished her few snacks just a little while after Beacon, and went to check out what the deal was.

Bandit stood at the edge of the tower. Everything seemed too calm, too organized, until she caught sight of one spot. The ocean was slightly discolored a bit far off from the left side of the station. Instead of the usual forest green, it was a lighter, more teal color. There seemed to be objects in the water nearby- no, those were salmonids.

Bandit tried to get the group’s attention. “Uhm, guys…”

Arrow quickly shoveled the few snacks she had left into her mouth and got up and walked to meet Bandit. Bite also walked over  and leaned forward off the edge a little bit to see.

“Hm?” Arrow wondered. Beacon joined the group, albeit standing a bit further away from the others.

Bandit pointed at the anomaly. “There. Something’s up.”

Bite pondered the occurrence. It wasn’t anything she’d seen before, and she thought she had seen everything there was to see on a Grizzco shift. “Dunno. Weird crap.”

“If it’s some sort of new King or night wave, I swear,” Beacon growled. He looked at the helicopter still circling above. It didn’t pause or give any sort of signal that the shift was over. Nobody had a way to contact it. The door was closed, so jumping back without warning was out of the question. Whatever was coming, the team would have to deal with it or get splatted trying.

The strange spot in the ocean seemed to float closer and closer to Sockeye Station. There were no salmonid war songs to be heard, just the sound of the water and the salmonid buildings humming in the background. As it became easier to see, the group could make out more of what was going on.

It wasn’t a salmonid at all. Some sort of mass of turquoise was floating just underneath the surface of the water. Salmonids surrounding it were trying different methods to attack it, to draw it away from their buildings, or to just slow it down. Every fish that got too close got stuck in the strange water and desperately struggled to get free, but was eventually pulled under. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good if this many salmonids couldn’t make a dent. Bandit didn’t like to imagine what was going on under the water where more salmonids dwelled.

It was floating towards the station. The group had no way to escape whatever it was. Alll they could do was wait. Eventually, the salmonid forces retreated to a safe distance to simply watch.

“Hold on, that color reminds me of…” Bite muttered, trailing off. “That can’t be good.”

“What is it?” Bandit asked at that comment. 

Bite just shrugged in response.

After a few minutes, the mass reached Sockeye. The ocean brought it up the shore, where it collected. It seemed to be a thick teal ooze. Studying it further, Bandit could see the stuff was slowly pulsing with light. It had some sort of swirling pattern flowing across it. It wasn’t quite the same, but it reminded Bandit a little bit of the Fuzzy Ooze in shape and behavior. If the fuzzy ooze was reversed in appearance, it would be this monochromatic turquoise stuff.

When she figured out what was going on and got out of this, Bandit would have to tell her captain about this. She wondered how they would deal with it. After all, it didn’t look like she could just have her smallfry Berry eat it this time.

As the waves washed over the shore, more of the stuff collected and coalesced into a larger and larger form of ooze. Then it started flowing up the beach further and further as the waves brought more of the stuff. It kept going, further than the waves reached. When it hit the station proper, It flowed up the wall like no good liquid should. Bandit grabbed the .52 Gal from the pile of weapons the group had left on the tower and fired a few test shots at the ooze.

The deluge swirled around where the ink hit, but it didn’t seem to do much more than discolor and slow it for a few seconds before it continued climbing the walls, slightly faster than before.

“That did us no good at all,” Beacon noted.

“Nope,” Arrow repeated. “This ain’t looking up.”

Beacon stole a look at the helicopter. It was still circling. Bite tried to wave to get the flying vehicle’s attention, but nothing came of the action.

“So, how do we all feel about dying here today?” Beacon drawled.

The rest of the crew uttered various sounds of disagreement. No, it was just some random Grizzco shift. Nobody came here prepared for a salmonid-eating ooze to attack them on the job. With something like this, there was no way to tell if it would just splat them if it caught them or something else.

Bite scanned around for a solution. “We could jump to the salmonid buildings if we aimed right,” Bite suggested. It was iffy, and the group would have to fight even more salmonids if they tried to do that.

“Maybe,” Bandit considered. “Let’s see what it does first, though.”

She picked up the octobrush from the weapons pool. The sludge had reached the second level of the tower spiral and was making its way up further at a steady pace. The rest of the station had been covered in a layer of the thick goop already. Bandit used the brush to poke at the sludge. Nothing seemed to happen.

Arrow picked up the .52 that Bandit had set back in the weapon pile. She tried to shoot the goop more herself. It just kept flowing at a steady pace.

“Last chance,” Bite said, gesturing to the salmonid structures around them. The helicopter seemed to have slowed down, finally noticing what was going on. It still didn’t stop or open its door.

Beacon shifted into his swim form and began to charge a super jump. Arrow scowled, waiting to see what Bandit would do. Bite shrugged, and followed Beacon. With the distance between the station and the rest of the salmonid structures, it would take a little time and care to get a proper jump.

Bandit abandoned the weapon she held and poked at the sludge that had reached the group’s toes. It was cold. It had a very different feel to the Fuzzy Ooze- where the fuzzy ooze was warm and intently inviting in a very off-putting way, this stuff was cold. It was a different kind of unnerving that Bandit couldn’t pinpoint. Both had the same energy of wrongness. Bandit pulled her hand back out quickly and wiped it off on her slopsuit, wary of any side effects similar to the fuzzy ooze.

Then the ooze moved . The layer that it was started to condense into the blob shapes that Bandit was familiar with. With the occurrence, it started to retreat from the top of the tower to form a larger blob around the ramp down.

Bite stopped preparing her jump and shifted back into land form after she fully canceled the jump. “What did you do?”

Bandit scratched an itch behind her left ear. “Dunno. I just touched it.”

The sludge, which had settled for just a second, began to swirl again. The majority of it converged near the Egg Basket into a much larger blob, though tendrils of the stuff still led outwards from the blob with a pattern almost like a network of veins.

Beacon canceled his own super jump to watch as well, but stayed tense in his swim form just in case he needed to jump away after all. Bandit looked back and forth across the station, taking in the surroundings and evaluating her next course of action.

The stuff didn’t seem to be moving any longer, though it did continue to flow within itself. Something was going on, but Bandit couldn’t tell what. She did note how the muck moving like this made it seem so much more alive than the Fuzzy Ooze. 

Bandit slowly stepped down from the spiral, holding the octobrush in one hand. She was careful not to step on any of the turquoise sludge just in case. She came up closer to the blob.

Should she just leave it like this? It didn’t seem like it was going to do anything unless she did something to it first. It was just… there. She glanced at the helicopter. It was hanging in one spot, waiting for her to do something.

The inkling’s curiosity won out. She flipped the octobrush around in her grasp and pushed at the blob with the handle end. The ooze sort of folded away with her brush like a curtain, except it was solid behind it. When she pulled the handle back, the stuff didn’t flow back to the way it was before. The warped ooze the weapon had touched just filled in a little bit so it didn’t look as crinkly.

Bandit took a step forward into the muck. The slopsuit boots did a good job of keeping all the liquid safely away from Bandit’s feet. Bandit pulled away more of the ooze. Seeing as how it behaved before, there probably wouldn’t be anything but more of the stuff inside, but it did somehow feel deliberate that it had taken this form.

On Bandit’s third pry with the brush handle, she touched something thicker than the rest of the ooze. Solid. Something was in there. Has it always been there? Was it a salmonid? It didn’t seem to be moving, at least no more than the flow of the ooze itself. Bandit moved more of the sludge over and poked a little bit. Whatever it was, it was in the middle of the sludge blob. Bandit switched to using the brush end of the weapon, though she didn’t use it with any ink.

The inkling carefully brushed more ooze away. The one part she initially found seemed to bend in ridges deep enough for the inkling to grab. If she tried, she could probably pull it out, but it might not be the best idea since she didn’t know what it was. She decided to try to get the muck covering it off first.

Arrow came up next to Bandit and silently offered to help. Bandit gratefully handed the brush to Arrow who with a little less precision brushed away more of the sludge. The sludge flowed to cover the object inside a little bit, so it was covered in a sheen of green, but it looked to be a somewhat brownish color. The features of what Arrow and Bandit had uncovered… the thing inside the goop looked like it was a person.

“Arrow, it’s…”

A person, stuck in the ooze. Had they been there the whole time? Were they okay? What happened to get them there?

Bandit had completely forgotten about the report that the Captain probably wanted her to make after this.

“Pull them out!” Bandit said. She and Arrow reached in and grabbed what seemed to be the person’s arm and gently but forcefully yanked. Bandit had a hard time getting enough force in her pull with nothing to brace herself against and Arrow leaning over her. It was slow, but they managed to pull the person out most of the way. Bite joined in and helped. The three managed to pull the person out.

The person seemed to have the same ink color as the sludge. Goo trailed off their body in strings as Arrow pulled them away and laid them on the ground. It almost seemed like they had been connected to the stuff. It was definitely odd. They weren’t wearing any clothes, but they didn’t seem to have anything at all to show either. Long, messy tentacles wound from their head. More tentacles than an octoling would have, despite having a mostly-broken eye mask and suction cups on the outside of their hair. Bandit looked at the underside of one of their tentacles and saw suction cups there too. it didn't seem like the person was even quite one species. 

Bandit had never seen a hybrid before. Neither had anyone else in the group. They knew that they existed, but it was weird seeing someone with both octopus and squid. No, there was something even more off than that. Nobody could place which, but the person lying unconscious before them was from more than the two common species. 

“The hell?” Beacon muttered, watching from slightly further away. He had shifted back into his land form.

Everyone in the group looked at each other, then back to the unconscious hybrid, then back to each other. The confusion was mutual.

“Well…” Arrow started. “Yeah. I’ve got nothing.”

Bite nudged the person with her foot. They didn’t respond.

Bandit decided on what she was going to do. She quickly walked back up the spiral tower and grabbed Bite’s backpack. She waved at the helicopter and gestured for it to come down. The inkling returned to the group huddled around the sludge person.

The helicopter seemed hesitant to come closer, but it came to land on the tower anyways. Beacon walked to and climbed into the vehicle before anyone else.

“Arrow, you’re gonna carry them,” Bandit stated. The octoling raised an eyebrow but picked up the person anyways and held them over her shoulder.

Beacon was skeptical of Bandit’s decision. “Why are we taking a strange goop person back, anyways?”

Bandit scowled. It was obvious, because the person needed help! No good person would just leave somebody stuck in ooze in the middle of salmonid territory.

“Would you just leave them helpless in the middle of the swim zone?” Bandit argued. Beacon made a noise of reluctant agreement. The helicopter ride was pretty silent as Bandit stared out the window, thinking about what could have led to this person stuck in the ooze. The rest of the team tried to wake the person up, but nothing worked.

Back at the Grizzco building, the group definitely collected a few stares as they brought the still-sleeping hybrid down the elevator and to the lockers. Arrow gave up her old torn-up sweater to their rescue. It was really big on the sludge person, but it would work.

With the sweater, the group didn’t attract as much attention. If they were awake and able to switch into swim form, they could carry the newcomer in the backpack, but they didn’t seem like they were going to wake up anytime soon.

Beacon split up with the group. He shared his apartment with someone else. Bandit was pretty sure that Beacon’s roommate was Agent 4, but she had never met him so she couldn’t really say. It could easily just be a different Hula.

They eventually made it to the team’s shared apartment. Arrow didn’t sleep there, but spent nearly all of her time there when she was awake. Pon-Pon had invited her to stay for good but the octoling had refused, saying that she didn’t want to intrude on the already-crowded apartment.

Pon-Pon, Team Rainbow’s other member, greeted them at the door. He was an inkling with dried tentacles and a couple of his tentacles tied back. Pon-Pon was short like the rest of the group that wasn’t Arrow.

Seeing the unconscious person, he immediately went to find a spare change of clothes and blow up the air mattress. Once everything seemed to be sorted out and the strange person was asleep on the mattress, the group had nothing left to do but wait for them to wake up.

Chapter 2: Memories

Summary:

Crimson does little bit of investigating into the person that Team Rainbow brought home.

Notes:

Featuring Crimson the octoling.
Warning: violence is committed in this chapter. You have been warned.

Crimson wasn’t into the whole “hero” business. She had done her time saving the world, and that was plenty for the pale-tentacled octoling. As much as she didn’t want to do it, investigating the strange person Agent 5 had reported encountering was important.

Bandit hadn’t given very many details in the short message she had sent in the Splatoon’s group chat. All Crimson knew was that the newer agent had found someone inside a blob of muck on a salmon run shift. Crimson would have dismissed it as someone who got stuck in seaweed or something and floated ashore, but the word “muck” stood out to the octoling. If it was somehow the muck that she knew, that would be bad, to say the least.

Crimson dismissed the thought as stupid. She took care of it. There was no way it could still be around. It’s been years and there has been nothing on it. Yet she pulled her shoes on and took the train to Team Rainbow’s apartment to check anyway. She grabbed her splatana wiper, figuring that she would go play a match or two after.

The octoling got off the train and walked the few blocks to reach Team Rainbow’s shared living space. She knocked on the door then tried the handle, finding that it was unlocked. She entered.

Through the short hallway inside, Crimson saw that everyone in the room was finding ways of killing time. The tall octoling that Crimson remembered to be Arrow was scrolling on her phone, taking up the whole couch and playing with Agent 5’s smallfry. Bandit herself sat on Arrow’s legs and was overseeing the other two inklings’ game of Go Fish on the floor. It didn’t seem that the octoling prone to biting things was around.

“Hey, Crimson,” Bandit greeted. The rest of her team that was present also acknowledged her presence with varying degrees of response. They had met one or two times before.

“Afternoon,” the octoling said.

Beneath the window, an air mattress was set up. The person that Crimson supposed was the newcomer was sleeping quietly underneath a light blanket, covered in a hoodie that was obviously Arrow’s. None of that struck Crimson as particularly weird, but the person’s tentacles and face definitely did. There was something just off about their face that made Crimson pause. Lining their eyes was an octoling’s broken eye mask, but that contrasted against the suction cups on the underside of their numerous tangled tentacles. There were too many tentacles for the person to be wholly octoling, and maybe even too many for them to be an inkling either, despite their form. A hybrid. Crimson had never seen one before, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was the exact shade of teal color that the person’s tentacles were.

The color was the same as muck. It could have been a coincidence. It should be a coincidence, Crimson thought to herself. This stranger didn’t look like the ooze she remembered. Their brown skin wasn’t anything like the green that the sanitized had. The turquoise ink they sported was just too similar for her to overlook.

So far, it didn’t seem like a threat, so far. Crimson decided to reevaluate when the newcomer woke up. The octoling put her wiper against the wall then pulled out a chair and sat down at the dinner table and watched the group.

Delving for more information, Crimson pulled up the Grizzco website. A banner on the top of the page announced that rotations at Sockeye Station were suspended due to unexpected circumstances.

“Bandit,” Crimson said in a low voice. Her tone was that of clear displeasure and even clear demand for answers. “What happened yesterday?”

“Well…”

The hybrid stirred. Everybody turned their gaze to them, but they showed little signs of waking. Eventually Bandit continued with her explanation.

When Bandit was done, Crimson frowned. It’s appearance sounded just like the damned muck she was familiar with, but it didn’t act like it. As far as Crimson knew, the stuff didn’t move by itself. It never did. Besides, the telephone was gone. Marina fished it up and made sure it never came back. Crimson would have thought it would move with more purpose, but maybe not. It didn’t seem like the salmonid forces had been able to deal with it, but there wasn’t any sign that it had sanitized anything. Every contradiction she heard just made her more wary.

Thankfully, everyone had the common sense not to touch it. Or in Bandit’s case, not touch it enough, though that risk was one that Crimson herself would definitely not have taken. Crimson didn’t know how much Bite had seen during her time in the deep sea, but it must’ve been enough at least to recognize the stuff as something she couldn’t eat.

Crimson’s thoughts spun for a little while, then Pon-Pon came to the table and invited her to play Uno with everyone. Crimson accepted the invitation but kept one eye on the unconscious stranger the whole time. As it seemed typical for them, Arrow and Beacon sat next to each other and tried their very hardest to give each other the most skipped turns and added cards that they could. Crimson won one game, and Arrow won another.

Throughout the next couple of hours, the stranger with some sort of connection to the sludge stirred progressively more, though they didn’t wake.

Crimson’s attention span started to shorten. She was leaning towards giving Bandit a few words of warning and leaving because nothing was going on when it finally began to gain consciousness.

At first, it simply turned from facing the wall to facing towards the inside of the room. It hadn’t opened its eyes yet. The group noticed this and moved closer. Crimson didn’t think it was the smartest idea to get close to a stranger, much less bring a very suspicious one into one’s home, but she had no reasonable way of telling them no without getting into an argument. Arrow and Beacon took seats on the couch while Pon-Pon and Bandit sat on their knees about half a meter from the edge of the air mattress. Crimson stood at the foot of the mattress, within reach of her splatana.

The teal-inked person soon uttered a strange noise that sounded almost like an echoing whine mixed with a sound that was distinctly not from a mollusc. It was almost the degree of difference that a parrot had trying to copy the voices of any modern person.

The sludge person cracked their eyes open slowly. Seeing the people around, they stilled and didn’t make another noise. Their eyes widened as they looked around, revealing bright turquoise irises the same color as their ink. Their sclera were white, unlike the dark eyes that Crimson was half expecting.

“Hello,” Bandit said.

While Crimson waited tensely as the hybrid took in the surroundings, the only sound that could be heard was Arrow returning to chewing whatever she had decided to snack on this time.

The hybrid eventually began to move again. They attempted to sit up, but it seemed that something was wrong. They bent sideways like a fish would and expressed confusion when they just flopped right back down onto the bed. They tried again in a different way, but it still wasn’t how a land-form cephalopod would get up. It took four more times of varying degrees of success before they finally were able to maneuver their legs in front of them and get their back up against the wall under the window.

“My name is Bandit,” Bandit offered. “What’s yours?”

They squinted, seemingly trying to take in Bandit’s words. “B93L MH}L/  |FJTP0?” they replied. Their voices not only echoed strangely but also sounded like many people speaking at once, largely the same words but some distinctly different. There were so many sounds in what they spoke that it was impossible to tell if it was supposed to be proper words or just the gibberish it sounded like.

The members of Team Rainbow looked between each other, trying to decipher what it said. Each of them considered the sound, but couldn’t say anything about it. The closest anyone got to something real was Beacon saying that the second word was vaguely close to an obsolete Inkopolan slang word for graffiti rivalries from decades before, but pronounced in what was close to accented octarian. Nobody actually believed that the stranger had said that.

Crimson remained silent, watching the sludge person closely for any sign of possible danger.

It didn’t say anything else. Eventually, the team got distracted and started debating what to call them while they couldn’t tell them their actual name.

“I say we call it Deluge,” Pon-Pon said, referencing how Bandit had described the wave of sludge from the prior day.

Arrow considered it while she tried to think of her own idea. Beacon jokingly offered “Fish Eater”. The inkling’s statement immediately got Arrow opposing the idea despite it being a joke.

Apparently, the team decided they wanted to keep the stranger.

The hybrid watched silently. They didn’t seem to really grasp what was going on. They turned to observe Crimson after a few minutes. 

Crimson stared. The hybrid stared back. It had the same eyes that Olive did back then- so blank and cold, completely devoid of a soul. Crimson felt a shiver creep down her spine as the thing shifted its attention to its own hands and moved its fingers experimentally. The swirling turquoise color of its eyes and tentacles brought Crimson back to the memory of her time in the Deep Sea and subsequently her fight against Olive and Tartar. It made her think of all the sanitized octarians who tried to kill her so many times. It made her angry.

Crimson’s hand grasped the handle of her wiper. This thing had to be it. Nobody else seemed to notice the cold absence in its eyes, but they did notice her hand tightening on her weapon.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Beacon scowled, unsure of Crimson.  “Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Doing this in front of Beacon probably wouldn’t do any favors for her relationship with Hula, but it had to be done. Crimson stepped in front of Bandit and Pon-Pon.

Crimson held the weapon up and charged it.

“Don’t!” Bandit and Pon-Pon screeched. Everyone in the room was telling her not to, but they didn’t know. Crimson ignored them all.

The thing looked straight at Crimson, showing no reaction to her. Its cold eyes met Crimson’s again, and Crimson couldn’t stop herself.

It didn’t so much as twitch in defense as Crimson’s weapon tore it apart.

Muck flew across the room, splattering everyone and everything with turquoise.

“!7VJ6\\!!” The creature cried in pain and surprise as it crumpled into the mattress.

A silence occupied the room. Crimson turned to observe everyone. Beacon and Arrow flinched at Crimson’s display of violence. Pon-Pon and Bandit’s gazes were frozen forward.

“You understand, this thing, I’m doing this to pr o7e[t-” Crimson couldn’t finish as she was hit with a wave of nausea and lost her thought. She stumbled forward and came to rest against the inner wall, looking at the others in the room and finding everyone silent and frozen and covered in the muck. Crimson realized what she had just done.

I wasn’t thinking, of course it wouldn’t die and it would infect us too, now there’s muck everywhere and I’m going to become one of them and we’re all going to-

Crimson could hear her heartbeats as she fell to her knees. She felt sick as she looked blankly at the ceiling just like one of them.

The octoling started to feel everyone else in the room. They haunted her, their minds questioning why she did it. And she felt the it’s presence, but not in quite the way she had expected.

When Crimson imagined what went through the minds of the sanitized octarians, she imagined commands repeating over and over. After all, the only thing she had ever heard from any of their cursed and twisted voices was “seek and destroy”. Instead of those words, Crimson felt emotion, but at the same time there was none. It was a kind of contradiction beyond the words she was struggling to hold on to.

She remembered the fear and the cold, lying on the floor at the very beginning. Before she regained the memories they stole, Crimson had felt this. Now she was just angry. She started to remember a sense of loneliness, emptiness. That wasn’t her. She had Cuttlefish and Pearl and Marina the whole time. But she remembered it and it was wrong but it wasn’t. Zapfish, isopods, fish, inklings, octolings, whatever they could acquire. She knew all of them, knew how she stole their freedom, knew how they suffered, every single detail.

But it wasn’t her. There was an octoling with pale tentacles, following an old squid around the metro. This one was strong. Every time they tried to stand as an obstacle in the tests, to fight, to destroy this test subject, the test subject came at them without mercy. A valuable ingredient, until the test subject escaped. No, she escaped. She couldn’t tell which role she had been in anymore.

Sliding around the NILS Statue, the test subject had become a pest. Whatever it did, the statue would fire anyways. The Professor’s legacy would cleanse the world of all unworthy life-forms, no matter what. No matter what, it would carry on, far beyond the insignificant scum.

It was so inviting, despite it telling Crimson itself that she should run, go far away, not meet the horrible not-end that it suffered. If she accepted it, she could march across the land and the domes and take it back to what it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be like that. That was what they thought, but it didn’t feel right.

Crimson couldn’t fight it. Her will was gone, lost somewhere in the depths of its not-being. But someone else could.

GET OUT… OF OUR HEADS! Crimson heard someone think. It was Beacon, Crimson remembered. She remembered herself. As she emerged from the awful state, she regained her sense of self and her memories. The emotion that had flooded into her from the sludge started to fade. Crimson knew that even if she tried to keep them, it would be like trying to grab dispersing fog. The octoling was just grateful that it was gone.

Crimson took in a shaky breath. She didn’t know how Beacon managed to do it, but he had saved them. If it had gone on for just a little while longer, she would have completely given in and the sludge would have eaten her up inside until there was nothing left but a Crimson-shaped shell. But she was Crimson.

Her vision cleared and she tensed at seeing the sludge monster standing slouched forward in front of her. Green ooze was seeping out of her and Beacon’s skin, flowing across them and up the sludge monster’s body, refilling the gaping hole in its torso.

It looked at Beacon, then to Crimson, meeting her eyes. They didn’t look as blank and malicious anymore. The thing’s gaze was just empty and sad, like a lost child. It was sad, really. She knew the feeling from back when they had stolen her memories.

“Wn07. DN0/ worry,” it pronounced slowly in a messy amalgamation of Octarian and part Inkish, trying carefully to pronounce each syllable the best it could. It was barely understandable to Crimson, it definitely wouldn't be to Beacon or Bandit or Pon-Pon, but it was sincere for what it was. It put on a strained smile, but seemed that was about all it could do with the energy it had since it promptly stumbled backwards onto the mattress and fell asleep after it finished reabsorbing the rest of its goo.

Crimson slumped against the wall and started crying. She never cried. Maybe it was because she was relieved it was gone, or this weird feeling of guilt she was experiencing, or perhaps she was still recovering from the overload of emotions that the sludge had forced onto her. Maybe she was tired. Crying only served to make the octoling more tired and angry, so she quickly wiped away the tears with her jacket sleeve and grabbed her weapon. Crimson left the apartment, not sparing a glance back. It wasn’t her problem, and she wouldn’t deal with it. She was going to go back to her house and take a nap and ignore the world for a while.

Chapter 3: Recovery

Summary:

Beacon is injured and distressed by the events of that day at the apartment.

Notes:

Featuring Beacon the Inkling.
For more context on his character, go read his story by Kiiboard, also in this series.
Warning: a little bit gory, as Beacon remembers his experience of the events on that afternoon.

Beacon awoke with a major headache and an unpleasant reminder of his illness. He was lying submerged in one of those ink tubs the hospitals had for people like him. He could hear Hula and Pon-Pon talking outside the liquid. It was clear that Arrow was there too, or at least had been since there were dried fruit pieces scattered on the bed around him.

The inkling didn’t stir just yet. He didn’t know if his head could handle getting up in this state. Despite this, he couldn’t help but remember what had happened while he wondered how long he’d been in the hospital.

However long ago it was, he was with the others in Arrow’s apartment when the sludge monster had woken up and Crimson had attacked it like a maniac. The stuff had gotten on him, and it tried to… and he had seen something in that time, he just couldn’t remember anything except his mind being corrupted. It wanted to eat him in an attitude that treated his death as just another everyday chore to be taken care of. No, he could remember one thing- he had felt it respond to orders. It would do so for him as well, if he tried hard enough.

Beacon definitely didn’t want to die to this thing. So he summoned up his inner strength and screamed at it to leave.

And it left. The horrid stuff’s influence stopped corroding his mind, but as he came back to his senses, he thought what he came back to might have been worse. He knew the muck was about to melt and rearrange his insides to turn him into something when it was in him. When he told it to leave, it felt like it was ripping those guts inside out indiscriminately on its way back to its core. And not only that, his skin didn’t just feel like it was being pulled off, some of it really was. He laid motionless on the ground after he fell over from the couch and all he could do was watch the ooze and his ink leak out of him. He didn’t even have the energy to scream at that point. The gouge in the monster’s torso returned to normal as his insides poured out, then it had the nerve to smile at him before it fell back into slumber.

When it was finally gone, he could hear Arrow and Bandit panicking and calling the emergency phone line in the background noise beyond the pounding of his ears and head. Beacon slipped into unconsciousness before he could react to it.

Finished reliving the awful memory, Beacon stared in horror at the bandages wrapped around his body. That monster had tried to kill him! It had ripped him to shreds! It would take days for his body to fully recover, and more than a week for him to be able to turn into his squid form again.

Crimson must have encountered this thing before, judging by the way she attacked it in such cold blood. Beacon was horrified. It must take serious guts to face it. If it weren’t for how it turned out, Beacon might have encouraged Crimson to attack it. Then again, if it weren’t for how it turned out, he never would have known the evil lurking behind its blank stare. Beacon shuddered, then sucked in a sharp breath as a throbbing pain spread across his abdomen from the movement. It hurt like hell. To top it off, the migraine had become even more apparent to the inkling.

He needed to ask for some headache medicine. He groaned and willed himself to sit up, carefully stretching so that his head peeked out of the pool without stressing his body too far. Hula and Pon-Pon were the only ones there. Pon-Pon noticed him and waved gently. Hula asked if he needed anything.

“Ow,” Beacon winced at the noise. Pon-Pon got up and left, probably to get the doctor or something. Beacon really hoped that there weren’t medical bills in the splatlands, he would be in big trouble if there were.

Hula turned to Beacon and crossed his arms. “So, what did you do that landed you in here, looking like a mummy?”

Beacon sank back into the ink slightly. He didn’t really want to talk about it. Instead of answering, he deflected. “What happened to Crimson?”

Hula shrugged. “Dunno. I got the text from Pon-Pon that you were in the hospital. We weren’t allowed to come in until nine this morning, but you’ve been in here since yesterday. I tried calling Crimson but when I asked her what happened she just mumbled ‘I messed up’ and hung up on me. She sounded distraught but fine other than that.”

“I see,” Beacon responded, and slowly crumpled back into the ink. Tell her “fuck you” for me, he wanted to say.

Beacon almost wished that Crimson had suffered, too. He didn’t do anything, and suddenly he has to pay for everyone else’s mishaps. He was so tired of his life being like this, where he’s always the one in trouble and everyone else around him just keeps living their lives and nothing’s wrong. Beacon really was so tired of it all.

Roughly a week and a half later, the team had arranged a meeting to discuss the events in the apartment that day. They planned to meet at a nearby local city park. Beacon was the second to arrive, the first having been Bite. Beacon wasn’t sure why she was there since she hadn’t really been a part of the fiasco at the apartment anyways, but she came anyway. The octoling seemed to be eating the bark off of a tree branch when Beacon arrived.

Beacon wasn’t so sure why he was there either. His body had healed and he didn’t want to be involved with anything about the sludge monster, yet Bandit had insisted. Beacon sat down on one of the park benches lining the cobble path and waited for the others to come. He was at least grateful that he hadn’t gotten any fines from the hospital. When Beacon asked, they had told him “nobody here would pay us anyways, so why should we charge?” which the Inkling thought was a weird sentiment, but it worked out as well as it could for him.

The next person to show up was Pon-Pon, who sat next to Beacon and tried to make small talk. Beacon replied with simple answers like “yes, that’s a bummer, cool,”’ and other quick and thoughtless lines to what Pon-Pon was saying. He was pretty sure Pon-Pon wasn’t even listening to his answers anyways.

Crimson joined them a few minutes after Pon-Pon, eyeing Beacon in a wary and concerned manner. She sat on the next park bench over and played a game on her sea cucumber phone. Beacon wasn’t sure what to think about her anymore. Before she attacked the sludge monster, he had thought she was just some girl who got annoyed easily. Beacon didn’t see what Hula did in her. But now, he felt rather miffed as he wondered what was going through her head when she attacked the sludge monster, and what she saw when it was in their heads.

Arrow and Bandit were the last ones to arrive, carrying a large plastic storage bin each. Arrow was holding hers easily on her shoulder with just one arm, but Bandit seemed to be struggling to carry her bin with it in both arms under it in front of her. The rest of the team plus Crimson stopped their activities(for the most part, Bite kept chewing on her tree branch) and started glancing around the group awkwardly.

“Hey, folks. So…” Pon-Pon started slowly. “What happened back there? Crimson, why did you attack… that thing?”

Crimson sighed and didn’t look at anyone as she spoke. “I thought it- I wasn’t thinking. I just felt like I needed to prevent it from hurting anybody. I didn’t expect it to do so because of me.” She looked up and over to Beacon, guilt evident in her eyes. “Hrmph.”

“It was going to eat me,” Beacon muttered unexpectedly. He watched an ant on the ground carrying a crumb off somewhere. “It was going to eat me and all of you after it was done with me. But I refused, and you saw what it did to me.”

Bite put in her two cents. “It’s evil. Attacked us. Grizzco is closed half the week because Sockeye is still covered with the rest of it. Can’t be eaten.”

Most of the group nodded to Bite’s statement, except for Bandit and Crimson. Arrow opened her storage bin, revealing snacks, and tossed a piece of candy to each person except Beacon.  Bandit just frowned. Beacon saw Crimson look at the ant he himself was watching just a few moments earlier.

“I dunno…” she muttered.

Beacon stood up and kicked at the dirt. His eyes started to water, but he really didn’t want to cry in front of everyone. “Did the monster get to your head, Crimson? You’re like me, how come you weren’t sent to the hospital too?  Are you going to turn on us and defend the thing now?” he accused.

Crimson faced him and spoke louder. “That’s not what I said! I don’t know why you had it worse, but I’m just not so sure about the thing anymore. It did this to us because if it didn’t, then we would’ve completely absorbed its sludge and turned into its zombies!”

Beacon was about to retort that it was clear it had messed with her mind because of what she just said in its defense, but Arrow spoke over them before he could.

“Stop it! Shut up, Beacon. Bandit has something to show you.”

Everyone turned to Bandit, who looked awkward at the sudden attention. She stiffened up and took a few deep breaths.

“Hi. Okay. Uhm, don’t freak out,” Bandit said. She undid the latches on her storage bin and slowly lifted the lid off and set the lid down next to the bin.

Inside the bin was the sludge, but the turquoise color had changed to a purple just slightly bluer than Bandit’s own ink color. Beacon saw this and backed up a few steps further away.

“It won’t attack anyone, trust me.” Bandit said as she put on a pair of plastic cleaning gloves.

Trust you? When you bring back the same thing that already almost killed me? 

“You didn’t get rid of it? Not even throw it in the sewer or something? I remember you saying you'd take care of it, but I didn’t think you’d mean this. Do you remember what it did to Beacon?” Pon-Pon asked, astonished.

“No- I remember. It’s not evil. It just doesn’t know what it’s doing. We need to teach it what to do,” Bandit said, then started talking to the monster. “It’s okay. You can get up, just don’t get out of the bin.”

Nothing changed inside the box. It stayed a swirling purple.

“Oh, right. Get up, but stay in the bin,” she ordered with more force in her words.

From the ooze emerged the thing- but now it looked more uniform. The once messy and chaotic tentacles formed more cleanly now- still long and definitely not a proper cut, but it didn’t look as much like a tangle of worms anymore. It seemed just a little less off. It finished transforming, and opened its eyes to the others. They were still tired and blank, but now purple to match its new color. The thing could almost pass as a normal person like this, if it found itself a proper set of clothes that didn’t include Arrow’s torn sweater and got its tentacles organized.

The thing’s sleepy gaze swept right over Beacon and to the sky, where it stayed. Bandit opened her mouth, about to say something, but closed it again in shock when the monster spoke.

“SK1” it said abruptly.

What’s so special about the sky? Beacon wondered as he watched the thing look into the empty distance above them.

“<G’Ik/>. SK1.” it said, seeming to test the words on its tongue like they were unfamiliar. Beacon’s eyes flickered to the octolings present, who looked at it almost knowingly.

The thing fell forward onto its knees, knocking over the bin. Bandit inched away warily at its disobedience, to which it paid no mind. It knelt there, just looking at the clouds, then it began to freaking cry. What monster smiles after it tore you apart, but breaks down like a child just at the mere sight of the sky?

Bandit grabbed its shoulder as the monster continued to sob and shoved it back into its container. She didn't put the lid back on, though. Bandit repeated her command, instructing it to stay there. It hugged its knees against its chest as it wept in the bin, and It continued to sob to itself and still didn’t notice the confused cephalopods around it. Parents who brought their children to the park to run around and play on the nearby play structure steered their young away, saying they’d get ice cream or something instead. Some strangers at the park benches across from the group muttered something and left. A few jellies did crowd around the edges of the group to watch the spectacle, though they too left after a short while when nothing exciting happened.

It took a while for it to calm down and notice the team. It then looked to each person, then to Beacon. Its eyes scanned him up and down, then it frowned.

“S0rry, s0rry, s0rry,” it apologized in a still shaky voice over and over again. Beacon’s eyes widened as it continued.

“S0rry. D1dn’7 know. B3akon not good w|th wet. s0rry, s0rry. Hurt Beakon and Cr\Ms0n. S0rry, s0rry, s0rry.”

Beacon clenched his fist around the fabric of his pants. He didn’t think apologies would make up for the fact that he nearly died, especially when it couldn’t even pronounce the apologies correctly. Bandit must have noticed, because she told the monster to melt and snapped the lid back on its box, then handed Beacon a snack bag of unbuttered popcorn, which he appreciated even though he didn’t feel very hungry.

“Wow. Well, We can understand it now, mostly,” Bite said to break off the awkwardness a bit, though it didn’t help much as the monster continued to apologize.

“It’s never spoken like this before. I didn’t know it could,” Bandit explained. “But as you can see- and I’m clueless on that episode, too- it won’t hurt anyone. It’ll follow your directions as long as you make them clear. I’m not really sure what to do with it next, though. I don’t want to destroy or abandon it, since it’s shown that it can at least feel emotions, that would just be cruel. Do any of you have ideas?”

Beacon watched Crimson just get up and walk away when the others continued to debate about the monster.

He was done, too. He was going to go home, and maybe he could find something to distract himself from his team's betrayal of him in favor of that awful monster. He left the park for his and Hula’s apartment without another word. Bandit watched him go, wishing that she could make it better.

Chapter 4: Question

Summary:

Hula has some questions for Bandit about what happened to Beacon.

Notes:

Featuring Hula the Inkling.
Threats occur.

Hula was confused. He didn’t like to admit it, even to himself, but from what he had gathered, nothing added up. First, Beacon and his team had found someone unconscious at Sockeye and brought them back to the others’ shared apartment. Beacon had told him that much when he came home that night. When he heard that Beacon had been sent to the hospital the next day, he hadn’t thought much of why, and just worried. Crimson refused to talk to him until she visited Hula’s apartment after Beacon was released from the hospital. When she did talk, she barely told him anything. He only heard enough to know that the person Beacon’s team had rescued had really banged him up. Whenever he asked Beacon, Beacon would say “I dunno” or “I forgot”, which was clearly a lie but Hula didn’t push much further.

Hula didn’t like being left out of the loop, either. One evening a couple of weeks after Beacon came back, Hula decided he needed to know what was going on for real, and stopped by Bandit’s apartment on the way back from work and knocked.

Pon-Pon answered the door, surprised to see Hula standing behind it.

“Hey, what brings you here? I made some muffins, do you want one?” Pon-Pon offered.

“Looking for Bandit,” Hula grunted. “Is she here right now?”

“No, I think she went on a walk or something. But-”

“Great, thanks.” Hula reached into the hallway and took the doorknob, shutting the door in Pon-Pon’s face.

Hula was also not a patient squid. He tapped his foot in annoyance as he waited for Bandit outside the apartment building. He couldn’t just zone out or something while he waited. Hula was just about ready to chase away the little kids drawing mustaches on the sidewalk and walls by the time Bandit showed up.

“What took you so long?” he practically shouted.

Bandit looked confused. “Hula! I didn’t think you were coming over- why are you here anyways?” The older Inkling could see some unfamiliar octoling trailed behind Bandit, stopping a few steps behind her and waiting.

“Tch. I came because nobody would clue me in on what’s going on here. Everyone’s acting weird. Who’s your friend?”

Bandit glanced over at the Octoling, then back to Hula, and started itching her head in nervousness. “Oh, them? Uh, that’s Deluge. They’re very shy.”

“Can they leave? What I want to talk about doesn’t involve them.”

Bandit wouldn’t make eye contact with Hula anymore. “No- they don’t like to be alone, either.”

“Fine,” Hula grunted. “Fine, let them stay. Whatever. Who hurt Beacon? I need to make sure they never do it again.” The violently in the sentence went unsaid.

“Well, maybe it would be better for you to talk to Crimson about that-”

“Already tried. You’re avoiding my question. Who was it?” Hula asked again

“Look, they didn’t mean to! Beacon’s fine now, isn’t that enough? They didn’t know,” Bandit answered. Hula saw Bandit’s supposed friend just look at him cluelessly. They hadn’t said a word the entire time. Hula was starting to get what was going on.

“Like the person standing behind you?” he tried, trusting his gut’s instinct.

The younger inkling didn’t retort, instead focusing on some spot in the air that Hula couldn’t see. Hula waited, seething at Bandit’s practical admittance to trying to hide the truth from him. “Please don’t hurt it…”

Hula pushed Bandit aside, facing the Octoling. As he got a closer look, they didn’t quite look completely like an octoling, with suction cups on the inside of their tentacles and sharp triangular ears like that of an Inkling’s.

“Really, five? Why would you try to hide it from me? I’ve been in the splatoon so much longer than you and you can’t even key me in?” He said, then  focused back on his objective. “And what do you have to say for yourself? I should pound you to the center of the planet right now, but I’m going to allow you to try to redeem yourself first because I’m so nice. So, any last words?”

Beacon’s attacker looked unfazed, craning their neck up at the giant inkling. They weren’t scared by him. “Pink o[to attac|{. D1dn’t me4n to hUrt fr1eNd. PrOm|5e won’t hUrt f413nd again\\. PrOm|5e.”

Hula froze, deciphering the strange language. Crimson attacked someone? Why? How? “Crimson wouldn’t-”

The thing seemed to finally show some sort of movement, inching backwards and looking just a smidge smaller under Hula’s shadow, though still somehow having an apathetic expression.

“Cr|MsoN No’t Know. Won’t hUrt B3akon. PrOm|se.”

“It’s true,” Bandit interjected desperately as Beacon was about to kick the thing. “Crimson attacked it and it got all over the place. Its ink was hurting Crimson and Beacon. I don’t quite remember, really, but it somehow forced the ink out of their bodies- but it messed up Beacon. It really was trying to save him. It wouldn't know that it would hurt him so much.”

Hula loomed over the thing as he took in the information. He took a deep breath, trying to not have the urge to beat the thing to a pulp if its ink was dangerous.

“You will not lay a hand on anyone I know as long as I’m on this planet. You got that?” he threatened.

“Ys. Won’t.”

“Tch. Good enough.” Hula felt he got the message across pretty well. If the thing so much as touched Beacon or Crimson again, he would personally make sure it wished it was dead. He stood and walked away, kicking some dirt at the children still drawing mustaches on the walls on his way out. Hula had some things to say to Crimson.

Chapter 5: Sea

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

The primordial ooze wakes up to the surface. They're not sure what to do now, but maybe Team Rainbow can help them find their way in a new world.

Notes:

Featuring Bite the octoling.

Team Rainbow’s only financially stable Octoling really didn’t appreciate the pay cut. It wasn’t awful, Bite had some money saved up from before, but she was proud of having a well-paying job at Grizzco. But after the sludge had overtaken Sockeye, the salmonids had stopped swarming there and the company was closed for a third of each week.

And grizz had sent her an angry email stating, and she quotes, “How did you manage to take an entire location out of commission? You’re the WORST EMPLOYEE I’ve ever had!” and a notice saying she’d been demoted to APPRENTICE.

If there was anything that Bite was proud of, it was her job. She was the pride of Grizzco industries. And Bite swore, if she got fired, she was going to find Mr. Grizz’s real body and EAT it until it gives Bite her job back.

But time was running out. Grizz wouldn’t give her a raise again until Sockeye was cleared, and if he didn’t then Bite wouldn’t have enough money for the rent next month. So at one in the morning one thursday, Bite woke up Deluge(the name had stuck after Bandit started calling it that, but Bite still liked “fishie fishie” a bit better) from it’s home in the closet and had it follow her out of the apartment and through the haphazardly lit streets.

It took them about half an hour to get to the train station, then another hour on the train to the port. Two nights previously, the blue-ringed octoling had chartered a fishing boat to bring her to the station- to fix this mess. She wanted her paycheck and position as an esteemed elder employee back.

It didn’t take Bite long to find the port- it was the same one that Grizzco had used back when it didn’t own helicopters. Finding the boat was a different story- it didn’t have a name to identify it by and the description she got was “ old brown one on the north pier” which meant pretty much a fifth of the boats there. She barely noticed it as daylight shone, and only had just enough time to get on the boat before it headed out.

For the rest of the forty-five minutes yet to go, Bite ate the netted fish-(ahem, sat on the deck) and thought about the cause of everyone’s problems lately: the sludge monster standing next to her. 

Its color in the beginning reminded her of the strange swirly ink used by the green Octarians in the deep sea. But it was never so thick, and definitely not able to understand and communicate with people. How did the ink-like sludge assume cephalopod form and walk around on the surface? Did it come from the underground? To be honest, Bite was a bit uncomfortable with it. It gave her the heebie-jeebies, if only because she had the feeling that it would be bad if she bit it.

But all’s well that eats well, and after seeing it absorb so many salmonids Bite couldn’t bring herself to hate it. Bite wondered if it liked to eat things. Perhaps someday the thing would learn enough to actually have its own feelings and speak properly. Maybe then it would be able to share a meal with her.

 

- line break sploshy-

 

They finally arrived at Sockeye. The workers on the boat gave them distasteful looks at seeing the location, and said that all the fish had left the area after it had gotten covered in the green slime. The looks could have also been for Bite out for eating half of their catch.

Bite scouted out the area with a pair of binoculars. The egg basket area was completely covered in the goo, which was still green unlike Deluge’s adopted purple. The spiral ramp up to the center lookout was also pretty messy. She shifted into octo form, and superjumped carefully onto a non-ooze-covered area on the edge of the station up and to the left of where the egg basket was.

And Bite waited, and waited, watching the sky for the other- oh. Did Deluge know how to jump? Was it even able to? Was it stuck on the boat? The octoling adjusted her glasses and started to pace, worried that she wouldn’t be able to clear the sludge and get back. Bite would run out of food, and-

“Here,” said voices behind Bite. She whirled around to find the sludge monster standing there, waiting for Bite to tell it something. She was surprised to hear it say something unprompted, usually it just barely speaks when asked to.

“You- talked. Normally. How did you get here, anyways?” Bite asked, curious for it to say more.

“Don’t remember…” the thing crouched down and poked at a small glob of other sludge. When it touched it, the glob slowly shifted color from green to match Deluge’s purple hue. The purple continued to spread across all the 

Bite watched, absentmindedly thinking of how Bandit and Pon-Pon would be fascinated by its sudden increase in independence and would probably want her to take a video to show them in case it doesn’t last. She neglected to put in the effort for it, though. Instead she moved forward with her original intentions for coming here.

“Can you get the goo off the land?” Bite asked gently.

“Off?”

“Yeah- I need there to be none of the sludge on the Station in order to work, even on low tide. Nothing at all on the structure if you can!” Bite specified.

All at once, the portion of the sludge in the area that had already turned purple speedily flowed out towards the edges of the station, and down into the sea. As the purple continued to spread, so did the sludge, dispersing off the structure and to who knows where. Deluge stayed in the same position and stared again at the stuff. Bite wondered why it just stared at things all the time.

“Booyah! I knew you could do it! Oh, and could you keep it out of salmonid territory if possible? Just so they’ll keep coming here. Anyways, I have to message Grizz about this!” Bite pulled out her phone and typed a message detailing the latest status update on the location.

For the thirty minutes it took Grizzco to send a helicopter out to make sure(and to pick the two up if they were telling the truth and the corruption really was gone) Bite watched the sludge monster. It walked around, never straying too far from Bite but not staying still by her side like it normally would. It stared at the dirt or gaped at the sky. Bite would start a conversation, if she had anything in particular she wanted to ask it, but she had no specific inclination. 

The helicopter finally reached them and for once landed on the center tower of the stage. Bite was surprised that it did land, honestly. It rarely touched down even to pick up workers to go to their shifts. Bite had never seen it load up on gas, or the pilot, either- she wondered what it was or if there even was one. Regardless, she called out to Deluge to follow her back, and boarded the aircraft. Deluge took a few seconds to show up, looking somewhat unsure but definitely curious about the chopper and stepped in, tapping its foot on the floor like it didn’t know if the thing could really fly and still be strong enough to hold anything.

The door closed, and the chopper took off. Bite nearly reached for her helmet, which would have been hanging on the hook on the other side of the cabin if she was on her way to a shift. But she realized it wasn’t there and stopped herself, and instead tore into the uniforms she found in a bucket. They really were so restricting, uncomfortable, and hot during shifts with the sleeves attached. Deluge was standing with its face squished against the window like a little kid on their first ride. At that thought, Bite guessed it probably was Deluge’s first time on an aircraft.

It was midday when Bite finally got back to the apartment with Deluge in tow. She entered, and passed Pon-Pon washing dishes in the kitchen and met Bandit in the living room looking slightly displeased with Bite.

“Where did you take Deluge?” she asked, not looking up from her old shellphone in an attempt to look disinterested.

“Cleaned up Sockeye! Actually-” the octoling paused, and ran into the bedroom to grab her laptop. She crashed onto the couch and hoped it hadn’t finally broken after she’d chewed through the duct tape pads that Bandit had stuck to it in an attempt to get Bite to stop chewing on her computer. Thankfully, the screen glowed blue then white when it booted up, and Bite checked her email. There were four new messages but Bite was only interested in the one from her employer dated twenty-three minutes ago. Bite opened it and to her delight saw the message she had hoped for. In bold, all capital and rather annoying letters, just like the company itself, read:

CONGRATS, EMPLOYEE BITE! AFTER YOUR RECENT DISAPPOINTMENTS YOU HAVE SHOWN AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT OF COMPETENCY IN SOLVING PROBLEMS. 

YOU ARE NOW ELIGIBLE TO EARN PAY RAISES ONCE AGAIN, AND YOUR EMPLOYEE RANK HAS BEEN ADJUSTED TO PROFRESHIONAL PART-TIMER. WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU GET BACK TO WORK AND BRING IN MORE EGGS ON YOUR NEXT SHIFT!

No, of course it wasn’t very nice, it was Grizzco. But Bite nearly had her full paycheck back!

Bandit leaned over to read the email over Bite’s shoulder and wrinkled her nose in annoyance at the message but said nothing.

Life returned to normal, for a time at least.

Chapter 6: Sport

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

Arrow is taking Deluge for its first turf war.

Notes:

Featuring Arrow the Octoling.

Arrow showed up at the door to Bandit’s shared apartment one morning with a goal in mind. Earlier that morning, when she was stretching out of her makeshift bed, a thought occurred to her- Arrow should teach the sludge monster how to play Turf War. It had been growing into more of an actual person lately- trying things itself and answering simple questions coherently now, even though half of the answers consisted of purely “dunno.” and the other half was some variation of “what do you think?”.

Arrow figured it would appreciate the chance to try something new with her. And who knows, maybe it would actually be decent at turfing. And maybe it would help Arrow earn enough money to finally fill her stomach for once in her life. And something for Bandit. Well, even if it didn’t work out then Arrow could at least say she had tried and helped Deluge figure out its life.

Bite suddenly opened the door and walked straight into Arrow, bumping her and mumbling “hmph! Work! Late” before running out and down the stairs with speed and urgency in her steps. Of course, the other octoling was nearly late once again. She was always irresponsible until she was finally at work. It meant she was a good panicked 30 seconds late each day, or so Arrow had seen the times she had joined Bite for some Salmon run shifts.

Next, Arrow strolled into the apartment and patted Bandit on the head and crashed on the couch next to the inkling.

“I’m gonna take Deluge out to try turfing today, if you want to come join us,” she announced, and yawned.

Bandit raised her eyebrow at that, but went along with it. “Sure- I gotta check in with some folks about work first though. I’ll join you in the lobby at two, that sound alright to you?”
“Yeah, sure. See you then,” Arrow said, hoisting herself up and drinking the rest of Bandit’s coffee that was sitting on the table. She strolled over to the fridge and grabbed a spare veggie sausage freezer pack and dumped the contents haphazardly into the microwave to cook.

“Yeah, guess I need Deluge to actually come with me. Where is that sludge monster anyways?”

“Still asleep in the closet, I think. Last I checked,” Bandit replied from the other side of the room, still looking tired on the couch and trying to get her smallfry off of her phone.

Arrow rapped her knuckles on the closet door before opening it to find Deluge sitting at the edge of its bed on the middle shelf and looking patiently at Arrow, waiting for her to say something. It was still wearing her old gray hoodie from that first day. 

“Up, you’re coming with me today.”

“Why?” it replied. Arrow still shivered at the voice- she supposed it was generally speaking without emotion but it was just so hard to tell with it sounding like so many voices it was just unsettling and hard to get used to.

“Gonna teach you Turfing. Come on,” Arrow gestured toward the door, and Deluge started for it before Bandit threw a pair of old shoes at the thing, because it had clearly forgotten them once again.

After everything was sorted out and ready and people had said their “see ya laters” and such, Arrow and the sludge monster accompanying her headed out for the lobby.

 

~Line break splashy~

 

While Deluge was getting the newbie lobby tour, Arrow couldn’t stop rolling her eyes. Every time that the pre-recorded tour said “go check it out sometime!” over the loudspeakers then it would head towards whatever it meant, then panic when the speakers started to explain something else. And apparently the others in the lobby queuing for matches thought it was funny, because a group of three walked up to Arrow at one point and asked her if the newbie was hers. Arrow replied with a “so what if it is?” and they promptly left.

After the tour was done, the lobby terminal spit out a generic “Player” starter splashtag for Deluge, who picked it up and looked at it cluelessly. Arrow took it out of the thing’s hands and peeled off the sticky back paper and stuck it on the thing’s sweater.

“Now to get you an ink tank and starter weapon… Be right back.” Arrow jogged up the stairs to steal an energy bar from the cafe then to the battle queue flask and picked up the extra gear it had spit out for Deluge. Arrow hefted them over her shoulder and brought them back to drop in front of the sludge monster.

“Now, you see how I have mine on?” Arrow instructed, and pointed at the ink tank strapped to her back. “Try it. This will hold the amount of ink you’re allowed to use at a time in battles.”

Deluge shifted its arm through one of the shoulder straps, then the other, and took a few tries but figured out how to tighten them right. It took the splattershot jr from Arrow’s outstretched hands, and tried to shoot a few shots of ink experimentally like it saw the others in the lobby doing.

But it didn’t work. The ink tank clacked, empty on ink. Arrow frowned in frustration as Deluge tried again to fill it, but nothing happened except the ink tank rejecting Deluge’s ink once again. Arrow frowned, shifting ink color to Deluge’s indigo and fired a shot beneath the sludge monster.

“Try charging with that.”

Deluge nodded, and shifted into swim form. Arrow’s eyebrows raised at her first sight of the form, but didn’t comment on the squid with eight tentacles and nearly invisible fish-like fins. She added it mentally to the list of Deluge’s weird hybrid gimmicks.

When it re-emerged from the ink and shifted back into bipedal form, the ink tank was filled. Deluge fired at a target balloon and popped it, then looked back to Arrow for the next directions.

“Now try filling it again. Yourself, this time,” the octoling suggested. It tried again, to no avail.

“Won’t work.” 

Arrow growled, and nearly was tempted to go get Judd to give them a new ink tank, but at that moment it seemed that the sludge monster had finally figured something out. It concentrated on something far off, but slowly the ink tank filled up with slightly marbled patterned ink. Arrow was nearly worried at that, remembering the incident that that same patterned sludge had injured Beacon, but was relieved of the worry when nothing happened as Arrow swam through it unaffected whatsoever during a basic drill she taught Deluge as they queued up for its first match.

It was finally time, not too long later. It was good that the stage location was nearby: Mincemeat Metalworks just outside of the city. The two and two strangers selected to be on the team together used the train to it in silence, taking not more than fifteen minutes from boarding it to the stage location.

And as the spawn point launchers rose into the air under the shaded part of the stage, Arrow was worried about Deluge not having the greatest balance to stay on its launcher the first time, most newbies who didn’t grow up in the Splatlands didn’t. But it held a strange position as the thing rose into the air, not quite a great stance by any means but workable. Better than Arrow had expected, in her honest opinion.

The horn blasted START! And Arrow shot out of the launcher and leapt straight to painting a line of ink through to the middle ground with her Areospray. She hoped Deluge would catch up, but didn’t hesitate to attack the enemy team by throwing a Fizzy bomb into their territory as soon as she climbed up the truck on their side of the turf.

She waited there, picking off enemies mindlessly as they tried to approach. Finally, halfway into the match, she caught her sludge monster walking slowly across the grate in the center toward her.

A well-timed reefslider took care of the two enemies trying to sneak through the side of the arena(earning the team another Wipeout) before Arrow swam up to Deluge.

“What’s up? Something wrong, it took you a while,” the giant octoling asked.

“... think this is…” the thing muttered quietly.

“Well, spit it out!” Arrow insisted.

“Forget,” it said abruptly in response. Arrow sighed again. Maybe she wouldn’t take the thing out for turfing if it was going to be so difficult.

However, it showed decent potential for a newbie, inking around the enemy base and being splatted only a couple of times, thankfully respawning. Bandit would have been extremely mad if Arrow had accidentally killed her latest “community responsibility” or whatever her girlfriend had called it this time.

They won the match 56.3% to 31.7%, fortunately though. Arrow judged the time of day to be about 1:15, and decided to head back to the lobby to meet Bandit for another round.

The train back was also silent.  Arrow didn’t know what really to say, especially to someone as empty of opinions or thoughts as sludgie sitting next to her. So she sat, listening to the music playing on the train’s speakers and snacking on some sort of fruit she had found at a stand next to the train station.

When they got back to the main street, they caught the eye of Bandit, who waved them over to her place on the bench near Deep Cut’s studio.

“Got you two some drinks,” Bandit said as she passed Arrow an orange juice in a plastic bag, and Deluge a lime juice. Arrow drank hers in one gulp, and Deluge followed her lead.

The three matched up and left for another Turf War, this time in a local Makomart.  A third of the way into the match, their random teammate was cornered on one of the narrow paths next to the ledge on their right side of the stage, but in an unusual display of skill, Deluge swooped in from above and pulled off an ambush characteristic of the Octarian military, quickly dispatching both the splash and tenta brella that were about to splat their teammate. For just a second, Deluge raised its junior at their teammate with that freaky blank look on its face again, but then it was gone, and Deluge once again could barely remember to shift form to charge its ink. It was unsettling to Arrow, seeing the thing use that move she remembered from her training used by a newbie at turf. She barely registered the final seconds of the battle. The Octoling didn’t respond to the team’s “booyah!”s as they won by a smidge.

The Octarian military…

“Arrow?” Bandit said on their way back to the lobby.

“Arrow? Hello?” the inkling waved her hand in front of Arrow’s face, and the Octoling didn’t react. At this point, Bandit decided that enough was enough, and slapped Arrow just hard enough to get her attention.

“What?” Arrow snapped at her girlfriend, forgetting about the incident with the sludge monster during the last match.

Over the rest of the day, she was increasingly frustrated by Deluge’s inexperience at the sport, but it was alright because the small amount of money it earned throughout the day paid for her pizza order that night at Bandit’s apartment.

“So, Deluge, what did you think of your first Turf Wars today?” Pon-Pon asked after he had finished his one slice.

The sludge monster turned to Pon-Pon and paused for a second, thinking before it answered.

“Think It was okay. Forgot how to fight. Will do better next time.”

Arrow and Bite didn’t catch the words, but Bandit and Pon-Pon looked surprised at words. What the thing said kind of implied that it had known how to fight before.

“Pon-Pon?” it said out of the blue.

“Yeah?” Pon-Pon answered.

“Can us go shopping some time?” Deluge asked quietly.

“Uh- sure. Let’s go shopping. I think I can make some time tomorrow after lunch. Might I ask why you want me to take you?” the inkling inquired curiously.

“Just want to.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a good enough answer. Let’s go shopping.”

Chapter 7: Name

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

Pon-Pon takes the sludge monster shopping like it asked.

Notes:

Featuring Pon-Pon the Inkling.
This is one of my favorite chapters so far. A good break from the angst before some stuff happens.

It was the following day, and Pon-Pon had taken the afternoon off from training to take Deluge out on that shopping trip it asked for.

“Do you have everything ready?” he asked it across the apartment as he grabbed his own shoes and slipped them on.

“Have shoes and bag. Bite gave money,” it announced as it put its shoes on at the doorway and abruptly stood up. Pon-Pon stood as well, leaving the couch to grab his own backpack and wallet. He met Deluge at the door and turned the doorknob, gesturing for Deluge to go through first, then closed it behind him on his way out.

The sun outside shone as bright as any other Thursday afternoon as they walked down the stairs and the six blocks to the main street where all the shops were, passing by a few other Splatsville residents hanging clothes outside to dry or taking walks. Pon-Pon didn’t know most of them, but waved cheerily anyway.

Deluge still seemed to look at all the storefronts with an expression of amazement, leaning up to the glass of Hotlantis and peering at the products inside.

“What are these things?” it asked Pon-Pon.

The inkling looked inside at what his companion was staring at, which appeared to be a couple of children grabbing at a wind-up Octotrooper toy. One of them twisted the tentacle around and set the thing on the ground, where it started to hobble across the floor. The little cephalopods followed the thing around and eventually grabbed another, pitting them against each other in races across the floor of the store while what looked to be their father crouched in the corner watching them play. Another customer, a teen this time walked out with an open cardboard box and a magazine, scowling at the contents of the box.

“We could go in, if you’d like. Just go ahead,” Pon-Pon replied kindly.

Deluge nodded and stepped away from the window, then strolled speedily to the door of the shop and pulled it open. A bell jingled as the two stepped in. Deluge’s eyes swept across the room, taking in all of the items that could be seen from the entrance. It walked around the aisles slowly, bending over at some of the toys. At one point it stopped in front of a small keyboard and pressed one of the keys, and sprang back when the keyboard played a high-pitched sound louder than Deluge had seemed to be expecting. It steered clear of the thing after that. Deluge passed right by an assortment of larger items without interest, from model rainmakers and mini towers to whatever the things labeled “canned specials” were. It stopped at a collection of plushies, and poked curiously at the red-colored stuffed squid.

The idol-in-training chuckled at his companions’ childish display of interest at the assorted toys. “You know that you could buy one and take it home, right?”

It didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Pon-Pon rolled his eyes and told it to wait outside. After it left, he bought the squid plushie and tucked it in his bag to give to Deluge as a surprise later.

After that, the two moved across the street to Crush Station. Upon entering the store, the shopkeeper Mr. Coco greeted them from the checkout desk. “Welcome to Crush Station! How can I help you today?” he called out. The huge crab scanned over Deluge quickly. “Oh, you’re new here! Allow me to welcome you! We have a large selection of footwear, just holler and I’ll check them out for you! If you find any you like, that is.”

Pon-Pon suggested that Deluge have a look around and pick out any that looked good, and he hit the shelves himself as soon as his companion wandered off into the store. He scanned the shelves, but found nothing particularly eye-catching this time. Most of the items were work boots or plain sneakers which didn’t really catch Pon-Pon’s eye. He took a bit to make sure nothing neat was escaping his notice, but joined back up with Deluge when he decided that nothing was really worth buying.

It didn’t seem to have found anything notable either, because it was sitting on one of the benches at the end of an aisle kicking its legs aimlessly.

“Find anything fresh?” he asked anyway.

Deluge stared at him with its brows furrowed. “What is ‘fresh’?” it replied.

Now that was a question Pon-Pon had never heard before. Everyone knew what “fresh” meant. The inkling sat down next to Deluge and tried his best to answer the question.

“Well, fresh is like being cool. It means that you or other people think that something is really… good, I suppose? Whatever the word ‘fresh’ is attributed to is liked by someone. I think that’s the best way to put it.”

“Oh.”

“Did you find any footwear you liked?” Pon-Pon tried again.

“Don’t know,” it stated plainly.

That was just about what Pon-Pon had been expecting, though. He brought Deluge to the counter and asked Mr. Coco if he had anything cheap that Deluge could wear until it figured out what it liked.

Coco pulled out a box from below the desk and set it in front of Deluge.

“A customer recently returned this for a new pair! It’s lightly used but I think it might serve you well until you come back for something fresh! Go on, try it!”

Deluge opened the box, revealing a pair of Wasabi Tabi. Pon-Pon was surprised to see those, as they normally would cost a good amount. Deluge nimbly took off Bandit’s old Force ReBoots that she had lent it and put on the tabi. They seemed to fit fine. 

“How much?” Pon-Pon inquired to Mr. Coco.

“Since they’re used, they’ll be 1,500 gesos, sound good to you?”

Pon-Pon thought it was a great price for the item, and Deluge seemed fine with them, so they bought the pair and headed for the next shop over, Man-o’-Wardrobe.

“Ah, you are here! Good. Welcome to Man-o’-Wardrobe,” Jel La Fleur announced as the two entered his store. He waved his tentacles at Deluge, then towards the clothing aisles. “Hmm, you seem to be in dire need of fresh clothes, you may shop at this store to obtain them. HOWEVER! do not think to handle this fine merchandise with filthy hands, as you will no longer be allowed to shop here. If you wish to know more about any item, do call me so I may share my vast knowledge with you.”

Pon-Pon followed Deluge around the store, though neither of them found anything particularly well suited to Deluge. Most of the clothes were either semi-formal or rather expensive. Jel La Fleur gave Deluge a look of displeasure as it and Pon-Pon left the store after deciding they would just try to work towards that Sudadera Celeste sweater that was on the catalog from Hotlantis.

“Now, the hat shop is just up there,” Pon-Pon pointed up the metal staircase leading up to the landing where an octoling was sitting on the rails over the center of Splatsville.

As with the other shops, Gnarly Eddy gave the customary new customer speech, and let the two loose on the store. Deluge followed Pon-Pon through the aisles.

Pon-Pon picked up a new pack of hair ties, and new headphones because his old ones broke recently. The inkling browsed the shelves for something interesting.

“You know,” Pon-Pon said after some extra awkward silence between the two. “You should choose something for yourself.” 

“...choose for myself?”

“Yeah. Find something of your own.”

The sludge monster stilled, and stared off into space, thinking. It turned, and ran off somewhere else in the store.

Pon-Pon waited, playing games on his phone at the entrance for Deluge to return for a few minutes. It stepped back into view soon enough, the light washing over it.

It was looking patiently at Pon-Pon with a Takoroka visor held in its hands. The inkling put his phone away in his pocket and looked up at Deluge. The corners of his lips turned upwards at the sight.

“Did you find something fresh this time?”

“We chose, see?”

They took the visor and set it on their head, then walked out onto the balcony, sunlight revealing a grin that they had never worn before.

“Our name… We want to be Visor now.”

Notes:

I can finally call them by their name now! Just a little more chill and new characters next chapter until we get back into the angst...

Unfortunately, this was the last pre-written chapter, so it might take longer to post the next ones as I finish them.

Chapter 8: Adventure

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

With a new name, Visor set off with bandit's scavenger friend Flan on a little adventure where they meet some scavengers and return to Splatsville to find shocking news.

Notes:

Featuring Flan the Octoling, aka Neo Three.

New chapters slow, as is writing them- I spent my time writing 5400 words of a story that contains spoilers for this one so I can't post it yet-but here one is! Still pretty chill.

The dust of the desert sands covered Flan’s hands and clothes and face as he and Visor crawled beneath an old abandoned train car. At the request of Bandit, he had taken her friend out scavenging for a few days.

“What are we looking for?” Visor questioned the blue-inked octoling further under the vehicle.

“Oh, you know. Stuff! Anything that looks cool or helpful or real easy to take. I get the feeling there’s something back here, something neat!”

Down in the dirt, they spied a little beetle scuttling along and had to be reminded with a little tapping to keep scooting forward.

“Aha! Up here!” Flan gestured at what seemed to be just another section of machinery on the bottom of the train, but when he tugged on the bar attached to the floor of the train it broke off of the other pieces, revealing a small square hatch. The octoling proceeded to use the metal bar to whack the thing hard, then work it open like a crowbar.

“Aha!” he exclaimed as the hatch popped open, the door swinging into the train.

The octoling stuck the same metal bar into the dark cavity and felt around the compartment with it. Deeming there to be no rattlesnakes or anything dangerous beyond, Flan maneuvered his body into the compartment and made space for Visor to do so as well.

Flan had to shine a flashlight around inside to see, but it seemed Visor didn’t have a problem with moving around in the dark, as Flan shined the light on them and watched them climb in easily and take a look around the space. It was dark and cramped, like any other train’s storage, but it was the kind of thing that would have some goodies to grab.

“You know the drill, like I told you earlier: look for anything neat. I’ve even found a whole old stash of a northern country’s currency before, you know!”

He shuffled further into the train compartment as Visor turned to look through the other side. Flan was tempted to just go over and watch the newbie but decided that trying to set an example was a more efficient idea. Probably. Was it?

Well, Captain Neo jumped out of his pack and started zooming around the far corner of the dark. The Octoling crawled after.

‘What did you find, buddy?”

He pointed his flashlight at the floor that his smallfry was jumping excitedly around, and found himself looking upon an old pair of octoling goggles and a yelllowed book akin to the one Marie gave him and Bandit for the Sunken Scrolls, but it was seemingly made of eel leather. In this light, Flan wouldn’t be able to read what’s inside though.

“Nothing this way,” Visor announced from the dark. “Are we to go somewhere out now?”

Flan turned to confirm, not that it did him much good in the pitch blackness. “Yeah, I found something. You can go ahead and get out, I’ll bring it after you.” the octoling grabbed the book and goggles and tucked them in his pack for later, then shoved said pack through the access hatch and scampered out himself.

Flan met Visor standing outside of the train, and smiled. What a neat find! Octarian gear! And maybe, depending on what was in the old book, he could find a buyer and make some cash, too. But he definitely wasn’t selling the goggles.

“Find anything?”

“Yeah!” Flan exclaimed. “There was an old book, and a pair of Octoling goggles! I wonder who left them there. Why would they? I wonder-”

Flan plopped down onto the dusty sands and opened his pack, pulling out the pair of goggles and trying them on. They tinted his vision purple and did a decent job at being sunshades, actually. But the eye holes limited his vision almost to the point that it was slightly annoying, but Flan overlooked it because he was wearing real octarian army gear! The boy smiled like an idiot as he got distracted by his second acquisition, the old book.

He dusted it off and flipped the thing to a random page, only to squint at what they revealed. He took off the goggles and shoved them back into his pack, thinking they might be obscuring his vision, but he still couldn’t make sense of the text and diagrams displayed on the pages.

“What the hell is this?” he exclaimed, still trying to angle the book differently such as holding it out further from him or turning it sideways, but the stuff written on the pages must have been some crazy tech in some scribbled version of Inkish he wasn’t familiar with, because he could not understand a thing.

Visor, curious, got up and went to peek over Flan’s shoulder at the book.

“Do YOU understand this?”

“It’s notes. On tech.” Visor stated unhelpfully.

The boy’s nose wrinkled in annoyance, and he tucked the book back into his pack, which he then slung over his shoulder and started off into the desert.

“Come on, let’s get back to camp.”

 

-Line break squelch-

 

Flan jolted awake in his sleeping bag. He thought he heard footsteps outside the tent. Checking around- yep, his bag was still there, and Visor was still asleep across the room- he discreetly grabbed his Hero Shot and tip-toed to the entrance where he peeked out to the desert. Vague silhouettes were muttering to each other out in the sands, but moved just out of sight.

The octoling remained alert throughout the night, the five hours until daylight came. The strangers didn’t return, as far as Flan knew, for the rest of the night.

Visor awoke come daylight, turning in their sleeping bag, squirming up and yawning,  then looking to Flan.

“We had some folks visit overnight. Time to pack up now, we’re moving camp.”

“Why?” Visor replied as they got up and started to fold up the sleeping bags.

Flan rolled his eyes .“Uh, I dunno, care to take a guess?” 

Visor tilted their head. “How do I ‘take a guess’?”

The agent sighed as he tore the tent down and fit it over his pack. “Because if people found us, that means we can’t leave anything here or else they’ll steal it. It’s the freaking desert! Where else are you supposed to get a bag of chips, but from someone else’s camp?”

With everything packed up, the companions lifted their cargo over their shoulders and trotted off into the desert, skirting the edge of the Crater as they headed for the safety of the general scavenger camp near the train station.

They would be safe for a time there, until the others who had found their camp gave up on looting them.

The maze of tents- a safe haven for scavengers in need- was nearly in sight when the two were ambushed. Something darted out of the rocks and wrapped around Flan’s leg, but he managed to gain back his footing before he tripped. A dark shadow loomed over him, and he was knocked out before he could turn to see what it was.

Flan woke up groggily, finding himself tied up against a rock. All his gear was gone, but at least Cap’n Neo appeared to be sleeping on his lap. From the position of the sun, it was about mid-afternoon.

Glancing around, the octoling didn’t see Visor tied up anywhere near, only a few tents that probably made up his kidnappers’ camp obscuring his view of the voices he heard past them.

Flan pouted. Being looted always sucked. At least the scavengers who caught him this time were the nice kind. Hopefully. Flan started to hum to pass the time. Eventually, a face peeked out from behind the tents, noticing that he was awake, and disappeared again while they seemed to tell the others in their group.

The group, from what Flan could see as they filed between the tents, consisted of a bunch of kids that couldn’t have been older than he himself was. One was a giant octoling with blue ink, a short inkling with yellow ink, a red lionfish with its spikes mostly tied behind its back, and a younger fuzzy octoling.

Flan didn’t think any of them had gone to the surface. This was certainly a surprise, but Flan was alright with it as long as it didn’t attack him… again.

To his astonishment, Visor was following them to him. Wait, was this their fault? 

The giant octoling(who actually bore a resemblance to Shiver, now that Flan thought about it) bent down over Flan and… untied him?

“Sorry, we forgot to untie you,” the kid started. “And also sorry about taking your stuff. You can grab it over on our tarp back there. “

The yellow inkling seemed to pout a bit, muttering something about “that cool yellow weapon”.

Flan stood and raised an eyebrow. He dusted his pants off and picked Captain Neo back up, who leapt up to sit on his head. “You’re just letting me take my stuff before I go? Ain’t that inefficient looting?”

“No. Ya gotta chat with us some before ya go,” the fuzzy octoling commented. “You’re that guy that went into Alterna, aren’t ya? How’s it down there?”

The agent opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again when he realized he didn’t know what to say. It was fine, he guessed? What would mean that it was good? He shrugged.

The fuzzy octoling sighed. “Figured as much. Follow me,” and they led Flan through the tents to where his stuff was stashed on top of a tarp. Along the way, he sent a questioning glare to Visor, who returned it with another one of their signature blank looks. They didn’t seem to understand anything if it wasn’t outright told to them.

Flan gathered his gear and noticed everyone else plopping down into a circle in the sand. They appeared to be waiting for him, so he followed suit and sat down himself.

“So, introductions!” started the giant blue octoling sitting next to Flan, whose ink color and height unpleasantly reminded him of Shiver and Arrow. “I’ll go first. I’m Fin, any pronouns! I was born in the Hohojiro clan!” 

The yellow inkling, somewhat built like Frye, answered next. “Electra. I want to help hybrids when I grow up! Oh, yeah. I use she/her pronouns. Please don’t freak if my eels slither near you. They don’t bite but they do sting, so just don’t touch them. I’m an Onaga.” Ah, Flan nodded mentally. This kid was a relative of Frye. 

It seemed they were going in a circle, because the lionfish frowned at being the next in line. In accented Inkish, it spoke in a very brief manner. “My name is Oni. He/him pronouns. Don’t touch me.”

Next was Visor, who started to speak but the Onaga kid cut them off, waving in a “get on with it!” sort of manner. “We all already know who you are. Ya told us earlier. Let your friend speak.” Visor promptly shut up and turned to look at their companion.

“Uhm.” 

“Go on,” the fuzzy octoling urged, leaning in closer to Flan.

Flan, uncomfortable at the interest from one of his former enemies, stiffened. “The name’s Flan? He/him… why are we doing this again? No good bandit just lets their steal go!”

The lionfish crossed his arms and scrunched his nose up. “ These four wanted to chat with the octoling kid who went into the crater that-” he jabbed a thumb at the fuzzy octoling leaning over Flan and said its name accusingly “ Fuwa here talked so highly about. So if you’re so disappointed, just go.” The other scavengers muttered unhappily to themselves, but it looked like Oni couldn’t care less.

Flan still couldn’t believe it. They just- well, he was gonna take it. “Fine. Guess I will, then.'' He went to grab his stuff and started off towards the direction of Splatsville.

Visor followed him out of the scavengers’ camp and into the desert. Flan was grumbling to himself about the annoying kids when he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. A figure leaned over him menacingly, revealing itself to be Fin, smiling sweetly.

“I didn’t say you could leave, did I?” she said, and though in an average tone, it felt like a threat to the boy.

“Let it be, Fin,” Electra walked up and  told the tall octoling, and sighed. “If he wants to leave, that’s his choice. We did untie him in the first place.”

Flan hightailed it out of there after that. Those kids were crazy. 

 

-Line Break squish-

 

When he reached Bandit’s apartment at eight that evening, Flan finally looked through his bags and found himself immensely disappointed that the children had taken the octoling goggles from him, but it made sense. They probably found him in the first place searching for their stash. Though why they didn’t keep it on them like all good scavengers should, Flan couldn’t guess. At least it seemed that they left everything else, even his shellphone.

Speaking of, a text just buzzed said shellphone. Flan grabbed it and checked. He didn’t recognize the number.

> Yo, might wanna check the news! Reminds me of your friend.

With a nagging suspicion that it was those kids again, Flan still grabbed the remote off the table and flipped the channel to the news. It seemed to be playing advertisements though, so Flan texted back.

> Hey, how’d you get my number?

> The pattern of the dirt on the screen makes it very clear what your password is. I just unlocked the thing and saw it. By the way, it’s Electra speaking.

The young agent guessed it. Seeing the news appear, he turned his attention back to the TV. Bandit, who was lounging on the couch, lifted an eyebrow at him, knowing he wasn’t the type to turn on the news since that time someone dissed a guy named Octavio on live TV.

“And today, water supply for several eastern neighborhoods of Splatsville has been cut off due to an unknown substance appearing in the water supply. Our reporter is on the scene with the investigation crew. Seamantha?”

The feed changed to what Flan assumed to be the water treatment plant, where an Inkling girl holding a microphone was standing next to a pool of water. “I stand here with the team the city has sent to identify the strange substance we can see here.” The camera panned onto the water, where purple muck was floating across the reservoir.

Bandit shot up at the sight of it. “Visor!” she exclaimed. Said person opened the closet door where they were reading a book and peeked out quizzically at Bandit.

“Hm?”

Bandit pointed at the screen. “Did you do this?”

Visor looked thoughtful for a second, then answered. “Oops.”

Flan was confused. Visor was with him all day, and all of yesterday, too. He couldn’t imagine how they could have dumped muck into Splatsville’s water supply in that time. Or why they would have any intention of doing it in the first place. Bandit seemed to notice her coworker’s confusion and began to explain.

“So, uhhh… Visor is kind of that muck. We found them on a salmon run shift. That’s why sockeye station was closed… oh cod…” Bandit held her face in her hands. “Visor, why?”

 “Bite told me to follow her. Didn’t know that the river was bad,” Visor said, now looking rather guilty. 

The octoling was still confused. How could Visor be that stuff? How was that even possible? But all he could make words for was a brief “What?”

“Look, Neo. Visor is the muck. I don’t know where they came from, and they won’t say. While this portion of it- Visor, could you show Flan?- takes a normal form, the rest is just… there. Apparently, they can’t even figure out what to do with themselves.”

Visor looked to Flan, then back to Bandit, then back to Flan. Then they proceeded to freaking melt into that purple muck like some sort of horror movie, dripping off the shelf and onto the carpet then reforming in a standing position. The new agent 3 gaped.

“Just- how? And how much of you is there?”

“Three apartments, we think. Maybe,” the muck thing answered, shrugging.

Bandit got up, went to the fridge and cabinet and poured herself a glass of milk, then proceeded to chug it. She finished, wiped the spills off her face and sighed. “Can’t fit that in a storage bin… Ugh, I don’t want to deal with this right now.”

Flan had an idea, though. “You don’t know where to put them?” he asked for confirmation.

Bandit shook her head and returned to sink into the couch.

“I think I know a place, Five. You know it too.” Flan grinned.

The inkling he was smiling at furrowed their brows trying to decipher what their coworker meant. Suddenly her eyes lit up and she nodded with sudden enthusiasm.

“Alterna!” Neo Agent Three and Agent Five exclaimed in unison.

Notes:

The scavengers will return with another role later on in the story, but not soon.
Oh, am I excited for the next chapter. Back into the angst!

Chapter 9: Scarred

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

Visor's acquaintances help them out with their problem, but another Splatoon member is extremely displeased upon learning of it.

Notes:

Featuring Olive the Inkling, AKA Captain of the New Squidbeak Splatoon.

back into the angst...
Uh oh. :)

It had been one of Olive’s better days until her worst nightmare dropped down from the ceiling. An average time- she was absentmindedly popping the balloons floating around Future Utopia Island, listening to the Squid Sisters squabble over decorations they wanted to put up.

Another balloon’s shreds fell besides the Squidbeak Splatoon’s captain, but she barely noticed. Instead, she turned her head suddenly to Neo Three, who had landed with practiced ease after falling out of the hole to the surface, followed soon by Agent Five.

Olive quietly grunted in greeting. She meant “Hey, what’s up? I don’t remember calling you here today,” but seeing as they didn’t respond, she realized that she hadn’t actually said it, again.

However, the two seemed to have their attention still focused on the exit above them, for what reason Olive couldn’t guess, until she saw it for herself. Something else was falling- Olive couldn’t quite tell if it was a dark-blue inked cephalopod or perhaps merely a glob of ink. It landed unceremoniously on the snow next to the other Agents with a soft crunch.

Olive frowned. It did look like a glob of ink now that it was still, but it was still too thick and gooey to be ink. Then the stuff started to flow on its own… slipping upwards like no proper liquid should, and formed into a hybrid cephalopod with its tentacles tied up into a bun, and wore an old sweater, Takoroka visor, and wasabi tabi. It looked around in wonder with its mouth slightly agape at the giant cavern.

Olive lifted her charger. She did not invite this thing here, and was prepared to splat it if it moved against them in any way. Five turned her attention to Olive, and an alarmed expression spread across her face at the sight of her captain’s loaded weapon. Five hurried at Olive, waving their hands and shouting “No, wait!” in between breaths until she reached the captain and stood with her hands held up in front of her in defense.

“No! It’s okay. I just brought a friend. They won’t cause any trouble, I promise.”

Olive lowered her bamboozler at that just slightly, noting that Agents One and Two had come to stand beside her and watch the event.

“I thought I told you and Three that nobody other than Splatoon members were allowed down here,” she whispered, with Marie repeating it louder for Five and Neo Three to hear.

“We know…” Neo Three responded, joining Five. “We just didn’t have any other place to go. To take Visor, we mean. Just wait and they can explain it themselves.”

Finally giving in, the Captain emptied the charge of her weapon and set it against the crate she was sitting on, where it was still easily within reach if the need came to it.

Olive watched as the newcomer she now knew as Visor looked to be staring at the hole in the ceiling. Within moments, more of the slime began to fall from the hole, pouring down like a waterfall until the flow waned and left the edge of the island covered with the goo. Visor nodded to themselves then turned and started over to where the others were assembled.

Then Olive realized. Oh, cods. Olive’s hearts raced. It was that sludge. It wasn’t the same color, but Olive would recognize the awful stuff anywhere. Her left hand grabbed her old hero shot from its resting place on the ground behind her- she couldn’t use the bamboozler one-handed. Her right hand brushed over the scar on her face that was now throbbing, as it did whenever she was extra agitated.

Marie and Callie grabbed their weapons at Olive’s cue, but raised them with uncertainty. Olive stood up straight, gaze shifting to Five and Three. They looked and sounded like themselves, flinching under her analyzing glare, but were they really? Did this new form of the Primordial take over her Agent’s heads now too? 

Shit , Olive thought. She was calling it by the title it had engraved in her mind. No, she wouldn’t call it that again. She was her own person, and she would never succumb to the sludge. She refused to.

But that was a distraction. It was standing in between Five and Three, its expression unsure. It knew Olive. She knew it, too. And she knew that it would stop at nothing to achieve its goals, all of its old lives and the lives of so many others shaved aside like a child’s old toy in favor of its goals.

But there was something about it that was different, this time. The stuff’s body language- and the fact that it had any at all- showed uncertainty. It took a step back, slouched a smidge further under Olive’s glare. It just kept eye contact- well, with the one eye that Olive wasn’t unconsciously covering.

If Olive remembered right, it had buried itselves deep inside, just like the sea it had spawned from.

Visor knew Olive. Visor knew the pain she had been in while she was under their control. Visor felt the same pain. And Visor knew of the Squidbeak Splatoon Captain’s fears and regrets, as well.

Olive knew that they knew. Visor was one wrong breath away from being sealed inside one of Alterna’s kettles forever.

The staredown must’ve lasted minutes, because by the time Olive had realized that any time had passed, her Agents were talking in hushed voices amongst each other. One of them, Olive didn’t spare enough attention to tell who, finally asked if they knew each other.

Oh, did they know each other? Olive chuckled, and smiled in morbid reflection. She loathed every second she spent knowing of this monster. But there wasn’t much she could do. She didn’t even have the talent to lock these feelings up inside and enjoy ignorance.

 On the other side of the standoff, the sludge acknowledged this. Unlike anyone else, Visor understood why the other was laughing. And Visor was truly sorry. Just like their lifeblood and memories, conflict swirled inside them.

Back when they had sanitized Olive, they weren’t really there. Not in the sense that they were now. They embraced and pursued Tartar’s ideals. They knew what they were doing, and they did it on purpose. Olive could feel that. Olive, then, did too. They were one, and yet shattered. Recycled. The end justifies the means.

Visor, now, realized that taking free will is wrong. Inflicting pain and harm was wrong. Everything done to them, to make them the abomination they were, is wrong. They were both the victim and the perpetrator. And sometimes they couldn’t tell which they were and what their purpose was. Remaining with Tartar’s ideals was right , but Team Rainbow had taught them better. Above all, harm should be repaired and prevented. There was no need to reprogram the world. They could help without causing any more harm.

For the second time since waking up to the new world, Visor cried.

Something wet rolled down the Captain’s cheeks. Olive had started to cry among her hysterical laughter as well- and she hated it. Once again, she was the image of what she had come to hate.

Olive lifted her hand off her face, revealing her scar in all its ugly glory. Turquoise veins surrounding a blind, gray and green eye that wouldn’t quite line up properly with its healthy counterpart. Slightly melted, just to the edge of her ear.

“See what you did?” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Do you see what you did to me? DO YOU SEE? HUH? YOU DID THIS TO ME.”

Olive was screaming now. She didn’t know if it could comprehend her words, but she didn’t care at this point. “This is your fault. IT’S YOUR FAULT THAT I’M LIKE THIS!”

The Inkling quieted at the sight she saw before her. The monster before her was crying, crying for her. It knew, and it regretted its actions.

Olive was stunned as the thing spread its arms out slightly, showing empty palms. It was trying to show that it was unarmed, as false as that was. It lowered itself to the ground, bringing its forehead down into the snow. It was bowing, ashamed of what it had done.

“w3’m 5o44Y.” it said, its voices all over the place. It wasn’t speaking fully Inkish, nor Octarian, but Olive knew enough of it to tell that it was apologizing. It took another shaky breath it didn’t need, and caught the proper Inkish words it was looking for.

“I’m sorry. We regret everything we did. I caused you so much pain. I’m sorry. We’ll never do it again, to anyone. I’m sorry.”

It slowly took to standing again, and offered Olive its hand. It wanted to mend relations.

“Couldn’t leave in above. Need to stay here so not take risk of hurting people again. Can we stay?”

The Captain acknowledged that. It didn’t know she was here. It didn’t come here to hurt her. It came here to help others not suffer the same fate. She said, once again in a nearly inaudible whisper; “You can stay. Do not move from this place, or I will see to it myself that you are completely destroyed. Until I can trust you, you stay within my line of sight.” 

It still had its hand outstretched. Olive didn't take it. She returned to her seat on the small crate, and her right hand drifted up to cover her face again while her left kept a grip on her hero shot. Olive couldn’t shake it’s hand, no matter how much it apologized.

She could hear the other Agents muttering amongst themselves, even 1 and 2.  Olive didn’t feel quite inclined to but listened anyway, all while keeping a close eye on the monster that was now sitting dejectedly in the snow off to the side.

“-did it? Did you know about this?” Five seemed to be asking the squid sisters.

“Well, somewhat. It was mostly gramps, her, Eight, and Off the Hook. When they returned… None of them would describe what happened. We only know enough to know there was some evil human relic, mind control, and a giant blender involved. Not much more than that.” Callie seemed to want to elaborate on what Marie had just said but couldn’t find the right words.

“I had no clue- but I think I met someone in the desert who knew something about Visor? I’m not sure…”

“-Is that why Crimson…? Is she going to attack Visor too?”

“I should’ve thought of something better-”
“It’s fine. I’m sure when they’re ready, Visor will tell us what happened between them and Olive and Crimson.”

Olive scowled. They didn’t know a single thing about their so-called friend. Just you all wait, Olive thought to herself. It’s going to betray you someday, and you’ll regret not listening to me.

Notes:

Olive. Yeah. That situation. But hey, at least I've gone through all the chapters that I wanted to show the relationships between the characters?
Just some more chill(probably) ones until we get to the part I want to write the most- the deep sea. might be a while between chapters now that I'm getting into the ones I'm not as motivated to write.
... But I do like comments. Motivation! Does nobody say anything on ao3?

Chapter 10: Forward

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

A friend is made, and Visor finds small things to be happy about.

Notes:

Here's a pretty chill update. Story's still going, and I have PLANS!

Two nights and three days. It was so hard to sit still in the snow, staring at the fake sky for two days. I wondered if there would come a time when I couldn’t be any more patient. I knew that Olive wouldn’t take well to me moving, and so I sat. I didn’t really need food or water(though I was still a bit confused on that- why didn’t I eat? I know I could for sure, and I definitely felt the urge to, it was just more like an itch than anything) and I hadn’t moved in days, but it still felt so wrong. Why? Just why?

Why did I keep making up crude apologies? Excuses? What were they even for? I knew what they were for, I just… couldn’t quite recall perfectly. And really, something told me it would hurt a lot to remember.

It’s been a while, right? Wasn’t I supposed to do something? Three days seemed like a long time to not do anything, I thought. Luckily, I think it was just a few hours after that recurring thought when the squid with the dark tentacles began to walk over to me, accompanied by the squid with lighter tentacles and a parasol.

“Hi.” I look up from scribbling random lines in the snow. 

The dark one bent down over me with a contemplative squint. “So you’re the one the Captain hates so much? You don’t look so scary.”

The squid with the parasol frowned. “Callie, that’s rude, though I am curious.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Was it a question, or a statement? After a moment of awkward silence, the darker one I now knew to be Callie commented again. “I’m Callie, if you hadn’t already gathered that. I know you’re a weird sludge thing, but… do you have a favorite food? Favorite music? If you’re stuck here, I’d like to get to know you so you’re not lonely, regardless of what you did in the past.”

I tilted my head and thought about the questions Callie had proposed to me. Favorite food and music? Arrow had shown me both, but I didn’t know what kind of thing was a favorite to me.  “No preference?” I tried. Callie put a hand on her chin and considered that. After a few seconds she crossed her arms and stomped on the ground enthusiastically.

“I guess we’ll just have to find it then! Marie and I have got the inside scoop on Splatfests, and there’s gonna be Spicy vs. Sweet vs. Sour in Splatsville in a month and a half! We’ll make sure you’re ready by then for sure!” the squid exclaimed, smiling and nodding to herself.

“We? Where’s the ‘We’ coming from, Callie?” Marie asked with an eyebrow raised as she twirled her parasol a little bit back and forth.

I liked this. There were people here who cared, at least enough to come talk with me. I did wonder what a splatfest was, though.

“Be right back,” Callie said, and zipped away back towards the camp, soon to return with her phone and a portable speaker. She tapped a few buttons on her phone and flicked the on button of the speaker.

An almost-familiar beat started to play. It sounded good to me, but I didn’t get to hear much of it except for the intro section when Marie recognized it and swiped the shellphone from Callie(who pouted), and switched the tunes.

The following track wasn’t as energetic as the previous one, but I liked it nonetheless. Traditional-sounding, I thought, though I didn't remember what kind of instruments made those noises. I smiled.

 

A couple of days later, Callie had left Alterna to the surface for a few hours and returned holding a long gray cardboard box on her shoulder. She waved at me from where she had sat down in the snow at the Squid Sisters camp with the box placed in front of her.

I stood, and walked slowly over to Callie, and cast a momentary glance at the Squidbeak Splatoon’s Captain before averting my gaze back to Callie. I took a seat on my knees in front of her, and waited patiently for whatever she wanted me for. Whatever it was, though, I was excited for the change of pace! I think she could tell from the way I crinkled my eyes slightly at the box in consideration. She smiled at me and gestured to the box, and pushed it closer to me.

“Go on, open! It’s for you!”

I opened my beak slightly to respond, but ended up just biting my lip and pulling the box onto my knees to scratch at the tape sealing the sides together. I managed to peel it off, then I moved to the long strip running down the length of the box. After a minute of struggle against the tape which recurrently peeled off to the side and into small sections that caused me to make very little progress, Callie took the box out of my arms and pried the flaps open with her brute strength. “Here.” She handed it back to me. “Open it!”

I flipped the flaps open, and peeked inside. There was something long inside, covered in sheets of plastic with air bubbles within them. I took it out and unwrapped it, spying a yellow-green to indigo gradient and a black handle. I held the handle with one hand and pulled the rest of the wrap off with the other, revealing a splat roller.

I looked up. Callie was smiling, leaning towards me slightly with her eyes slightly scrunched up in a smile.

“What do you think! I ordered it custom for you!”

I turned it around in my hands. I now noticed the bubble pattern of both inkling and octoling tentacles in shiny transparent overlay at the edges of the gradient as well as a Squid Sisters logo on the ink tank.

I was absolutely thrilled. Callie got something! For me! An ink weapon that I could use in battles!

“Vweumy!” I exclaimed.

“Booyah!” Callie mirrored as she pumped her fist into the air in success. ‘I’ll take you out to battle sometime so you can use it!”

“Yes, I would like that!”

I thought I heard something just then. I couldn’t tell where it came from, but something made a small noise. I turned to Callie, who seemed to be pouting a little bit now.

“What is it?” I asked the inkling.

“Ahem,” Marie coughed to gain attention. I turned toward her. “Ah, Captain says you’re not allowed to go out for the day until next week at least, and she is going to come with you when you do. That is all.”

“Oh.” That was a disappointment. I was excited to go out with Callie to play sports with inklings and octolings again. I guess it will have to wait. I frowned and found myself staring at the snow again as if it was suddenly very interesting.

It was a few minutes before anything else happened. Callie looked contemplative. I found myself playing with the peculiar plastic wrap with air in it. I smiled softly when I squeezed the edge and the bubbles popped. I could make them pop and the air came out and it made a little noise! I couldn’t figure out how to blow them back up again, but the activity was satisfying.

At one point, Callie leaned over and I offered some of the stuff over to her. She twisted the sheet into a swirl, then paused, then twisted with more force. Many air pockets popped at once when she performed the action.

“This stuff is neat,” I noted out loud.

“It’s called bubble wrap, silly. It’s used to pad items in packaging,” Callie explained.

I heard another mutter. I guess the noise earlier was from Olive, then.

“Oh, now there’s something else. The Captain says you’ll be allowed to travel around Alterna under her supervision. Seems that she’s feeling very forgiving today,” Marie said.

Callie jumped up suddenly, kicking some snow into my face, which I brushed off. When I looked up, she had a triumphant expression on.

“I know! We’ll make a turf map here, in Alterna! The octarians need some fun here anyways! And I know someone who can help!”

Maybe not everything would be ruined. I had so many things to look forward to now and people who appreciated me. This was exciting! I decided that I was going to enjoy this, for however long it went on for.

Notes:

now I wrote a SECOND side story that I won't be able to post until this one gets much farther (est 10+ chapters away) oops
as soon as I write these chapters they write themselves into a longer and longer plan and I can't keep up... this chapter was going to have other occurrences to move the plot that seems now like they won't show for another 6 or 7 chapters...

Chapter 11: Greet

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

Notes:

a new one so soon yay
also sorry about the sudden change in POV, this is for the plot...

The battle map hadn’t been finished in a week. In fact, we had only been able to contact a few fuzzy Octarians who could help, who seemed to consider the idea and said that they would speak to their friends about it. It didn’t help that whoever Callie had contacted to ask for help hadn’t shown. At least we had figured out a location(they were going to make it next to the first mission area, just beside it) but none of us knew anyone who could make Octarian floating platforms we could use for the stage. I thought I saw Cuttlefish(he was strange, all dried up) consider someone he might know, but he fell asleep shortly after and probably forgot because he didn’t say anything about it again.

But I was finally allowed outside again! I could feel the sun again! Through the pipe that ORCA had constructed to get back to Splatsville. I followed Callie, and behind me trailed Marie and Olive. Each of them had changed into casual disguises for the outing. Olive had on a Gas Mask and Olive Ski Jacket, Marie wore a White Layered LS and Skull Bandana, and Callie wore a Knitted Hat and Berry BlobMob Tee. 

I basked in the warmth of the sun as we walked to the lobby. Marie and Callie conversed about returning to their Inkopolis studio some time in next year, considering that they’ve been on missions for the past few years and only visited the studio intermittently. We passed Deep Cut in their studio who(mostly the one called Big Man) waved at the splatoon on their way to the lobby.

Callie leaned through the stand and ordered a couple of Crab Trap sandwiches for the team, which we ate in the locker room. I didn’t have a locker- apparently you had to apply for one for a day to show off items you’ve collected to other people. Olive, meanwhile, queued the team for a match of turf war, and were soon alerted to a match.

 

I sprang out of the launcher, ready for the battle. The roller gifted to me by Callie was held over my shoulder with one hand, and the other hung in front of me. I smiled and looked down at the stage for the battle. The turf map was Museum d’Alfonso, and the sun shone perfectly in the center of the stage. I wished I could just sit on the rotating platform and stare at the sky, but there was a game to be played. We were orange-inked, and the enemy team was purple. They had a Flingza roller, a Tri-Slosher, a Splash-o-matic, and an E-liter 4k on their team.

I switched forms, and waited. The launcher signaled the countdown with beeps. I aimed for the little side path to the center. When the light blinked and countdown beeped GO! , I launched myself out, and switched forms back to my bipedal one midair. I swung my roller vertically and inked a path through, where I jumped into the center of the stage. Nobody else was there yet but the Tri-Slosher who was inking turf on the other side. They didn’t notice me yet. I hefted my weapon, jumped, and flung.

I didn’t directly hit them. The Tri-Slosher player noticed the falling ink around them and turned back toward me, throwing their own pool of ink towards me. I was too far to be hit by it, but I hadn’t inked the surrounding turf well and could barely swim backwards to dodge the volley of purple sent my way. Suddenly, an unexpected bolt of orange ink hit the tri-slosher. I turned. Olive was perched on a spinning edge inside their territory. Callie was rolling around beneath Olive, painting. Marie, who had chosen to use a Ballpoint Splatling to balance the team a little more for the battles, swam off the edge and landed next to me. She shifted back and began to charge her weapon.

I started to ink the floor again, as well as the walls up to the spinning platform. Callie leapt down and managed to sneak behind and splat the approaching Splash-o-matic player before being picked off by their team’s E-liter. I continued to paint a spot in the corner that I’d missed before, when I was cornered by their Flingza, and nearly splatted by their charger like Callie was when a shot sailed past me. I charged my special at that moment, but wasn’t able to activate it when I tried to jump out of the way and got myself splatted.

I watched Marie throw a Fizzy Bomb at the E-liter as I regenerated back at the launcher. One minute and forty seconds left. I quickly rejoined the fray, and managed to splat the enemy Flingza roller wielder this time.

“Keep it up!” Callie yelled in passing. My resolve hardened to stay and fight. I pivoted on one foot and tossed a curling bomb. I swam through the trail it created to the splash-o-matic, narrowly dodging a hit from the Tri-Slosher on the way to a successful splat.

I was strong, I could win this! Behind me, Marie hit the tri-slosher with a couple shots of her Ballpoint, and Olive finished it off with a shot from her Bamboozler.

I covered some ink and my Big Bubbler readied. I surged up the center, and leapt from it into the enemy’s territory. I quickly activated the Big Bubbler, which shielded me from a shot from their E-Liter and Splash, who had already revived. I swung my roller upwards and hit the charger user. I swung again and splatted them.

Forty seconds left. The song titled Now or Never! played loudly across the stage, encouraging me to move forward. My teammates landed where I had before, and were inking up the area. Thirty seconds left.

I was too hasty. Splash-o-matic kept painting over whatever I tried to ink in their base. It activated its Crab Tank and the barrage of ink splatted me. It seemed that Marie was in a similar position, because she respawned as I was sprang forward to rejoin the fight. I barely made it to the middle when the timer rang. Olive seemed to have defended well against the purple team trying to reclaim territory while Callie retreated to the middle to splat anybody who dared to attempt to sneak through to the middle of the stage. They hadn’t regained the territory further into the enemy base that I had sparsely inked before, but they solidly kept us in the lead.

Our team and the other team took the train back to Splatsville, where Judd stated the winning team. We won the match, with a score of 55.3% to 38.6%. The opposing team disbanded while we agreed to keep going.

The queue for the next match took several minutes, so I decided to explore the balcony above the locker rooms. Olive followed, expression unreadable through her mask. The inkling stopped at the top of the stairs while I walked around.

I sniffed at the dust and old trash strewn around the quote on the wall. The coffee stuff that seemed to be served by a jellyfish looked interesting. I would have to try it sometime. I pressed my face against a glass wall to see where two jellyfish wearing studio headphones in a room with a geometric ceiling pattern were seemingly dancing to music. I wondered if it was the lobby music playing, or something else.

I played a little bit with the joystick of the strange machine. It didn’t activate anything, so I wondered what it was for. The screen on the table read “tableturf battle”.

“HEYYYYYYY!!! WE’VE MATCHED WITH ANOTHER TEAM!” Callie shouted from down below, waving her arms in an additional effort to get Olive and I’s attention.

We headed back down the stairs, and into another battle.

This time, we were a green-inked team matched up against a pink team with someone using the Dapple Dualies, someone with the Mini Splatling, a plain Splattershot, and a Splatana Stamper.

When the match began, I figured it would be more efficient for me to stay behind and ink the area around our spawn before heading into the center to fight. I rolled, and rolled, up and down the stage until it was sufficiently painted, then swam next to Olive(who was perched in the rotating center of the stage, Bamboozler hefted) to observe the battlefield. Olive flinched slightly when she noticed me, but returned to sniping one of the three enemies fighting Callie. The ghost of the Splattershot user flew back to their spawn.

Olive picked off the Mini Splatling player, but not before the Dapple Dualies tossed out their Tacticooler and the Mini grabbed one of the beverages, respawning momentarily. The Dapples player dodge-rolled out of Callie’s roller attack with their own beverage. Marie’s shots showered over Olive and I as we saw that her opponent, the Spaltana Stamper, had activated their Zipcaster and reached for us. Olive dropped an Autobomb and slid to her side to hit the Zipcaster squarely in the leg. The bomb exploded and the Stamper user was sent back to their respawn point.

I nearly missed a whiz of pink touch down at the side of the map where the Tacticooler had fallen apart. The dualies player had placed a Beakon there and none of us had noticed. Wait, where did the dualies player even go? I tossed a curling bomb into the opposing territory, then checked around the small barrier in the middle next to the enemy base. The Dualies player was lurking, waiting for me, and splatted me as I turned the corner. I cried out as I was sent back to spawn. A minute left.

The Mini Splatling splatted Callie and Marie, and Olive had retreated to our side. The Beakon had been destroyed, though, and Olive sniped the annoying Dapple Dualies player before they could set another out. Marie took care of the Mini user and Splattershot user as they launched a volley of Trizooka shots at us. Callie and I defeated the Stamper together.

Thirty seconds. Olive used her Killer Wail 5.1 on the Splattershot who had jumped to another Beakon hidden just into the opposing turf, splatting them and breaking the Beakon in the process. Marie activated the Inkjet she’d been saving for then, and Callie and I used Big Bubbler on the edges of the center platform, making it impossible for the enemies to reach Olive who had started to simply cover the remaining pink ink on the ground of the center.

Upon returning to the lobby, Judd informed us that we’d won again, this time 49.1% to 42.4%, a much closer score.

The next match we were sent into was on Scorch Gorge, against the Dapple Dualies user and Splattershot user from the previous match, but with the change of a Glooga Dualies and N-ZAP ‘85 as the other two opponents.

I tried to paint the spawn this time with my curling bombs every time I was splatted. About a minute through the game, when our teams finished inking around the middle and were clashing, Marie and I were splatted again. We launched out of the respawn point, and I tossed a bomb around at the beginning, but it really didn’t ink much.

“I’ll get it,” Marie said, and started to ink the spawn. I returned to the center, where the Glooga Dualies was charging a booyah bomb. I approached the center pillar and tossed a Curling Bomb on the bridge to their territory, which exploded right on the ledge of their turf. The Glooga Dualies tossed the Booyah Bomb where I was aiming my curling bomb, but on our side. Olive had to dodge off the structure in our turf to avoid being splatted.

“TOOTHBRUSH RAGE!!!” I heard someone shout behind me as I faced off against the Glooga Dualies. The Dapple Dualies player seemed to have suddenly appeared at the top of the tower, and splatted me nearly point-blank with their Dualies. They quickly tossed a Tacticooler and dodged off the tower, and went for Callie, who had won her battle against the N-ZAP. They forced Callie to Super Jump to their spawn, so as not to be splatted. They headed for Olive next. She was nearly splatted before she defeated the dapple player with four beams of her Killer Wail 5.1. She aimed the other two to help finish off the Splattershot who was trying to get behind Marie.

There were 50 seconds left at that point. Our opposition was able to maintain their territory with the quick respawn and super jump effects from the two Tacticcoolers that were repeatedly set out by the N-ZAP and Dapple fighters. At the last 10 seconds, the Glooga player managed to throw a Booyah Bomb into our base.

On the way back to the lobby, Olive deemed that match our last. When we reached the lobby, Judd said that we had won again, but only barely. The match ended at 46.9% to 44.8%.

I got the feeling that someone had approached us. It was the Dapple Dualies player, an inkling with short tentacles and an Annaki mask that reminded me of Arrow, though this person was much shorter.

“Hey!” they said to me. “That was really fun! Your team was great, especially Olive(right? I think that was the name on the splashtag) with that bamboozler!” The inkling turned to Olive, who had ordered a smoothie from Crab N’ Go and was sipping it under her Gas Mask. “I don’t think you got splatted once in the whole two battles! Amazing!”

Olive signed something. The inkling with the dualies looked confused, so Callie translated. “Olive just said ‘thanks’.”

“Ah,” the inkling acknowledged. They turned to me again. “My name’s Duskwave after my tee, by the way! I like your roller, it looks different than normal ones! Can I have your number so that we can battle together again sometime?”

What question do I answer first…? I was confused, but happy that someone wanted to battle with me again. I wanted to figure out what a number would do to play with Duskwave again. “Uhhm, What’s my… number?”

Marie tapped my shoulder. “It’s the one on your splashtag. But you don’t have a phone to get messages anyways.”

I pouted. Callie pulled her own phone out, which displayed her splashtag: a banner with a colorful band-aid pattern, reading “Magenta!!!” as her title. Duskwave saw this, and tapped their phone several times, then put it away.

“Visor doesn’t have a phone, so you can notify me if there’s a particular time you want and I’ll forward it to them.”

“Yeah, let’s go get food sometime, too!” Duskwave slowly walked backwards toward the exit, a grin evident beneath their mask. I smiled back, and watched them nearly trip backwards on the little ridge between the lobby and hallway outside, and right themself to walk forward out the door.

“I wanna see the others,” I said to Olive, Callie, and Marie as we exited the building. Olive stopped and considered that. She signed something, but I didn’t know what it said.

“Olive says that she’ll take you to their apartment. Callie and I will head back to camp.”

I nodded. Our two groups  parted ways and I followed Olive through the streets to Bandit’s apartment.

When we arrived, Bandit, Arrow, and Beacon were present in the apartment. Olive nodded to them, and signed asking to make herself some coffee.  Bandit nodded, and Olive started some water to boil. I stood at the edge of the room.

“Hi,” I said to them. Beacon stood from his place on the couch and proceeded to walk past me as far away from myself as he could. He slammed the apartment door as he left.

I frowned. Why did he leave? Did I do something bad again? 

Bandit shrugged. I sat cross-legged on the dirty carpet and played with Bandit’s smallfry salmon, Berry. Bandit handed me a box of raisins, which I would toss across the room for Berry to catch and eat.

For a few hours we discussed various topics, and I watched Bandit show me how to play a video game where one would try to drive cars faster than other cars. Nobody mentioned Alterna, so I didn’t say anything either.

Before I left, Arrow offered to make me some of the weird coffee stuff. I said yes, as I was curious about the strange smelly liquid.

I was handed a mug filled with it, and nearly spit the stuff out when I tried to drink it like I did water and smoothies. Hot, hot, hot! I managed to force myself to swallow the stuff, and panted. Bandit giggled.

“What?” I asked. I didn’t understand what Bandit was laughing at.

“You’re funny. You know you’re supposed to sip it slowly, not try to gulp it down.”

“Okay… that’s funny?”

Bandit looked confused. She kept glancing at Arrow, who rolled her eyes, and Olive, who said nothing. “Uhhh…” 

I blew on the surface of the hot liquid. It cooled off enough to eat after a few minutes, when I tried again. 

Eh, it tasted alright. It was warm, and kinda bitter. It reminded me of the earth. I finished the cup. Olive grabbed my mug and washed all of ours in the sink, then suggested we go back. I reluctantly agreed.

“Hm!” I said as I left.

“Bye! I’ll come see you some time!” Bandit hollered as Olive closed the door behind us.

I slipped into the sewer grate back to Alterna. Olive followed soon after.

Notes:

how'd I do on the fight scenes?
or the longer chapter?
does anyone even read this far in this story
if you do, thanks!

Chapter 12: Training

Summary:

To one, we were a tool of destruction and new beginnings. To another, we were a horror like nothing ever seen. To many, we are the only purpose. To us… we’re… Who really are we, after all?

The Salmonid invasion looms on the horizon. Visor learns how to help stop it.

Notes:

yeah. It's been a while, but I'm still here! I was busy with Artfight, or else I'd have finished this chapter last month.

Anyways. This chapter is rather boring. It's just the Grizzco training. A few OCs are introduced, but they're pretty irrelevant.

A few days after I spent that day on the surface again, I heard the others in Alterna muttering worriedly about something. It was starting to rub off on me, I was getting worried about whatever it was too. I strolled over and looked quizzically at them. 

“What is going on?” I asked.

“It’s the Salmonids…” Callie started. “We’ve been alerted that they’re planning to invade Wahoo World this weekend…”

“Wahoo World is a turf war place?” I asked for clarification. I thought I’d seen it on the map schedule at one point, but I wasn’t sure. If it was, and the Salmonids being there would prevent games at the location, I would be sad.

“It’s an amusement park, not just battles, but yeah… The worrying part is that they’re leaving their swim zones to invade our own turf without warning. We don’t know what the motive is,” Callie continued.

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know if I was supposed to do anything, so I dropped the subject.

 

A couple days later, Marie and Olive came up to me, and Marie said that Olive said that she decided that I was going to help during Big Run. Olive was going to take me to Grizzco so that I could do the employee training to be eligible to assist in repelling the invasion force of Salmonids during Big Run.

I reached for my roller, but Olive shook her head. It wasn’t necessary.  We slipped into the kettle and were transported to the sewer grate near the main road of Splatsville. Near the lobby entrance, next to the Shoal that Arrow had pointed out to me before was the Grizzco lobby. I had been there before, back when Bite had asked me to move from the Sockeye Station and we had taken the flying machine back here to Splatsville. Now we entered the other way, and descended a flight of stairs to see the statue of a fish eating a bear. A voice came out of the statue.

“Hey, kid. You look like you’ve got potential. I think you could help shape the future of the Spaltlands!”

Olive sighed. It’s said this before. I couldn’t understand her signs yet and haven’t the experience to make out what she said, so she didn’t bother trying to elaborate. She just took a left and entered the training room.

“I’m Mr. Grizz. Yes, Grizzco is my company. That’s my name on the door… and everything else. But I’m here to show you how Grizzco is different. See, from the top level- that’s me- to fresh, young talent like you, we’re committed to making the world a better place. So allow me to welcome you to the crew. It’s good, honest work with an honest paycheck. I just know you’ll fit right in.”

It stopped talking for a second, and I waited. It was so vague, I had no idea what the job actually entailed.

“Now that you’re on board, let’s make sure your training is up to date. Can we get started now?” the statue paused, waited for a second, then continued even when I didn’t say anything. “That’s what I like to see. You’re a go-getter, just like a young me. Everything is in order. And the helicopter is ready. Are you ready to hop in? Time is money, and money is helicopters, so let’s go!”

The doors to the elevator opened in the training room, revealing an empty metal chamber. I walked to the edge of the elevator, and waited for Olive, but she was gone. I waited to see if she would appear sometime, but I leapt into the elevator when the weird statue announced to me loudly “Hurry it up, Intern!”

It took a couple seconds for the clanky machinery to reach the roof of the building, where a group of employees were getting off a helicopter that still had its blades spinning. It was the only one there, so I figured I was supposed to get in. I thought. I didn’t know for sure if I was or not.

I was once again astounded by the flight. I felt the vehicle shake as it lifted off from the landing pad, and I nearly fell over. I stumbled to the window as the cabin tilted, forcing me to lean against the door. I watched as Splatsville and all of its huge buildings and towers drifted away, being replaced with desert and then green waters with scattered rubbish.

Bite, when we were heading back from the salmonid place last time, had pointed out the emergency respawn point in the corner of the helicopter, so I set my respawn there and suited up in an orange work outfit. I returned to the window.

Huge towers soon engulfed the seascape, with shapes shifting in their windows and in the sea. It was the Salmonids, I knew somehow. Just past a tower we reached Sockeye Station, where I super jumped out of the then open door of the helicopter to the marked point next to the closed cube of the egg basket that Bite had told me sat in there.

“Lesson One, On-the-Job Basics,” resounded in my ears from the headset in the work outfit. “Alright, rookie. Viscous, unfeeling Salmonids will approach from the water.”

Something about that line didn’t feel quite right inside me, but I brushed it off.

“Your job is to splat ‘em with ink to make them drop their Power Eggs. As a Grizzco Industries employee, you are contractually obliged to collect as many Power Eggs as possible.”

Still didn’t feel right, especially since I never signed any papers, which I thought the word contract meant. Regardless, once again, I continued listening. A countdown started with small clicks in the headset.

“Let’s begin. Find those salmonids!”

I walked forward and inked a little bit with the splattershot I was given. I looked around and sighted the stone station littered with scraps of metal seemingly installed with little purpose. There was a tower in the middle, where I inked a path on the wall up to, and swam up to the top of it. All seemed pretty still. There were some weird zig-zag type looking areas on either side of the stage, with a large scrap metal barrier behind the cube near the spawn. Across the other side was a beach area. Huge buoys with giant food shapes stabbed on them floated around the surrounding waters.

For a while, I didn’t notice it and spent my time looking around the area for any signs of some Salmonids, but one had come to me, and was wiggling its way up the spiral ramp up the tower. It was a small Chum. I waited for it to come to me.

The fish cocked its head at me, seemingly curious about me. Huh. the voice had told me they were vicious creatures. Maybe they had it wrong. But the thing soon raised its frying pan and nearly smacked me with it, but I stepped backwards a little outside of its reach. I raised my Splattershot, and inked it until it splatted. A few small orange eggs floated towards me.

I grabbed them out of the air and stuffed them in the provided pack on my lifesaver.

“You just got some Power Eggs for splatting that Salmonid. I’m counting on you to collect as many of those as you can,” Mr. Grizz said. It suddenly yelled in my ears, and I flinched. “BACK TO WORK. Go harvest some more Power Eggs!”

This time, I heard a squelching sound from the far edge of the beach near the left zig-zag spot, and peeked over the edge of the tower to see three Smallfry, a Chum, and a larger Salmonid that I think was called a Cohock. I swam off the edge of the tower and splatted the Chum. The big Salmonid took a while for me to splat, but it was slow and went down easy enough.

I hesitated before splatting the Smallfry. The little things looked too much like Captain Neo and Berry. They whacked surprisingly hard on my boots with their little spoons. One of them jumped into my face and whacked me dangerously close to my eye. I clawed it off my face and splatted them. 

I picked up the power eggs, and waited for the voice to tell me what to do next.

“Hm… Not too bad, kid. You have middle management written all over you.”

What’s middle management?

“The most important part of your job is to harvest Golden Eggs. Only Boss Salmonids have those.” A loud, annoying-sounding horn sounded out across the station. “Right on cue! A Boss Salmonid just appeared. Go hunt it down.”

I searched across the station, and found a larger-sized Salmonid with striking gold scales resting on the other edge of the station. It stared at me. I stared back. It didn’t have a weapon, and didn’t move to attack me.

I felt something wrong about splatting the thing if it didn’t attack me… I tried another approach.

“Uhm… Do you have a golden egg? I think I need one… for my job,” I muttered. I didn’t know if the thing understood me or not, but I thought it was worth a shot. It screeched at me in response. I didn’t think I understood what it was saying. I raised my Splattershot.

“Sorry,” I said, then splatted it. Three large golden eggs appeared where it had been before. Vague shapes moved within. Each one was too big to carry in the pouch for the power eggs, so I picked one up. It was slightly squishy to the touch, but not quite breakable. A few drips of seawater dripped off of it and onto my gloves. I slipped it into the net of my lifesaver.

“Mmm… Yes. The Boss Salmonid dropped its perfect Golden Eggs. Put one in your net- and don’t crush it! Grizzco is a results-based organization. If you don’t hit the Golden Egg quota each round, you’re finished. Okay, grab one of those Golden Eggs.”

I already did get one, though? I was confused. Mr. Grizz was telling me something I had already figured out. Was it just reading lines off a paper or something?

“Already got one, eh? You work quick and clean- a gifted go-getter!” That line quelled my confusion slightly. At least the voice knew something, I thought.

“All Golden Eggs should be taken straight to the egg basket.”

I turned and sprinted back to the egg basket and slipped the Golden Egg through the net.

“That’s one egg down. Your quota is three, so you need to get two more. Just head back and grab the other two- HUH?” I turned around suddenly to see what Mr. Grizz had shouted about. A Salmonid, flying on some sort of propeller device, emerged from the water and grabbed an egg off of the shore with a long net.

“That filthy Salmonid is stealing Golden Eggs! Looks like they came flying out of the ocean,” the voice states. I bit my lip. I thought that it wasn’t stealing the eggs, since they were salmonid eggs and I just took it from a salmonid, so I was the one stealing. But I guess I didn’t know how that worked. The Salmonid grabbed the other egg, and balanced the eggs carefully as it flew back into the water.

“THAT SLIMY THIEF JUST STOLE MY EGGS!” Mr. Grizz shouted angrily. “Next time that happens, splat it before it gets back to the water! GRRR… Go find me some more Golden Eggs.”

I walked around the station, searching for another Boss Salmonid to obtain Golden Eggs from. I heard someone exclaim “This way!” from back at the left corner of the beach. I didn’t think there was anyone else out here, though…? I thought to myself.

“Huh? It sounds like one of your coworkers is calling you. Go see what they want.” There Mr.Grizz went again, talking about something I had already noticed. I swam to the location of my coworker, an Inkling in another orange work outfit. There was a Golden Egg in front of them.

“Mmm, another sweet little egg. Communicating with your coworkers is an essential part of egg collection.”

“Booyah!” they said at the same time as the voice was talking. As soon as both finished, I heard someone signal for help on my radio. The Inkling next to me Super-Jumped away suddenly, leaving me and the other person alone on the beach. 

“Looks like another one of your coworkers is down. Spray ‘em with ink to revive ‘em.” I swam to the other coworker and fired a few shots at their lifesaver, which allowed them to respawn at the spot. They nodded, and Super-Jumped back to the helicopter. Well, their helicopter- I had just noticed that there was a second one. Maybe these other people were on some other sort of training here.

“Always help your coworkers when they’re in need. If your entire crew gets taken out, you’re finished. You can press the button on the back of your headset to signal them to you, or if you need help.” I felt around the back of the headphones, finding a button on the back of the left one. I didn’t push it, but figured that was the one that Mr. Grizz was talking about.

“Now take the Golden Egg back to the basket.”

I swam back to the basket, and deposited it in.

“You’ve collected two Golden Eggs,” the voice stated. “Just one more to fulfill your quota. You’re always on the clock, so you have to hit your quota before time runs out. That’s 100 seconds, by the way, starting now. Let’s find one more Golden Egg, then I’ll let you clock out.”

The horn sounded again, which I now assumed meant that a Boss Salmonid was approaching the Station. I saw a gold salmonid and two Chums approach from the left beach, and headed to meet them. I splatted the two Chums, then the golden one, who halfheartedly attempted to hit me with its fin before resigning itself to brace for its inevitable splat.

I grabbed another Golden Egg from where the salmonid previously stood. 

“If you’re a long walk away from the egg basket, carrying Golden Eggs all that way can eat up time… Instead, a bit of ink into your net can launch it. Convenient, right? It takes quite a bit though, so be careful when and where you use it. Now, get a Golden Egg in the basket already! Don’t forget that you can throw it.”

A small pulse of ink, almost akin to forming a bomb, launched the egg in an arc in front of me. It didn’t nearly reach the basket. I swam forward and put it in manually. Some Salmonids swarmed behind me.

“Three Golden Eggs. You’ve met your quota. Good work. Now just stay alive until the end of your shift… Or, if you want a bonus, you can collect even more Golden Eggs and surpass your quota.”

I stood and waited. I didn’t think I wanted a bonus, if it meant splatting more Salmonids. It didn’t look like very many salmonids were approaching, and my guess was that there was probably around forty seconds left in the timer. 

Soon enough, the Salmonids found me, and chirped to each other while they approached me. I turned, and began to back away towards the tower.

“I’m sorry about splatting the other salmonids…” I spoke slowly. I truly was. Something about the job didn’t quite feel right. I knew, somehow, that the salmonids regenerated just like most other seafolk, but I thought  it was still wrong to steal the eggs.

“Oh, and I’ve also arranged for two uses of your special ability while you work. Try not to waste ‘em.”

I wondered what Grizz even did with them. Some of them, especially the Golden eggs, were clearly fertilized and would grow into young Salmonids provided the right conditions for them to hatch. It was slightly concerning, honestly. But still I did what I was told.

“Swglah anfwo n’sah,” I heard one of the Salmonids say to another.

“Ngo nweh,” another, sounding more like a smallfry, commented. They approached me around the spiral tower at a leisurely pace as if they didn’t actually care to really splat me,

Ah, they’re… discussing something. I still couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was difficult to focus on their words with the beeping in my ears of what seemed to be the countdown timer to the end of the work.

A smaller victory noise played, and the salmon turned around and headed back to the seawater. A few of them turned to look at me for a second before diving in. I couldn’t discern the look in their eyes then, but it made me curious too. I wanted to understand these creatures more.

“OK, let’s call that enough training for now. Time to get you back to the chopper.”

I turned to find the helicopter hovering high behind the egg basket, which had closed behind me. I carefully launched myself into the open door on its side.

 

I didn’t take off my work outfit on the way back, unsure with what I was supposed to do now. 

The helicopter touched down on the roof of the building in Splatsville. I took the elevator down to the basement. Olive still wasn’t there. Maybe she was waiting for me outside, or already went back to Alterna? Did she leave me behind?

I started to worry. I went to stand in the lobby area, and jumped when Mr. Grizz started to talk again.

“Welcome Back! I’ve got a fuzzy feeling you’re going to be a great addition to team Grizzco. But first… There’s another round of training I’d like you to do. It’s just a silly requirement after… I won’t bore you with the details. We just don’t want you to get hurt. So we’re gonna teach you how to deal with the many types of Boss Salmonids, including the ones that have been emerging since we established this location in the Splatlands. But honestly, if you just read the manual, you’ll see- Oh! Sounds like the next helicopter’s about to head out. Well… sink or swim, I always say! Let’s get you down to the site and finish your training. Ready to go?”

I stopped, noticing the sticky note stuck to the orange plastic bin the statue was sitting on. It wasn’t there before, was it? Scrawled on it were the words I thought meant “do the other training. I’m still out on a shift.”

“Fantastic!” the statue said suddenly. “Into the helicopter and off you go!”

I hoped that it was Olive who wrote that. I turned back around and headed back out to the next training. 

Upon reaching the helicopter, I heard the voices of a few others inside, who didn’t seem to be getting out. The helicopter was too tall for me to see who they were.

“Excuse me?” I began to ask from the roof. “Is this the helicopter taking off for training?”
“Yeah,” someone responded. “Get in!”

I stepped up the ladder into the open door. Now I could see who was waiting inside. There was an Inkling in a pink-colored work outfit, a sea hare in a blue work outfit, and an Octoling in a black work outfit. They all had magenta ink and their helmets and gloves off.

“Hello!” the one in pink said loudly. “We’re technically not supposed to do this, but we’re gonna help with your training today!”

“Oh.”

The Helicopter door closed, and it raised up into the air. Once it got steady, the Octoling with the curly tentacle style that stuck out on top of his head stood and held out their hand towards me.

“My name’s Jay, he/him pronouns,” the Octoling said, then pointed to the person in the pink outfit. “She’s Maika,” then to the one in the blue outfit. “And he’s Slip. What’s your name?”

“My name is Visor,” I said.

Jay waited for something, his hand still held out. I stood, confused.

“Not a hand shaker? That’s alright,” Jay went to sit on one of the seats, and began to put on his gloves. I was still confused.

The Sea Hare spoke up. “Do you not know what a handshake is?”

“No, could you please tell me?” I asked for clarification. “Am I supposed to know?”

They nodded. “That’s okay that you don’t know. I didn’t either, for a while. It’s a thing you do when you meet someone for the first time. It’s like a greeting.” he stood and held out his left hand. “Try to copy my actions.”

I held out my own left hand. The Sea Hare slowly brought his hand closer to mine, and I did the same until our palms were touching. He clasped his fingers around the back of my hand. I did the same.

“Now gently shake, usually up and down,” they said. We both shook our hands. It felt weird to do for me. Slip let go of my hand. “Got it?”

“I think so.” I clenched and unclenched my hand. “Huh.” 

I noticed the rest of them had moved to sit on the seats and were putting on their gloves and helmets. I watched the other people with curiosity for the rest of the helicopter ride.

Maika, the one in pink, stuck her tongue out slightly as she watched something on her phone. Three of her tentacles were long and braided down her back. 

Jay, the one in black, looked thoughtful about something and repeatedly checked that his and everyone else’s gear was in order.

The Sea Hare, Slip, just watched out the window and occasionally glanced at me. His rhinophores twitched every so often. I wondered what it would be like to be able to sense stuff like he could. 

Eventually, the humming and rumbling of the helicopter made me tired. I sat in silence and must have fallen asleep or nearly so because it felt like it had only been an instant when Jay tapped me on my shoulder and said that we were about to arrive.

I jumped out from the helicopter again, still in the same orange work outfit. It was getting kind of sticky being inside it for so long. The other three molluscs sprang after me. 

“Grizz is gonna start talkin’ at you. First of all, you should start to paint the area before the Salmonids start coming,” shouted Maika, louder than was needed for me to hear. “Say the Boss you’d like to face into the mic after he finishes.

“Lesson Two: The Not Basics,” my headset buzzed. “There are lots of different kinds of Boss Salmonids - 11 kinds, to be exact… I can lure in a Boss Salmonid if you want. Just tell me which one you’d like to practice on.”

The voice listed out 11 different supposed Boss Salmonids- Steelhead, Flyfish, Scrapper, Steel Eel, Stinger, Maws, Drizzler, Fish Stick, Flipper Flopper, Big Shot, and Slammin’ Lid. I struggled to remember the names of each, so I just repeated the name of the final one into the microphone.

“Slammin’ Lid,” I said. “I think.”

I looked around. The others who were here as well seemed to be watching me casually.

“Yeah, that’s how you do it,” Jay said. “It’ll take a short while to come to us though.”

Within a couple of minutes, I heard the salmon horn again. I quickly caught sense of… some sort of smell. Maybe that was how the boss was lured out?

I inked around like Maika had said then swam up the spiral tower. The others touched up any places I had missed and the small walls around the egg basket’s platform. They swam up the tower themselves. Mr. Grizz’s voice bloomed through the headset once again as I caught sight of the approaching… pot lid.

“Boss Salmonid: Slammin’ Lid. Okay, these ones ride on a flying machine that makes force fields. Walk under it, and it’ll try to squash you!”

“Alright, now we’ll take it from here. Grizz doesn’t teach you everything you need to know. Now go stand near the bottom of the green force field. Walk around it. Get familiar with its size. Try to ink it, the floor under it, whatnot, but don’t touch it yet.” Jay explained.

I walked to the bottom of the Lid, just outside of the rippling sheet of air with green stripes. The Salmonid on top squawked at me. A Chum squeezed its way from inside a small hole in the bottom of the lid and fell nearly onto me. I splatted it, and another, before Mr. Grizz spoke again.

“But! If it tries to squash you, and you dodge, you can climb on top of it and take out the pilot!”

 I inked around the bottom of the force field and noticed how the magenta color would spread underneath it. I really wanted to see what would happen if I touched the forbidden space beneath the lid. I turned back to Jay when I was satisfied and bored with my exploration of the exterior of the Slammin’ Lid’s force field.

”Here, watch. Slip’s gonna go underneath it and roll back out. Watch how he stays near the edges of the lid. If you get too far underneath, it will crush you and you’ll be splatted,” the Octoling said.

Slip shifted into their aquatic form after Jay’s words, and quickly swam into the area beneath the Boss Salmonid. The lights marking the force field flashed brighter for a second, and Slip quickly rolled out of the way and switched forms again to stand next to me. Jay and Maika jumped onto the Lid as it rose, waited for a second, then jumped off again for a reason I couldn’t determine.

“Your turn now,” he said after splatting another two Chums that squeezed their way out of the lid. “You can walk underneath it in land form too, but it’s generally more dangerous, so be careful.”

I swam underneath the lasers. Bright green flickered around me, and I quickly sprang back out of the ink and force field as it hit the ground with a loud thwak . I hurried and jumped onto the Lid. It rose into the air again after a short while.

“Great, now splat the pilot on top!” Maika yelled at me from down below. “Or not, and it’ll knock you off with a ladle!”

I saw the pilot pull out and raise said spoon. I hastily inked it up until it splatted. The lid crashed to the ground and fell apart. A couple more Salmonids who were hiding in it emitted a noise that sounded like a disappointed sigh and began to drag the broken pieces back into the water. One of the Salmonids made a grab for the Golden Eggs, but it was splatted almost immediately by someone, but it was too quick for me to catch who when I turned toward them and saw everyone just standing like nothing happened.

I grabbed a Golden Egg like Mr. Grizz said over the radio, and threw it to the basket.

“Now, regulation requires you to jump back. Probably so the chopper can make sure you’re on task.” Jay shrugged, and we all jumped back to behind the egg basket. 

Next, I chose the Drizzler. After Mr. Grizz explained how the boss shot missiles that exploded into ink storms and how it wasn’t inkable when it was underneath its umbrella.

“Stand back for a sec, next to us,” Slip said. We stayed just behind the egg basket for a little while. I saw a dark figure sail down from the sky onto the tower.

“Now you can go, since it’s at a better spot,” the Sea Hare said when the drizzler popped out something moving on the top of its umbrella.

“Wait to splat it for a sec!” Maika shouted at me as I moved to do just that. I lowered my Splattershot and waited to hear what I was supposed to do instead.

The rest of them joined me on the tower momentarily, Maika shot down the Drizzler missile in the other direction, then proceeded to sit herself down on the ground and yawn. “Bored,” she said. Jay began to explain to me what they wanted to show me.

He pointed down to the jump point behind the basket. “A Drizzler will land there,” he pointed towards the raised area just off to the left of the egg basket. “We call that the Perch. A drizzler can land there too,” he pointed to the next raised platform next to it, then off to the left side of the beach, then the right side. “One can also land there, there, and there.” The Octoling continued to point, next to the zig-zagging area on the right. “There’s the Steps, it’ll park there too, but it can also land up on the raised platform next to it. That’s every place a Drizzler will land on the Station. Keep that in mind when trying to defeat them and get their eggs. Step back from where you want them to go and keep away from their location too and they’ll try to get closer to you, where it might be easier to splat them or closer to the basket.”

The Drizzler had shot another torpedo while I was getting the tour of its locations. Maika, who laid with her back on the ground and was staring at the sky, shot it down without even looking.

Jay gave me a thumbs-up the next time a missile was launched. I jumped backwards and shot it back into the Drizzler where it exploded and splatted the Boss Salmonid. We collected the eggs and jumped back to position.

“Next up, luring,” Jay said. “This is essential to high scores, which you totally want. Most of the Boss Salmonids can be lured- You saw how we stood back and the Drizzler followed us. If we had headed out to the shore, it would have stayed there and we would have to bring the eggs all the way back, which takes too long in a normal shift and gets you swarmed. Usually, you can stand behind the Egg Basket or near it and paint while waiting for a Boss Salmonid to come.

“This works for the Drizzler I explained, as well as the Slammin’ Lid you fought. The Drizzlers switch positions after two launches of its torpedoes if it stopped but nobody’s close anymore. The Slammin’ Lid stops when it gets decently close to someone, where it lets out Lesser Salmonids to attack you, then waits for you to trigger it or gets too far away that it moves toward you again. You can make it move if it’s standing still and nobody’s nearby by jumping under it for a second and retreating. It can also smash other Salmonids underneath it if you trigger it while they’re under. The pilot doesn’t pay too much attention to the other Salmonids.

“The other Bosses that can be lured include the Steelhead, a big Salmonid with scales like armor. It uses its saliva to fill up bombs which it lobs at you. Those bombs are dangerous and have a large explosion that you don’t want to get caught in. We’ll show you that in a bit.”

”Mhm!” I understood.

“In that category there’s also the Scrappers, Steel Eels, Flipper Floppers, and Maws. Those each are fairly simple. I’ll go over them with you later. We should continue, and I’ll explain the ones that you can’t bring to the basket. Call for a Flyfish, please.”

“Flyfish,” I said into the microphone.

Jay explained how to throw bombs into the buckets to kill it. I had to jump back and do the boss over again when Maika accidentally defeated it on reflex, using a trick that placed a bomb at the edge of the ledge near the beach which exploded close enough to the Flyfish that it exploded both buckets and the pilot at once. I tried repeating that but the Boss Salmonid didn’t come close enough to the ledge for the technique to work for me then.

We continued through the Boss Salmonids that couldn’t be lured. I defeated the Big Shot and learned to keep jumping over the shockwaves so as not to be hit. I knocked the pots of boiling water out from under the laser-spitting Stinger until it landed on the stove beneath and splatted. I learned to climb up the pillar of a Fish Stick and splat the chanting Smallfries, as well as how the pillar would fall apart when it hit the ground if the Smallfries carrying it were defeated before it could be drilled in.

All the while, the smell of the lure was becoming more and more apparent. It was starting to make me feel a little bit sick. I had to pause when I defeated two more Boss Salmonids, the Steelhead and Maws. When we jumped back, I sat down and rubbed my eyes. I choked out a few coughs in an attempt to get the itching out of my throat.

“You okay?” asked Slip. At the same time, an exclamation of “Oh my Cod, are you alright?!” came from Maika. It seemed a little unusually excessive of a reaction to a coughing fit from what I’d seen. 

“No,” I answered. I tried coughing again. “Smell’s making me feel sick.”

“You can smell it too?” Slip asked me. They tilted their head, brows furrowed in contemplation.

“Yeah?” I said confusedly. Why did he state that as a question? 

“Huh,” he muttered. They turned to Jay and Maika. “It’s the Salmonid lure,” he briefly pointed to his rhinophores. “I can smell it. Apparently Visor can too. Maybe they’re allergic?”

Jay held his chin with one hand and considered something. I tried coughing again.

“Well, we can head back now I suppose,” Jay said. “It’s not actually required that you do the entire training.” He turned to me, and patted my shoulder. “It’s alright! Your health matters more than this job. You can tell Grizz you want to stop the training and the helicopter will stop so we can jump back.

And so I gave the word, and we Super Jumped back to the flying vehicle.

“Is it bad that I didn’t finish?” I asked.

“Nah,” the others said at the same time. Jay positioned his hands behind his head and leaned on them, then elaborated.

“It’s not too necessary. Some people don’t even do the boss training. You got all the important parts done anyways. As for the bosses you missed: Flipper floppers wear a mask and toss rings of ink onto the ground to dive into- they fly too. If you ink the ring on the ground, they’ll hit your ink and their armored mask will break off and you can splat it. Steel Eels are long machines that try to hit you to splat you. The machine part can’t be broken, but you can go around to the end of its tail and defeat a Salmonid who’s driving the thing. Scrappers are similar- they drive much smaller vehicles that you can either stall with ink and go around the back to splat the Salmonid inside, or do so when it’s distracted.

“There are a couple of special bosses you see when it suddenly clouds up and gets dark- One is the Mothership, which is a giant flying ship with its own special wave. The flying Chinook Salmonids come out of the top of the Mothership carrying coolers with other Salmonids inside. Try to splat them and the container both. Their containers explode in your ink if you hit them just a bit, so it makes it pretty easy to splat them. The Chinooks drop a Golden Egg each, and the Mothership will come to collect the eggs with a machine that can suck them out of the Egg Basket.”

I watched Maika as she stuck her tongue out and raised her index and middle fingers in a V behind her two teammates’ heads. Slip noticed and batted her hand away,  but Jay either didn’t notice or didn’t care and continued to explain bosses to me.

“Grillers also come out at these pseudo-night waves. When they do, it’s just them and a whole horde of Smallfries who stick onto its underside and swarm you. They resemble giant outdoor grills, and the Salmonids cook themselves within it to roll the thing towards you, tracked by a laser. On its backend, there’s a tail sticking out that will trigger it to spin with a ton of other tails if you shoot it enough. But still, be careful of the Smallfries.”

I was starting to lose interest. I think Jay noticed too, as I stared out the window of the helicopter. He stopped talking at me.

A couple of minutes passed, and I suddenly jumped up at the sound of a drawn-out wobbly howl from far away.

“Someone must’ve encountered a Cohozuna just now…” Slip stated. “Those giant annoying things…”

I turned to the Sea Hare to inquire.

“They’re super-annoying huge Salmonids that sometimes come. Called a King Salmonid. They only come every few shifts, but when they sniff you out they’re bent on destroying you. These ones will try to sit on you and smash you and jump on you. Grizz does drop some cannons from the helicopter that you can fit where the net is on your back and launch eggs at the King Salmonids, which does damage them, but they have so much fat it’s so hard to actually splat them…”

The helicopter lurched to the right. I fell into the door, but luckily it didn’t open and tossed me out. Maika seemed to be reaching for her phone which had fallen out of her hand at the shake.

“Woah!” Jay yelled. He clicked on his seatbelt and reached his hand out to me. “Hurry! Get back into your seat!”

I grabbed his hand as the helicopter rocked the other way. He pulled me into my seat where I also strapped myself in and steadied my arms against the seat.

“What was that?!” I exclaimed. Was the helicopter going to crash? Were we going to drown or be stranded or something? I could only see the sky and a splash of murky seawater on the window, not if we had reached the city or land yet.

“Stingers!” Maika shouted. She managed to grab her phone and tucked it into her work suit. Everyone didn’t say anything more for the rest of the ride back to the rooftop in Splatsville, despite the rocking of the helicopter subsiding soon after it had started.

As we touched down, I heard a couple of sighs escape the others. I decided to relax too.

“Sometimes the Stingers try to shoot us out of the sky,” Jay said tiredly. “They never succeeded, far as I know, but it definitely causes some serious distress. We’re alright though.”

I nodded slightly. At least I was back, and the sickening smell of the lure was gone. I was alright, and grateful for the reassurance. I hopped out of the helicopter.

“Thanks,” I said. 

“It was no problem!” Maika said.

“Yeah, we love helping people. I hope we taught you something useful!” Jay continued enthusiastically.

“Funky Mushroom Losers, at your service,” Slip stated, deadpan.

“That’s a weird name,” I observed.

“Tch. Gets a lot weirder if you had met our other teammate,” Slip snorted. 

“Okay.”

“Well, seeya maybe!” Maika exclaimed as the elevator doors closed.

When I got back to the lobby room, I found Olive shoving a bunch of capsule halves into a plate and under a window, and waiting until the plate returned with a myriad of tickets, cash, and bags of chunks. She stuffed them all in her jacket pockets, then turned to me and handed me my normal clothes. Apparently I’d left them somewhere after changing into the work suit and didn’t remember to pick them back up after.

“Thanks!”

She headed out the door without another word, and I followed. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to defend the city tomorrow. Maybe I needed more practice, but Olive knew best.

Notes:

stay tuned for big run :)

Chapter 13: Defense

Summary:

With a few hours of practice down, Visor is faced with a full-force Big Run to defend Wahoo from.

Notes:

sorry about being a month since the last chapter, at least it's better than a season. I hope you had fun with the latest big run!

wahoo!

Big Run had arrived. I spent the night awake, watching the Squid Sisters make calls and messages promoting work at Grizzco to protect Inkopolis. Bandit and Flan joined up the group early in the morning to get assignments for the day. The Squid Sisters left Alterna before the agents and their captain, saying they had someone to meet.

The rest of us (barring Cuttlefish) left shortly after. The news studio where Deep Cut worked was in a rush. I could see Frye storming around inside, impatient to get out to Wahoo World and help, but they still had to do a broadcast first.

The Grizzco building was in a rush too, with bags full of people’s gear strewn around the room as there weren’t enough lockers to keep it all. There were few actual people in the building, with a couple non-field employees quickly funneling people into the elevators. When I had finished changing, I turned around to find that Olive and the others were already gone.
They left me?

Some other employee grabbed my shoulder and began to drag me towards the elevator. I gained my balance and walked slightly behind the other employee. They didn’t speak to me.

Despite the serious atmosphere, the crowd on the roof waiting for helicopters had so much energy. I somehow felt comforted by it.

I watched helicopters circle around the building, occasionally letting down ladders which employees would clamber up in a hurry, then taking off straight for the direction I supposed Inkopolis was. Some of the helicopters were the standard Grizzco black with the company logo emblazoned on the side, and others were in different colors and patterns. In the distance, I could see helicopters take off from other buildings and other smaller company locations. Everyone was pitching in to help.

One of the helicopters dropped a ladder nearly on top of me, which I barely dodged. Other workers began to clamber up it, and I was able to do the same. The helicopter was overcrowded by several people, but still managed to haul everyone without too much complaint.

The ride to Wahoo World was longer than the trip to Sockeye Station I’d taken before. At least, it felt far longer than I think it should’ve. Red clouds shifted outside the windows. Four of the six other coworkers in the helicopter impatiently tapped their feet against the floor, which didn’t help the tense atmosphere.
“What’s the time?” I finally asked. I was getting just as impatient as they were now. Nobody answered, except for some mumbling from two inklings on one side of the vehicle.

Finally the door opened. At least I didn’t fall through into the ocean. I shifted forms and jumped to where I saw a closed egg basket near what seemed to be a train station for train tracks that were shaped in peculiar loops. Soon after, my coworkers did the same. To one side were piled various weapons, of which we picked up at random. I grabbed a Squiffer.  A minute or so after we landed, my headset buzzed. 

“The egg basket is ready and waiting. Get to work and protect the city! And don’t let me down.”

“Quota: 15.”

I was expecting a quota closer to the 3 golden eggs I had to bring to the basket the previous day, but I guess since there were so many people, some with undoubtedly higher ranks, the quota was so high. I can do it!

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it- there are salmonids everywhere. Just stay focused on the task at hand, and you’ll get through. I hope you had your coffee…”

Was I supposed to have coffee before coming? Did I mess up? I panicked, but the recording also told me to stay focused, so I watched as salmonids began pouring out of the flooded arena and from giant gushing water pipe leaks.

A Steelhead squeezed its way out of one of the gushers. Two people rushed towards it, ones who grabbed splattershot and one who grabbed a carbon roller.

But the nice people from yesterday told me to bring it closer to the basket! I thought, but the eggs were snatched up quickly enough and tossed into the basket that it didn’t matter that much.

A Flyfish emerged from the water soon after. It took a while to settle in a suitable spot for it to launch its missiles, so by the time the buckets opened and we were able to toss bombs inside, A Flipper Flopper, Steel Eel, and another Stinger were emerging from the water at the other end of the platform.

I was splatted for the first time as I tried to splat the Flipper Flopper. I hadn’t expected the Steel Eel to come up behind me when I was inking, and I was cornered. I was stuck waiting in the life preserver for someone to provide me enough ink to reform.

When a coworker with a roller lobbed a bomb towards me, I got back up and went back to work. By that time, half the wave was already done. I couldn’t keep up with my coworkers and the other salmonids surrounding us. I was repeatedly splatted, by a chum, then by Flyfish missiles, then finally I was knocked into a gusher by a Cohock as the countdown signaled the end of a wave. During the whole wave, I was only able to splat two boss salmonids.

A brief rest and switching of weapons occured before another wave began. Two more people I didn’t know joined our already large team, but it seemed we needed them after all. We swapped weapons and the next wave was signaled.

“Quota: 17”

I was slightly more prepared for the amount of salmonids this time, but it was barely enough. I spent the whole wave dodging and trying to help coworkers who were being overwhelmed by the hordes. Every time I turned around, there was another boss salmonid or gang of lesser salmonids right there, about to get us. I was splatted during the wave several times as well, but at least a couple times less than the previous wave. For the last 20 seconds, I was faced with salmonids crawling from a Slammin’ Lid while Big Shot cannonballs shook the ground and a Scrapper was on my back. I narrowly was able to get under the Slammin’ Lid and have it crush the Scrapper, but I wasn’t able to ink the ground and swim out of the way, either. I was revived and managed to climb up onto the Slammin’ right as the wave of salmonids retreated. I was nearly carried off with them, probably to be their dinner or something. I was luckily able to Super Jump off of the slammin right before it went over open water. I hit the ground near the egg basket landing point hard and skidded a few feet, but I was still fine.
“If your suit gets too damaged, you have to pay for a new one, y’know,” an older worker commented as he collapsed next to me. I listened to the other people’s conversations as I rested. Apparently, I had dropped in right before the second wave, so there wasn’t going to be another coming to this area for a little while.
“Phew. And to think that there’s still almost two days left…” someone said.

“We’re not even getting that much of a bonus for fighting this hard…”

“Do you think that they’ll cut our pay because there are more people fighting in the same shift?”

I returned my weapon to the pile. Another helicopter came by to drop off more people and weapons. Even just those two waves were seriously hard work. I had a hard time imagining going on for the entire rest of the day like this. It had only been maybe fifteen minutes since I had arrived.

A great roar sounded in the distance, which shook the entire platform. Cohozuna, I remembered the sea hare from yesterday saying. It was a bit scary. At least it reminded me why we had to keep fighting.

I continued. I swapped my weapon for a coworker’s clash blaster and got back to work when the next front of Salmonids squirmed out of the ocean. We were able to thin out the salmonid army enough for them to retreat and regroup for the next wave.  I swapped the clash blaster for a dynamo roller.

The next wave, something strange happened. Dark clouds covered the sky, and the atmosphere grew colder. It was almost as if it was night. I could see patches of light further out, but in other places, fog was rolling in. The wave started, and I began to bat away bright, glowing bugs that quickly surrounded me.

“Crap, glowflies!” someone shouted.

“Glowflies. That explains why the Salmonids are restless. If you start glowing… Well, good luck.” 

I turned around and was suddenly covered in a mad swarm of chums and a few goldies. It only took a second for me to be splatted. The bugs dissipated from my life preserver, and quickly swarmed another coworker. The shouting and shrieking from the other workers quickly died down as we were all wiped out.

The salmonids disappeared, and the dark atmosphere quickly dissipated. Soon enough, a super jump marker appeared next to the egg basket and someone landed with an aerospray, and revived us all.

We continued fighting, wondering how long it would last.

Three hours passed, and the roars had only gotten louder. We fought off wave after wave after wave of salmonids, with the dark atmosphere sometimes returning, bringing with it occurrences from dense fog to flying salmonid ships to smaller, piloted flooders called Grillers.

Finally, The last wave of a shift had finished. We were preparing for the next attack, when a loud alarm suddenly exploded from the helicopter. A giant lump rose from the water at the edge of the platform that sloped down into the flooded area. An enormous salmonid, easily taller than a house. It roared a horrible sound that caused some of my coworkers to step back in fear. For some reason, I didn’t. I couldn’t give a reason as to why. Maybe I had gotten used to it in the distance, and hearing it up close didn’t scare me anymore. I didn’t know.

If I wasn’t ready for the hordes of salmonids, I certainly wasn’t ready for the addition of one that was three stories tall. Not only did the enormous salmonid fill the area, so did just as many lesser and boss salmonids as any other wave. At someone's call, I ran back to the equipment pile and picked up a machine that definitely wasn’t there before. A coworker hurriedly grabbed my shoulder and strapped the thing to my life preserver.

“Use the golden eggs against the kind salmonid! They deal more damage!” the coworker shouted at me as they rushed to help another person get the thing on.

I tried to shoot the king salmonid with the glooga dualies I had picked up, but they didn’t seem to do a thing. At least dodging the thing wasn’t too big of a challenge, though I was close to being backed into a corner. I watched as a couple of workers took down a big shot closer to the shore. When I was able to reach them, I grabbed an egg left by a different boss salmonid… and accidentally launched it towards where the egg basket would be. It crashed to the ground next to the closed basket, sending a spray of ink all around.

I frowned. That definitely wouldn’t work. The next time I grabbed an egg, I adjusted my aim and shot for the huge salmonid. The ink splotch that was left did show that it did some damage, but it wasn’t nearly enough. In our focus on the behemoth, we ignored the salmonids emerging from the water and a third of the group was splatted. The rest of us were pushed to the shore, where the Cohozuna wiped us all into the water.

I couldn’t see anyone left unsplatted. The salmonids seemed to know this too, as they slunk back into the water and swam to the next job site. A few minutes passed, and a couple of helicopters came and reeled our life preservers in. There was one employee in the helicopter who revived us. Our crew sat in silence as the helicopter moved.

“A King Salmonid? Ah well, can’t be helped. At least you obtained an acceptable amount of Golden Eggs. And helped save the city,” Mr. Grizz’s voice said in my slightly dislodged headphones as I lay there, panting.

“You’ve earned a break. Get back to the helicopter. I want you back in two hours tops. The city still needs saving, but work seems to grow inefficient on an empty stomach.”

I thought about the day so far. It had only been one morning, but I was already tired. And the fighting, the salmonids, the chaos, it all almost felt familiar somehow.

I didn’t see anyone I knew during lunch. I filed into the battle lobby where everyone was, as apparently Grizzco workers were being served food for assisting in the front against the salmonids. I grabbed one of the bag lunches as I saw others do and sat down to eat. With the slopsuit’s gloves on, it was rather difficult to grab the food, but I managed. 

When I finished, I got back up and moved to throw my trash away. When I was about to board the next helicopter heading back to Wahoo, someone pulled me aside.

I turned, and didn’t recognize the face, until they spoke.

“Hey! You’re Visor, yeah?” they asked. 

“Yes,” I replied.

“Remember me? Duskwave! I know I probably look weird without the mask, I don’t like it this way either. But I need the cash for a hobby of mine,” they began. “Let’s go to work together!”

And so we set off together. I listened to Duskwave chatter. They seemed so fun, always talking about Tableturf or their battle team or their collection of shell-out capsule shells. This time, I was occupied throughout the whole helicopter ride. We soon reached Wahoo World and were forced to return to our duties as employees.

It was a different area of Wahoo World than before, which threw me off a little bit. I kept going regardless, and we cleared three waves without wiping out. Duskwave wasn’t spectacular, but they were pretty good. Yet, nearly none of the people here followed the advice I’d been given by Jay and his teammates. I started to wonder if they gave me the right advice.

We kept going. A few more hours into the workday we were exhausted, but saw no chance to leave. We’d been hit by two more encounters with different Cohozuna, though I found it strange that nobody else seemed to be able to tell the difference between them.

Then, the wave following the last Cohozuna, something strange happened. It wasn’t something extraordinarily unrealistic, but it was rather weird for me. I was rolling over a group of lesser salmonids with the splat roller I grabbed for the wave, when a coworker’s charger shot hit me directly in the side of my face. It was friendly ink, so it only knocked me off balance for a second and didn’t do me any harm, but Duskwave seemed to take offense.

“Hey! What was that for!” they shouted. Duskwave turned and began to ask me if I was alright, but stopped for a moment, staring. They quickly gathered whatever thought they were having and followed through with their question.

I answered with a quick “yes” and paid it no extra thought as I returned to working.

Eventually, the day did end. I returned to the Grizzco building and parted ways with Duskwave.

I was fortunately able to find my stuff, and changed clothes back into my regular fit. It felt so much more comfortable than the bulky and wet slopsuit I’d been wearing all day.

My stomach growled at me. With no more instructions, I didn’t know what to do, so I returned to Alterna. Olive wasn’t there, but the Squid Sisters and Cuttlefish were. Callie and Cuttlefish seemed to be asleep, but Marie was looking at her phone.

“Ah, Visor,” Marie commented as I walked up to her and collapsed into the snow. I was really tired . “Ready to go out again?”

I jolted upright. No, I didn’t think I was ready to get back to work! But I suppose, if I had to, I would.

Marie rolled her eyes. “I’m joking, you know. We already ate, but there’s still some grub left in the cooler over there if you’re hungry, which I can tell you are.”

I dragged my feet over to the makeshift fridge and opened it to find a couple of pieces of meat left in a plastic container. I gratefully fished it out and gulped them down. I suddenly felt guilty for not leaving any for Olive or any other agents who would come back later.

“I- I ate it all-” I started, but Marie waved it off.

“Olive’s not coming back tonight. And the others have their own place. You’re fine.”

Relieved, I fell asleep against the pile of crates. It felt like no time passed before it was morning again and I was forced to drag my aching self up to keep fighting.

On that second day, there was far less to note. I had gotten into the flow of Grizzco shifts, and my team wiped out far less. I think we averaged about 2.6 waves cleared per shift. Every now and again, I would be notified over my headset that I had earned a rank raise, or a pay cut if I’d lost a wave too miserably.

Over my lunch break, which turned out to be several hours later in the day than the previous day, I heard talk about the Inkopolan Grizzco workers who were working shifts together with Splatlandians. Apparently, the different special weapons were throwing coordination off. Especially one person, who was using the old discontinued specials from the plaza somehow. I wondered if it was Olive or Crimson. Or maybe Bite. I seem to remember them being from Inkopolis, so maybe it was one of them.

I got back to work, and didn’t see anyone else I knew. My work site had been pushed further and further inland during the morning, but it seemed we were finally gaining ground, as I jumped from the helicopter to an area almost near where I had started the previous day. During a break between waves, I heard a roaring from a little ways away, and saw that someone had splatted a Cohozuna.

With renewed confidence, I fought on. The crews that fought got smaller and smaller as I ranked up and people grew tired and quit. But we were still able to push forward. By nightfall, I was back to the ride platform I had started at.

Eventually, I too grew tired and was forced to head back after someone caught me falling asleep in between waves. My high score had reached 92 golden eggs in one series of three waves by then. I slept restlessly that night, knowing that I should be out there, helping. 

I got up again early in the morning. I wasn’t sure when, but I hadn’t slept much, but I had slept enough to get back to work. And so I did. It wasn’t even light out yet, but by the time I joined back up with other workers, the hordes were waning, and it didn’t take that much effort to fight off the smaller amounts of salmonids. Only one Cohozuna came after us that morning, and by the time dawn came, all the salmonids were gone and I was riding a helicopter back to Splatsville with a new high score of 95 eggs.

When I entered the Grizzco lobby, I was told to wait a little while until the final surveys declared Wahoo World clear of Salmonids. Other groups trickled into the training room until there was no room left. The loudspeaker crackled, and began to voice something.
“Congratulations, valued employees. You have successfully saved the city. As promised, a reward will be handed out as you exit the building. If you have acquaintances that have already left, they may return to claim their reward later. Please do not push, unionize, or cut in line for your bonuses, as it lowers company morale. Enjoy the rest of your day!”

The assembled group let out a collective sigh of relief, and we started to file out of the building. I saw that capsules were being given out at the little window in the front, but I was too tired, so I skipped it. A bronze colored object was forced into my arms after I changed and was moving to leave the building. I didn’t feel like I needed more to carry, but it didn’t seem like I could just put it down.

I dragged my now numb body slowly towards the pipe back to Alterna. It felt like forever and no time had passed when I finally made it back, and landed heavily on the fake snow.

Olive returned later in the day holding a large, golden statue of a Cohozuna, and two trash bags stuffed with ability chunks. She said nothing as she placed them in front of Marie and left to somewhere in Alterna. I fell asleep, and apparently stayed that way through when Olive returned from wherever she went and Bandit and Flan reported to her.

I was woken up in the evening to Callie shaking me gently, and not-so-whispering. “Wake up, sleepyhead! I have a couple of friends coming here soon that you might like to meet!”

Notes:

haha guess who

Chapter 14: Familiar

Summary:

Visor meets some people that aren't quite strangers. Questions are proposed and confusion is imposed.

Notes:

visor needs help with everything

“Who?” I asked while rubbing the dust out of my eye.

“They’re coming soon, so you’ll see!”

I felt a sudden impulse to ask Olive if she was the one using the old Inkopolan plaza specials earlier.

“Was it you?” I did end up blurting out.

She just looked at me.

“Did you use the old specials that people were talking about?”

She shook her head and continued doing whatever the staring was supposed to be.

I meant to ask Crimson too, and Bite, but I never they weren’t present in Alterna, and I was supposed to wait for Callie’s friends, I guess. So I waited, appreciating the rest after the two days of hard work. It didn’t diminish the mild excitement I held from the prospect of meeting new people, but it did make it rather annoying to wait.

It fortunately didn’t take too long to arrive. The pipe that had been built started to echo with a loud voice. Two figures soon emerged, one in green ink and one in pink.
“Heyooooooooooooo, Squid Sisters and co.!” the pink-inked one. Now that they were fully in their land forms, I could tell that the pink one was a short inkling, and the green one a tall octoling.

I flinched. Why did I flinch?

The two seemed to contemplate the huge dome for a moment before heading towards us. Callie was waving with enthusiasm as I’d found she often did. She walked forward a bit to meet the two she had invited and walk back to the camp with them. I didn’t get up, but just listened.
“Been a while!” Callie said.

“Yeah, how have you been?” the octoling asked.

“Tired from the salmonids invading, of course,” Callie replied.

“You bet- we’re in the same boat,” commented the short inkling. “But more than that, this place is freaking insane!”

“It is much, much bigger than the old domes I grew up in,” the octoling added.

“Hey, Cap! Hey, Old Cap! Yo, Marie!” the short inkling announced as the group arrived at the camp. Olive barely nodded in response. Cuttlefish shook himself awake and waved with a dried out tentacle.
“Well if it isn’t Off the Hook! How are you kiddos these days?”

“We’re doing well, thank you,” the tall octoling said politely.

The small inkling seemed to notice me then. She turned to me and raised her chin slightly, wearing a smile. “And who are you? I don’t remember meeting you before!”

Callie smiled, and gestured to me. “This is Visor! Visor, meet Pearl,”
“That’s me!” said the small inkling, striking a pose.

“And Marina,” Callie continued, gesturing to the tall octoling.

“Pleased to meet you,” Marina greeted with a small bow.

“So what’s the story?” Pearl asked. “Are you the new agent I’ve heard about? Or is it something else that brings you here?”

“Pearl, that’s rude,” Marina groaned.

I hesitated to speak. Something made me not want to show them my voice. Was this embarrassment? I meet people all the time though, and don’t have that much of a problem… I decided to try.

“I… I…”

I felt small. This fear just wasn’t right. 

“Ah, it’s okay if you don’t say. Didn’t mean to push ya. We’ve all got our times,” Pearl said, and I was grateful.

A silence hung in the air. I didn’t really like it, but I didn’t know what to say. Eventually, Marie came to greet Pearl and Marina and started a conversation by asking how their music career was going. I perked up at the thought of music.

I learned by listening in on the others that Pearl and Marina made up the band called Off the Hook, and that they were currently traveling on tour, but had come to the splatlands to help with the Big Run. They came to Alterna at the invitation of the Squid Sisters.

To my surprise, it turned out that Marina was the friend that Cuttlefish had been talking about who could help make the battle stage for the fuzzy octarians. Apparently, she used to make battle stages for splatfests in Inkopolis using Octarian technology. I wasn’t as enthused about the idea as before, since I was now allowed to go out and turf in official matches, but it was good nonetheless. I liked to finish what I started, and the battle stage was a project I had yet to finish.

After a little while longer, I worked up the courage to speak. I shuffled nervously over to where the others were talking.

“Hello…” I started. Everyone quieted and looked at me. Callie gave me a thumbs-up. I drew in a breath and continued. “I’m Visor. Neo Agent 3 and Agent Five are my friends. Nice to meet you.”

Callie suddenly jumped up. “Oh, that reminds me! Marina, could you help with something? Visor here doesn’t have a phone, and kinda needs one. You’re good with tech, do you think you could help?”
The octoling looked quizzically at me. “You need my help getting a phone?”

Callie scratched her head. “I guess not… you’re just good with the technology stuff…”

“It’s okay. I’m cool with doing it. You said you had 3D printers?”

Callie, in her standard enthusiasm, thanked Marina, and headed around to the stack of crates to grab one of the smaller material printers stashed there. She brought it back out to Marina, who had pulled a computer and some other tools of some sort out of her bag. When faced with the printer, she got right to work creating some sort of cord that would fit into the strangely-shaped outlet.

And not even two hours later, I was holding my very own mobile phone. The case was still printing, but I had one now. I had a phone!

 “Use that button on the side to turn it on,” Marina said. I pressed down on the button, and the screen lit up with a blinking line and grid of numbers. “You’re going to have to choose a password too, even though it’ll recognize your ink to unlock it,”

“I don’t know what to do here,” I muttered.
Pearl answered me this time. “Press the numbers to make a sequence you’ll remember. They can be any numbers, but you’ll enter them each time you’re gonna use the phone, so you’d better remember.”

“Hm,” I nodded. I tried putting my finger on the number nine, and suddenly the blinking line moved across the screen, leaving several 9s in its wake. “Ah!”

“Woah, chill. You only need to tap it. You can press the little ‘x’ to delete some.”

I did as the inkling said, and figured out how to place the numbers one at a time. I ended up with a 6-number password. Though it wasn’t really a word , I thought. I repeated the password as prompted on the screen and filed the number away in my mind for later use.

The screen changed to a spinning inksplat icon for a second, then an icon of a finger leaving a small smudge of ink on the screen, fading, then repeating, appeared. It seemed to be telling me to leave some of my ink on the screen.

When I tried to do the same, it took a few seconds for the computer to recognize the ink, and promptly show a large X on the screen with words underneath reading “could not read inkprint. Please try again.” My second attempt yielded the same result.

“Well, that’s strange,” Marina said. “Could I borrow the phone for a little while and take a look?”

I handed over the phone to the octoling, and she set it down on the side of her computer, while doing something by quickly tapping the letters on the letter board of the computer.

About a minute later, Marina bit her lip, and considered the screen with a concerned face. I leaned in to see, but Marina got up, handed my phone back to me without any words, and went to whisper something to Pearl and then Callie and Marie and Cuttlefish. There was some nodding and whispering before Marina refocused on me.

She wasn’t glaring, but her expression wasn’t the same gentle one she had held earlier. Scary.

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to work for you. I skipped to the next step for you, but you’re stuck using your password to unlock the device. Sorry about that.”

It was fine with me, after she took all the effort to make me the phone anyways. I continued with the instructions, until I finished the tutorial on using the phone.

“Now, you need an account. Squigle is pretty universal, so you should probably start with that,” Marina said. “After you make an account, most places will just accept it as your login. Try typing it in the search bar.”

I found what Marina probably meant, and tapped the letters for how Squigle probably was spelled in, and found something that said “Sign Up”.

“Click on that,” Pearl said, leaning over my shoulder.

I did, and it took me to a page where I was supposed to enter my official name and details. I stopped, confused.

“I don’t…”

“Hm?”

“I don’t remember… official…”

Marina furrowed her brow. After a few seconds, she spoke. “It’s alright. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll get that sorted out”

It took a while longer than a few minutes, and my phone’s basic purple case was completed within that time. By then, night must’ve been setting on the surface because the Alternan sky was darkening. I yawned.

Marina handed me a paper from whatever she set to print after the case had finished. I took it and examined the writing on it. It seemed to say that my given name was Visor, and that I had no last name. That’s what I knew already though. I looked further down the page, as it listed my birthday to be some nineteen years ago. And other sorts of information that wasn’t listed on the form for creating a Squigle account. Only one more thing caught my eye.

 

Species: Hybrid - Undetermined Species Origins

 

For some reason, that made my insides settle in sadness. I didn’t want to be that.

“‘Official’ details. Keep the paper safe. You’ll need to use it if you want to register for any license that’s handled by the government, or other matters that ask for them” Marina said.

And with that, I signed up for Squigle. It took a second, then loaded what looked to be my splashtag ID number and name along with a sign that Pearl told me was an “at”, followed by “smail . com”.

“There you go!” Pearl exclaimed. “Now you’re good to apply for tournaments! Not to leave out communication, of course.”

“Thank you!” I said with a smile.

“Of course, think of it as an early Squidmas present,” Marina replied.

Soon, I was getting tired again, and decided to go to sleep for the night, pondering what Squidmas was.

 

Pearl and Marina had left by the time I awoke the following day. Marie handed me a wire of some sort and told me it was to use when my phone runs low on battery. I slipped it into my sweater pocket along with my new phone and left for the surface.

I arrived at the apartment soon after, and knocked on the door. Bandit let me in with a tired smile.

“Morning,” chorused everyone in the apartment. And it did seem to be everyone. The whole team was here, even Beacon, who glared at me.

I grinned, and pulled out my phone as I crashed into my old closet.

I entered my password, and suddenly the top of the screen was overtaken by small boxes fighting for dominance. I touched one of them, which changed the screen to one of many more small boxes with text inside them. I started to read them.

>HIHIHIHIHI its duskwave messaging you to see if you got a phone yet

>HI I’m bored did you get a phone ywt

>Wow I can’t believe you could go this long without one must be boring

>hellooooooooo?

>or are you just ignorring me

>TALK TO MEEEEEEEE\

I tapped it to see what would happen and learned that dragging my finger up or down the screen would reveal more text. I wasn’t sure how to reply with my own text.

Suddenly, a hand snatched the phone from my own. I looked up to see Arrow, doing something on my phone. I pouted, wanting it back.

“There. Now you have our contact info. I also added you to the group chat, of course,” she said when she gave it back after a few minutes.

I spent the morning reading all the text that showed up on my phone. It looked like there were some from the Squid Sisters, a lot from Team Rainbow, and some from names I didn’t recognize. I read all of them, and eventually learned that I could respond by touching the letters to make a message and pressing the little arrow in the corner.

Eventually, the text boxes at the top of the screen I learned to be “notifications” revealed a message telling me that the device’s battery was low.

Remembering what Marie said, I took the cord out and pondered how to use it. I twisted it around in my left hand, tapped it against my phone, but nothing seemed to change.

Wires…

I stared at my phone for a while, trying to think. Eventually, with a lack of understanding how to use the cord, I asked for help.

“Bandit?”

The inkling turned towards me. “Yeah?”

“I- how do I use the wire when the battery is low?”

Bandit raised an eyebrow. “Well, you take the small end and plug it in to the bottom of the phone where there’s a fitting hole and the other end- Oh my god?! What are you doing?”

I turned my attention away from my friend and noticed what she seemed to be staring at. In my left hand, one sharp end of the cord was buried in my palm. From the way my ink oozed from it and how much of the end wasn’t visible, I should have been in a lot of pain and noticed that. It took me thinking about it to actually feel the sting.

“Just stay right there. What the hell were you thinking?!” Bandit panicked.

I stared at the wound, waiting. In the background, Bandit rushed over to the medicine cabinet and pulled out some gauze, then returned to me and gently tugged the cord out. I grit my beak at the pain, but my eyes drifted to Beacon, who looked at me with an expression I’ve never seen from him before, but couldn’t tell what it meant. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant one, but it didn’t seem that he wanted me to disappear this time. Huh.

Bandit cleaned my wound, and wrapped bandages around it. I reached for my phone, but the inkling snatched it from me, along with the wire, and slipped the wire into her pocket.

“You don’t get the charger if you’re going to do that. I’m going to charge it for you. And don’t do that again.”

I pouted, and watched how Bandit inserted her own cord into the end of my phone, and the other end into a plug in the wall. I resolved to remember that so I wouldn’t make Bandit upset again.

“Weirdo,” Beacon muttered across the room and turned away from me.

A thought from earlier suddenly resurfaced in my mind. In my increasing tendency to speak out of turn, I said what had come to me.

“What’s Squidmas, anyways?”

Notes:

I need to stop ending chapters with visor like ???
maybe a happy chapter ending sometime? probably not.
little guys get no relief, after all!

Chapter 15: Squidmas

Summary:

Holidays are on the horizon, and Visor is hyped! The rest of the team, not as much, but at least Arrow and Bite are just about as clueless as Visor is.

Notes:

this fic has existed for a year now! woo!
A chapter about celebration to celebrate.

“What’s Squidmas, anyways?” I asked.

“I actually want to know that too,” Arrow added.

“Nobody told me either, but there’s always food,” Bite stated.

I liked that idea. Food is good. But contrary to Bite and Arrow’s comments, the other side of the group let out small groans and complaints. 

“What?” Arrow said. She looked from side to side at Bandit and Beacon, who had mildly sour expressions on their faces.

“Nothing,” Beacon dismissed.

Arrow tapped her hand on the couch repeatedly. “What is it?”

“Squidmas isn’t all it’s hyped up to be,” Bandit said. “It’s really just not that exciting. It’s big on the tradition thing. And, y’know. Squid mas. Not very friendly to really anyone who’s not a squid.”

“But what is it really?” Arrow repeated.

“Well, generally you go out and get gifts for all the people you like,” Pon-Pon said. “Friends and family and maybe coworkers usually. Mostly family. And there’s motifs about snow and trees and sugary treats and such.”

I nodded, thinking of Alterna, except not a cave. “That sounds nice.”

“But it’s kinda a given that you go and spend money on things for people. And they judge you based on how much money you spend on it or how good the present is. So it’s not actually that fun,” Bandit interjected.

I made a face. Things should be fun. Why do we need to have responsibility to people anyways? Why couldn’t we all just do our own thing and have everyone be happy?

Arrow grimaced a little as she thought of something. Bite just shrugged. Beacon was turned away towards the wall, so I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Pon-Pon was observing everyone else just like I was. Eventually, he got up and opened the blinds. Sunlight exploded into the room.

“Well, we don’t really get much snow around here at least. Although when there’s the winter festival in the main street they do have some snow machines going.”

I wondered what a snow machine would look like and how it would work. Is that how they made the stuff in Alterna? Maybe I should look when I go down there next.

The group sat in awkward silence for a while until Beacon turned and closed the blinds again, complaining about how it was bright. This earned him an eye roll from Arrow.

I reached for my phone again, and looked at it. I didn’t know where to look to see if it was charged enough, but I figured it would probably be fine. I decided to look for things about Squidmas on Squigle. As it turned out, Squidmas had some pretty neat things going on with it!

I enjoyed the next couple of weeks. It was a wonder to see decorations set up on apartments and lobbies and the streets and everywhere else. The lights were amazing at night, with all sorts of different patterns of glittering strings across the sides of buildings. Every night I found myself going out and walking around looking at all the displays.

Everyone was so enthusiastic about this! It was so jolly! I learned that from a commercial. It was a fun word.  I wondered why Bandit and Beacon were so against it.

With every day that grew closer to the Squidmas, I noticed Beacon growing more and more distant and irritable. He refused to go do activities- not that he would go out on adventures with me anyways, but he wouldn’t go anywhere with anyone else either. Some days, he didn’t even show up at the apartment. Bandit, on the other hand, didn’t really seem to actively avoid us, but instead didn’t really care about everything that was going on. Pon-Pon decorated minimally, switching out around the apartment like the soap dispenser in the bathroom with one covered in snowflakes over red and green plaid.

Arrow and Bite were in a similar mindset as I. The two of them would come with me on my walks around the city sometimes, though Bite would often end up getting us chased away from some location for trying to take a box or two from an inflatable figure. 

Why was Bite allowed to chew wires and not me? my mind whined at me upon seeing this. But when Bite came, Arrow would usually tag along as well because chances were that she was going to take us to food. It was like this that I went out to restaurants for my first few times.

Bite and Arrow first took me to what they called a “take-out” place serving fried fish. It kind of reminded me of Crab-n-Go, just as a stand-alone place in the city. I gazed at the menu posted outside the window. And looked at the menu. And stared at the menu, unsure of what I should get. Bite and Arrow were moving in the line, but I missed the cue that I should have joined them. Arrow tapped my shoulder and offered me a small paper ketchup dish. Both her and Bite were licking the ketchup like ice cream. I decided to try it. Not too bad, but I didn’t see other people waiting for their food doing it. Wasn’t this what an “appetizer” was? Maybe everyone else didn’t know. Just a little while later, Arrow and Bite were called to pick up their food.

“Here,” Bite offered a skewer to me.

“Thanks,” I said, and took it. Bite went and got a different sauce to dip the fish in, and we left to find some sort of public seating to eat at. All the food was eaten before we could find our way to a nearby park, though. 

A few days later, Bite took us to a different restaurant serving what I found to be called “pasta”. Bandit came too. There was a door open to the outside, and slightly more elegant patterns adorning the edges of the windows. Wooden tables were set up outside with large poles with cages of fire inside the tops of them heating the place. Bite told me they were heaters. I found it interesting how they could work like that.

We stepped inside. The ceiling was kind of tall and mayo-colored to match well with the ketchup-colored accents across the building. I later learned that it was actually supposed to be noodle and tomato sauce colored, not ketchup and mayonnaise. The inside of the store was a counter in the center and a wall, but branched into two sides without much hint as to what the two sides were for. I started walking into the one with more tables, and Bite did too, before Bandit pulled the three of us back and made us order food at the counter before going to find a seat. “Have manners, guys.”

The jelly at the counter led us to a booth with barriers in between it and the other tables. I kicked my legs under the table and waited. The menu the jelly handed me just had a ton of writing detailing the different foods they offered. There were no pictures, so I didn’t really know what any of the menu items actually were.

Arrow, Bite, and Bandit were talking about what was good, but I still had no idea what all the stuff like “lasagna” or “gnocchi” were.

Bandit leaned over towards me.

“Do you have any idea what you’d like?” she asked.

“No. What is it?” I replied.

“The food?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re noodles. You’ve had plenty of noodles before back at the apartment.

I remembered. They were the long bouncy things that were a bit difficult to scrape or grab off of a plate when I finished eating.

I looked at the menu. Were all these things really noodles? Were they all different kinds of noodles or different sizes of plate or just the same thing?

“Do you want me to order for you?” Bandit asked.

“...Yeah,” I pouted. I wanted to choose something, but I had no idea what, and from previous experience people would get mad at me if I chose the wrong thing. Or did something wrong when they told me what to do. It’s been getting better though, so maybe next time I could decide.

A different jelly came back with a clipboard. The rest of the party ordered their food, and I listened to what they were saying to hopefully remember and see what they actually got. 

“And Visor will have some macaroni and cheese,” Bandit said.

Then we were waiting again. I was so bored. It only took a little while to get food anywhere else I’ve gone, but I found a part of myself almost counting the excessive length of time that occurred before the jelly returned carrying a tray of food.

The dishes were set in front of us. Arrow and Bite both had huge dishes of big, flat things with red sauce on top and spilling from the inside, and Bandit got a pile of noodles with red sauce. I got a bowl of cheese and something else.

“This isn’t noodles. Arrow and Bite didn’t get noodles either?” I said, confused. I looked again at all the dishes. “And there’s no soup!”

Arrow and Bite were both already eating, and the food was disappearing quickly from their dishes. Bandit chuckled as she stirred her fork into the noodles on her plate.

She pulled the fork out with a glob of noodles wrapped around it. Red sauce was dripping from some of them and getting mixed into others. “I forgot you’ve only had instant noodles,” the inking said. “There’s different kinds of noodles. This is spaghetti, what I’m eating.”

Bandit pulled the fork up and took a bite, then wiped her face with a napkin and pointed her fork at the food on Arrow and Bite’s plates that were already half empty. “The things that make the layers there are noodles, called lasagna,” she then pointed to my plate. “And those hollow tubes are called macaroni.”

“Huh,” I said. 

“And there’s no broth because it’s just a different kind of food,” Bandit said in between bites. “Try it. Before the others do.”

I looked down at my bowl. Arrow was nearly finished with Bite right after her, and the taller octoling was eyeing my food hungrily.

I pushed a fork into the bowl. A piece of cheese noodle came off when I pulled it back out, opting to stick to the rest of the food rather than the fork. I tried again, with the success of any other dish. I ate.

It mostly tasted like kind of salty cheese, with the texture of the warm cheese overwhelming that of the noodles, though the difference in taste and texture between the noodles in this dish were distinct from that of the instant noodles I’ve had at the apartment and in Alterna. There were little bits of fish mixed in. All the flavors kind of matched because of the saltiness they had in common. I liked it.

I ate through the majority of the food before I paused for a second too long.

“Are you going to finish that? Can I have it?” Arrow said, grabbing my bowl from in front of me.

“Thanks!” she said, mouth full.

I didn’t get to savor a last bite, but maybe it helped Arrow’s ever-unsatisfied stomach.

We waited a while more. Arrow kept talking about ordering more food, but the group had already spent a decent amount of money and probably shouldn’t spend more. In the end, a jelly came and gave us a piece of paper.

“Happy Holidays!” the jelly said as Bite paid and we got up to leave.

Other times, I would leave and walk around on my own. The group taught me how to use my phone, and enforced the notion that I should not accidentally stab myself with the cord. Now I could go out on my own and always navigate (more or less) back to the apartment.

Olive was hesitant to let me go out on my own, but didn’t make any attempt to stop me other than messaging me with a vague “Don’t do anything weird.”

It was cold at night, but it was nice. There was something peaceful about listening to everything happening as I walked across the streets and sat still on the benches or stood on the balconies, watching. I found myself ending with a trip to the same one of the taller balconies in the city.

The wind would swirl around and the cold would nibble at my exposed skin, but I could still hear and feel the world beyond the chill. In the apartment building behind the balcony, a group would sing squidmas songs. It was clear that the youngest among them didn’t want to participate. Down below, a couple of people would graffiti on one wall, and another few people would come a little while later and try to paint something better on the adjacent wall. Shops would play the same few songs over their speakers repeatedly until they closed late into the night. The lights across the city would flicker off and on. Groups and solitude commuters would pass by down below, chatting with energy or watching something on their shellphones. Around me, others would come, often families with their children, to enjoy the city like I was. I never had the words to talk to any of them, but it was alright. I enjoyed the life of the city.

Sometimes I would close my eyes and wait. When I opened them again, I would see the stars above the city. The lights below were distracting, but the stars were beautiful. There was a sort of disconnect between all of them that was both haunting and fascinating that made me want to wait and watch more. Every time I looked, the stars drew my gaze in a different path. And when I returned my attention to below, it felt like I was seeing it for the first time again. I wasn’t sure what to think each time, but I could let it sink in and just be an observer.

I wished my friends would come more. While Arrow and Bite would often do so, it always brought this sense of disconnect. I had to wait for them, or they would interrupt me, or they just had a different idea of what the schedule was. I loved the company, but there was always something off and some disagreement. Things were both perfect and problematic. In the end, I would deem the thoughts irrelevant and pass it off, reminding myself of the “live in the present” slogan a lot of stores were presenting to draw in customers. It really didn’t matter, since it was out of my control.

It was always late when I got back each time. I stepped into the apartment and felt relieved at the warmth. I would open the apartment door and Pon-Pon would probably be asleep. Bandit would either be asleep or doing some sort of quiet activity on her phone. Bite, if she wasn’t with me, was having a snack or chewing on the decorations, some of which even lit up. I said hi to whoever was up and washed up, then went to sleep in my closet.

Days passed like this. It was nice and peaceful. I just wished there was something I could do for Beacon to make him feel better. Just something else I couldn’t do anything about.

On the day before Squidmas, it seemed that everything was a little different outside. Different people walked down the streets. The desert was the same as ever, but it felt wrong for some reason. Like it should be snowing and there should be trees, like all the squidmas-themed things said. The rest of team Rainbow wasn’t planning or doing anything special, either from lack of knowledge about how to be festive or lack of enthusiasm for festivities.

When I woke up and rolled the closet door open on Squidmas, there were no presents under the tree. Of course, we didn’t even have a tree. The closest thing we had to even a fireplace for Father Squidmas to come through was the air conditioning vent, which was in use. I wonder how Father Squidmas would even get in through an air conditioning vent. Or did he just not come if there wasn’t a fireplace? That would be unfair.

Beacon was gone like he was a lot lately, and Bandit and Arrow were watching videos on  Bandit’s phone. Pon-Pon and Bite were out doing their own things. Nobody was celebrating as I’d hoped they would be.

I tried not to pout all day. It wouldn’t be fair to all the people I played turf war with during the day for me to be pouting. Lots of teams I encountered seemed to be families playing together, or maybe friends. It didn’t feel good somehow to see everyone enjoying their time except me. I tried to bury all the upset inside me in turf wars, but I ended up just losing a lot.

I kept battling. I was getting splatted over and over again and every time I tried to go forward, nobody was with me and I got splatted again. It wasn’t fun, but I didn’t just want to wait for something to happen and not do something. It was too repetitive and boring. I was getting nowhere. But what else was I supposed to do? The sun slowly crossed the sky, so I could tell that time was passing. It felt like time was going so slow but at the same time I was wasting all of it. It wasn’t that fun.

When it started to get noticeably darker, I crossed the line that my patience could handle. I put my roller back in the apartment and saw Bandit and Pon-Pon watching something on TV. They turned to look at me as I came in and put the roller into the closet, but didn’t say anything more than a greeting before returning to watch their thing. Arrow was gone. 

Maybe I should go find her. She’s probably doing something funner anyways.

I left again and started walking in a direction. I didn’t have anywhere I particularly wanted to go. I kicked a rock in front of me for a couple of blocks.

“Is there snow?” I asked a crab on the main street, remembering what Pon-Pon had said when I first learned about Squidmas.

“Oh, I heard the snow machines were stolen,” they replied.

I drew my lips into a line.

I really wanted to see that…

I kept walking. I guess main street wasn’t for me today. I didn’t know how long I was walking, but the cold was worse than usual.

I had been walking for a while and not really paying attention when something hit my head.

“Ah!” I yelped, and whirled around, wacking away whatever had hit me. It turned to be a broom, and the holder of the broom was a lady with a wide smile and closed eyes. She didn’t look tired, though.

“Relaaaax, kid! Frien’ over ‘ere tells me you’re good!” the inkling said. The words were a bit difficult to understand since her speech was a bit sloppy. She pointed into the door of the building she had her back to.

Arrow was standing in the doorway chugging a bottle of soda while waving me in without much focus. I guess I did end up finding her.

Why not, I thought. Arrow turned around and went into the building. But who are there people? I had never seen them before.

The sign above the door read “NIGIRIKA”. The sign on the door read “CLOSED”. I went inside anyway, and entered a small restaurant. I saw advertisements for different drinks and saw the various drink machines that served them as well as tables. Most of the light in the shop was coming from the back. I assumed that’s where Arrow went.

I walked down the hall and found a more homey-looking room though a door in the back. A low table was centered in the room with plates of sushi scattered about it. Most of the plates were already cleaned off, and Arrow and two others were making short work of the remaining ones while they talked loudly. The inkling who hit me before sat down at the table and began to eat as well.

Everyone was smiling. I didn’t really know what to think. I stood there awkwardly.

Someone with yellow ink appeared behind me and held a plate of sushi out for me. The food looked inviting.

“I suggest you eat some before we run out. There’s almost none left,” the inkling said cheerily.

“Don’t I have to pay?” I asked quietly.

“Hm?” the inkling questioned, raising her voice. Arrow and the other three at the table were being loud, so I guess the lady didn’t hear me.

“It… costs money, right?” I raised my voice. 

The inkling took a moment to hear me, and then responded.

“Well… Not today. Just eat before it’s all gone,” she said before she pushed the plate into my hands and sat down and began to eat herself. She ate nearly as much as the others at the table.

I sat cross-legged behind Arrow and picked the sushi up with my fingers. A little bit of rice fell off, but overall it was pretty sticky. I had a bit of rice on my fingers after I put the first piece in my mouth.

It was good. The salmon in it wasn’t like the stuff we put in sandwiches at the apartment. It was fresh and didn’t come apart at the edges. Delicious. I kept eating.

Halfway through my plate, someone grabbed my sweater and tugged me to the table in between him and Arrow.

“‘Bout time you stopped sulking and joined us!” Arrow said through bites of food. She pointed at the rest of the group and talked with even less focus than before. “Friends.”

“Ya, who are you anyways, kid?” the person who originally hit me with the broom on the street said. She drank some alcohol from the bottle before continuing. “Sorry.  It’s not polite for me to not introduce m’self first. Ya can call me Z,” the inkling said. She still had her eyes closed, turned to the rest of the people in the group that I didn’t know. “That’s my team. Introduce yourselves.”

Everyone ignored her. Even the octoling who had pulled me to the table had found something to talk about with the yellow inkling and the green spiruling. 

Z banged on the table twice to get the group to pay attention “Y’all. Introduce yourselves. Now.”

The group quieted, though they continued to eat. The members of Z’s team gave each other looks and vague hand gestures until they decided who was going to go first.

“Name’s Xander,” the octoling said, then opened his palm to the yellow inkling that served me the sushi who was sitting next to him.

“Yellow. Or Y,” she said.

The last person to introduce themself was an older spiruling with green ink. He seemed to be the most respectful out off all of the people at the table, though there still was a decent amount of energy in the guy’s slightly cloudy eyes. There was something strangely familiar about him that I felt strange at. I didn’t know him, but he was familiar. Must’ve been something weird on my end though, because he didn’t show any signs of recognizing me.

“Name’s Wasabi,” he said. He glanced over me. “Looks like you’ve got good taste,” he suggested, gesturing at my footwear, then to his own wasabi tabi.

“I’m Visor,” I said when everyone’s attention was focused on me. “Uhm. Nice to meet you all,”

X gave me a thumbs up and swapped one of the pieces of sushi on my plate for one of his.

“For variety,” he said.

The ravenous appetite at the table further encouraged me to eat just like they were. I was too slow for all of them and had to keep up. Surprisingly, I found myself catching up and even eating off of the plates in the center of the table. Though perhaps I was still slow and being at the table gave me a sense of unity with them. Whatever it was, I liked it. Even when people spit up their drinks laughing or one time when Z threw a plate at Y for saying something inappropriate “in front of the kids”-I didn’t know who she was referring to as kids- and Y caught the flying plate, only to accuse Z five minutes later of “saying something inappropriate in front of the kids”.

I was mostly silent, though sometimes I would exclaim a “Yeah!” or something similar when someone said something with such enthusiasm that I just had to agree. I couldn’t help myself from smiling. I forgot all about my previous gripes about the day, and forgot the fact that it was a holiday entirely. I was just having fun with friends. Arrow’s friends at first, but mine now too. I liked it.

Especially Wasabi. He was more like me, slightly more reserved, though not reserved in battling for the last pieces of dishes and offhand comments. He was just slightly more respectful when engaging in the energy.

“MINE!” Arrow shouted, getting up abruptly and using her height to try and grab something from the center of the table. The stacks of plates had grown taller and taller, and now only one piece of food was left. The rest of the group let out a chorus of shouts and all grabbed at the last piece with the same enthusiasm as Arrow had. But they were faster, and Z and Wasabi were closest to the plate that contained the precious food. I joined in, but the furious whirl of sticks and mass of hands made me a little nervous. I wasn’t able to replicate the amount of skill in fighting over food that the others at the table had.

Almost as if in slow motion, the food, still in mostly one piece somehow, went flying into the air. Arrow didn’t see it until too late, and only started to move upwards when Z, Xander, and Yellow all leapt for it.

Z won. She jumped across the table, knocking over a (fortunately empty) glass, but managed to grab the sushi and cradle it in her hands as she crashed into the floor, laughing.

Wasabi, who hadn’t jumped for the food, calmly set his chopsticks down on his plate in surrender. Xander and Yellow groaned, but were smiling as they leaned back and panted after the draining fight. Arrow pouted.

Z shoved the whole thing in her mouth quickly so as to make sure nobody stole it from her. Everyone sat in silence for a minute while Z ate.

Yellow smirked. She pulled another piece from not the table- I didn’t actually know where she got it. Xander rolled his eyes and patted her on the shoulder as she ate.

Arrow chuckled. “I think Bite’s coming to the next one,” the tall indigo octoling said.

“Ah, ‘nother friend? Good for you, kiddo. Tell ‘em they’re always welcome ‘ere” Z said.

“Mhm,” Arrow acknowledged absentmindedly, staring at the empty plates.

Wasabi got up and started taking some plates from the table. Yellow disappeared somewhere, and the plates started disappearing too. Z got up and went to the front of the restaurant and grabbed another bottle of alcohol, then returned and muttered something. She went through another door. Now only Xander was left with Arrow and I, and he was stretching and yawning.

Pretty quickly, Wasabi and Yellow returned, and gathered Xander.

“We’re heading out for some more food. Want to join us?” Xander asked politely.

“Yes.” Arrow said without hesitation. “Count me in.”

The three started walking down the street outside without regard to Z still being in the building. Arrow followed them, humming. I glanced back and forth for a few seconds, then darted over to catch up with the group.

“Are we leaving Z?” I asked as we walked.

“She’ll catch up,” someone said, without missing a step. They didn’t seem too worried, so I decided not to worry either.

I followed the group to wherever they ended up going, which turned out to be a different restaurant. There were only a couple of people working at the place, and we were the only ones there, but we still pulled two tables together and sat, waiting for food. Z jaunted in and pulled up a seat to join us. The food came pretty quickly, but went pretty quickly too. The group ate and ate more, though it was mostly Arrow as per usual. 

A few minutes after the food was served, the door to the restaurant opened and Bite came in. Her clothes, sleeveless and short as usual, looked cold in the weather, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She saw Arrow and came over, ordered more food, and dug into what was already served while she waited for her own order.

We never ate this much when we went out with Bite. I wondered why. I still enjoyed the food. It was getting late still, but we kept eating. I did too, even when Wasabi and Yellow gave in to full stomachs. Everyone kept eating, and Z and Wasabi kept up with a steady stream of alcohol too, but Arrow just kept getting juice. I drank ample amounts of water and sauce to go with my food.

When the bill came, Wasabi frowned at it, but paid. I wondered how much it was. Bite did something similar, but it didn’t seem to be nearly as much since after her first order, since she pretty much just ate whatever Z’s team bought. We bid thanks of varying volume to the people working, and left.

To my surprise, Z’s team didn’t head back or split up to go home. Neither did Arrow or Bite. Instead, everyone left for a different location, and I supposed I should follow. This was how we ended up entering a place that had “KARAOKE” in bright neon above a nondescript door. Inside, we ordered more food (though I admit I loved the food, and somehow wasn’t full yet) and walked through a hallway to a dark room with a big screen.

Z grabbed something, clicked a few buttons, then text appeared on the screen and Z started shouting something unintelligible.

Oh, it’s a song, I recognized. I didn’t know what song, but it was definitely a song. I shrunk back slightly at the volume, though I enjoyed it and moved to the music. Z’s voice didn't quite mesh with the music, but her enthusiasm definitely made up for it.

The microphone was handed to Xander next. I still couldn’t tell what the lyrics were when he sung, but I liked it.

Wasabi took a turn, and I realized that the words appearing on the screen were what the lyrics actually were supposed to be. Arrow sung after Wasabi, this time a song I knew well: Chopscrewey. She would play it at the apartment a lot. Bite went next, with Kinetosis by Diss-Pair.

I went to take a big drink of water from my glass, but it tasted… off. Kinda gross. I drank it all anyway.

I was handed the microphone, and told to choose a song. I didn’t know what song to choose.

“Uhm… uhh.” I muttered.

“Fine, I’ll choose one for you.”

A beat I could practically feel started up. I didn’t need to look at the screen to know what was coming up.

“Can’t go wrong with the Inkantation,” Yellow said before taking a sip of her drink.

“Who took my beer?” Z whined, interrupting the conversation.

I sang. I didn’t know the lyrics perfectly, but I knew the melody at least- somehow. It logically didn’t make sense- I don’t think I had listened to it before- but I could feel it like a distant memory.

Arrow, Bite, and I parted with Z and her team after a while longer. We went home, Arrow left, and Bite and I crashed. My day had been thoroughly turned around for the better.

I wished for that night to be repeated again and again, but there was inevitably going to be another three hundred and sixty four days before Squidmas. It felt so long. I slept, satisfied.

Notes:

NaNoWriMo is helping me write this. This happy part of Visor's story might be done by the end of the month if I keep this up.

Chapter 16: Festival

Summary:

Squidmas, New Years, and now a Splatfest- the festivities don't seem to be ceasing. Visor is going to try their hardest to enjoy this weekend to its fullest.

It wasn’t even a week after Squidmas that a Splatfest was announced-right before New Years. Apparently, early in the weeks I was stuck in Alterna, there was this “splatfest” event. I didn’t know about it then, and Olive would absolutely not have let me out to battle at the time.

I hadn’t been to Alterna or even seen Olive in weeks. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her or was trying to avoid her, we just… didn’t get along. Both her and Crimson saw something haunting me that nobody else could. I had no idea what they saw in me, but it definitely made talking to either of them really uncomfortable- not that I had seen Crimson in forever. Beacon looked at me in a similar way, but it wasn’t quite the same.

I had never experienced a Splatfest. With the excitement that seemed to be in the air, it seemed an event with a lot of social weight. Graffiti in the color of each of the teams across the city argued for people’s picks, in both support or challenge. Many apartments showcased merchandise in their windows or balconies. It wasn’t as much decoration as Squidmas, but it was certainly a sight.

> Team sweet! Sweet! Sweet! GO TEAM SWEET! Duskwave yelled in my messages.

I came back from a series of ranked battles to find the whole team lounging in the apartment. Everyone turned to look at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked. 

“It’s the splatfest announcement. You know what that means,” Arrow cued.

“TEAM SWEET!” Pon-Pon cheered.

“TEAM SOUR!” Bandit and Beacon shouted.

“TEAM SPICY!” Arrow said.

Everyone spoke at once, and the conversation devolved into an argument.

“It’s intense! You don’t get that from any other food,” Arrow said.

“Spicy isn’t even a flavor!” Beacon complained. “How can you choose a team that already doesn’t hold up to the prompt?”

“One could easily argue that sourness is just as intense as spiciness anyways! You pucker when you eat something really Sour, but there’s no common word for an expression of eating something Spicy!” Bandit added.

“Because Spicy is just plain good! Beyond words!” Arrow retorted.

“But you see, Sour and Spicy don’t have their own category of food- desserts are a whole category of food dedicated to sweetness! It wouldn’t be that popular if it was bad!” Pon-Pon said. “Visor, you’re on my side, right?” 

“No! If you join team Sour, you can battle with us!” Bandit argued.

“But in tricolor, you can only have two people in a party!” Pon-Pon said. “It’ll work out if Visor teams up with me!”

“Or me!” Arrow said. “With your offensive power using your roller, we’ll make a good team!”

I stared. How was I supposed to pick? I didn’t care about the flavors. I didn’t want to choose. There were more people on team Sour here, but Beacon was one of them and still didn’t like me. I could join them, and Bandit would be happy at least. If I joined team Sour, I would be leaving Arrow and Pon-Pon alone on their respective teams. I didn’t want them to be sad because of me.

“Uhm… I’ll think about it…” I said.

“But what flavor do you like?” Pon-Pon asked me.

“But I don’t really care…”

“You get sugar highs and sugar crashes from sugary things, but Sour just tastes good!” Beacon continued, gesturing to emphasize his point.

Each side was making valid arguments, but no side had enough of an argument to make me choose. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone with my choice.

Sweet, Sweet, Sweet. Most of the support I had seen outside the apartment was for team Sweet. Most of Team Rainbow pointed out that it was an unfair advantage that there were so many people. Pon-Pon pouted in defeat at that one.

I settled down in my closet and read my notifications. Duskwave wanted me to join team sweet.

> hey all my teammates just chose another team can you help

> I don’t have anyone to battle with and getting freshness on my dapple dualies is boring if nobody uses my beacons

Huh. Duskwave has the same issue Beacon does with the beacons. I understood the issue in theory, but Bandit was already there for Beacon. Duskwave said they didn’t have anyone.

If I didn’t choose someone on the team, then maybe they wouldn’t feel like I liked one of them more than the rest. I was extremely grateful to everyone, but I wanted them to have fun. I opened my messages with Olive.

> What team are you for the splatfest? I asked. It was a little while before she responded.

> does it matter to you? She said. I could feel her uncaring attitude through the screen.

> I don’t know what to choose, I added.

> then choose.

With Olive not helping my case, I moved on. Callie and Marie didn’t want to share what team they were choosing, and I didn’t really know anyone else to ask.

The following day was New Years Eve, and I decided to go out for a shift at Grizzco since Bite wanted me to help pay for the apartment but the cash I earned from playing turf didn’t cut it-especially since we were spending money on a team dinner to celebrate the new year that night. Shifts at Grizzco were dirty and stressful work, but my crewmates were pretty friendly, but still talking about the Splatfest teams. The topic seemed to follow me. When I got back from work, the bonus booth gave me a strange kind of shell along with the assorted hats and cash. I didn’t know what it was for.

Outside the building, I turned it around in my hands. Ah- there was a sticker in the back. The label had a barcode and said to scan the barcode then exchange it at the Shell-Out machine for rewards. I remembered that as Duskwave’s strange obsession. I didn’t make much use of it, but they liked the plastic cases.

Might as well give it a shot. And if nothing came of it, then Duskwave would enjoy the plastic. I used my phone’s camera as the label instructed to scan the barcode.

A box of red-colored text showed up on the screen.

Invalid action - please choose a Splatfest team.

I frowned. Everything really did revolve around the Splatfest, didn’t it.

I headed over to the Pledge Box and stood in front of it, contemplating. Team Sweet already had a lot of players… but I wasn’t going to ever choose if I didn’t soon, I figured. It would be a waste if I left this shell thing unused.

I signed up for Team Sweet, and was given a pink shirt with a cake on it as well as a plastic bracelet. I shoved both into my sweater pocket and left for the lobby, hoping I made the right choice. You can’t change this later, they said.

I scanned the barcode on the shell again, and a green box with a checkmark came up this time. I walked inside the lobby and exchanged it at the terminal. A red  plastic ball rolled out of the dispenser.

I cracked it open and found a pack of cards. I hadn’t played tableturf yet, but I did sometimes watch the others play it. Maybe I’d check it out sometime. I took the red shell pieces and placed them in front of Duskwave’s locker. Hopefully they wouldn’t be stolen. I texted them to say I’d decided on their team.

> Joined Team Sweet. Left some shellout shell in front of your locker.

Duskwave texted back just like I imagined they would say if they were in front of me right then.

> HAHA EPIC YAAA THANKS! Also you should practice for the fest!

When I got back to the apartment, I found myself hiding my team choice from the rest of the team. I really didn’t want them to feel bad. I stuffed the shirt under my mattress and pretended I didn’t do anything that day.

It didn’t work. Bite, being her usual self, caught me doing this and took a look a few minutes later.

“Look, Visor betrayed you all!” I imagined her saying. All I actually got was a “Huh,” before she threw it back into the closet.

The rest of the team didn’t take it quite as carelessly, but it wasn’t a bad response. There was a certain amount of pouting and joking about my choice, but they didn’t kick me out for it.

That was silly, I thought when looking back on my feelings. Why would they kick me out for choosing a Splatfest team based on my opinion? Of course they wouldn’t. 

Arrow pouted when Bite came back a few days later with a team Sour tee, but they didn’t kick her out either. Not that they could, since she paid most of the bills.

I met up with Duskwave a couple of times between my choosing a team and the Splatfest. We usually played turf, but Duskwave wasn’t a bad Anarchy battles player and taught me a lot about how to play more aggressively, which I needed to do with my roller. They also taught me how to ink better and that rolling all the time was actually pretty vulnerable and  problematic during combat. I definitely enjoyed spending time with them, and I was excited for the festival.

Seeing the special lights and performance screens set up across the main street was great, too. The floats for the performance and x battle winners were really cool. I wondered what the story behind them was. Bandit seemed maybe a little more at peace when we walked by the float piece behind the Grizzco building once. I wondered why. When I decided to ask about it, she dismissed it, simply giving Berry a little scratch.

The splatfest came soon enough. I preferred the shorter week-long wait much more than the half-month wait from Squidmas. Plus, there seemed to be a lot more engagement within Team Rainbow. Despite his previous grievances with me, Beacon was mildly willing to engage in conversations I was involved in, even though it was mostly to passionately argue for his team.

When the morning news announced the start of the splatfest and the music exploded from main street, everyone gathered their weapons and we headed out, proudly sporting their Splatfest tees. The colors, the songs echoing down the alleys, the spirit- it was perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

The crowd in the main street was huge. We couldn’t move more than a few meters before running into someone else. The lobby was even more crowded. With mutual competitive smirks, the rest of my team left each other to queue for their own battles. 

Duskwave texted me to meet them by their locker. I managed to make my way near their locker eventually, and from a distance saw them twirling their dualies and tossing them in the air impatiently.

“Sorry!” they shouted when one of the flying weapons hit someone. They restrained themself from throwing weapons after that. I waved to get their attention.

“Hey, Visor!” they shouted. “I’ve been waiting forever! Been here since like 5 AM! How long have you been waiting? My phone got down to like four percent right after I texted you, so sorry if I missed anything- all the outlets have been taken and I don’t have any sort of battery. So I’ll need you to register me in your party so we can battle together. I’ll turn it on to accept your invite, but the thing’ll die once I do that.”

“I actually just came,” I said. I muttered an apology to someone who bumped into my shoulder, then turned my attention back to Duskwave. 

“What? I didn’t hear you. Too loud,” the inkling said, raising their voice even more.

“I said I just came from my apartment,” I repeated, louder than before. “I’ll queue us for a battle then!”

“Great!” Duskwave said. I balanced my roller on their locker and pulled out my phone, invited Duskwave to my battle team, and set it to look for a match.

“Hold on. Let’s grab some crab-n-go on the way out. I’ve got a team level ticket.”

The main room of the lobby wasn’t nearly as crowded, except for the line at Crab-n-Go. In addition to the usual goldfish staff, there was also a blue crab in the tiny booth handing out food and drinks to everyone. I helped mop up the practice area while I waited for Duskwave, though my efforts didn’t do much to help since it got inked over again nearly instantly after I’d gone over any spot anyways. I still heard Duskwave shouting their splashtag ID at the booth over the cacophony since they didn’t have their phone charged to register the bonus level experience that way. The cats Judd and Lil’ Judd were flipping through pictures on a tablet and judging matches, even though the festival had just started barely twenty minutes ago and I couldn’t imagine how people had already gotten transportation fast enough to get them to the battle stages already.

My phone buzzed, telling me that Duskwave and I had been assigned to a match. It would be in two hours- the backlog was already that large- and at the spare Scorch Gorge stage. That shocked me- I hadn’t known that there were extra turf areas at each site, but it made sense if there was going to be such a great amount of people wanting to battle in this little two-day timeframe. I put my phone back into my pocket.

Duskwave came to me with a huge mountain of green (and some other colors) food in a plastic basket.

“It’s disposable. the plate, I mean. So we can get going if we’ve matched. Have we?” they chattered. “Where is it?”

I brought my phone back out from my pocket and turned it on and unlocked it. I held it out for Duskwave to see.

“Scorch 2, huh? That’s close by here. Probably cold outside, but we’d better get a move on. The park has good seating, so we can sit there while we wait.”

“Alright!” I started out towards the train. Duskwave followed, but I had to slow down for them since they kept getting distracted by their food, which I only started eating on the train to the stage.

The food was good, but there was a lot of it. We weren’t able to eat it all, despite both picking at it for over an hour and a half. The benches at the Scorch Gorge were really well-kept but it was only morning in the desert and therefore still a bit cold. At least there were heaters. The benches overlooked the main Scorch Gorge stage, so it was both extremely irritating when an opposing team won a battle, and extremely cathartic when our own team Sweet won a battle- that wasn’t a mirror match, since those also happened.

Duskwave told me that the battle queue app would tell you if your opponents were on the same team as you and let you opt out of the battle if you didn’t want to turf against your own team. With how many Team Sweet people were hanging around the stages either cheering friends on or waiting for a battle themselves, and how there weren’t too many “mirror matches”(as it seemed to be colloquially called) it seemed that that feature was getting a lot of use.

It didn’t seem like we would have to use it though, since we were called into a match and found ourselves facing a group from team Spicy in the loading area after a short walk across the park. I left my phone in the temporary lockers for the battle, and Duskwave plugged their phone into a free outlet. We boarded the respawn points and let our ink flow into our weapons and ink tanks.

I couldn’t keep myself from grinning as the start of the match was signaled. Battle was exhilarating. I inked the spawn, and Duskwave, being the aggressive battler they were, rushed to the enemy base. After a sufficient amount of our color was applied to our home base, I moved out to the middle, too bored to wait to use my Big Bubbler. I was nearly splatted at an enemy Snipewriter’s fire, but managed to set a Big Bubbler on the center hill. I flung ink around the middle while safely under the cover of my special weapon. Duskwave had been splatted a couple times by now, but jumped to me and placed a Tacticooler they had charged by inking the area between our spawn and the edges of our base that I had left dry.

I gratefully took the soda and tried to drink as much of it as I could before I had to abandon the refreshment for diving behind the cooler in order to avoid more of the snipewriter’s shots when the bubble popped. Newly invigorated, I thanked Duskwave and moved to run across the grates into the enemy base. I barely dodged an enemy shooter aiming at me from below as I hit solid turf and flung ink forward. I got distracted by a different shooter coming from the enemy base, so the snipewriter did end up hitting and splatting me.

Thanks to the tacticooler’s effect, I respawned quickly and super jumped back into the battle. From way up high, I could even see the lights of the other scorch gorge stage in the distance. Comparing the two stages, they were actually pretty much the exact same. The sky was quiet, but when I landed, I realized that there was different music from usual playing. It sounded like Deep Cut, who were singing around the main street, except not the same song. The music reminded me to fight even harder.

One minute remaining. I was splatted again, this time by an enemy slosher. We had a hard time maintaining the middle ground, especially with Duskwave’s habit of trying to move alone into the enemy base and ink there without any backup and promptly being chased away or splatted. 

Twenty-five seconds left. I thought we were about to get the middle back, when the enemy snipewriter tossed a sprinkler onto the zipcaster perch on our side and tossed a tacticooler down to their side of the middle. Our team was wiped out, but I saw that Duskwave had placed a beakon in their base. By the time I respawned and jumped to it, the enemy team was marching into our own base. I contemplated jumping back, but it would waste too much time. Someone else from our team jumped to us in the enemy base, but I wasn’t confident in the amount of turf we were able to cover by the time the game ended. 

“Thank you for a great game!” I chirped between breaths back at the loading area. I retrieved my phone from the temporary locker.

The group from Spicy and our own team from Sweet watched the projector screen at the loading area, waiting for results. The image of the end of the battle didn’t look good for our team. In the end, Spicy did win that battle. It didn’t change my enthusiasm though, but only furthered to fire me up for the next battle even more.

“Let’s do this, Visor! I know we can win the next one, I believe in us!” Duskwave yelled as we walked back to the train to return to the lobby. 

“Yeah, let’s go!” I mirrored. 

It was nearly noon, and most of the people who wanted a battle before lunch had already gotten theirs by this point, so we matched and were set to battle at Undertow Spillway in forty minutes. We had breakfast late, so it wasn’t a problem for us to keep going. 

Our next match did turn out to be a mirror match. Duskwave didn't want to give up a battle, and neither did I. 

The holes in the ceiling near the stage in Undertow Spillway were covered for the occasion so it was especially dark, making the colors of our ink practically glow on the stage.

When we launched, I started inking as usual. There was some sort of construction going on at the edges of the stage, for what reason I don't know. I kept inking, but found that lots of my teammates weren't doing anything and instead just walking towards the middle. I paid it no mind for a little while.

Suddenly, half the team started shouting at me to come over to them in the center. I had charged my Big Bubbler, so if there was any time to push into the enemy base, my teammates calling me probably meant that now was a good time.

There were enemies next to my teammates. I aimed and went in for a fling, but an enemy activated a Big Bubbler above everyone, even my own teammates, and protected the enemy team.

Nobody was attacking each other. I paused, confused but still guarded.

"Woah, woah, woah, chill out!" one of my teammates said.

"We're not going to attack you without warning!" someone from the enemy team said.

"It's a squid party!" Duskwave said. "Other species invited, of course. It was squidparty before but the name hasn't unstuck itself yet."

I was still confused, but I’d roll with it.

“What’s a squid party then?”

“It’s just… hanging out and goofing off, really. I can’t really think of a more detailed description than that, to be honest.” 

Three of the enemy team members rapidly switched forms repeatedly after Duskwave said that. One of my teammates joined them in the action.

“You can still go out and turf if you want… Just don’t splat anyone if they’re not trying to splat you. Leave the squids and other folks to party.”

With that covered, I did decide to continue painting. It felt weird to not have to fight or do anything with any pressure. I felt like I should use the Big Bubbler, but there was no good occasion to use it now.

One minute left, and the other folks seemed to be having a super jumping contest and trying to get a few inches above the other people each time. It was rather silly, and I couldn’t fathom why anyone would find it a good use of their time. I tried to take part at one point, but it felt to me like my lack of understanding of the practice kept me from really getting it. That was an annoying thought that I didn’t care to explore further, so I returned to inking.

Ah well. With practically nothing but random spots of bomb ink for the other team, our side of team Sweet won the match. Though I guess it wouldn’t have mattered in the end anyways, since everyone was from team Sweet anyways. Maybe that was why they were doing the squid party.

We kept battling, only pausing for a little while in the afternoon to check in with our other friends and rest a little bit. When we got back into it, Duskwave had switched out their shoes for wasabi tabi like mine. They didn’t have a hat like mine, though. They kept their annaki mask on.

“Do you think you could switch to a headgear from annaki or maybe a mask?” the inkling asked. “It gives us extra clout in these battles.”

I felt my hat with my left hand. Taking it off when I had the option not to didn’t sit well with me. It was just… comforting to keep it on. It was my namesake. Despite Duskwave switching out their own tee they’d been named after, I don’t think I could do the same when given the choice.

“No.”

I felt relieved when they answered with an accepting “Okay!”.

We moved on to the next match at Flounder Heights, with our team being announced the “Sneaky Society” because we all had some sort of sneaker shoe type on.

I readied myself on the respawn launcher. The alarm didn’t sound when I felt like it should. Instead, a flag at the edge of the stage was raised and displaying text reading “10x Battle” in our purple on our side, and the enemy team Sour’s yellow-green on their side of the flag.

“Oh! Visor! It’s worth 10 times the points for the winning team!” Duskwave shouted excitedly.

The match started. I tossed out a curling bomb for Duskwave to swim through to the middle at first. I tried to ink faster than usual in the beginning, but there was only so much more I could do. I might have been a little bit careless in my rush to get into the fray, but the little imperfections surely couldn’t hurt. 

I was setting us up to lose. I was a solid fighter, but not the best. I didn’t have the damage at range that other weapons did, so I had to rely on the enemy not noticing me to be of much help. Duskwave wasn’t able to break through the enemy defenses either.

It was especially looking dull for us halfway in, when we were pushed back to defending our own base when the enemy reeflux launched missiles at the same time as their inkbrush got into our own base and was inking it up.

It was looking grim, and I could feel it. I was impatient for my Big Bubbler to charge throughout the fifty seconds we spent trying to desperately keep team Sour from inking more of our base and splatting everyone. Eventually, I did manage to activate the big bubbler, just when our hydra splatling player charged their booyah bomb. We were able to push the enemy team out from our base and even splat all but one of them. Everyone on our team hastily inked over what spaces we felt were important to ink in our base and moved up. We had lost track of the person who got away. It wasn’t looking good.

The other team regrouped, but Duskwave dived in, shouting about toothpaste. They managed to defeat half the other team before running out of ink and having to fall back. The last two members of team Sour were a charger and the reeflux. The small stringer launched missiles at someone behind me. I didn’t have the luxury of enough time to go find out who it was.

I kept going. I approached the reeflux with a series of horizontal flings. My enemy panicked and tried to get closer and kill me with a series of quick shots, but I defeated them. One of the other people on the enemy team had super jumped to their charger.

Time was up.

I stopped mid-attack and sat down, exhausted from the pressure of a single battle worth so many points.

Back at the loading area for Flounder Heights, everyone waited. The atmosphere was too tense. Duskwave was shaking with anticipation.

The enemy team won.

I sighed and shriveled up in defeat. Team Sour put up a really good fight.

The team from Sour came up to us.

“Thanks for the great fight. You really had us at the end there,” one of them said. The others nodded and commented in agreement. I felt like it was because of me that our team had lost the battle.

Duskwave told me I shouldn’t, that it wasn’t my fault, but I knew it was because I hadn’t inked the base as good as I should have in the beginning.

“You know, at least it wasn’t a 100x battle. Or dare I say it, a 333x. Those are things too. I won one last fest. That was the most pressure of my life, it felt like.”

“Those exist?!” I looked at them, horrified. 

I didn’t really care for the topic when I started, but I was all in now. I wanted team sweet to win the fest, and prove that sweet was the best flavor. Because it was. At least I thought so now.

“I don’t think I can go anymore tonight,” I said. “Too much pressure…”

Duskwave bid me goodbye, too motivated for revenge after that last match to stop battling now. I checked my phone and saw that the rest of Team Rainbow were all gathered in the main street watching the performances.

I met up with them. Hula and Crimson were there too, sporting Team Spicy splatfest tees. Everyone else was tired, but nobody was angry at each other. Beacon was even so tired that he was practically falling asleep on Hula’s shoulder, though he kept waking up and pretending not to be falling asleep like he was. Pon-Pon greeted me happily. I winced at the look, having just lost our team the equivalent of ten battles.

We watched Deep cut’s performances on the floats. Occasionally, the floats would slow down to give the winners of 100x or 333x battles the opportunity to take one loop around the main street and nearby back alleys with their supporting idol and take photos.

That kind of pedestal seemed like something I would never reach. An incredible achievement, reserved for the best fighters. I wanted to be like that someday, maybe. But didn’t everyone who played turf?

I believed in my ability to beat them. I would have to watch, analyze, and test things out until it worked. But I wanted to make it there. To be on Olive’s level. I believed I could.

 

I couldn’t sleep well that night. The sounds of Deep Cut’s performances were too loud for me to be able to sleep until it died down at what I guessed was maybe one in the morning. After that, the thought of battling again when I woke up kept me awake until I could only think about how I was still awake, which helped even less. I didn’t know when I got to bed, but it wasn’t for a while.

When I awoke in the morning, I foolishly tried to sleep in. I realized soon enough that it was the last day of the Splatfest, which got me springing out of the closet with lightning speed. Speed I should actually save for the matches I was going to play today. I slowed down, contacted Duskwave, and got some leftovers in my stomach before heading out.

“Halftime results are in! Have you looked yet? Did you? I am so pumped right now,” Duskwave practically screamed at me when I met them for the day’s battles. 

I hadn’t looked, so I opened up my phone to the splatfest news. Sweet was in the lead, topping Sour by four percent and Spicy by nearly three percent.

“And the tricolor stage is undertow spillway! That explains why they were doing the construction yesterday. Pretty cool that they can get it done that fast. Let’s go for tricolor!”

I wasn’t sure exactly what tricolor was, but it was what Duskwave invited me to battle in and so I went to read up on it. I was honestly really tired of not knowing things until they had already happened or were well into happening.

Tricolor was basically Turf, but three teams competed for the objective, called the Ultra Signal. One team was composed of four players, aiming to keep the Ultra Signal out of enemy hands, while two other teams of two players would fight to get it. This Ultra Signal thing was so important because when possessed, it would summon an invincible Sprinkler of Doom up to two times total for the attacking teams. 

Apparently, the rules had been recently changed to have the teams being attacker or defender assigned at random instead of the team that won always being defender. That part didn’t make any difference to me since I was trying this for the first time anyways. Duskwave, however, would not stop talking about how it was so much better now.

Undertow tricolor had quite the queue and there weren’t enough stages in the spillway to accommodate all the people wanting to battle. Duskwave and I had to wait four whole hours until we had a match. We spent most of that time in the lobby playing games, but we did manage to fit one regular battle in the middle of all the waiting.

Duskwave and I were on the defending team for the battle. I was stunned at how Undertow looked when I looked down from the launcher, to see a huge portion of the stage just gone. They seemed to have basically just cut it out and covered the new sides of the stage in plastic tarps. In addition, there was an extra platform area near the middle that served as our base.

There wasn’t much of an area to ink that I could claim was our own “base”, and it didn’t seem that there was a jump signal to get up to where the other half of our team launched from. It felt stupid to ink around the middle. It would get inked over by the other teams anyways. Going around in circles waiting for enemies felt so aimless.

One person from team Sour crossed over from their base to approach the center as the Ultra Signal appeared. Three of us converged on them at once, and they were promptly splatted with very little room for resistance. Behind us, Team Spicy had gotten slightly further. We fought them off slowly but surely.

From there, the other person from Sour went in for the Ultra Signal while we weren’t looking. I panicked, but it apparently took longer than I thought it would to charge the signal. We splatted the person and returned to fighting.

Fighting, more fighting. I pushed further and further into Sour’s base as time went on. I saw someone from Spicy in the middle and whirled around. Half of my team was splatted. Duskwave was in a skirmish on the side of the middle, and not able to reach the center. I wasn’t able to make it back in time either. Team Spicy took the Ultra Signal.

The giant sprinkler of doom lowered down and started inking, playing a little jingle as it did. It was too much. I could tell that the amount of turf our team had claimed was taking a hit and fast. Team Spicy, with the extra coverage, was able to push forward faster and more consistently. We weren’t able to get into their base nearly as well without being able to ink up to the base of the ramp. This wasn’t looking good for us.

On the other side, Sour still wasn’t approaching very fast. They did scare us with a couple of tries at the Ultra Signal at one point, though. I struggled to keep up.

The speakers switched to Deep Cut’s Now or Never, telling me there was a minute left. I kept going around in circles. Having two different teams to pay attention to was harder than I imagined. I had a hard time telling who on our team was where to make sure we had every angle the enemies would come from covered.

Spicy was forceful in pushing their way forward. I focused most of my efforts on them, since one of my teammates seemed to have found a rhythm in splatting the players from Sour. 

The match ended. I wasn’t able to guess the winner with much accuracy when there were three teams. Tricolor was definitely something I needed to keep track of. When results were announced, it was Spicy that won. The ring of ink around their Sprinkler of Doom was definitely a menace. I queued for another match.

Duskwave and I played throughout the day, and went home in the evening to rest. I didn’t get much real rest done before we kept going, but it was something. 

I got back up pretty soon after I tried to take a nap and spent the later half of the evening watching Deep Cut perform their Anarchy Rainbow on a stage made from the three floats linked together. It was really beautiful in both choreography and sound. Somehow, there was a unity throughout the piece despite all the different influences. Such a wonderful, colorful blend. 

Between the tricolor battles and the regular matches in open matching, we persisted throughout the night. The tricolor queue was still pretty backed up, so we were only able to play a few more by the time the night stretched into early morning. Both of us got too tired to do well in the battles, but wanted to keep going. Eventually, we had to accept the fact that we were hurting our team more than helping it and let the early birds take the final few matches as we slept.

 

I woke up late in the morning. It was just past eleven. Bandit was whisper-shouting at me to look at the news.

“Which team got the most votes? Get on the bandwagon for…” Shiver’s voice echoed from the TV. I peeked my head out from my closet and tied my tentacles back into their standard bun. Big Man muttered in anticipation, then Deep Cut mimicked a drumroll with their voices as the TV screen Big Man was behind scrolled through numbers.

“Ay!” Big Man exclaimed when the screen settled on scores.

“POW! HAHA! ” Frye shouted when it was revealed that Team Sweet had won the votes. It had looked like it from what I had seen throughout the festival, but now there was no doubt. Team Sweet had nearly 60% of all the votes, with Spicy next at 27% and Sour at the remaining 15%. The low percentage of Sour players did surprise me since half of my own team had chosen Sour.

Next up was the clout results. This was going to make or break Team Sweet’s lead with votes and conch shells. The rest of Team Rainbow were silent, staring at the screen and moving their limbs in quick, impatient motions. Deep Cut’s acapella drumroll didn’t help. Then all at once, all three clout categories displayed.

12 points for Team Sweet in splatfest open matching. 12 points for Sour in splatfest pro matching. Tricolor was just barely taken by Spicy for 15 points. I ran through the calculations in my head, and it was definitely my team that won. The rest of Team Rainbow let out disappointed sighs of defeat, except for Pon-Pon who came over to my closet and shared a high-five with me.

I did it! It wasn’t me who won the splatfest, of course, but my team had won!

I watched Deep Cut bicker about the results in good faith. Frye started talking about a sweets buffet, and (after squiggling what a buffet was) liked the idea as well, but I didn’t think I had the money to pay for it with all my other expenses. Namely, the team had been insisting I find some casual clothes instead of just wearing my battle gear all over the place. And Bite complained that rent was always uncertain with the inconsistent pay of Grizzco jobs and ink sports.

I was happy that my team won, yes, but as I thought about it again, it didn’t actually matter. It was just fun to put my all into something and share it with others. I just had a good time. Squidmas, New Years, Splatfest… I couldn’t wait for the next one, whenever and whatever it would be.

Notes:

the rest of this fic has been written already- there are only 4 left after this one! I'll try to post them weekly.

Chapter 17: Frame

Summary:

Visor is bored and can't help thinking about their past, specifically their lack of past. A mysterious face in Alterna shows Visor a new way to look at it.

With all the excitement over, I didn’t really have much to do anymore. I wasn’t particularly dissatisfied with my life, but it became increasingly obvious to me that there was something I was missing, and that was a history. Everyone else at least had pasts they didn’t want to share, but I had nothing. At least, I couldn’t remember anything. Even if they didn’t want to talk about it, at least they had something. It was like I wasn’t invited to a party that everyone else had been invited to. It didn’t feel good to be left out.

At the very least, Beacon had finally started to talk to me since the end of the splatfest. Whatever his issue was with me, he wasn’t quite as guarded as before. He didn’t say much. But I think my enthusiasm for the battles helped me be a little less unapproachable. It was the first in a series of walls I needed to work through in order to be friends, but it was something.

I even thought about returning to Alterna. I wondered if the battle stage was done yet. Marina had sent schematics, but it seemed that Callie and Marie had gotten busier with something lately, so I had no idea if the battle stage down there was finished or not. It would probably be both easier and funner for me to battle up on the surface anyways though- fuzzy ink didn’t mix well with normal ink, no matter the color. Fuzzy octarians could change their ink colors and battle each other, but someone couldn’t match one fuzzy team’s color and join them.

I used to hate the underground, but now I didn’t really care that much. Of course I still preferred the surface world. That never changed. I hadn’t been down in Alterna for over a month, but it gave me time to think about the underground with a clearer perspective.

No matter how big you got your underground chamber to be, there was always an end. It felt like shelter. No sky of stars to make you feel small, one less vector to watch for unexpected danger from. I felt safer and like I had more control down there. No matter the upsides, down below the surface there wasn’t much action and it was all artificial.

Coincidentally, Flan sent me a message that evening, asking me if I wanted to go treasure hunting in Alterna with him. Why not? I figured it would be something to pass the time. I thought about that twice. Why am I spending my time passing time? Was it my lack of purpose? I corrected myself- I wasn’t passing time, I was making myself a past.

Was a past something one could make, though?

I waited until the next day by playing games on my phone. Just going out turfing felt a bit repetitive after the Splatfest. The games available for my phone were too, but at least it was something. I had too much time in my hands.

Flan knocked on the apartment door in the morning. I opened it, ready with a backpack and all. I had a small amount of cash in it, as well as a pair of gloves. A water bottle was sitting in the dis pocket. Other than that, I didn’t really know what to bring, and Flan didn’t really tell me anything more so I figured it should be enough. I chose not to bring my weapon for the trip. It was just Alterna- everybody there knew Flan and the rest of the NSS so it’s not likely we were going to be attacked by anything. Besides, Flan still kept his reef-lux on him, so we were probably covered just in case anyways.

“Hey, had a good week?” he said. Cap’n Neo dashed into the house and took a few laps around the center room before coming back to jump into Flan’s backpack.

“Yes,” I said. “Did you?”

“I had a decent week. Made some decent cash and got a few good pulls in Tableturf packs. There was a pretty good tableturf tournament that I watched last Monday too. But my deck is just a few trade-ins away from getting all the cards fully upgraded! So that’s why I want the extra cash.”

I nodded. I didn’t really follow most of what he had said, but I got the gist of it.

I wasn’t expecting what I found when we reached the street. Or rather, who I found. The four scavengers from my first trip out with Flan were playing tag- minus the lionfish of course, because he was venomous.

I shot a questioning glance at Flan, who shrugged. “They wanted to come. Fuwa already knows it exists so it doesn’t really matter that they do. They follow me around a lot, actually.”

“Oh, it’s you!” the yellow inkling(I thought I remembered her name as Electra) exclaimed, and skidded to a halt from her jog in front of me. Oni(the lionfish) handed her backpack back.

“Hi!” I smiled. It had been a while. It was a little weird to talk to younger kids now. They weren’t very plentiful wherever I went, and I didn’t see the rest of the team really talking to children either. “How’ve you been?”

“Good! Got ourselves into school. It’s pretty cool, but we had to fudge records for Oni since he doesn’t actually have any parents and Fuwa too since they lost contact with their guardians.”

I raised an eyebrow at how she seemed proud of the probably unlawful achievement.

“We’re trying to get one of our families to adopt them. It’s kinda hard though, being bandit clans,” Fin added as she came up to me too. She was a lot taller than me- and I had forgotten that. Fuwa caught up to them, tapped Electra, whispering “tag”.

“Shhh, don’t go saying that in public,” Electra reminded, elbowing Fin.

“And what’s anyone going to do?” Fin retorted, waving his long tentacles around, showcasing his size.

Electra’s face wrinkled at Fin’s carelessness. She sighed.

“Woo! Let’s go!” Fuwa said, and started to march down the street.

Nobody else moved.

“That’s the wrong way!” Oni eventually called. He smirked as the fuzzy octoling stomped back, clearly upset.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” they complained.

With that, we headed for the Crater. It would be faster to just use the pipes, but Flan said he occasionally spotted something new going this way. More importantly, Oni was a fish and could not travel through grates.

“This place is huge,” Electra commented upon reaching the Crater. “I bet there’s so much treasure…”

“You haven’t been here before?” I asked. I assumed that since Fuwa was a fuzzy octoling, she at least had to have connections to the few fuzzy octolings living in the caves around the Crater. That and the fact that they were bandits, and probably had to have thought to look for treasure or people to raid around here every once in a while at least.

Electra shrugged. “Urban legends, mostly. Some sort of giant monster haunting the place. It was probably just the fuzzy ooze, but there’s still something weird about the place.”

Made sense. I was never around when the Fuzzy Ooze covered the place, but I could imagine how it would scare people off, since Flan got these weird things called fingernails from it. It reminded me of how the rest of the ooze that I left in Alterna was probably similar since it made everyone else uncomfortable.

“It’s gone now though,” I stated.

“Urban legends don’t die easily,”

Upon reaching the gaping hole at the bottom of the crater, I considered how Oni was going to make it down a little bit late. The huge cavern beneath the surface and subsequently the long drop into it didn’t lend itself well to people who don’t use ink. It also made me wonder how Big Man got down.

Flan suggested that I jump down first. After shifting my ink color to Flan’s blue so it would be easier for everyone to jump to me, I carefully aimed and jumped down to what everyone had dubbed the “landing island”.

 Electra carefully super jumped down, taking care to protect her backpack. Fin did so a little more carelessly, but they solidly ended up on land. Fuwa, on the other hand, didn’t have the same grasp of ink signals that the rest of us did because she was fuzzy. She nearly crashed into the water, and stumbled around a little too much that we had to go to her ourselves and pull her closer in to make sure she didn’t accidentally fall. Oni’s being a fish didn’t seem to be much of a problem, in the end. He dived gracefully into the water and crawled up the plastic rocks to us. Flan, used to the jump, landed easily and didn’t have anything much to say about it.

On the other hand, the young scavengers were in awe of the huge dome.

Most of them were in pretty silent awe, but Fuwa couldn’t keep their volume down.

“It’s so BIG! Why wasn’t I stationed here? And why did I never come back when I deserted! It’s so coooool!”

Honestly, I loved what I could only describe as a sort of energy that I’d only seen in kids. I wish I had that sort of energy. Flan had some of it, and Duskwave had a lot of energy, but not this kind of taking everything at such innocent face value that these kids did. I didn’t know much, but I knew that the octarians here didn’t have the lives they wanted and there had been some shady business going around. 

It made me wonder what had happened to Beacon to make him have an attitude almost as irritable as Olive’s, just more vocal. He was young. Younger than Flan, at least.

It didn’t seem like anyone was at the camp. Even old Cuttlefish was gone. Olive was often away, but I guess things changed since I had been there.

Flan handed me a crowbar from the stash of assorted equipment in the camp. Deep Cut probably left it there for later use, but I had heard that they had gotten bored of Alterna and even more busy managing the news lately, so they hadn’t come to find more treasure in quite a while.

“For breaking things apart,” Flan said. He turned to the scavengers, who had gotten their own scavenging tools out from somewhere. “I trust y’all can figure out your way around now. Ask ORCA- just ask the air, ORCA will hear it- if you need any help getting back.”

With that, the kids smirked and went out on their own. Fuwa immediately started to seek out another fuzzy octarian to talk to, and dragged the rest of them along. Aside from that, they knew it wouldn’t loot them much treasure to seek stuff out in the same area as someone else.

Flan immediately started off towards the side of the island facing the rocket island. It was a steeper kind of cliff back there, with a lot of layers and edges that one could fall from. Thankfully, we had the emergency respawner back at base camp.

I followed, of course. Cap’n Neo jumped out of Flan’s bag and started searching around in the snow. At one point, Cap’n Neo started jumping up repeatedly and calling Flan.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Flan said. He removed himself from leaning into a giant plastic face and went to his smallfry’s location. The two of them started digging.

“Aha!” he said when he found something. I leaned over Cap’n Neo to get a look. It was an old disc encased in plastic. Cap’n Neo warbled a little in disappointment.

“Sorry, buddy. I know it’s not food, but at least we can sell it,” Flan reassured.

I started seeking and digging too, though mostly around ruins of old human structures, since it was more likely to have something around it. I didn’t have smallfry’s or Flan’s experience to seek interesting things out, but I did hit something solid a little while in.

I kept digging, and found an edge- fortunately not a sharp one. I pulled it out.

It was a circular, plastic container of power eggs. Just a power egg pack. They were all over the place. Disappointing.

Cap’n Neo came and took the pack from me, then dashed away again. It looked like the smallfry was hungry. Ah well, it was probably a good snack, even if it was a little bit cannibalistic. I could accept that- it was the salmonid way. I would too, if I were a salmonid. Thinking about it more, the rest of the sea life ate our less evolved counterparts anyways.

I kept searching, and eventually lost sight of Flan around a bend.

Quiet footsteps approached. 

“Hello,” a voice I didn’t recognize said.

I looked up. The voice seemed to belong to a strange sort of inkling with jelly-like tentacles coming off of a flowing bell on the inkling’s head. They were standing a few meters away. The numerous jellyfish tentacles seemed to flutter slowly in the air. Either it was a really elaborate hat, or there was something going on. The person’s eyes were closed, and they were smiling, but it was… off.

I got up from my crouch and offered my hand for a handshake.

“Hi, I’m Visor. What’s your name?”

“My name’s Beat,” she said, in a distinctly calm voice for some reason. The kind of calm voice that people have when they’re really trying to be calm but it’s not the best situation. She didn’t take my hand, though she looked inclined to. Was she scared of me?

I tried to walk closer to get into a better position for conversation, but Beat somehow kept out of my reach almost seemingly without moving.

“What’s up?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m perfectly fine. I was just wondering if you were,” she said.

This was really awkward. I didn’t really know who this “Beat” person was at all. Why would she come talk to me if she didn’t like me?

“Are you scared of me?” I asked. Getting to the point was efficient, and I really had nothing to lose.

“No,” she stated. “Why would you think that? I just wanted to make sure that you were doing well.”

I brought my arms closer to myself. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“I live here. I helped the Squidbeak Splatoon a while back.”

“I lived here for a while too, and I never saw you.”

“Is there something wrong with me? You seem distressed,” Beat said, redirecting the subject. She waved her palms out in front of her slowly in a gesture of innocence. “I honestly have no ill intentions. I just wanted to meet you. Really.”

I stopped, and tilted my head to the side. “Really?”

“Of course!” she smiled. “You know, people get put off by me a lot. From your previous question, it seems like it happens to you, too. So that makes us companions in a way, yes?”

“I… suppose so.”

“So what’s going through your mind?” Beat asked. “Anything troubling you these days?”

I thought about it. I was making progress in almost every aspect of my life that I wanted to make progress in. There wasn’t really anything I had an issue with that had a remedy. The only issues I did have pretty much consisted of not knowing things(specifically my past) and Beacon still not liking me. Should I tell that to this person I’d only just met? Was there any harm in it?

I decided that it really couldn’t hurt. If there was anything I needed to keep secret, this person was already affiliated with the splatoon- or if they were lying, at least knew about them due to being down here in Alterna.

I focused my attention on the ground in front of me and started tracing circles in the snow. “Well… not really anything I can fix.”

“And what might that be?” Beat said softly.

“I don’t have a past. I can only remember the past few months, maybe.” I wanted to leave it at that. Without a past, what else could I really say?

“That’s not true. It can’t be.”

I frowned. How was it supposed to be untrue? I could say I remember the past… three months, maybe. There was no “everything before that”.

“Everyone has a past. You just don’t remember yours. Even if you theoretically didn’t have any past beyond the last few months- if you were a species that grows up quickly or something- what you’ve experienced in those few months is your past.”

I looked back up at Beat. She still wore the same weird smile as before, but with just barely-open eyes. Creepy or not, her words were comforting.

“Thanks,” I said. I stretched and decided that I wanted to find Flan again and ask him for more advice on how to scavenge, even if that advice was “find a smallfry companion”. Maybe I would even do that.

I brushed past Beat. Her eyes widened for some reason and she jerked back. I stopped and turned, one eyebrow raised. Her gaze was fixed on my hand. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I guess I had brushed my hand against one of her tentacle things and not noticed. Maybe she had something against being close to people. I’d remember that if I saw her again.

“You-” she started in a strange voice, but then cut herself off. She started speaking normally again. “Have a good day! I left my phone number at the Squid Sisters camp on a bright green sticky note. If there’s anything you need help with, call me, okay? Anything.”

“Okay,” I acknowledged. I continued around the bend I’d last seen Flan at.

Flan seemed to have a similar thought, since we almost ran into each other. He caught a glimpse of Beat standing in the clearing behind me.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said plainly. “Hi.”

“You know her?” I asked.

“Yeah. Not much though,” Flan said. He turned around and started heading somewhere with purpose. “Found a good spot. Come help?”

“Yes!” I followed, eager to help. He led me to an area- it looked to be just some snow, but Flan drew a circle around part of it and kicked some snow off, revealing heaps of plastic.

“Jackpot!” he said. “Or not, because it looks like junk. But it’s human junk!”

While we were digging through boxes of mass-produced relics, Flan mentioned Tableturf again.

“Actually, I haven’t played,” I said.

Flan looked surprised. “Really? It’s pretty popular.”

I nodded, and affirmed my statement. I placed another ancient plastic container into the pile we had started.  “Yeah. I have a few cards and nothing to do with them.”

“I can show you how to play if you’d like!” Flan said, gaining more enthusiasm.

“That would be great, thanks!” I hastily accepted.

“Aright! Tomorrow afternoon, the Shoal, got it?”

Notes:

I didn't edit this one as much as usual. hope it wasn't too bad
might move to updating more often. I've got 8 chapters pre-written now. 3 more for this fic and then 5 so far for the sequel

Chapter 18: Cards

Summary:

Visor finally learns to play tableturf. Progress is made.

The following day, I walked past Grizzco’s building and the upturned boots drying in the desert air. Someone had drawn a frowny face on one of the upside down stools being used as the drying rack. I looked up at the giant green sign before entering the establishment.

I opened the door and walked down the stairs into the Shoal. The place had a bunch of different colors and bubble patterns throughout the carpet and posters scattered about the walls. Across from the entrance, a glass wall acted as a barrier between the little community space and a training area that was a lot smaller than the one in the battle lobby, but bigger than the one in the Grizzco lobby.

A few strangers were playing on fold-out plastic tables.I was met with another unexpected face when I got to the table that Flan was looking through cards at. He had two boxes of cards stacked next to his stool. But next to the octoling was Beacon, holding his own hand of cards and comparing them to Flan’s.

Beacon looked up, and his face twisted slightly in distaste for me.

“You invited them? ” he asked.

I avoided eye contact with either of the two cephalopods. “I can go if I’m not welcome.”

“No, stay!” Flan insisted quickly. “You wanted to learn tableturf! I can’t leave you hanging! It’s a great game!”

Beacon looked troubled. The faded inkling took a deep breath before speaking. “You didn’t tell me that Visor was coming,” he said.

I didn’t think he noticed that he called me by my name. Inside, I was overjoyed.

“Awww, don’t be like that, buddy!” Flan said. “Let’s get to gaming!”

He handed me a small deck of cards. I glanced between the cards that Flan gave me and the ones that he had in front of him. His were much shinier and had a lot more color than the ones he gave me, in addition to having colorful sleeves.

“Got’cha the starter deck. Sit across from here!” Flan instructed, gesturing to the other side of the table. Beacon huffed and pulled up another stool next to Flan, then started scrolling on his phone.

Flan set down his cards and fed them into a slot in the machine. A little loading icon appeared on my side of the screen, but it was only the title screen again when the loading icon disappeared, but without “START A GAME” and instead the text “CONFIRM PLAYER 2” displayed on it. I followed his lead, and put the deck of cards the octoling gave me into the same slot on my side. A similar thing happened, except I was able to notice how it displayed a little stack of cards on one of the screens tucked into my side.

“Here we go!” Flan said. The big screen between me and Flan shifted from showing the title to a grid of squares after Flan flipped through a menu. A little confirmation screen asked me to input my splashtag ID in order to log rankings for my play. I confirmed using one of the buttons, and an animation played of four cards moving from the deck to a different screen, flipped over. 

“Let’s see…” Flan looked critically at his screens. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but I tapped buttons until something showed up on my end, outlining squares in blue on the grid.

“So, Visor. The goal of the game is just like Turf War- cover the grid in as many squares of your color as you can. Different cards cover different amounts of squares in the shape of whatever the card represents. Cool, yeah?”

I nodded. Flan continued. “So you can use the buttons and joystick to see which way you want to place the spaces that the cards cover. Once ya place them, though, you can only place squares on top of your own or your enemy’s area using specials, which you get by getting the little slightly different colored squares completely surrounded by color. Now, try to beat me!”

I completely failed at Flan’s challenge. It felt like he knew my moves, and all the cards were just wrong enough that I couldn’t get them to fit anywhere. In not too many turns, Flan had me blocked off from more than half of the board and was still advancing into my territory.

Apparently, I could choose to pass and give up my turn for a special point. It forced me to do this when I had no places to play a card and no special points to use to get cards to cover Flan’s.

I played a few more games, and Flan gave me some more helpful tips throughout. Beacon eventually put his phone away and watched. He snorted at the times I made stupid mistakes. Eventually, he even started teasing me about what I did wrong.

“That one should go one space to the right,” Beacon said to me.

I placed the Splat Dualies card one space to my right. Beacon chuckled as Flan placed a 14-space card right where I would’ve placed the Splat Dualies card had I not taken Beacon’s bad advice.

“I meant our right. Your left.”

I pouted. “That’s mean.” 

“Too bad. Here,” he said, waving his deck in front of Flan. “Let me have a go.”

Flan pulled his cards out of the machine, and Beacon put his own in. They weren’t as shiny, but they represented a lot more cool things than my starter deck did.

Beacon beat me soundly during that game. I never stood a chance against him- he kept carefully covering the board in exactly the right way to override my own move and using my own squares to activate his special points. Then he beat me again. I started to think he was taking some frustration out on me. Or maybe he enjoyed winning, or seeing me lose. Whatever was the case, I didn’t mind. Anything for him to hate me less. Maybe we could even be friends someday. Friends were nice.

Finishing out the session with not a single win in my hands, I still thought I had a good time. I would definitely do it again, given the chance. But maybe I’d try to get my hands on some better cards and read up on strategy first.

Chapter 19: Underneath

Summary:

Visor runs into an old man when they try to see the battle stage in Alterna that had finally been finished.

Notes:

Surpise! posting this chapter now.
next(and final) chapter on wednesday. after that, I have a sequel prepared!

The battle stage in Alterna had finished construction recently. I wanted to go check it out sometime, so I asked Bandit and Flan over text if they wanted to come and do a few battles. I would have asked the four scavenger kids, but they weren’t old enough to play battles safely yet. Maybe Beat would come, but when I asked her she texted back quickly apologizing and giving vague reasons for why she couldn’t. Flan was busy dealing with some scuffle in the communal scavenger camp out in the desert. Bandit was also busy helping Callie and Marie with something. I was on my own.

It was about time I figured things out for myself, anyways. I grabbed my roller just in case there was someone down there I could battle with and left the apartment.

The trip through the pipes to Alterna was short. I thought about the Squidbeak Splatoon along the way. I wasn’t quite sure what they were up to before I met them, but it seemed they got bad situations under control. If Bandit was called in to work with the Squid Sisters, was it something bad? And was there any way I could help? Where had Olive gone off to?

Ah, well. Alterna was functioning fine with all the fuzzy octarians working with ORCA to keep things going. Not that many things really needed to be kept going- ORCA knew what to do and had basically told everyone else that they should focus on the infrastructure they had built to sustain themselves rather than the expansive human ones ORCA oversees.

I popped out of the pipe to see a crowd of fuzzy octarians gathered around the kettle to the first mission. Upon request, ORCA had moved the exit and built a larger kettle to facilitate transportation to the other area more efficiently. ORCA was actually pretty nice when you asked it for something. For what reason, I didn’t know, but it looked like the Squidbeak Splatoon did, though they wouldn’t tell me why when I asked, instead saying that I could clear the missions in order to find out if I wanted to know that bad.

I never started doing the missions. The others already had that covered, and weren’t particularly encouraging of me following in their footsteps.

An octotrooper waved to me.

“Are you here for the new stage?” she asked, maneuvering her vehicle closer. I recognized this one. She wasn’t from a higher-ranking family and hadn’t done much yet to earn a name, but did work a lot trying to decipher the old human history. I had asked her about things a couple of times, but never about anything particularly noteworthy.

“Yeah,” I said. I looked at the crowd. ”Looks pretty busy, though. I probably won’t get a chance to try it out for a while.”

“Actually, we’re not here just for that. Though that is a big part of it. Some people from the domes came over and helped us with the finishing touches. But it’s mostly because the DJ came with them.”

“Ah,” I acknowledged, though it was mostly pretend understanding. I didn’t really know what DJ they were talking about. Flan mentioned a DJ sometimes, often in the same sentence as some mysterious commander. Maybe it was Marina? She was an octoling, though I didn’t know if she came from the domes or the surface.

I caught sight of some non-fuzzy tentacles among the crowd. Most of them were grown out, marking their status in the octarian militaries, though there were some non-fuzzy octarians with normal-sized tentacles among the mix.

I shoved my way further into the crowd. It got thicker and thicker as I went further in, but I managed to keep my direction by the rocket, which towered above all the heads and tentacles that were taller than me. At least octarians didn’t do crowds like the surface folk did- octarian crowds were so organized and in much finer lines than the splatter of random people that crowds on the surface were.

The tentacles started getting larger as I got further into the crowd. Eventually, I shoved my way past a surprised octoling and stumbled and fell into an unexpectedly clear area. The entire crowd went silent.

“Excuse me?” a voice said in octarian. I turned to see an octocommander staring at me with disdain. An octoling and a huge octoling in octopus form stood next to the octocommander.

“Sorry-” I said. I scrambled to get out of the way. These people probably had the next battle in the new stage.

“Wait,” a deep, commanding voice called from one of the three. I turned back to see who it was, and it seemed to have come from the octopus-form octoling. Upon a second look, he seemed to be wearing a big helmet of some sort. He gave off a different kind of feeling than the other two, who just seemed to see me as a nuisance. Instead, his expression kind of stuck me as a suspicious curiosity.

I turned to face him. Further back in the crowd, I heard some people murmur. The two people beside the octoling with the helmet backed off, glaring at me.

Did I do something weird again?

“Who are you?” he asked. “I don’t know you.”

“Uhm. My name is Visor,” I said nervously.

“You’re not octarian. I’ve never seen someone like you even with that New Squidbeak Splatoon. Where did you come from?”

That was the exact wrong question to ask me. I really had no true answer. Based on what Beat had said, I could only say what I actually remembered.

“The surface… I think.”

“You think? Did you hit your head or something? How did you get here?”

“I came through the pipes… I have friends in the Splatoon…”

I wasn’t going to lie, this guy was intimidating. My answers didn’t seem to satisfy him, not that they satisfied me either. I could see him calculating as he stared me down. The other octarian said that a DJ was here, but he didn’t really give off DJ energy to me, so maybe it was someone else they were talking about. I tried to stand up straighter like all the other octarians around were doing. It felt inappropriate for me to ask my own questions here.

“Mona, please escort them to the tent. I want to speak to them later.” The octoling standing beside the helmeted man nodded, and approached me and gestured for me to move further into the island as she walked behind me. The man- I still didn’t know who he was- turned away as I was guided inland. 

In all the excitement, I didn’t notice the octoling take my roller earlier. But now here she was, holding it in one hand with her other hovering over an octo shot at her side. Her glare made me quickly reset my gaze to face forward again. I felt extremely vulnerable. The octoling led me into a camp of tents, and a lot of other octarians were staring at me as I walked through.

I was led into a larger tent with a barely-colored blue carpet on the floor and watched as Mona gave my roller to a different octoling. I wanted it back, just to feel some sort of security. I pulled my visor around and used the shade to cover my eyes as I sat down in a chair at one side of a large table and brought my legs up onto the chair to get comfortable. 

“Sit properly in His Majesty’s presence,” Mona said. I put my feet back on the floor. I couldn’t stop tapping them anxiously, though. I tried to get my phone out, but Mona’s hand came out of nowhere and snatched it too.

It felt like forever until the boss guy finally came, especially since I couldn’t check the time. Eventually, he came in with another octoling following with a laptop in his hands. The large octopus sat in the chair across from me.

“Visor, was it? I want to be clear,” the man began. “We don’t have any ill will towards you. I’ve just had some bad history with the Squidbeak Splatoon, and I don’t know you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said timidly. Whoever you are. If he had some bad history with the Splatoon, why was he here then?

The man raised an eyebrow. “Do you even know who I am?”

Finally, Maybe it would be a little less awkward now. If he did end up introducing himself, anyways. I began to trace circles on the rug with my foot and didn’t meet the octopus’s eyes when I spoke.

“No,” I stated. It was the truth, after all. I could see Mona’s face morph into an expression of shock.

“BWAHAHA! Now that’s something I haven’t heard in a while.” The large octopus laughed. He smacked a tentacle on the table. “Name’s Octavio. I’m surprised your little buddies in the Splatoon didn’t tell you about me.”

Octavio… DJ… DJ Octavio. That sounds familiar. I guess the DJ that the octotrooper was talking about actually was this guy.

“They don’t tell me things,” I said. “Well, um… Nice to meet you?”

“Of course they wouldn’t.”

I didn’t like the way he was making me doubt my friends. Flan had mentioned this guy before, but I don’t remember the rest of them saying much at all about a guy named Octavio.

“Why are you in Alterna, by the way? What’s your connection to the Splatoon?”

How much should I really give out about my friends? The guy in front of me seemed at least semi-okay with me, but he wasn’t really nice like Beat was a week ago. Nor did he seem to be in good standing with the Splatoon.

I swallowed and spoke quietly. “I lived down here.”

“Oh, really? For how long?” The octopus’s tone was critical of my words.

“... a month? I think.”

“You seem to think a lot of things.”

“Sorry.”

“I only want to know what the deal is with you. I don’t see hybrids around too often, you know.”

I twiddled my fingers. “Oh.”

“I apologize. That was rather insensitive. You don’t have to answer.”

“It’s fine. I just wanted to see how the stage looked since it was finished.”

Octavio considered that. “I couldn’t make time to come until recently, but that’s actually why I came too.”

I brightened. “Really?”

“Yes. Callie wanted my help with it, but with everything that’s been happening lately I could never get around to it. It seems that Iida beat me to it, I suppose.”

He knew Callie! This was good news. Maybe I would actually be able to do a game, then! “Can I join your team to play, then? I want to try it.”

The octopus sighed. “Oh, I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore. Been a long time since I did. But some of my companions might be interested. Though it’ll be the first time for most of them.”

“You don’t play turf?”

I felt stupid after saying that. They were from the domes, I remembered. The domes might not have turf, sad as it might be.

“No, we don’t. There’s too much that we have to take care of first.”

“Like what? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Octavio smiled and tilted his head up. “I see now. You’re the one who wanted the battle stage here in the first place, aren’t you?”

I nodded in response.

“I can respect that.” He took a moment to think. “Alright. I’ll let you in on the deal, though I would’ve thought that the media on the surface would have already. Or your little buddies in the Splatoon would have told you. We’re running out of power, have been for a long while. Worse, there’s no unity. Things are shutting down and people are disappearing in as many directions as you can point your tentacles.”

“Oh,” I said, again. “So there really isn’t anything I can do.”

“Not really. At this point I’m just trying to find a safe place for the ones of us who remain to go and getting everything shut down right in the old domes. It looks like your project might help after all. The troops that the bastard Grizz stole from us seem to be excited about it.”

I wasn’t entirely sure if that was actually a good thing, since octarians seemed not to have ink sports. I felt uneasy, maybe even guilty. I had chosen something and made people build it when they might not even like it. And I was out playing silly games of ink sports when these people didn’t even have electricity, much less the sky.

What could I do? I felt so lost.

I sat in silence, and it didn’t seem like Octavio had much to say either. I couldn’t really analyze his expression. I eventually found myself wondering why he didn’t switch to his land form. I steered myself away from the thought. He had the kindness to notice when he mentioned my hybrid status, so I shouldn’t go asking about his issues either. I think I actually owed him for telling me these things. I decided to answer his earlier question.

“I’m sorry… I really don’t remember anything from before a few months ago…”

Octavio crossed even more of his tentacles than before. He didn’t seem to be mad at me, but there was animosity radiating off of him against someone. “Tch. That’s fine. You can have your weapon back. I don’t know if anyone will want to join your little sport, but you’re free to go ask around.” He waved me off.

I left the tent. Mona glared at me more. Outside, I was quickly approached by a twintacle octotrooper who handed my roller and phone back.

“Thanks,” I said, quickly checking my phone- nothing new. I hoisted my roller over my shoulder and began to walk aimlessly. It was weird to see octarians without fur that weren’t octolings. All the octolings down here had grown out their tentacles a lot, too.

I didn’t stay aimless for too long. All the expressions of all the non-fuzzy octarians told me that they weren’t in the mood for me. For anything, really. Their tired expressions almost reminded me of Olive. 

I slipped into the kettle to go watch the battles taking place. There were less people waiting to go than I had thought there would be. It looked like there was a rectangular balcony surrounding all sides of the stage, with a break area and the loading station on the far end of the balcony. The stage itself was kind of diagonal and pretty big, but there were large holes in the middle of the stage that threw me off. It looked like there were inkrails that led over the gaps. That was definitely a different approach to stage building than I would have expected.

I found myself a large clear area on the balcony to watch from, with only a small group of non-fuzzy octotroopers a few meters away from me on my left and one octoling on my right.

It was unusual to see fuzzy octolings using different ink colors. The brown of the hair itself didn’t change, so it only almost looked like weird lighting. The people playing on the stage below seemed to use a lot of standard octarian maneuvers that made the battle feel a lot more rhythmic than the chaos of battles on the surface. It seemed like the octolings didn’t really understand the “paint the most area” part of it, and instead often just went straight into the fray and got splatted over skirmishes. It was interesting. I wondered how they would fare on the surface.

I watched. No team of normal octolings spent enough time at the stage or showed enough interest in the battles for me to play any matches. I left after a while.

How much did I not know? Octavio had told me things that the Splatoon never bothered to. Or was it me that didn’t listen? Was I ignorant? Were there things I could do that I couldn’t see, things I couldn’t fix that I could if I knew where to look?

Even yet, my empty self wouldn’t give me answers.

Chapter 20: Answer

Summary:

Visor finally reaches a point they're satisfied with.

Notes:

so um yeah sorry did not make it on wednesday. I was busy with something you'll see at the end of the chapter (for whoever made it this far)

Late winter, 2023 Mollusc Era. I’ve known the team for four months. It’s been over a month since my first Splatfest, and now I’ve just passed my second.

The battle over which chocolate was the best was a fun one. I joined Milk Chocolate this time. It was my favorite, a good even ground that could be enjoyed by a lot of people and used in a lot of different snacks. Plus, I ended up on Duskwave’s team again, though their own team had more people choose milk chocolate, so they had to balance tricolor with me and with the other people on their team. Firewave and Vaporwave were nice, and together we made a full team. We won a 10x battle doing that, and celebrated together afterward with food despite Milk (and Dark) Chocolate’s devastating loss.

I read as much as I could find, worked a lot at Grizzco, and played a lot of ink sports. There were even a few times when some of my friends from the Splatoon would join me for battles in Alterna, or even regular octolings from the domes. Despite always trying to stay busy and learning, there were some times when I allowed myself stagnance. I enjoyed those times especially when they were with the team.

Today was one rare instance where the whole team was willing to play battles together. There wasn’t some special occasion for it, it just seemed to happen. Everyone was free on this random Friday, and Pon-Pon proposed that we all go out for some battles.

With only six members on our team, we didn’t have enough people to make whole teams. We had to switch out each match. I wasn’t on the first team- Beacon, Pon-Pon, Bandit, and Arrow were. Bite and I cheered them on from the sidelines.

While everyone waited for the next match, we discussed who was going to battle with who over the next few matches. Bite switched out with Arrow during the next battle. The available stages were Brinewater Springs and Sturgeon Shipyard. We were at Sturgeon Shipyard at that point.

I switched out with Beacon after the game, when we took the train to brinewater for the next one. It took half an hour for the train to reach Brinewater Spring, but it was a nice ride. It went from one side of the city to the other, so we got to travel over Eeltail along the way.

“You know, I remember the first time we met,” Bandit was telling me as the train took off.

“It was at Sturgeon Shipyard. The first SquidForce-endorsed Splatfest in the Splatlands was being held, and it was only half a day long. All of us, plus Flan- entered a tricolor battle together. Apparently, Beacon had met half of us already by coincidence, but he and Arrow hated each other’s guts.”

Arrow shrugged. “Flan kept going off on the worst topics. Still not a fan,” she said. Beacon glared.

“I guess things aren’t too different these days, huh,” Bandit commented, seeing this.

“Yeah. That was a terrible battle,” Beacon hissed. “You all had to go and ruin things.”

“You’re saying I ruined things?” Bite huffed.

“Well it was kinda your fault!” Arrow exclaimed.

“No, we’ve been over this-” Bandit said, trying to dampen the argument.

Everyone started accusing each other, stating who attacked who first and that if a few certain people hadn’t forgotten the rules…

The other passengers seemed to get annoyed. Pon-Pon basically had to shout to get everyone to listen and quiet down so we wouldn’t get in trouble- again, he said, like they did during that fateful match.

“Well, despite everything, we’re still happy to be a team. With you, too,” Bandit said.

Pon-Pon and Bite agreed enthusiastically. Arrow less so. Beacon didn’t even voice disapproval, though he didn’t say anything the other way either.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt weird thinking about people thinking about me. But it wasn’t a bad weird, just a sort of weird that I didn’t know what to do with.

Our train pulled into the station at Brinewater. We grabbed our weapons from the train’s storage and readied for the match.

I looked down at the jellies in the water. Every time I went to a stage with some sort of water, I wondered what it was like to not splat when exposed to a lot of it. It was far more slippery and less cooperative than ink when it came to doing stuff with it. It would really be fascinating to understand.

There were still a couple minutes until the battle would start. I flexed my fingers and ignored the random thoughts clouding the back of my mind. I was so fortunate to have met the team. I wondered how my life would have turned out if I hadn’t met them. I was so grateful.

The match began. Between my roller, Pon-Pon’s octobrush, Bandit’s e-liter, and Bite’s splattershot, we had a solid defense. Bandit covered our base as Bite held the center. Pon-Pon and I would back Bite up if enemies approached the middle and team up to splat anyone who tried to sneak up on anyone. We smoothly moved forward. Bandit leapt from the edge of our side and swam up to the cube in the center. With her range, she was able to defeat all the enemy players Pon-Pon lured to the side, while Bite and I plunged further into their base.

Success. It was an easy victory, really. Soon enough, we had won. It was fun to fight in challenging battles, but this unity was even better. Whatever I did, I knew I could rely on my team, and it was the same in reverse. We cleared battle after battle, switching out teammates every few games. Eventually, the matchmaking system recognized our win streak and started matching us up against stronger opponents, which only served to make the time even more thrilling.

At the stage change, Beacon switched back on. I had been off the battle party a couple times now, but I had never been in a turf war with Beacon yet today. Due to his condition, he couldn’t fight as many battles in sequence as the rest of us could. But when he did fight, his skill was clear. Out of everyone, Bandit and Beacon were by far the strongest. I knew that Bandit was a part of a legendary secret splatoon. Beacon, on the other hand, I had absolutely no idea how he became this strong, and concurrently how he ended up like he was today. There had to be a reason, yet I saw none. He didn’t go out much, but both he and Bandit had the most solid grasp on where to put themselves in order to splat enemies and not get splatted themselves. It wasn’t just a virtue of them playing chargers. Whenever anyone else was in a sticky situation, Blam! A blast of their ink strikes at just the right time.

I wouldn’t discount everyone else’s skill either. Pon-Pon had an amazing grasp of where everyone was going and where ink was needed on the map. Bite was unpredictable in just the right way that enemies wouldn’t know where she was coming from. Arrow, even with her aerospray, could get the enemy’s space like nobody’s business.

Where did I sit? I think I got splatted the most out of anyone on the team. I still had a lot to learn. I couldn’t really analyze my own gameplay as well as I did watching the others. I just hoped that studying everyone else like I did would help.

After a while, we had to stop and rest. The entire team was tired, but smiling. Bite and Arrow made a beeline for Crab-n-Go. Beacon stared at the Shell-Out machine as if his intense look would make a gold or silver capsule pop out.

We went back out, this time to Anarchy Open battles. The current mode was Splat Zones on the stages Mincemeat Metalworks and Makomart. Beacon, Arrow, Pon-Pon and I were playing.

I let my guard down halfway through my first match. In Makomart, I was knocked down by an enemy ink mine. I didn’t have my Big Bubbler, and I was almost out of ink. I was stuck right beside the Splat Zone on the enemy side and I couldn’t swim back since the mine had inked around my feet. The rest of my team were busy trying to keep control of their side of the Zone so that the enemy team wouldn’t score and give us a penalty. There was nowhere to run.

I crawled weakly around the barrier in the middle to our side. I didn’t see the enemy approaching from behind me as I tried to swing and ink a path for me to escape.

I caught Beacon’s eye. He had the high ground here, safe and far out of range of anyone on the enemy team. There was no hostility in his eyes toward me this time, just focus. A shot whizzed past my head, immediately followed by another. I heard someone splat behind me. Beacon had saved me.

No time to think. I finished my swing and retreated safely onto our side of the stage to recharge my ink. It looked like the others were doing the same. Beacon was the only one holding the Zone right now, and the enemy team would go after him soon enough. If I didn’t get back into the fray and get the Zone back, I wouldn’t have repaid Beacon.

I saw Pon-Pon pull out of the ink with his octobrush in front of him and run around the side to sneak into the enemy base. I followed, swimming through the trail his brush left as he ran.

I heard the whistle of the Zone changing color. We had just incurred a penalty for letting it change hands. We were still in the lead so far, and we couldn’t afford to let it stay with the enemy team. There was maybe one minute and a half left in the game.

Pon-Pon turned left into the enemy base, and I popped out of the ink to see the enemy luna blaster, supposedly the one who Beacon saved me from, respawn. They launched towards my teammate. I dashed toward them and jumped, swinging my roller with the intent to splat them again. I wasn’t too late. I wasn’t able to keep the zone before, but with Pon-Pon sneaking behind the enemy front and splatting one of them while pushing the other into Arrow’s path, we were able to splat almost the whole enemy team. Arrow quickly inked the zone.

We held onto it for the next minute and caught the win, with a knockout bonus.

It was getting to be evening pretty quickly after that match. It was hard to tell from inside MakoMart, but the windows were darkening. A couple matches later and we called it a day and retired to the apartment.

Bandit offered to teach me how to cook beans and rice for dinner that night, but Arrow swiftly interrupted and saved me from Bandit’s cooking. Even though Arrow had the inclination to burn things, she was actually a decent cook and I occasionally was able to cook for the team under her instruction.

The TV was on. Arrow was flipping through the channels, and eventually stopped to see what was going on in one of them. Apparently, there was a tournament being held in Inkopolis. I caught sight of a team with an octoling who was… green, somehow. I didn’t have time to dwell on it, since Beacon seemed displeased by the channel and got up, walked to Arrow and stole the remote from her. He promptly turned the TV off and went back to his seat at the dining table. Arrow put on Chirpy Chips music instead.

While I was waiting for the food to cook, I sat down at the table, across from Beacon.

“What do you want?” he asked, bored.

“I wanted to say thank you,” I said.

The inkling raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“You protected me in the battle earlier.”

He shifted his gaze away. “It was nothing. I wanted to win.”

My lips curled up slightly. I nodded, and turned away from him too. He wasn’t outright hostile towards me anymore. It was probably one-sided, but I’d like to think that we were friends now. He wanted to win, but he battled with me even through his condition. I wish there was a way I could really show how much I was grateful.

It wasn’t just Beacon I should be thanking. It was everyone. They were so wonderful and colorful and fun and I wanted to stay like this forever.

Yeah… It’s nice like this.








-------- BONUS! --------
It's the team! to celebrate the final chapter!

Notes:

I will upload the first chapter of the sequel, Rewind of Memories, when I wake up! It's darker, more action-packed, and more angsty- so get excited!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 5 of Rainbow Dreams