Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

            There was still a chance they could pull it off.

            The golden statuette was sitting near the center of the arena where it had been dropped, surrounded by three members of the enemy team, and there were only fifteen seconds left on the clock. Its barrier had been burst by the enemies just moments ago, which resulted in a large splatter of hostile turf that kept the four of them effectively at bay. Among their opponents was a Dynamo Roller that kept showering the gap with thick globs of ink, a .96 Gal with range that seemed to stretch on forever, and a Decorated Heavy Splatling user that abused an annoying abundance of splash walls. They didn’t know where the fourth opponent was, but at the moment, it didn’t seem to matter. Time was ticking, and with many of them outranged and outgunned, they knew their fate was going to rely on a miracle.

            The spot under the railroad bridge along Inkopolis’s most prominent waterway, Snapper Canal, was not exactly Aurora’s favorite place to have a rainmaker battle. Her preferred Saturday afternoon was either a good, old-fashioned turf war at Arowana Mall (followed by an unbridled shopping session)…or a nice martini by the pool on top of Albacore Hotel. Unfortunately, the day had been kind of dry in terms of available opponents, so when a tight-knit team of shaggy inkling boys came forth with an insistence on playing over at Snapper Canal, she and her friends had no choice but to oblige. They had all gotten out of bed that morning with the intent to brandish their weapons for the day, so they bit the bullet and accepted the terms.

            The battle had been rather uneventful in its first half, with both teams splatting each other’s members at a relatively equal rate. Without any clear advantages to work with, nobody had had the guts to pursue the rainmaker. The arena had some decent side-lanes for flanking the objective, but no one had managed to make use of them without getting caught by an attentive back-liner. However, just shortly after the battle had dragged into its third minute, Aurora’s opponents had landed a hefty group-splat on her and her friends, causing the rainmaker to slip through them and into their spawn. With the battle nearing its end, their opponents had scored ninety-one units of distance with the rainmaker, while Aurora and her friends had only hit fourteen.

            One of Aurora’s friends, an octoling girl with thick, wavy tentacles of hair on her head and an abundance of concealing, black clothing from head to toe, sunk into the ink and swam several feet backwards, away from the front lines. She wielded a weapon that complemented her dark-colored ensemble rather well: the fiery Grim Range Blaster. Following a hectic episode of ink-on-ink action around the rainmaker, she was the first of her team to build up her special weapon in the little time they had left. She emerged from the ink at the back of the slope that led to their spawn, stowed her clunky weapon aside, and deployed her deadly Tenta Missile launcher.

            “I’m about to cream-pie the rainmaker!” She called to her teammates, loudly enough for them to hear her from a distance. “Does anyone have an opening?”

            “Hold up, give us a rain check on that one!” The octoling fighting nearest to Aurora shouted back. She sported a loose-fitting sports jersey and a maroon bandana over her mouth, offset by a pair of heavy punk boots on her feet. Despite her attempts at a sort of “gangster” look, she was always known for wearing her hair back in a cute ponytail. She was also an enthusiastic user of the classy, Enperry-brand Splat Dualies.

            The octoling with the Tenta Missiles stamped her foot on the ground. “Your puns are not appreciated right now! Do you have an opening or not?”

            “I’m being serious, though!” The ponytail octoling shot back, drifting between a snarky grin and a concentrated frown. “If you could see through those dark-ass shades for once, you’d see that they have ink armor active at the moment! Hold off for a sec, and fire on my signal!”

            She rolled her eyes. Through her “dark-ass shades,” however, no one on her team could tell. She was currently staring down three large, perfectly vulnerable target marks through the reticle on her missile launcher, and she was being told to wait. Ugh. With less than ten seconds on the timer, she saw little point in waiting for some petty ink armor to subside. At the very least, her missiles would still be able to force their opponents to disperse from the rainmaker and provide a potential opening for a last-ditch push.

            She squinted a little bit to try and improve her view. Even at her wide angle from the back of the slope, her launcher had only locked onto three opponents, all of which were holding their defensive line near the objective. The entirety of the battle, at its current stage, was taking place in a single fifty-foot diameter around the rainmaker. Where the hell was the fourth guy?

            A better question she had for herself was…why the hell was she waiting to use her Tenta Missiles? As much as she loved her friend, her friend was a Dualie-user, and as such, her judgement meant literally nothing to her. They had no time left. It was now or never.

            With her three targets locked and a mischievous grin beneath her shades, she pressed down on the trigger. Before a single missile could fire from her launchers, however, a stealthy Squiffer shot rang through the air to her right, nailing her straight in the temple and soiling her big moment before she had a chance to decipher the location of her missing opponent. Her inky body promptly exploded in a fine cloud of hostile turf, causing her blaster and her missile launcher to fall to the ground amidst a puddle of remains. Her glowing essence floated away from the site on its way back to the spawn platform, sporting a pair of rather pissed-off-looking eyes.

            Her surprise assailant was a quiet and calculative inkling boy, just like the rest of his team. His smooth, tentacled hair was parted all to one side, leaving an appendage that tended to block his eye while he aimed his charger. He wore a black vest that seemed to hug his body rather tightly, along with an elbow sleeve on his trigger arm. He topped his look off with a mid-sized pair of headphones that wrapped behind his head. The Tenta Missile octoling that he had just splatted only got to see his features for a brief moment, though, for as soon as he finished her off, he quickly morphed into his squid form and rocketed off to his own spawn platform.

            Meanwhile, Aurora and the ponytail octoling were still actively trying to dwindle their opponents’ numbers so they could slither forward and nab the rainmaker. The fourth member of their team, and the third of Aurora’s group of friends, had been acting as the team’s back-liner with a customized E-Liter 4K. Unfortunately, the immense charge time of her weapon made it impossible for her to settle on a vantage point and fire off a shot without being terrorized by the Splatling user hiding behind the splash walls. At this point, it was all down to Aurora and the ponytail octoling to make something of the few seconds they had left.

            “Alright, Ula, now would be a good time to use those Tenta Missiles!” The ponytail octoling exclaimed while dodge-rolling to avoid a column of Dynamo Roller ink. When she didn’t hear the signature sound of missiles shooting out of a launcher behind her, she turned her head and glanced in that direction. “…Ula?”

            Aurora was quite an avid listener, so when Ula, her friend with the Tenta Missiles, had been splatted by one of their sneaky opponents, she knew about it right away. For some reason, though, telling the ponytail octoling about the unfortunate occurrence hadn’t crossed her mind. Above all, the one thing that was prominent in her mind was the dire state in which her team had found themselves. They no longer had a way to dissolve their opponents’ strong defenses, and the clock was ticking down from three seconds. She knew Ula was going to start throwing names around if they lost, and she certainly didn’t want that to happen, so the reckless part of her brain triggered her to pursue the only option they had left.

            Without a word of confirmation, she stowed her Kensa Splattershot, dove into the ink, and began swimming rapidly towards the rainmaker. Donning the objective was the only way she and her team could extend the timer. Their opponents may not have been dealt with yet, but who cared about that? She was there to live in the moment, and she certainly had nothing to lose.

            She kicked off her suicidal battle maneuver with a suction bomb. Pausing her approach for a brief moment, she lobbed the explosive in an elevated arc so it would clear her opponents’ splash wall and land in the immediate vicinity of the rainmaker. She then submerged a second time and propelled herself toward the objective without checking to see if her bomb had landed in the expected spot. She hoped the bomb would distract her opponents and keep them from noticing her painfully conspicuous dash to steal their treasure. The ponytail octoling stopped firing when she caught a glimpse of her friend.

            “Wait, Aurora! What are you doing?!”

            Aurora didn’t hear her. Sure enough, at the same time she was dodging around their splash wall, her graceful projectile plopped down on the ground right next to the golden statuette, within just a few feet of all three opponents. Naturally, it didn’t take them long to notice it. They all stopped their rain of fire when the bomb landed so they could quickly disperse to a safe distance. During that short blip of time, she jumped out of the ink near where they were previously standing and grabbed the rainmaker.

            The ponytail octoling wanted to say something else to her, but she found herself just standing there with her dualies and watching the event play out. She knew that her friend was difficult to control when she got her mind set on something. Underneath her shy exterior was a fiery engine of blind determination. She and the rest of Aurora’s friend group knew quite well of her raging femininity, as well as her tendency to mask it behind her limited social skills. After all, this certainly wasn’t her first time surprising them with crazed, goal-driven behavior.

            Their back-liner, the toned octoling with the E-Liter 4K and the cold, scanning look in her eye, also took notice of Aurora’s actions. Seeing her friend with the rainmaker in her possession, she knew the battle now depended on how long she could hold onto it. If an enemy were to splat her and force her to drop it before she could pass ninety points of distance, they would lose right on the spot. She needed a helping tentacle.

            Aurora had a little bit of her own ink to swim in upon reaching the rainmaker, thanks to her suction bomb blowing up the premises. However, now that she was holding the objective right on her shoulder, with enemies on all sides of her, her maneuverability was somewhat constrained. She needed a way to escape, and her back-liner was ready to provide that for her. From her position, she aimed through the E-Liter’s sights out past her friend toward the opponents’ pedestal, and she took a shot.

            The opponents began to converge back onto Aurora’s position as soon as they noticed that the battle had gone into overtime. With no time to react to her surroundings, she built up a shot in the mouth of the golden statuette and released a mighty explosion at her feet, propelling her to the side a little bit and violently splatting the Dynamo Roller user, who had been too slow to back out of the way. Then, she frantically sunk into the long hallway of ink that her back-liner’s charger shot had created and scurried toward their goal with all her might. The Splatling and the .96 Gal followed her in close pursuit after dodging shots from her friends.

            The rest of Aurora’s team soon found themselves standing amongst the calm as the rest of the battle followed the rainmaker to the enemy’s pedestal. The ponytail octoling awkwardly lowered her dualies just as Ula came swimming up from their respawn platform.

            “She’s not about to do it, is she…?” She muttered aloud to the back-liner.

            The back-liner merely shrugged her shoulders. She reached up towards her ear and adjusted the strange, golden toothpick that was fastened to her slithery locks. “Shouldn’t we follow her too?”

            Ula laughed sarcastically at her suggestion. She then scoffed. “If you and Bella want to swim after that nutcase, totally feel free. I’d rather sit back here and wait for her to be splatted.”

            Bella, the ponytail octoling, giggled at her friend’s pessimistic remark. “I like that can-do attitude of yours, Ula. Very inspiring.”

            She raised one of her dualies at Ula and fired a shot, hitting her right in the face. The ink from the shot knocked her friend’s circle shades right off and caused her to recoil in shock. She and the back-liner snickered as Ula uttered a few swear words at them, flashing them the middle finger while she struggled to find her shades on the ground with ink in her eyes. Ultimately, however, the two of them decided to take Ula’s advice and leave Aurora to her foolish pursuit. They knew when it was time to call the game a lost cause.

            Meanwhile, on the other side of the canal, Aurora was still attempting her getaway with the rainmaker as if nothing else mattered. She had less and less of her own team’s ink to swim in the closer and closer she got to her opponents’ pedestal, so eventually, she was forced to emerge from the ink and charge up a rainmaker shot for some extra distance. Shots from the .96 Gal behind her were starting to land by her feet, reminding her that she still had two attackers gaining on her rapidly. She had just cleared fifty points of distance for her friends, and she was not about to stop there.

            She built up another shot in the mouth of the statuette and held it there for a moment. There was a brief pause in the shots that were coming her way, which led her to believe that her attackers were currently swimming a path towards her. If she didn’t lose them soon, they were easily going to catch up to her and mow her down without breaking a sweat. Therefore…she used their gaining proximity as an advantage by turning around and launching the explosive shot near her feet again, with a short bit of distance behind her to give her another kick forward.

            The shot detonated just as her assailants were emerging near her location, blasting them with ink and splatting them both instantly. Their weapons fell to the ground with a small splash and slid idly down the slope. Aurora saw this and got a small twinge of excitement in her gut. With those two out of the way, she basically had a straight shot to the pedestal. She was actually about to save the battle for her friends! She could already feel their eyes on her, cheering her on as her heroic trek approached its fruition. She hoped they were, at least, knowing how they could be.

            With one more shot forward, she paved a path of ink that she knew would get her past her opponents’ record. She submerged in the ink one more time and slithered, with all the speed she could muster, towards the ramp to their pedestal. She passed sixty points…seventy…eighty…eighty-five.

            Upon reaching the end of the streak, she jumped out of the ink to fire another shot from the rainmaker and close the remaining gap. Upon doing so, however, she noticed an enemy inkling popping out of the ground on the ledge right at the top of the ramp. She knew there was still one active on the arena somewhere, but she had naively assumed him to not be blocking her goal. She caught a glance of him and his Squiffer and froze completely.

            The first thing that caught her eye was his luring taste of clothing. She was quite a fan of his vest, especially with the elbow sleeve. The way he donned a charger, even if it was just a Squiffer, with that top made him look so…professional. His headphones and black, orca-woven hi-tops were also not to be ignored, complementing his figure and communicating a confident, nonchalant attitude. His hair wasn’t much shorter than hers was, and he had all of it parted to the side. She couldn’t help but notice that the front tentacle of his hair covered his eye a little bit, which, for some reason, struck a chord with her. He refused to smile or show any signs of weakness as he raised his weapon and pointed its laser directly on her chest. She wasn’t paying attention to that, though, as her focus was starting to spill into how vividly his snug-fitting vest was showing off his toned upper body. He looked good. He looked really good.

            The mysterious inkling fired off the shot without blinking, and Aurora quickly suffered the same fate as Ula had not long prior. The rainmaker dropped on the ground with a loud clang and immediately developed a new barrier around itself, locking it off until someone came to shoot it open again. No one would be doing so, however, as the battle itself had officially ended the moment the rainmaker left her possession after the overtime buzzer. Aurora and her octoling friends lost to the inklings with a score of eighty-seven to ninety.

            Ula, Bella, and the back-liner were watching the ordeal play out from where they had been fighting originally, which was farther back by the canal between the two slopes. They had mistakenly allowed their hopes to rise after seeing their friend’s reckless plan nearly pay off, and their jaws had gone slack in confusion when they saw her choke on the last enemy just three points before their gnarly comeback.

            “Well…she was close, at least.” The back-liner muttered with a shrug.

            “Close?” Ula spat. “She was practically already there! She could’ve thrown the rainmaker and still won us the damn battle!”

            “Yeah, it’s like she just…stopped working. Did you see how she just stood there and let that guy snipe her? A quick lunge would’ve both dodged the shot and passed their record.” Bella added with a cross of her arms. Drops of leftover ink fell out of the nozzles on her dualies as she shifted her stance.

            Ula shook her head in disapproval. Her thick bundles of suction-cup-riddled hair jiggled with the motion. “Aurora is weird. Wouldn’t be the first time one of her crazy impulses backfired in her face. In our faces.”

            It wasn’t long before the opposing inklings had a chance to regroup and start strolling towards the center of the arena to bask in their victory. Bella and Ula glared at them as they approached, expecting a firestorm of gloating to come from the gang of supercilious squids. The smug grins and casual chatter among their group told the entire story. The back-liner stood her E-Liter upright on the ground and leaned against it while looking the other way, determined to avoid confrontation with the boys.

            Aurora showed up behind them just as the victors were arriving, having dove through the ink after respawning to join her friends more quickly. She still held her Kensa Splattershot in both hands, and as her opponents stepped up to her and her friends, she looked down at the plastic weapon sadly.

            The first one to speak was the Splatling user on the inkling team, which Aurora and the others had assumed to be their captain. He had come across as a bit arrogant when they first met at the square for their battle, so his words were not in any way surprising to them.

            “Gee, girls, don’t you think it was kind of cruel to make your one handicapped player do all the lifting on the objective for you?” He jeered. A couple of his friends cackled at the remark.

            Bella rolled her eyes. “Oh, lay off, you cretin. Everyone knows glasses aren’t really a handicap. At least Aurora didn’t pussy out behind splash walls the entire five minutes. I’m pretty sure she splatted you guys more than you splatted us.”

            The Dynamo Roller user spoke up from beside the captain, smirking just as heavily as the rest of his friend group. “Tactical sacrifices, that’s all they were. Leave it to the girly little octolings to not know how to pick up or defend a rainmaker!”

            Bella answered to that by putting her hands on her hips and shifting her waist out to the side, her dualies still wrapped in each of her fists. “Keep telling yourself that, kiddo. Everyone here knows your excessively gigantic weapons are merely compensating for your lack of balls.”

            While Bella continued to argue with the group of cocky victors, Ula caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye. When she turned to look, she saw Judd the cat scurrying in her direction from the fences along the side of the arena. Judd was quite an idol to the inklings, and even the octolings, but Ula never really cared for him. He was known around Inkopolis for judging turf wars and objective battles, and typically, whatever verdict he passed was accepted by the players as the official outcome. On off-days, he usually liked to sleep on benches in the middle of the city square.

            Ula thought he was annoying. Especially when he felt the need to barge onto the scene and declare victors after battles with already obvious outcomes. Therefore, as the fat, fuzzy feline hurried past her on his way to the center of the arena, she reeled her booted foot back and kicked him off the nearby ledge. Judd gave a gnarly hiss at the sudden, offensive strike as he tumbled over the side and fell into the shallow water. No one seemed to notice the resulting splash.

            “Oops.” She grumbled sarcastically.

            Ula wasn’t always quiet about her failures, and this particular time around, Aurora couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that her friend’s irritation was her own fault. She had given in to another one of her crazy impulses, and the resulting explosive ending had only served to falsely raise her team’s hopes. It probably would’ve been better, in hindsight, to surrender the battle as it was and go quietly into the night. She hated seeing Ula so heated.

            She shook off her thoughts, though, as she heard their opponents begin to walk past her and her friends with a self-righteous swing in their step. Bella kept her dominant glare on them as they strolled away, trying unsuccessfully to pierce the complacent grins that were still plastered on their faces. Ula restrained herself as they passed, though she looked poised to tackle the first one to provoke her and start beating him with her blaster. It had kind of been a long day for them.

            As the gang of guys walked past her and Ula, Aurora couldn’t help but snag another look at the Squiffer user. Even his unique walk had a way of captivating her attention. He seemed to convey a lot of confidence in his step, but at the same time…much carelessness. He was the only one on his team that wasn’t grinning nor smugly rubbing his victory in her friends’ faces, and for that, among other things…she felt drawn to him. Perhaps she’d get to see him again. She hoped for it, in fact, but the realization hadn’t yet hit her fully.

            There was a problem, though. He was an inkling. That blatant fact bothered her a bit, as something about her strange thoughts toward him were clearly out of line. If her time in Inkopolis had taught her anything, it was that size mattered, and octolings weren’t supposed to fancy inklings.

            Just as her eyes started to drift down his back towards some other features, she caught herself and turned her gaze the other way. She and her friends were now the only ones still standing in the arena, among the gallons and gallons of bi-colored ink that still covered the ground. They shared a brief moment of silence, though it didn’t last very long.

            “…I hate rainmaker battles.” Ula whined, shortly after the silence fell.

            The back-liner, who hadn’t said much during the entire ordeal, turned back to look at her after stowing her long, tube-like E-Liter on her back. “That’s what you said about the clam blitz battle from last week.”

            “Uh, yeah, thanks for the input, Eight.” Ula quipped, punctuating her sarcasm with a scoff. “Where the hell is Ophelia? I’m dying over here.”

            Eight, as her friends seemed to call her, shrugged and turned the other way again, flashing a glint in her friend’s eye from the golden toothpick in her hair. It wasn’t common for her to speak unless spoken to, and when someone happened to disagree with her, she’d often never argue. She had a tendency to slide into the shadows during confrontations or large get-togethers, thanks to her broad indifference toward most social interactions that weren’t within her friend group. In general, she was an octo of very few words.

            Meanwhile, in contrast to her hotheaded pal, Bella didn’t seem too bothered by her team’s defeat. Once the gang of inklings were around the corner and out of sight, her hawkish glare subsided, and she turned her attention back to her friends. She pulled her bandana down to her chin and let out a de-stressing sigh. As she switched to a more passive gear, she stowed her dualies on her hips, one on each side.

            “Well…that was eventful. Kind of figured those guys were going to act like that.” She whipped her head in a quick motion so her ponytail would fall to the other side.

            “Seems like they always do.” Ula replied with a detestable groan. “Inklings always seem to think they’re hot shit.”

            Bella stared for a moment at Ula and watched her cross her arms and look the other way. She didn’t really have anything to say to her friend’s constant pouting, especially since it had been going on for most of the afternoon. There were some days when the tomboyish octoling was outgoing and fun to be around, and others when she simply couldn’t be pleased. Her attitude towards inklings was sketchy at best, and getting mocked by them after a loss was not an effective way of turning that attitude around. Bella and the others usually took her gripey remarks with a grain of salt, knowing she’d be different when times were good.

            Therefore, she decided to change the subject. She looked over at Aurora, who was still staring at the ground like she had just been caught stealing a cookie.

            “What about you, Aurora? You haven’t really said much since we got here.”

            Aurora looked up suddenly after hearing her name, causing her glasses to slide away from her face a bit. She instinctively pushed them back into position with her finger. “Huh? What?”

            “You good?” Bella grinned slightly, knowing how fragile Aurora could sometimes be in the spotlight, unlike Ula. “We know you like to zone out a lot, girl, but you’re usually much more chill after a battle.”

            The bespectacled octoling didn’t answer right away. She glanced down to the side, away from the observing eyes of her friends, and shrugged dismissively. Much like the rest of her friends, she also didn’t take very well to being teased by opponents, though she wasn’t usually known to internalize their insults. Her mind just felt a little too scattered this time to even notice.

            “…I guess.”

            Bella tried again, undeterred by her apathetic response. “That was quite a bold move earlier, you know. You had Eight and I on the edge of our seats when you managed to take out those two guys near the end!”

            Aurora glanced back up at Bella with a lingering sense of awkwardness in her expression. She also caught a glimpse of Eight, who was apparently giving her the same amount of attention from behind the others. She had to figure that her friends were eventually going to ask her about her blunder earlier…when she had narrowly cost all of them the overtime victory. She really didn’t feel like bringing it up.

            In an attempt to nonchalantly disguise her discomfort, she faked a smile and chuckled weakly. Instead, it just came out sounding more suspicious. “Hehe…I suppose I did.”

            Eight suddenly spoke up again, causing Aurora and the others to glance at her. “Why did you stop, though? It looked like you were just about to win it for us.”

            Crap. That sure didn’t take long. Aurora let out a loud, noticeable sigh before she could stop herself. There were many embarrassing aspects to letting a clear victory opportunity slide through one’s fingers, and those aspects were certainly amplified when the failure was the result of…wandering eyes. She didn’t exactly know how to explain to her friends that she had gotten distracted by a boy, of all things, in the middle of a battle. After all, her friends weren’t really the types to present themselves as…‘on the market,’ per say, at least outside the context of a good party. Were they going to ridicule her for it? Shun her? Play the next few battles without her, perhaps?

            “Yeah, Aurora, what gives?” Ula added with a raised brow, cutting into her thoughts again.

            Now that she was in the spotlight, Aurora didn’t know how to deal with the situation. She was a terrible liar, and everyone knew it, so there was no way she’d be able to spit an answer and get away with it. She tapped her toe against the ground and refused to make eye contact with her friends. “I…uh…”

            Suddenly, at precisely the right time, a voice could be heard calling the group from a short distance down the canal. “Ey, ladies, what’re y’all doing standing over there? Let’s bring the party down here to where we agreed!”

            The group turned their attention away from Aurora when they heard the noise, giving her a moment to breathe. She wasn’t prepared to have to explain herself on the spot like that, especially over something that, to her, at least, was pretty minor. Battles came, and battles went; some were won, and some were lost. Why did her friends have to know about her slip-up so badly?

            Aurora had their caller to thank for saving her the trouble, as her friends were now too distracted to continue prying any further. She joined them in looking in the caller’s direction, where a shaggy-looking octoling girl could be seen waving at them from beside a few tarped pallets. Her details weren’t too clear at her distance, but Aurora and her friends knew her quite well already. She wore her olive-green hair in a loose ponytail, similar to Bella’s, but shoved lazily under a backwards white cap so it would dangle down behind her head. She matched her cap with a glimmering white leather jacket, the zipper on which she was known for keeping up to her chest, even in warm weather. Her legs and feet were always covered with baggy leggings and punk whites, and her eyes were concealed by shades. She looked quite a bit like a rapper, though she was certainly not known for being very musical.

            “Hey, Ophelia!” Ula shouted ecstatically. “Not a moment too soon!”

            The band broke up as Ula took off jogging towards the octoling, who was, in fact, the last member of their friend group. Ophelia, as she was named, had not participated in her friends’ rainmaker battle, thanks to the classic four-player limit imposed by inklings and octolings across the city. Instead, she had been out ‘grocery shopping,’ as she liked to call it, near Inkopolis Square. Their agreement had been to meet back up at the canal after the battle to mellow out and chat, and Ophelia was seen by her friends as the goddess of doing just that. Their reason for such a distinction…was obvious.

            Ula waited by her impatiently while the rest of their friends casually dawdled over to her. Aurora always noticed the drastic change in Ula’s behavior whenever Ophelia was around. It was as if the grumpy octoling’s many woes were instantly whisked away the moment her beloved, fellow-shaded companion came into view. Aurora knew better, though. She and the others could read Ula like an open SplatNet feed. As much as she appreciated Ophelia’s friendship, and enjoyed her company…it wasn’t simply her friend’s presence that got her so excited…oh, no. Rather, it was what she provided for the rest of the group.

            “How are you doing, ‘Lia?” Aurora greeted as she and the others came to a stop around their friend. She hoped to distract everyone from her interrogation earlier by leading the transition into Ophelia’s arrival.

            “Ah, you know…can’t complain.” She answered with an equable grin. “The square is surprisingly quiet today. Not gonna lie…it was kind of nice.”

            Bella shook her head. “I know, tell me about it. We were basically scraping the bottom of the trash bin for opponents today. Just got done losing to a gang of assholes.”

            Ophelia had to laugh at that, in spite of her friends’ minor annoyance. She had also fought her fair share of battles with them since moving to Inkopolis, so she knew quite well the struggles of being the laughing-stock of an audience. Most inklings were fairly nice, but there were some, they’ve found, that didn’t take kindly to octolings wandering their city. Losses were sometimes brutal when there were large crowds, especially when the scores were close. Her friends were lucky to have lost on Snapper Canal this time, where there weren’t usually any spectators.

            “Well, girls, shit happens, you know? Was it too horrible to tell me how it went?” She shifted her balance and swished lazily at her ponytail.

            “Forget about that! Just tell us what you brought for us! Tell us, tell us!” Ula blurted suddenly, above her frantic foot-tapping. Aurora and Eight both looked at her with minor concern.

            As rude as the outburst sounded, Ophelia wasn’t bothered by it. In fact, with how things had been recently, she came to expect such behavior from Ula. She had a naturally short temper, after all, and with how unfulfilling their battles had been lately…it seemed like her goodies were becoming the highlight of her poor friend’s days. Ula’s steady trend had Ophelia and her friends a bit worried about her. However, today was not going to be the day to address that. She had news to share a bit later.

            “Itching to cut to the chase, then?” She giggled a bit. “Alright then, fair enough. Here’s what I got for us today.”

            Ula watched with a childlike twinkle in her eye as Ophelia shoved her hand into her jacket pocket and began briefly searching its contents. Bella and Eight watched with a bit of their own enthusiasm, but they kept it contained. Aurora knew what was coming, just like the rest of them, and she didn’t feel very hyped for it this time around.

            After only a moment or so, Ophelia removed an item from her pocket and held it up for her friends to see. It was a moderately-sized plastic baggie, filled about halfway with clumps of dried plant matter. Aurora turned her head away when the bag came into view…an automatic reaction to the pungent smell that famously accompanied it. The gesture was in stark contrast to Ula’s, who eagerly leaned in to get a closer look.

            “Now that’s what I’m talking about.” She whispered with awe. “What’s it called this time?”

            Ophelia continued to hold the small bag out in front of her as a courtesy to Ula, who usually liked to take her time inspecting her prize. “The dealer calls it ‘White Fire.’ I had you in mind when I spoke to her. Told her I needed something relaxing and uplifting, and this is what she gave me. No idea where she gets the name from.”

            “Aww, that’s so thoughtful.” Ula swooned a bit while staring longingly at the bag, causing Bella to chuckle. “You’re the best, ‘Lia.”

            “Her poor, tortured soul doesn’t know what it’d do without you, ‘Lia.” Bella added, sending a playful, mocking glance in Ula’s direction. The one Ula shot back at her was not as nice.

            She smirked at her fellow ponytailed friend’s little jab. “No problem, as always. I put in some overtime with the Grizz earlier this week to get this stuff, so I hope it’s good.”

            Ophelia understood that the battle had made her friends weary, so she decided to get right to the main event without further small talk. There was still a bit of catching up to be done from the rest of the day, of course, but she knew there would be time to get to that once they were finally enjoying themselves. If anything, Ula’s biting impatience was enough to communicate the degree to which they desperately needed to chill out for a bit. Even Aurora seemed a little out of her element, which was…unusual. She and her goods were here to fix that.

            She took a few paces backward and sat herself down against the pallet by which they were standing. Her friends promptly followed suit upon seeing the action, and as Aurora became the last to sit down, next to Ula, Ophelia unzipped her jacket and extracted a mid-sized glass tube with a chamber at the bottom. A miniature protrusion, which looked noticeably charred on the inside, stuck out from the side of the chamber. Aurora and the others recognized the object almost immediately.

            “Ooh, we’re hitting the big one this time? Quit being such a tease!” Ula cried yearningly.

            Ophelia paid no mind to her friend’s begging. She held the tube up to her face and stared down into the chamber through her shades, frowning as she did so. Something appeared to be missing.

            “Crap, I forgot to bring water with me.” She stated sorely. She let out a huff. “Any of you girls got something we could put in here? Or do you just want to hit it dry?”

            Eight was quick to chime in, which, again, was surprising to everyone. While she didn’t pass herself off as very social, she certainly seemed to be amazing at problem solving, at least from what her friends could see. Granted, her solution wasn’t really the most…orthodox.

            “We can just fill it with water from the canal right there.”

            There was a brief period where no one said anything. No one had any other ideas to provide, though…at the same time…no one objected to that solution. They didn’t really concern themselves with the regality of cleanliness, considering their humble disposition as part of Inkopolis’s lower class. After all, while the inklings that had just defeated them in battle were probably off getting food at Crusty Sean’s truck or something, they were currently sitting under a bridge with plans to get high. Their standards were naturally very low, and…if they had to be honest with themselves…they didn’t really mind that.

            Ophelia shrugged. “Guess that works.” She leaned forward and reached out with the bong in her hand to pass it to Eight, since she was the one who suggested the fix. “Here, you do the honors.”

            Eight stared blankly at the thing for a moment, as she had not expected to be singled out for the task so quickly. She certainly didn’t want to keep anyone waiting, though. Admittedly, even she herself had been feeling rather hungry for a good chill session lately, despite her enthusiasm not matching up to the visible gusto of Ula’s. She swiped the bong from Ophelia’s outstretched hand without a word, stood herself up, and sauntered over to the canal to fulfill her request. Aurora watched her absently in the meantime.

            As this was happening, Bella put a hand on her chin in an artificially thoughtful manner. “Don’t you have to be pretty scummy to smoke seaweed through a bong filled with…canal water?”

            Ophelia responded to her query with a challenging glare, flawed slightly by her failure to keep a straight face. “Are you saying you don’t enjoy being scummy? Scummy with your girls?”

            Bella broke her composure with a small cackle. Her question didn’t take much thought to answer. “Nah…it’s not like I have anything else to look forward to these days!”

            “Amen.” Ula added declaratively. Her quip caused more laughter among the other two.

            During her friends’ playfully existential banter, while watching her friend dawdle idly toward the canal, Aurora found herself getting continuously distracted by sporadic, intrusive thoughts of the Squiffer user from earlier. Her mind kept tracing back to that moment at the end of the battle…when he had emerged from the ink and focused his weapon on her. Under his watchful gaze, defending his territory from atop the ledge, she had been completely at his mercy. There was something about that situation, standing in a helpless position beneath an opponent that handled his weapon with such unshakable conviction, that had made her hearts skip a few beats when it happened. Having fought a decent number of battles with her friends since moving to Inkopolis, she had obviously been in a few similar situations already, but…none of them seemed to strike her the way the Squiffer guy had. It was as if his physical appearance had a way of enhancing the feelings that she was already getting from having fallen into his slick, inkling clutches.

            During her distraction, Aurora noticed that her flustered thoughts were causing her to be rather silent around her friends. Even Eight had said more than her following the battle’s conclusion, and if one was being out-talked by Eight, clearly, that meant something was up. She really didn’t want to have to explain herself to them. In all honesty, she couldn’t even explain herself to…well…herself. She just felt…really off for some reason. She hoped they would be too busy to notice her strange behavior.

            Luckily, Eight didn’t take very long. Knowing her friends were waiting for her, she made it out to the canal and back in just fifteen seconds or so, leaving Aurora to wonder if she even filled the chamber properly. It couldn’t have been a big deal, though, she figured, since Ophelia would probably just catch the mistake and send her back. She was the expert on that stuff, and no one questioned it.

            Eight said nothing as she extended her arm forward and presented the bong to Ophelia, who took a second to inspect it briefly. Contrary to Aurora’s expectation, she gave it no more than a lazy once-over before grinning approvingly and snatching it from her hand. Eight then promptly sat back down against the pallet and let her legs splay out in front of her.

            They all seemed so fired up for the occasion. While Aurora had to agree that their chill sessions were a fun way to relieve stress, she couldn’t bring herself to share in their eagerness this time. Her nose turned up when Ophelia opened the bag, thanks to the all-too-familiar smell intensifying with the action. In contrast, her friends all watched Ophelia crush up pieces of the seaweed with intense, borderline-impatient glares in their eyes. Bella rubbed her hands together, Eight twiddled her thumbs expectantly, and Ula, well…Ula’s excitement had already been obvious the entire time. It seemed as if their razor sharp interest in getting dull was growing stronger every day.

            It took Ophelia less than a minute to break up a couple grams of the stuff and press it into the little protrusion on the bong. That’s how fast it was to herself and Aurora, of course. To the other three, it might as well have been several hours. Aurora glanced at Ula a couple times during the setup and saw her nearly biting through her lip in anticipation. Even as Ophelia reached into her pocket and pulled out the lighter, their friend reacted as if she were stalling.

            “Alright, ladies, who wants…”

            “Me! I do! It’s…it’s my turn. Me first.” Ula exclaimed, cutting her off.

            The girls all glared at her, with the exception of Aurora. Ula maintained perfect eye contact with Ophelia, her determination evident through her straight expression and complete lack of blinking. While Aurora was clearly planning to not partake in the goodies this time, she found their comedic exchange to be somewhat interesting. She glanced back and forth at both of them.

            “Um…I think I’ll just start us off.” Ophelia muttered finally, causing Ula to sigh in exasperation. “If I hand it right to Ula, she’s going to leave us all with nothing.”

            Ula slumped back in her spot as Ophelia and Bella shot her a smug smirk. This was the way it usually went every time they did this, and yet…somehow it never got old. Aurora personally thought Ophelia was a pretty fresh octo, so regardless of whether or not she had seaweed for the gang to pass around, she still enjoyed hanging out with her. She was also reasonably sure that Bella and Eight felt the same way, but…Ula, though? Well…sometimes she got the feeling that Ula only liked her for said greens.

            Aurora wasn’t even watching her friend as she brought the tube to her mouth, fired up her lighter, and ignited the crumbled mass in the bong. She did, however, hear the signature sound of churning water as Ophelia promptly sucked in a large breath through the tube, pulling a stream of hazy smoke from the seaweed in through the chamber and up to her lips. She was fascinated by how it worked, but it wasn’t, by any means, a new sight to any of them. It was the ritual they all followed whenever they were together in a secluded place…whether it be by the canal, among the shipping crates at Port Mackerel, or behind some dumpsters on the stuck-up campus of Inkblot Art Academy.

            That last location was a favorite of hers and Bella’s, they had to admit. Smoking seaweed was among Inkopolis’s most rebellious pastimes, practiced more heavily by its octoling population than any other demographic. Inkblot Art Academy was located in one of the city’s richer districts, inhabited almost exclusively by snobbish, upper-class inklings, and as a result, the activity was anything but prevalent there. She and Bella were unique among their friends in that they found a certain attractive element to partaking in reefer…so close in proximity to the sub-culture that strictly forbade it. The only difference between them was that Bella liked to admit to being a bad girl, while Aurora didn’t consider herself as such. That, of course, held no bearing on the truth.

            Ophelia pulled the bong away from her face at the end of a truly monstrous toke, handing it straight to Bella with her breath faithfully held. A few seconds went by with her friends’ eyes on her, waiting to see how long she would be able to contain her share before tumultuously sputtering it all out. As it turned out, they never got to see the coughing fit they were hoping for, because Ophelia’s eventual exhale was smoother than a baby jellyfish’s gelatinous head. The fat cloud of expended smoke drifted silently out of both her mouth and nostrils and floated away in the wind, upholding her reputation to her friends as the undisputed master of the trade.

            “Has great flavor.” She hummed whimsically. “Totally worth the money, if you ask me.”

            Bella was the next to take her hit. With the bong and lighter now in her hands, she dove right into grabbing her share with a grin on her face. Ula stared at her with intense, longing focus, like a starving child watching a feast, as she reached up and replicated Ophelia’s action with the lighter. Swirling plumes of smoke flowed through the water in the chamber and into Bella’s mouth as she inhaled generously, causing more bubbling to ripple through the group’s ears. A small part of her was tempted to try beating Ophelia’s record for volume, though…she wound up resisting the urge. Ophelia’s prowess as the “drug queen” of the group was not to be challenged.

            “Ooh, really racking it up there, I see.” Ophelia teased as Bella pulled the bong away from her face. She responded with a pregnant flex of her eyebrows before turning toward Ula and puffing the cloud in her direction.

            “Haaaaaaaaah……” She sighed dreamily as the last of the smoke was expelled from her little lungs. “…Veemo.”

            Bella handed the bong and lighter right to Eight, who took them both with gracious silence. Aurora’s eyes followed the bong as it moved along, still planning to pass on her share when it came to her. She figured her exclusion would leave more for Ula, anyway. Her only worry was knowing what to say when Eight passed it to her, since she didn’t want her friends thinking she was in a bad mood after such a loss on the battlefield. Neither did she want them prying on her distractions, for that matter. She sometimes felt like Eight was the only one that respected her boundaries.

            “It hits smooth, doesn’t it?” Ophelia asked as Eight began to relight the stash.

            “It totally does.” Bella answered with a slight lack of breath. “That dealer of yours doesn’t mess around.”

            Ophelia took that as a compliment. She smirked. Everything her friends said sounded like a compliment when seaweed was involved. “Just gotta know who to talk to when moving to a new city.”

            “We’ve been here for a while now, though. You’ve been sharing this stuff with us since our very first weekend here.” Bella rebutted, crossing her arms at her chest. She blinked a few times as Eight ripped a sizable mass from the bong and blew it back towards her and Ophelia. “Who is your dealer, anyway?”

            Ophelia lowered her shades a bit so Bella and the others could see her eye-to-eye. She anticipated such a question to come from her friends eventually. “You know that really spazzed-out sea slug chick that runs the hat shop in the square? The one with the parrot?”

            Ula gasped sharply. “You mean Flow? With the jewelry and the dreadlocks?”

            “Yeah, her. Hats and glasses aren’t the only things she sells, you know. I just slide her a few coins and ask nicely, and she always hooks me up.” She chuckled a little at the looks of utter shock on Ula’s and Aurora’s faces. “Her underground business must be huge. Every shady octo I spoke to around town referred me straight to her.”

            “Does she sell to inklings too?” Bella chimed in curiously.

            Ophelia shrugged. “Wouldn’t be surprised. She certainly doesn’t look like she discriminates. Trust me, though, I wouldn’t go bringing this up to her. She only sells to folks she finds fresh, and if too many customers barge in looking for seaweed at the same time, she might shut down her operation for a while. Just leave the underground antics to your girl right here.”

            Aurora’s attention was on Ophelia as she talked, but she turned the other way when she heard Eight’s quiet voice address her from the side. “Aurora.”

            When she looked, she found her curly-haired friend leaning towards her in her spot, holding the bong and the lighter directly out in front of her. Apparently, they were having Ula take the last hit of the group, meaning it was now her turn to receive her share. She scratched the back of her neck awkwardly at Eight’s friendly gesture.

            “Um…that’s okay. I’ll pass.” She uttered over the lump in her throat. She swallowed it nervously.

            “Whaaaaat?” Bella exclaimed with wide eyes. Aurora could clearly see how pink they were getting already. “You don’t want to chill out with us?”

            “I didn’t say that. I just said I’m going to pass on smoking today.” Aurora answered staunchly. She could tell, from experience, that Bella and Ophelia were already getting kind of elevated from their bong rips. It wasn’t common for her to go sober while her friends were passing goodies around, so she wasn’t sure how wacky their time together was going to feel. Perhaps she was making a bit of a mistake.

            Even Eight looked a bit confused. After hearing the surprising rejection from Aurora, she slumped back in her spot and set the items on her lap, frowning sadly. Ula quickly swiped the stuff from her the moment she saw the opportunity, showing little regard for her friend’s peculiar lack of interest. Eight, knowing the situation, didn’t try to stop her. If Aurora didn’t want to partake, that was fine by her.

            “Ay, suit yourself, Aurora. Now I get to take my hit and yours!” Ula declared as she raised the bong to her face and started frantically working the lighter with her thumb. Even through her shades, the enthusiasm in her eyes was more than noticeable.

            “Aurora, what’s got you down?” Ophelia asked kindly, pulling her friend’s attention away from Ula. “You know…I still got plenty of stuff left in the bag if you change your mind.”

            Aurora knew what the truth was. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the feelings she had caught during the battle earlier, under that one inkling boy’s frigid glare atop the ledge. Every time she replayed that moment in her mind, all three of her hearts would pick up their pace for a few seconds, and her thoughts would start scattering in all directions. She remembered hearing a few stories about the strange feeling from her days back in Octo Valley. According to those stories, such feelings were supposed to occur when one was…in love, per say. She had only just met the guy for the first time today, though, so…what the hell was going on?!

            It also didn’t help that seaweed was a major brain-stimulant for Aurora. She could never remember much after a rocking smoke session with her friends, but one thing that always stuck with her was how hard it made her engines run. Most notable was the time she had gotten an itch on her nose while smoking by the water’s edge at Camp Triggerfish, and she spent the next twenty minutes trying to describe it to her friends in excruciating detail. She couldn’t slow herself down when her mind was on the grass, and if she allowed herself to partake in it while her thoughts were stuck on that inkling boy, she knew she’d be trying to kill herself before the night was up. “Chilling out,” which was the euphemism her friends liked to use for getting stoned beyond all recognition, would’ve been nice for her this evening, but it was definitely not an option this time around, and she didn’t want her friends knowing the real reason just yet.

            “Just…overthinking, I guess. No big deal.” She mumbled apathetically, failing to meet Ophelia’s gaze.

            Ula suddenly started coughing with powerful ferocity at the end of Aurora’s dismissive statement, causing her and Eight to flinch a little bit. Dispersed pockets of thick, nearly opaque smoke sprayed out of the greedy octoling’s mouth in all directions with each forceful hack. Aurora put her hand up to shield herself from the storm, while Bella began to laugh hysterically and kick her legs around. Ophelia even found herself chuckling a bit, at both the laughter of one friend and the choking of another. Eight ignored the shenanigans and kept her eyes on Aurora, but the higher she got from her toke, the less she could keep her gaze focused.

            “Ahh, yes! That shit hits the spot!” Ula cried triumphantly at the end of her last cough. Bella’s uncontrollable laughter immediately increased in strength.

            Ophelia was becoming partially deafened in one ear from her friend’s cackling. Thanks to the peak she was quickly reaching on her previous hit, however, she didn’t want it any other way. “Ula, the point is to pull the bowl out of the bong before topping off your breath!”

            “Fuck that, ‘Lia!” Ula snapped defensively. “I was given this bong to clear the rest of the stash, and clear it, I shall, dammit!”

            She punctuated her defiant statement by firing up the lighter and diving in for another rip, well before having recovered from the first one. Meanwhile, Bella, who was clearly starting to hit the summit of Mount Nantai, looked as if she was going to fall into a coma. Ophelia put a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment in an effort to calm her down while trying not to let the contagious giggling spread to her. Aurora watched the spectacle unfold with a tiny grin on her face, wishing her highs could go the way Bella’s often went. She also felt a bit relieved that Ula’s violent coughing fit had managed to deflect attention away from her at just the right time.

            “I think I just peed a little!” Bella hollered with glee, heaving vigorously like she was drowning in the canal. She reached up to wipe a few tears from her face. It still took a few more moments for her to regain her original composure, and when she did, Aurora could see the now-deepened shade of red in her eyes. Her stupid smile briefly faded alongside her last guffaw, at which point she reached down and patted her shorts with her right hand. “Scratch that…I did just pee a little.”

            They hadn’t even been at it for more than fifteen minutes, Aurora figured. And already…it seemed like her friends were having the time of their lives. Eight was the only one in the group that didn’t outwardly display her enjoyment, opting instead to melt against the palette like hot asphalt and stare into the great beyond. Aurora could already see the slightest bit of drool making its way down the corner of her friend’s mouth. She had just witnessed full-blown incontinence from Bella, though, so the phenomenon didn’t exactly pass as gross to her. After all…this still wasn’t the craziest experience she had had with her friends. Their mixed personalities supplied a lot of flavor to their smoke sessions.

            Ophelia waited patiently for Ula to wrap up her last succulent dosage of green before continuing with the news she had been holding in all afternoon. She had been waiting for this very moment to break it to everyone, when their systems were flowing with White Fire and their spirits were high. She already couldn’t remember anything about where she had heard the news, except that it had come to her while she was shopping in Inkopolis Square. Such were the ways of Flow’s mystic mojo…where only the important things could be recalled, if one was lucky.

            Ula did the courtesy of emptying out both the ash and the water from the bong before handing the stuff back to Ophelia. No one commented on the fact that she had been too lazy to actually stand up and go perform the actions by the canal, since no one besides Aurora had the physical ability to get up and do it themselves. As long as it wasn’t interfering with their condition right there in that very moment, it didn’t matter to them at all.

            “So, girls…I got some fresh news I think you’re gonna love.” She began with well-concealed excitement.

            “You’re going to pack another round?” Bella cut in.

            Ophelia turned to look her dead in her dazed, rose-red eyes. With a caring smile, she extended her arm and patted her friend gingerly on the thigh. “Nah, I think you’re good for now.”

            Bella stared back at her and her gesture without even blinking. Her strange, empty expression caused Ophelia to quickly become lost in what she was doing, and why she had just placed her hand on her friend’s thigh. As long as she didn’t make a sound, Ophelia didn’t either, and as the seconds ticked by, their exchange became an awkward, absent-minded staring contest. Aurora looked at them both with a bit of abashment. Her friends were weird when they were wrecked. Now that she actually wasn’t high with them for once, their eccentricity was…excessively apparent.

            “Anyway…no, that’s not what I was going to say.” She finally stated with a shake of her head. “I found something out at the square earlier today.”

            “Spill it…” Ula muttered lethargically. She looked like she was a bit…wrapped up in the sensations at the moment.

            Ophelia cleared her throat, which took noticeably longer than it should have. Aurora had been getting kind of sick of listening to her friends’ drugged-out high-jinks, so when she heard of the possibility of some actual news from Ophelia, she tuned in her attention with piqued interest. Intriguing things didn’t come often enough in their lives, even in the booming city of Inkopolis. Plus, if the news was exciting enough, she hoped it would get her mind off the crap from earlier.

            Finally, Ophelia let the Judd out of the bag. “There’s a Splatfest coming up soon!”

            “Wait, what?” Ula piped suddenly. She didn’t move a muscle, and she still looked as glued as a toddler’s science fair project, but her shock was evident in her tone of voice. “A Splatfest?!”

            Bella added a heavy gasp to the mix as the news also struck her like wildfire. “Is it finally happening? We get to be in a Splatfest?”

            Of all the things Ophelia could’ve said in that moment, this was probably the most riveting, by far. Rumors of alleged “Splatfests,” the most rocking and bourgeois shindigs on the known continent, often made their rounds throughout Octo Valley during the group’s younger days, and never before had they dreamed of being part of one. When Aurora and the others, excluding Eight, at least, had moved to Inkopolis in search of a happier existence, following the imprisonment of DJ Octavio, they held onto the hope of a Splatfest one day giving them the welcoming celebration they felt they deserved. Thanks to a considerable “loss in translation” between the inklings in Inkopolis and the octolings in Octo Valley, only two things were known to the group of friends about the mythical events. They knew that it was essentially a glorified, overnight turf war. Everyone in the city gets to pick between two opposing sides by dinnertime the night of the festival, and battles are played from dusk to dawn to determine the superior opinion.

            The other thing they knew about Splatfests made Aurora a bit nervous upon hearing the news from Ophelia. Being the city-wide events that they were, and considering their importance as the centerpiece of inkling culture, Splatfests were known to attract an abundance of couples. It’s an exciting night, after all, ripe for lovers both new and old to drop their inhibitions and party like their lives depended on it. The lights, the music, and the general atmosphere made for the perfect date. Therefore, anyone who showed up to Inkopolis Square on Splatfest night without a date was essentially the opposite of fresh, unless they were not intending to hook up. For Aurora, the timing could not have been worse.

            “What’s the, uh…the…the…” Ula paused for a moment as she struggled to remember the correct term. “…the theme, or whatever? What’s the theme?”

            Ophelia grinned deviously. “You ready for this?” She gave the girls a moment to nod their heads, which they all did almost instantly. No point in keeping them waiting. “It’s gonna be…Looks versus Personality.”

            Another round of shocked reactions made its way around the group at that answer, ranging from more gasps to exaggerated exclamations. Aurora bit her lip as she, along with the others, immediately began contemplating her opinion on the two-way prompt. It was already a thrilling experience for the gang of disparaged octolings to be eligible for participation in the world’s biggest showdown this year, even with the festivities still several days out. They wanted to make their votes count.

            Ula spoke up rather quickly, giving her friends the impression of an adamant decision on her part. “I’m going Looks. I can get down with an octo that wants to throw me around a little bit, but if he’s ugly as shit…I’d rather kick him to the curb than keep a bag over his head all the time.”

            Bella had to take a breather to keep herself from exploding in another fit of laughter. She cupped her hand over her mouth and spit copiously into it, earning the amused looks of several of her friends. “Damn, Ula, that is savage! Even for you!”

            She shrugged. “Can’t stop, won’t stop. For my first Splatfest…I’d say that Pearl chick has my vote.”

            Ula seemed to set the momentum with her vote. Nothing she ever did seemed to come from deep consideration, for she knew who she was, and her friends knew who she was as well. She stretched and fell further into her slumped position after declaring her decision, punctuating her confidence with the obvious reminder of how madly baked she had gotten. The seaweed had nothing to do with her choice, however. Her friends found Ula’s answer to be sensible for the type of octo she was.

            Bella replied next, after having already reacted to Ula’s brash statements. “I think I also gotta go Team Looks. I’ve come across a few octos since coming to this city that are just…ugh.” She threw her head back and placed a hand on her forehead in a swooning motion. “I want at least one of them to show me a good time this Splatfest, if you know what I mean. Maybe I’ll hit one of them up tomorrow.”

            “Better watch out there, girl. I’m gonna be holding you to that one when this stuff wears off later!” Ophelia jabbed. She poked Bella’s shoulder with her finger.

            “Oh yeah? You don’t think I have the courage to ask some sexy dudes out to the Splatfest? They’ll be itching for a date just as much as the girls, you know!” Bella challenged, grabbing her friend’s wrist in a tight squeeze. Ophelia giggled a bit as she tried to wriggle herself free, to no avail. “The Splatfest is a ripe time to swipe yourself a strong shoulder to lean on, ‘Lia. Ask yourself…would you rather it be a meek lil’ sucker with a good personality, or a total hunk? One that could make you melt into ink just by looking at him?”

            She eventually released her grip on Ophelia, allowing her to shake off her wrist and return it to her pocket. Bella was quite passionate, she had to give her that. Her ponytailed friend had been the first one to enter her mind upon receiving the Splatfest news in the square earlier. A Splatfest about boys? What could go wrong with that? After all…she certainly had a lot to say on the topic, and out of the five of them, she was always the least apt at keeping those thoughts inside.

            She did raise a good point, though. Ophelia usually had to admit that. “When you put it that way…looks do seem kind of important. In a city like this, no octoling is complete without a man to stand up for her. You may be able to survive on your own, with the way you stood up to those brats earlier, but me?” She pushed her shades against her face with a hearty snort. “I’ll take myself a looker. Team Looks it is.”

            Aurora could see the trend that was happening among her friends. She didn’t want to call them shallow, since…well…they really weren’t on the inside. She had seen the size of her friends’ hearts during their years together, even in Octo Valley. Hell, that was primarily the reason for her friendship with them. However, it also didn’t strike her as much of a surprise that they were all leaning towards Looks on a dating-related Splatfest, considering the starvation they had suffered from boys since moving to the big city. She herself was even tempted to join them on Team Looks, since, like them, nothing turned her on more than a stylish, fresh companion to hold her reigns.

            The problem was…she still only had one companion in mind. It may just be infatuation, she wanted to tell herself, from the events of the day, but she felt strongly like the sensation wasn’t going to die when she woke up the next morning. Also, she knew that her likelihood of ending up with said companion for the Splatfest was incredibly low. So far in the conversation, her friends had been talking exclusively about snagging octoling boys for the festivities, which only served to frustrate her further. Why was she interested in an inkling? Why did her mind and her hearts want to torture her with the desire for a date she could never satisfy? Shouldn’t she know where her place was in Inkopolis by now?

            She wouldn’t let her thoughts stop there, though. She figured she could learn a few things from Bella’s determination, at least. While her friends seemed more concerned with just hooking up for the Splatfest, Aurora wanted something that would stretch beyond merely the next week…into the next Splatfest, perhaps. And the one after that. And the one after that. It was something she had never experienced before…and she had been longing for it long before laying eyes on that stupid, irresistible inkling at the end of the battle earlier. No one ever achieved happiness by waiting for the stars to align, she reminded herself. Therefore, she decided she was going to go for it. Fuck what everyone had to say.

            Now…what team would an inkling like him be more likely to choose for the Splatfest?

            “…I’m going Team Personality.” Aurora blurted suddenly.

            Everyone in the group, including Eight, looked right at her. Surveying her stoned friends’ faces, she sensed confusion among them. It wasn’t immediately obvious if said confusion was positive or negative, at least from her limited perspective. They might’ve been expecting her to vote the same way as them, both for her shared interest in physically attractive mates, and for the natural assumption that she’d want to fight her first Splatfest by her best friends’ sides. Either way, they did not know her true intentions, nor the fact that she preferred looks over personality just as much as they did. Whether she was eventually going to tell them…remained an uncertainty in her head.

            “Wha…huh? Personality?” Bella stammered.

            Aurora nodded her head.

            “…Why?” Ula added with a skeptical tinge in her voice.

            Just as Aurora was about to try explaining herself with a messy, elaborate lie, as she was planning to do from the very beginning, Eight spoke up out of the blue. The seaweed had made her completely and utterly silent, even more so than usual, so her input managed to add more upheaval to the mix for the other three. Aurora was saved from the spotlight for the third time that day, thanks to her quiet and modest friend stepping in for her. She had to remember to thank her later.

            “I’ll go Personality too. If Aurora wants to put her eggs in that basket, I think she deserves a wing-girl.” She stated softly. After going the entire session without talking nor coughing, her voice sounded a bit raspy.

            Aurora gave her a small, weak smile, a thankful gesture in the face of adversity. The others were probably going to need a few moments to digest what had just happened. They usually shared a general dynamic of agreement on just about everything, so their surprise at Aurora’s divergence became a double-decker when Eight took the initiative to join her. Their closely-knit friend group was going to be split nearly down the middle for their very first Splatfest. This year’s festivities were going to be interesting.

            “Wow…” Ophelia finally uttered. “…me, Bella, and Ula…versus you and Eight. Can’t say I expected this to happen!”

            Aurora couldn’t help but notice Bella’s face, which hadn’t changed much since the moment she had heard her strange team decision. She was expecting her friend to overreact a little bit at the fact that they were going to be fighting the Splatfest separately, as she often did about everything when she was on the drugs. With Bella’s still-confused eyes fixated on her own, Aurora anticipated a question brewing in her mind. She didn’t have to wait long to hear it, though, luckily.

            “I always thought you liked…you know…hot dudes. Attractive ones. Like the rest of us.” She trailed off for a moment while continuing to make eye contact with her. “Who exactly are you into, Aurora?”

            The question landed on the intimidated octoling like an anvil in a cartoon. Another nervous twinge arose in her chest as she, once again, struggled to formulate a satisfying fib. Somehow…she doubted she would be getting out of this one.

            “…Who am I into? Well…I…uhh……”