Seven.

“Why..” something in the darkness said.

“Alone..” a seperate creature followed.

Curled up in a ball, our protagonist had her head buried in her knees. A spotlight shone alone on her, with shadowy, twitching creatures creeping toward her. Tears starting to roll down the young girl’s legs, she didn’t want to realise a bigger threat stomping toward her. Each footstep was like a buzzing alarm clock. The beast stopped for a second, to yell,

“RETURN!”

Yuri woke up sweating from fear. For the past few nights, she’d woken up drenched in sweat that her night gown was now soaked. Fiddling with her alarm, the girl put her messy bed-hair into a ponytail, then proceeded to lazily stumble outside to greet her roommate, Miyuki, already with her gear on. Each waving good morning to each other, Yuri goes onto pouring cereal into her clay bowl. Checking her phone, the girl zipped up her jacket, and made sure all the doors were locked.

With Yuri’s morning routine completed, the girls decided to head out to the square. Since they share an apartment near the outskirts of the city, the squid-octo-duo used the subway as their forced mode of transport, since none of the, had a drivers license, and the bus was way too expensive. This subway didn’t have the... best looking creatures riding it, and smelled pretty bad most of the time, but it was better than walking an hour to then be too exhausted for turf war battles.

For once in a blue moon, the subway was early, on the one day it shouldn’t have. At the stop for the Square, all of the remaining passengers quickly disembarked, leaving Miyuki twitching in a pile of dust.

“Jeez Miyuki, you do realise that you won’t be able to beat any of the faster people to get of this train,” Yuri smirked, mocking Miyuki’s actions.

“Shut up Yuri, at least I’m more excited for that splatfest being announced today!” Miyuki scoffed, turning up her nose at Yuri.

Miyuki may bring up a fair point, but that was only because Yuri was thinking about whatever she’s been dreaming about for the past few nights. Slowly arguing their way to the Squidforce Terminal, Yuri and Miyuki had somehow decided to do a few ranked battles before seeing the splatfest announcements. The inkling working the lobbies took such an obnoxiously long time to pair the girls with their team for the next few matches, and even LONGER to verify the gear and weapons they were using, but since it was the first match of the day, it was to be expected. Walking through the gates, Yuri rocking the Splat Roller and Miyuki using the E-Liter, the young girls were greeted by their new teammates; a guy in a straw boater named Gabriel using the Dapple Dualies along with his younger sister, Amano, who was a beginner using the Splat Brella.

The transportation airline to Inkblot Art Academy was... interesting, to say the least. One Octoling on the opposing team just stared at Yuri the entire trip, all the other opponents looked... kind of lifeless. Strategising with Gabriel was a challenge, with Miyuki getting high on Kraken Soda with Amano. Finally arriving at their destination, each team was shooed to their bases by some Squidforce employees. Callie and Marie were helping judge the match with Judd and Lil’ Judd.

“Let’s give it our all!” Miyuki winked and cheered for our team. Yuri couldn’t help to smile back and got ready to start splatting.

“3”

“2”

“1”

“GO!” simultaneously yelled Callie and Marie, nearly breaking the speakers with excitement. You could easily tell this was their first time commentating in a while.

“And the Roller makes a sprint for the Rainmaker, with the Dualies following closely behind,” Callie cheered.

“Looks like the E-liter is setting up a sniping point, and the Brella is inking escape paths for her team,” Marie flawlessly followed. Yuri met the Rainmaker with glee, then her emotions almost instantaneously turned to shock realising it’s barrier was swirling in the opponents’ sticky orange ink. Yuri yelled at Gabriel in panic, as he swam dangerously close to the barrier. The inkling turned in fear as he slowly began to realise the danger he was in. Yuri frantically looked around the barrier, and noticed that there were three opposing squids attacking the bubble. Yuri jumped and took cover, before...

Bang! The ear-piercing sound of the explosion sent a shockwave of ink flying. Gabriel took the full force of the blast, sending him flying into a brick wall. With that painful knockout, it was now a three vs four.

“Brother!” Amano screamed, throwing a bomb towards the Rainmaker, forcing any enemies in it’s vicinity to back away from the inksplosion. Amidst the confusion, Yuri looked up from her hiding place. Gabriel was being helped off the stage by two jellyfish. Amano was still in shock of the events with Miyuki trying to comfort her. Worst of all, the shockwave of ink had completely obliterated the top half of Yuri’s roller.

“Damn it,” Yuri muttered, kicking a spot of ink. This didn’t make any sense for her.

“Hey,”

“What?” Yuri sarcastically replied, turning around angrily. She turned to see Amano, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Let’s finish this,” she confidently smiled. Yuri knew exactly what her smile meant. Standing up, Yuri threw the rest of her splat roller onto the floor, and made a dive for the Rainmaker. Amano ran alongside her with her splat brella out, blocking any enemy shots and letting Yuri to fire the Rainmaker at anyone who tried attacking.

“Looks like the purple team, led by a young octoling... Yuri has taken the lead!” Callie enthusiastically screamed into her microphone, jumping up and down with excitement.

“They only have a few meters to get to their opponents’ base,” Marie calmly spoke into her brand-new microphone, compared to Callie’s busted micophone.

Hearing this, Yuri smirked. This could be her revenge, or rather Amano’s revenge against the opposite team for her brother.

“They’re sitting ducks, ma’am, would you like me to attack?”

“Yes..” a figure in the darkness whispered, “I want to see their reflexes,”

Miyuki squatted down, her cheeks still pressed against her charger, waiting. Waiting for a moment just like this, noticing someone jumping out of the shadows.

“Yuri, watch out!” Miyuki cried. Amano looking up first, noticed the aerial attack. An inkling using a Dynamo Roller jumped off a ledge to attack the Rainmaker. The initial roller-flick would’ve damaged Yuri enough to leave her wide open for an attack. Amano quickly pushed her brella above their heads, protecting them from the initial blast. The next problem was now the sheer strength of a Dyname was about to plummet onto both of the girls, and Amano’s brella was broken. Yuri hugged Amano close to her and braced for an impact. Her eyes stayed tightly shut until she noticed the sound of someone being splatted. Reluctantly opening her eyes, she noticed the opposing squid was rising back up through the air towards it’s spawn. Yuri looked around for the source of ink, only to notice the young squid smiling at her. Miyuki had fired her E-Liter at the right moment, causing the protection of her teammates.

“You better owe me a drink at Crusty Sean’s after this,” Miyuki yelled out to her friend. Yuri laughed in recognition, and then sighed in relief.

“That was lucky, now let’s get to that pod-“ Amano couldn’t finish her sentence before both of their legs fell out. Amano and Yuri had both fallen over out of nowhere.

“What?” Yuri questioned, examining her legs. A bit of ink had hit her leg, but the full force of it went to Amano’s ankles. She was out for the rest of the match, leaving only Yuri to make a push, with Miyuki protecting from a distance. Yuri, dazed, glanced quickly to see where that ink was coming from. While Yuri was distracted, a figure emerged from the shadows behind her. Yuri, barely able to stand up, noticed this girl walking out of the shadows with an Octarian weapon. This girl walked over and picked Yuri up by her shirt.

“W-who are you..?” Yuri barely muttered, to the response of...

“Your student.”

Throwing Yuri on the ground, she aimed her weapon at Amano’s head. At this moment, it had seemed everything had been lost. Just then, it hit her. The ink the opposing team was using. It was strong enough to throw Gabriel at a wall, but it didn’t splat him. The ink hitting their ankles knocked them down, without making them easier to splat. The ink from that roller was powerful enough to break Amano’s brella, even though it shouldn’t have. Now, imagine what would happen if this new ‘power’ ink were to hit Amano’s head. Suddenly, in a coincidental turn of events, sirens ran out through both of the teams’ ears, which signalled the game going into overtime. These obnoxious horns distracted the person about to blow Amano’s head in, giving Yuri time for a plan.

“Hey, how about this,” Yuri yelled, wearily standing upright. “If you attack me, then I won’t be able to get the Rainmaker onto the podium,” she taunted, making a break for the podium.

“Yuri, you can’t! I can’t cover fire for you from that much of a distance!” Miyuki complained.

“Relax, I have a plan,” Yuri reassured her best friend.

“Pfft, I have no use for this game. I came here for one thing and one thing only,” the Octarian boasted.

“Are you scared?” Yuri mocked, then realising, “Wait, what thing?”

The older Octoling laughed and then sarcastically said, “I’m glad you asked me since I wanted to take this time to explain my plan.” Yuri turned around inquisitively, then noticing the fully charged blaster pointed at her ankles. A strong feeling of Déjà Vu rushed over Yuri as she felt a wave of ink overcome her legs and collapsed into a heap again.

“Look, I’m starting to get tired. I’m just going to finish this,” the cocky Octarian yawned while walking towards the fallen Octoling. Each step closer was a step left for Yuri to think of something. Her plan was honestly just drawing attention away from Amano, she didn’t plan much more of that. This was all improvise.

“Any last words?” The Octarian cackled, charging her blaster, preparing to fire.

“Wow, this is pretty dramatic for a Rainmaker match,” Callie wearily said, her head resting on her fist, “she’s just going to Respawn after she gets splatted, right?”

Marie responded in silence. She was staring straight at the weapon this girl was holding.

“Marie?”

“Octarians.” Marie looked around to notify Judd, but he was too busy who had ran the most meters.

“That weapon could kill, especially a direct shot to the head,” Marie mentioned.

“Well, why not declare it on your loudspeaker? Mine’s kinda... broken,” Callie slowly admitted.

“We can’t, see?” The squid sister sighed, pointing towards two intruders who somehow made it into the building. They happened to be two of Yuri’s opponents, each holding weapons up to the duo, signifying their inevitable fate of being held captive.

“Yuri, get out of there. Yuri. Yuri!” Miyuki screamed into her intercom. Amano slowly rose her head to notice the position Yuri was in. She was laying stomach-down on the cold concrete, head tilted to a side, looking, or rather squinting at her teammates.

“Can I say those last words now?” Yuri remarked.

“Sure, I’ll make sure to tell your parents,”

Yuri’s eyes opened, and nodded at Miyuki and Amano.

“Kiss.

My.

Ass.”

Miyuki threw a toxic mist capsule to Amano, where she then used her broken brella as a baseball bat to launch it towards Yuri. Breaking upon contact, the opposing octoling was stuck in the mist. Yuri, turning over her body, said:

“Say hi to my mom for me,” while charging up her Rainmaker, and firing it directly on the ground, splatting the orange team’s leader. Since there was no more need for the Rainmaker anymore, Yuri threw it off the edge of the stage. Her victory was that entire battle. She was way too tired for anything else. The Rainmaker reset, therefore forfeiting the match. Bling, bling, bling!

“Sorry about being offline for so long, we had a few.. technical difficulties,” Marie calmly refrained.

“Lucky you had your trusty Charger on you, Marie! We would’ve been toast without your help,” Callie lively admitted. It seems those inklings were... taken care of by Marie, they’ll probably find their leader and retreat for a bit. And with that, the first ranked battle of the day had been concluded.

“Man that was rough, I couldn’t imagine being in your situation, Yuri!” Miyuki fantasised. Walking away from the terminal, Yuri nodded awkwardly, then took a glance at her phone.

“By the way, Yuri, what’d you mean by ‘Say hi to my mom’?”

“Oh god!” Yuri cried, completely disregarding what Miyuki just asked, “we’re late for the splatfest announcements!”

Grabbing her glasses, Yuri quickly waved goodby to Amano, with Miyuki just shrugging towards her awkwardly, and started sprinting towards the terminal.

“Status report,”

“I’ve found the one you’ve been looking for, Lieutenant,” a battered Octarian spoke into an old phone, “Along with many others from our forces,”

“Excellent,” a shady voice cackled from the phone, “And... the mindslaves?”

“Yeah, they’ve returned back at their homes. The microchip’s been taken off,”

This female Octoling paused for a bit, then whispered,

“May I ask, what’s your relationship...

with that girl?”

“Dau-“ The crackly voice cut out, leaving only an automated voice message ringing.