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……”

Chapter Text

            The afternoon passed quickly after the bong made its rounds. The rainmaker battle under the bridge had begun around an hour or two after lunchtime, and by the time Ophelia had taken her first hit of the goodies, the sun was already starting to sneak toward the western horizon. The group was not finished after Ula’s generous double-helping, though, thanks to an ever-growing uproar of nagging from her and Bella to refill the chamber and ignite a hasty round two. The Splatfest voting would last for several days, they reasoned, so there was no rush to stow their stuff and super-jump back to the downtown area right away. They found it more suiting to stay back and celebrate for a bit longer.

            The decision didn’t really bode well for Aurora, much to her embarrassment. Her friends’ pestering had amped up a bit after she announced her team vote, resulting in a brief interrogation session that had left her sweating. Apparently, “nobody” was not an answer Bella nor the others were willing to accept when asking about love interests, even while they were mentally incapacitated on seaweed. They were all brutally honest with each other when they were on the stuff, and it seemed like they were kind of expecting the same out of her, especially when her answer had sent their suspicions through the roof. Eight was the only one that remained silent during the ordeal, likely out of respect for her friend’s clear discomfort under scrutiny.

            Despite her shy nerves and ignominious developing crush, Aurora was still looking forward to her first Splatfest. Seldom spoken were her and her friends’ joyless years in the grim, sprawling trenches of Octo Valley, alienated from the extravagancies of inkling culture and the Great Zapfish that gave it all its power. The Splatfest was a legend they were finally about to live for themselves after growing up on nothing but natural light and limited rations. Music, dancing, drinks, heart-throbbing turf wars, boys……they were going to get intoxicated on all of it. Aurora’s immigration by her friends’ sides made her a changed octoling, and when Off the Hook took that stage in less than a week, she would be celebrating her life’s upturn to the fullest extent. She didn’t care how she would do it.

            Today, however, she had gotten carried away with her infatuations. In the end, Aurora wound up regretting her choice to abstain from smoking with the others. She had managed to bend awkwardly around her friends’ questions until they eventually lost interest and continued talking about the Splatfest, which gave her some relief for the time being. She knew it wasn’t going to be the end of it yet, anyway. As the Splatfest, now the talk of everyone in the city, drew closer, day by day…she anticipated at least a couple of her friends to start introducing her to some lucky octo boys, assuming they’d manage to be as charming as they claim. Ula would struggle a bit in that department, she felt, though she caught a bit of guilt thinking about it. Regardless, once the hot pieces started rolling in, her friends were going to start wondering where the hell hers were. The truth was…she was beside herself with thoughts about the inkling with the Squiffer…coupled with daydreams of spending her first Splatfest with him. Her beans were going to spill eventually, and then…who knew what would follow?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            About an hour into their second run, the group began to develop a gnarly craving for junk food. They each had eaten only small morsels for lunch earlier, ignoring the obvious fact that they were going to suffer for it as a result. Everyone in the gang, Aurora included, had dangerously gluttonous appetites. It was one of the few traits they all shared as a group. Therefore, they collectively agreed to cut their session short, gather their weapons and belongings, and jump back to the city to satisfy their pangs and place their Splatfest votes. Crusty Sean’s selection of deep-fried, high-calorie snacks were on the mischievous octolings’ minds primarily, and his truck was conveniently located right in the bustling center of Inkopolis Square.

            Everyone’s shadows were steadily getting longer as Aurora and her friends approached the famous food truck from down the street. As the square, Inkopolis’s most popular hangout spot, came into view, the group realized they would be spending quite a bit of time there that evening. The line for the food truck stretched all the way to the entrance of the nearby arcade, and the line for the Splatfest kiosk stretched even farther. They already knew, from Ophelia’s news, that the Splatfest had first been announced just earlier that day, but none of them could’ve expected the square to become so…busy as a result.

            There were inklings everywhere. Aurora and the others had no trouble locating a few octolings in the mix, though their numbers were severely lacking in comparison. Not a single empty table could be found in the area, nor was there a bench in sight that wasn’t straining under the weight of crowds of inklings laughing and happily trying on their new Splatfest t-shirts. Inklings in their squid form even dotted the sidewalks, slithering and jumping around among their friends, who stood against the walls of the shops with their cellphones out. It was kind of an impressive spectacle, they had to admit, considering how underpopulated the square had been at lunchtime.

            Bella bit her lip as she surveyed the square’s incredible density. “Are you girls sure this is a good idea? I still feel a little bit high right now, and…there are tons of inklings here.”

            Aurora glanced over at her and risked another few words. “Would you be more comfortable if they were octolings?”

            “Yes, actually. At least octolings are more likely to forgive us for walking near them with seaweed smell on our asses!” She answered frantically.

            “Hey, hey.” Ophelia cut in. She waited until she had Bella’s attention, and then she imitated a slow, calming, deep breath. “Just relax. Paranoia seems to get you good on this stuff.”

            Bella had seemed a lot more at ease by the canal, since she was surrounded by friends and nobody else. It was also much easier for her to mouth off to disdainful inklings when there were only a few of them, unlike the hordes that populated the square. Not being perfectly sober certainly didn’t help either. She simply had to remind herself that most denizens of the city were friendly and accepting. The prejudiced few were exactly that. The few.

            Ula led the charge into the square, caring little to none about her and her friends’ impaired state. She was known for being stubbornly direct with what was on her mind, and right now…her hunger was the only thing on her mind. Aurora followed closely behind her, with Eight picking up her stride thereafter. Eventually, Bella and Ophelia lagged along. Bella was the only one in the group that showed any sort of nervous energy.

            “These lines don’t seem to end.” Ula muttered irritably. She turned around and panned her gaze across her friend group. “How are we going to do this?”

            Aurora took a peek around Ula at the gargantuan queues that seemed to snake all around the square. If they were lucky, she and her friends were looking at a wait of about twenty minutes…in each line. They were all starving, and with both Bella’s paranoia and Ula’s gripey impatience nipping down her neck, Aurora felt like it was going to feel much longer. Cutting the line would obviously result in public ridicule, especially if they chose to piss off the wrong inklings, so they essentially had no choice but to endure each line individually and hope they moved quickly.

            Just as she was about to swallow her minor trepidation and submit to the wait, Eight surprised the group again by providing another clever suggestion. “Well…we could split up. You three can wait for the food truck, since you have the tickets on you, and Aurora and I can stand in line for the Splatfest thing. We’ll be on the other team, after all.”

            For a few seconds, no one said anything, just like the last time Eight had provided a suggestion. Eight was easily the most passive member of the group, and she was always open to objections, but no one ever had any to give. Whenever she threw in some input, her friends’ problems were always solved.

            “That’s…a pretty good idea, actually. We should be able to cut the wait time in half if we do that.” Aurora added. “As long as you guys manage to get our food before we finish placing our votes.”

            Ophelia shrugged, prompting both Bella and Ula to do the same. Once again, it was the best idea they had. “Alright, fair enough. Tell us what you want from Crusty’s so we know what to get.”

            Aurora answered almost immediately. No matter the day nor the time, she always got the same thing from the Crust Bucket. It was surprising that Ophelia didn’t already have her order memorized. “Double-Fried Super Schwaffle and a Special-Charge Shake, please.”

            “Extra whipped cream, right?” Ophelia asked, pointing at her for confirmation.

            “Right.” She nodded her head. Maybe Ophelia knew her order after all, she thought. Or maybe it was just a lucky guess.

            Ophelia and the others looked to Eight for her order after Aurora’s reply. Eight met her friends’ gaze and knew it was her turn to answer, despite their silence. She cleared her throat softly.

            “…Main-Up Guava is fine.”

            Ophelia waited for a second. Another second. One more. An awkward silence eventually settled among the group as they each waited for Eight to say something else…but she never did. Either her high had completely worn off, or…she just wasn’t hungry somehow. Or both.

            “Is…Is that all?” Ophelia stammered. “The Grizz pays me well in tickets too, you know. There’s…definitely no shortage.”

            “…I’m alright.”

            Irked by her friends’ cumbersome exchange, Ula cut the discussion short by throwing her arms above her head in a fake stretch. The loud, exaggerated exclamation she made nearly interrupted Eight’s last response. “News flash, everyone; Eight doesn’t want any food. Now, I don’t know about either of you, but I’m going to get two Galactic Seanwiches and a Short-Respawn Mocha with an espresso shot!”

            Bella let out a robust scoff, causing some spit to settle in her bandana. “Chill out, Ula, you’re literally going to kill yourself with an order like that.”

            “Works out for you, then.” Ula fired back through the uncompromising glint of her shades. “It’ll be easier for you to pry my mocha from my cold, dead tentacles.”

            “Your tentacles aren’t even going to be dead for at least another twelve hours if you drink a mocha around dinnertime.” Bella returned with crossed arms. “And that’s not even getting into the number of calories you’d be tacking on with two Galactic Seanwiches.”

            Ula stared at her friend with an ever-increasing level of vexation. She couldn’t immediately tell if Bella was being serious…or if she was just trying to mess with her again. “Since when did you become my mom? Let me consume my calories in peace for once.”

            “Alright, well…we’re going to go wait in the other line now.” Aurora declared suddenly, sensing the rising tension between the two bickerers. Eight nodded her head in agreement.

            “Cool, we’ll catch up to you soon.” Ophelia answered dutifully. She pretended, ineffectively, to ignore the typical episode unfolding in front of her. “I’ll just go stand in the food line…with these two…for a while.”

            While it was clear that Ophelia’s sendoff was an implicit cry for help, Aurora and Eight made haste to flee the scene before they could witness any more quarreling from Bella and Ula. As Aurora sloppily shimmied her way through some of the bystanders in the crowd on her way to the back of the kiosk line, she did not look back. Eight followed behind her with similar urgency, though she had no issue dodging and sliding through the masses with skillful agility. They both knew how Bella and Ula got when their highs started to decline, especially if late-day exhaustion played an additional factor. They found it better to bail on that trainwreck before it had the chance to escalate.

            Luckily for them, finding the back of the kiosk line didn’t prove to be a difficult task. While it did seem to weave around a little bit, its end was not too far away from the center of the square, well in their sight from their original spot by the food truck. Even though their line was longer than the food line, it seemed to them like they were going to be reaching the front around the same time as the others. After all, placing a vote at a kiosk and receiving a t-shirt didn’t seem like the kind of activity that would take longer than waiting for food to be prepared. They just hoped the others would finish in their line soon enough to join them before they could finish the deed and have to wait in the line a second time.

            Upon reaching the line’s tail, Aurora was the first to plant her feet in her spot and begin waiting. Eight stepped around to the other side of her and did the same, opting as usual to do so without saying a word. They stood behind two sunny-looking inkling girls, both wearing flip-flops and skimpy tank-tops and giggling innocently over something they couldn’t hear. The sound of it was quite inviting, as were the numerous, peaceful sounds of fellow citizens enjoying the city. The evening sun on their skin was always welcome, too.

            Aurora didn’t mind busy settings so much. Though her social skills were nothing to write home about, she rather enjoyed how clear her mind became as an average bystander in the presence of ambient crowds. They were a way to keep her grounded, in a sense. Her tranquility just depended on there being no unexpected disturbances, which, on the flip side, were more likely in populated areas. Her and her friends’ repressed memories from their first days in Inkopolis could attest the dangers of living as an octoling in an inkling’s world.

            In the process of casually surveying her surroundings, while remembering what she was standing in line for in the first place, Aurora’s thoughts eventually trailed back to the upcoming Splatfest. The tension in the turf wars had to be ludicrous, she imagined, considering the extra weight placed on the victories. The atmosphere was going to be invigorating as well, as she and the others had never battled it out after dusk before, let alone with the festival lights and booming audiences that were likely going to accompany the venues. Also…there was the thought about splatting it up against Bella, Ula, and Ophelia for once, which…had some of its own effects on her. She pictured a scenario of herself and Eight, donning the color of Team Personality, facing off against their three friends in a venue like Moray Towers under the starry, night sky…with a stadium’s worth of inklings watching from the high-rise parking structures nearby. Needless to say, the thought caused a small rush of adrenaline to course through her chest.

            Everyone knew, though, that turf wars weren’t the only things that defined the Splatfest. Getting to splat her friends on the battlefield was one thing, but having such thoughts led Aurora to wonder just what was going to come of her friends in the event…and whether they were really going to grab themselves dates for the festivities. There was no way they were going to be able to land any of the hot ones, right? The girls had a fun range of personalities, of course, and she knew they were feisty enough to find out how to please a boy if they wanted to, but she couldn’t picture them being capable of wooing guys that were out of their leagues.

            She certainly wouldn’t blame them for trying, however. For the expense of only some minor humiliation, at worst, the reward of putting themselves out into the dating sphere was well worth the risk. After all, nothing was more titillating to Aurora than the thought of getting swept off her feet by a confident stud under the raving strobe lights of a roaring Splatfest.

            With that imagery now passing through her, she shifted rather quickly to the inevitable. The inkling boy with the Squiffer came flooding back into her mind full force, saturating her senses with the illusory sensations of a powerful fantasy.

            He came with no warning, pushing fellow inklings aside as he approached her at her spot, eyes fixed assuredly on her own. He wore his Squiffer proudly on his back as a message of defiance to any of his potential opposers. Off the Hook’s wild and fresh beats filled the square around them in the moments preceding their union, gripping them both with the same euphoric energy that embodied the greatest event in Inkopolis history. Their eye contact did not break as he stepped right up to where she stood and placed his hands on her shoulders. He studied her…seeing for himself the curves she flaunted under her shorts and her Team Personality t-shirt, the hypnotizing glint of the party lights on her full-moon glasses, and the expectant plea for his touch in her feminine body language.

            He did not hesitate to oblige to her desire by wrapping his arms around her hips and pulling her towards him for a silent kiss. His face, at point-blank, was the last thing she saw as she melted completely against her inkling lover, her eyes closing after falling victim to the overwhelming sensation of his lips against hers. Her appendages fell limp at the mercy of his embrace under the stars, surrounded by countless dozens of partygoers with dumbfounded looks on their faces. Their stares only worked to escalate her excitement.

            The nameless inkling with the Squiffer worked away at her like that, slowly, until he could feel the readiness in her through his hands and his pelvis. He knew how badly she wanted him. Hell, in the heat of the moment, he knew everything about her. He was about to show his octoling prey the proper way inklings celebrated the Splatfest, and he had his weapon poised on his back in case anyone wanted to object to it. It all began with the work of his hands against the back of her waist…and the gentle tug they made against the bottom seam of her t-shirt…morphing subtly into a blooming tingle as he snuck them underneath the fabric. A dull whine escaped her throat, against her every effort to withhold it, resulting from her insatiable craving for the final deed. She wanted more. And luckily for her…he knew that, too.

            “Aurora, are you okay?” Eight’s voice chimed suddenly.

            Aurora, after jumping a mile in her skin, blinked a few times. Her visions of intimacy ended as soon as her daydream was interrupted, leaving her gazing awkwardly at Eight while regathering herself. Her friend’s expression seemed to reflect a bit of…concern.

            “Um…what?” She cleared her throat a few times, though they both knew she didn’t really need to. “What did you say?”

            “I just asked if you were okay. You’ve been acting kind of strange today.” Eight reiterated. Aurora could practically count the number of sentences Eight had spoken today on one hand, so her choice to initiate a conversation came as a bit of a shock.

            “I’m…I’m not acting strange. You’ve been acting strange.” She babbled defensively.

            Eight kept her eyes fixated on Aurora’s. Her expression did not change at all. Aurora waited a moment for her to say something, or to at least reciprocate, but…once again…she got nothing. After a few seconds, Eight merely shrugged her shoulders and returned her attention to the front of the line. Aurora had no way of knowing whether such an apathetic response was born of actual apathy, forgiveness, annoyance, or outright contempt. Nothing Eight ever did nor said could be deciphered that easily, and quite frankly, it often drove her nuts.

            Eventually, she cracked. The defeated sigh she gave off caused Eight to turn back toward her. “Okay, I’m just…a little embarrassed, I guess.”

            Eight raised a brow, showing more interest all of a sudden. “Embarrassed? ……What for?”

            Already, Aurora hadn’t expected to get this far in the conversation with her friend. She didn’t talk to Eight much, especially without her other friends around, so she couldn’t exactly understand why she felt compelled to confess her afternoon to her. Perhaps it was because she felt desperate to get the words out to someone, and Eight was easily the most indifferent and absorbing octo in her friend group. At least…that’s how Aurora perceived her. Standing next to her like that, gal-to-gal…gave her just enough comfort in the matter.

            “I don’t know…just all this talk about boys…” She muttered.

            “The Splatfest?”

            “…Yeah, I suppose.” She acknowledged with a nod. Her eyes were focused on the ground, but she could still see Eight looking directly at her with a cocked head through the corner of her sight. “I kind of hope I can get a date…”

            Eight maintained her gaze. Aurora knew she was being looked at, and she deliberately avoided looking back at her because of it. She felt a bit sensitive about the situation, even with the twinge of confidence she got talking to her, since…she found it to be less of a laughing matter than her friends did. She had no evidence that Eight would sympathize with her, or if she would shrug it off carelessly like she did with everything else. She also felt irrationally worried about getting called out by her impassive companion for the reality of things.

            Eight hadn’t put all the pieces of the puzzle together yet, though. “I would like a date, too. It sounds nice.”

            Aurora grinned just slightly. “Mmm…it does.”

            “Our friends seem to think it’s nice, as well.” Eight added. “What could be embarrassing about it, then?”

            The closer Aurora got to the breaking of the ice, the more nervous she became. She could only hope that Eight would take the news lightly, and…in addition…that no one standing near them would overhear her. Why was she picking now to come clean, anyway? What was it about Eight that made her feel more secure about doing so? Nothing made sense, it seemed.

            Most of her response came out as a long, incomprehensible stutter. “It’s just…I…you see…there’s……er…”

            “…Is there someone you like?” Eight asked, saving Aurora from her dead end.

            “Yes! Yes, there, um…there is. Thank you.” She let out another huff, which Eight interpreted as weary. She was just so incredibly bad at explaining things sometimes.

            Just then, the departure of a large group at the front spurred movement from the line. Aurora and Eight walked forward with it accordingly, making a subconscious effort to avoid getting too close to the inkling girls ahead of them. They looked like a friendly pair, sharing laughs and good vibes with each other, but that didn’t keep Aurora and Eight from playing it safe anyway. Their business was their own, and as long as they kept it that way with strangers, there was never a chance of encountering any issues in public. Such rules sat engrained in their heads…almost as much as their ability to morph into octo form.

            “It’s okay to have a crush, Aurora.” Eight mentioned as soon as they stopped moving again. Her gaze remained on her even still, having never left since the moment Aurora had begun to talk to her. Aurora couldn’t help but be a bit impressed with the amount of openness her otherwise-silent friend was displaying. It only made sense that her behavior was a result of her other friends’ absence at the moment.

            She glanced up at her in an effort to stop looking so awkward, and her gaze met Eight’s for a brief moment. “Do…Do you have a crush too?”

            Her question was met with another long pause. Eight’s gaze fell to the side a bit, her emotionless expression seeming to change…without actually changing…to suggest thoughtfulness. Aurora began to grow aware of the ambient noises around her again from the conversation’s sudden halt, and for a few seconds, she thought her question was going to go unanswered. When she did finally hear her response, she found it to be a bit…lackluster.

            “…I’m not sure.”

            Aurora let that reply ring in her head for a second. She couldn’t help but be curious about what it meant, and whether it would’ve been unfair to ask her more about it while having yet to reveal her own crush. She didn’t get many opportunities to talk to her friends individually, so she found herself developing a nagging urge to know more details about Eight. There was also the fact that Eight had been quick to ditch the rest of her friends in favor of joining her on Team Personality, despite not knowing her true intentions behind choosing it in the first place. Maybe they could go shopping at Arowana Mall sometime to catch up a little more before the Splatfest. She figured they could also grab a bite and watch a few turf wars there while they were at it.

            That question would have to come later, though. While Aurora was pondering this, she heard the sound of a group of footsteps heading in their direction from behind, accompanied by a flurry of male voices. She and Eight kept their eyes forward as the footsteps grew closer, until they eventually came to a stop right behind them. The voices continued, of course, carrying with them the sounds of plain, intermingled conversation. From what she could hear, Aurora assumed it to be a group of dudes…inkling dudes, that was…entering the line behind them. Her spot in the line was already starting to feel a bit cramped for her comfort.

            Her better judgement told her to avoid interaction with the boys, considering her position amongst them. She and Eight only had themselves to rely on for a while, and the more she listened to their idle shuffling, the more she could hear the sounds of…weapons. In particular, two heavy thumps pattered through her ears around the same time the footsteps stopped, suggesting that a couple of them were hoisting some behemoths around the square. Didn’t they know it was illegal to open-carry splat weapons around the city square?

            Aurora only managed to ignore the arriving group for ten to fifteen seconds before subtly glancing over her shoulder, her curiosity having quickly betrayed her. It was a bit difficult to catch a glimpse of the boys without making her interest obvious to them, since they were standing almost directly behind her and Eight. A couple of them were standing just far enough to the side for her to see them with the corner of her eye. When she did so…she gasped sharply and nearly collapsed into her octo form.

            It was the Squiffer inkling. He was standing directly behind her and Eight. Though she had only caught the briefest of glances before turning back around, she noticed his head buried in his phone…and his weapon strapped cozily to his back. He still had his headphones on, so he likely hadn’t heard her little exclamation upon seeing him. At that point, it didn’t take a detective to know that the rest of the boys behind them were actually her and her friends’ opponents from the battle earlier. She did not expect to see them here at such a time.

            Aurora suddenly stood with considerable discomfort in her stance. Her foot began tapping gently as a hint of nervous energy worked its way into her. Clearly, fate was giving her this chance…right? Or was it a warning? Was she supposed to make a move? Was something going to happen on its own? After all…she had just finished having an embarrassingly intimate daydream about this guy, and…now he was standing right behind her. What were his friends going to think if she did something?

            “Aurora…?”

            “Hmm? What?” She jolted. Eight seemed to be glaring at her, looking concerned again.

            “I’m just checking on you.”

            “Oh…I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong.”

            Eight raised a brow. “…Nothing?” She leaned to the side a bit so she could get a better look at the inklings standing behind them. “…Are you sure?”

            “Yes, I’m sure, Eight. I’m just…thinking about stuff.” Why did the quietest of all her friends suddenly have to know everything so insistently? Now that the subject of her abashment was standing within ten feet of her, her confidence was completely gone.

            “…I would like to help.” Eight stated blankly.

            Aurora put a hand on her hip and shot her friend a slightly annoyed look. “You would like to help me think about stuff?”

            Eight didn’t seem at all fazed by her sarcastic remark. She shook her head slowly while maintaining her usual, featureless expression. “No, I would like to help you feel better. You seem stressed.”

            “Oh, well…” She greatly appreciated her friend’s selflessness, though…she wished it didn’t have to be at such a bad time. “…that’s really nice of you, but…it’s kinda…hard to explain right now.”

            Eight cocked her head a second time. She seemed increasingly invested in what was going on with her friend. She thought she was being fairly outgoing, but…Aurora didn’t seem to want to reciprocate her advances. It felt like a good time to see what had been making her act so tense since the battle earlier, seeing as how they were standing alone with each other while their loud and manic friends were busy in the other line. Strangely, however, she got the feeling that Aurora didn’t truly feel alone while standing next to her. She seemed to be acting like someone was breathing down her neck.

            Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted. She turned at the same time Aurora jumped, both having been stirred by the voice of one of the inkling boys behind them.

            “Hey, look what Judd dragged into the square!” The voice uttered snootily. “It’s the adorable lil’ octo girls from the canal!”

            “Heeey, you’re right!” Another voice chimed. Almost immediately, three of the four inklings proceeded to chatter wildly about Aurora and Eight. Aurora closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath as she felt their collective glares fall onto her. Apparently she didn’t even have to interact with them to fuck that up.

            “Where are your lil’ friends?” The first voice jabbed. “Off losing another turf war? Or maybe sharing needles behind a dumpster again?”

            Rounds of laughter trickled from the conceited group, and Aurora was silently wishing that Bella was with her at the moment. Bella knew how to deflect verbal attacks like a master…a black-belt in sass. Surely, she would know how to put the Squiffer guy’s brutish pals in their places. For this one, though…she and Eight would have to deal with their crap on their own. They both turned to face the gang, figuring there was no longer any point to ignoring their presence. It was then that Aurora got a proper eyeful of the boys.

            True to what she had suspected, the rest of them were all carrying their weapons in the square, in clear defiance of the city’s regulations. Both the .96 Gal dude and Aurora’s favorite Squiffer guy stood with their weapons harnessed to their backs, while the guys with the Splatling and the Dynamo Roller kept their colossal weapons poised on the ground next to them. The Splatling guy, who had also been the one mocking her friends a second ago, was leaning on his weapon as if it were a lamppost on a shady street-corner. He wore the most puffed-up-looking grin Aurora had ever seen, looking visibly satisfied with his rather assumptive insults. Aurora also noticed, from closer inspection, that he was dressed entirely in black, with a FishFry bandana around his head, a long-sleeved Kensa coat, and a pair of pitch-black hi-top shoes, the brand of which was unclear to her. To put it nicely…he looked pretty edgy.

            In contrast, the guy with the Squiffer…her rapidly-developing crush…was looking as fresh as ever under the evening sun. His head was tilted down while he scrolled through his phone, causing the floppy appendage of his hair to droop almost entirely over his right eye. Even just standing there with his usual lack of interest, he looked immensely cute to her. That also wasn’t to say that everything he did wasn’t with an alluring degree of deliberation. He presented himself as the type that never hesitated, never second-guessed himself, and never made mistakes. Right down to his wide-legged stance, in fact, he was proving to the entire world that he wasn’t taking crap from anybody. Aurora couldn’t get enough of it. He was everything she wanted in a Splatfest date.

            “Are you gonna answer me?” The Splatling guy jeered suddenly.

            Aurora shook her head a few times to rid herself of her trance. Every time she started looking at, or even thinking about, the inkling with the Squiffer…she seemed to lose touch with her surroundings. “Uh…my friends? They’re…um…they’re not…here right now.”

            “Well…no shit! I can already see that!” He replied with a slightly raised voice, which startled Aurora a bit. He then stopped for a moment and gave a quick sigh, which looked to her and Eight like an attempt to regain his composure. Finally, he continued at his original volume. “What are you two doing here at this time of day? The slums are on the other end of town, you know.”

            Yikes, this guy was becoming a bit harsh. Aurora and the others had assumed, after his mocking at the battle earlier, that the Splatling guy was just a cocky and competitive individual. Ever since he got into the line behind them, however, she and Eight noticed that his insults were getting kind of…directed. They started catching on to their pattern.

            She shrugged it off to avoid any escalation. It didn’t help that Eight seemed too reluctant to step in and say something on her behalf. “We’re…just waiting to vote for the Splatfest.”

            The Splatling crossed his arms. “Ahh…that’s cute. You octos think you’re gonna contribute to the Splatfest this year? You think you’re gonna win it big?”

            “I don’t know…” Aurora responded sheepishly. She began tapping her fingers together as she struggled to make eye contact with the haughty inkling. “…We were hopefully just gonna have some fun…”

            He grinned again. “You hear that, guys? The lil’ octo girls are gonna have themselves some fun this year!” He glared back at her smugly while the other two guys chuckled amongst themselves. The Squiffer dude still didn’t react, as he was still distracted by whatever was on his phone.

            The .96 Gal spoke up from behind his friend. “What team will you octos be slithering into this year?”

            Aurora was quickly getting off tilt by how often the boys were referring to them as “octos.” Her and Eight’s species didn’t seem like an important detail to her, yet…in talking to this group of inklings…she couldn’t seem to stop receiving the reminder. The way they kept saying it, especially with their condescending tone, left a really bad taste in her mouth. And that wasn’t even getting into the offensive jokes they were pulling about her friends.

            “We’re both going Team Personality.” She answered as boldly as she could, with the tallest stance she could muster.

            “Oh, brilliant.” The Splatling muttered. “Maybe our goody-two-shoes Squiffer will carry you enough to win a battle for once. If you’re lucky, that is. He thinks he’s too fresh to go Team Looks like the rest of us.”

            At this, Aurora perked up a bit. Did she just hear what she thought she heard? The Squiffer guy was going to be on Team Personality with her? Her eyes widened a bit as she felt a flutter of excitement course through her. She had taken a huge risk jumping onto the opposite team as her friends on such a fragile whim, but it seemed like it was going to pay off! Of course, her team selection wasn’t final until the moment she voted at the kiosk and received her t-shirt, so if she had heard of the guy going for Team Looks instead, she would’ve probably changed her mind in response. Still, the news filled her with elation, and she spent the next few moments trying to hide the fact from everyone around her.

            “He’s going to be…with us?” She asked timidly.

            The Splatling guy turned to the Squiffer guy and addressed him by name, completely ignoring Aurora’s question and catching her off guard. “Yo, Midas!”

            The Squiffer guy glanced up from his phone with a certain sense of disinterest, having faintly heard his name through his headphones. He turned his head toward the Splatling guy and paused his music. “What’s up?”

            Aurora blushed a bit when she heard his name for the first time. It seemed his name was Midas, apparently. It was a name more closely tied with the inklings, who, unlike the octolings, were less likely to put vowels at the ends of their names. She felt like the name was rather suiting for him, at least from the impression she had of him. It immediately struck a chord with her, as with many of his other features. She, of course, loved it.

            “Just a fair warning to you, if you’re still planning to fight against us on Team Personality.” The Splatling guy lectured his friend, his grin steadily fading. He pointed at Aurora and Eight. “You’re gonna be stuck with these octo girls from earlier today if you do.”

            In following his friend’s pointed finger, Midas turned to look at Aurora. As he did so, he reached up with his free hand and brushed aside the hair appendage that was covering his eye. He did so in order to clear his view and get a better look at the girls, but…unbeknownst to him…Aurora found the gesture to be extremely tantalizing. Just watching him stare at her again, with both of his eyes, she felt a jump in her heartrate, coupled with a warm tingling sensation that seemed to bloom upwards from her chest into her cheeks. She figured her blush must’ve deepened by quite a bit, adding to the embarrassment she felt.

            Aurora frantically tried to find a way to mask how she was feeling all of a sudden, but nothing was coming to mind. Before long, she feared that her attraction was going to start becoming obvious to someone, which was certainly not the way she wanted anyone finding out, especially Midas himself. It was insanely unnatural for an attraction to feel so strong within mere hours of first sight, she thought. What was going on? And how badly were these feelings going to escalate in the few days leading up to the Splatfest?

            Finally, Aurora responded to Midas’s glare in the only way that felt appropriate to her. She tucked her arm against her hip, and…with her other arm…she waved at him. She tried to be cute while doing so, meeting his gaze directly and flashing him an innocent, toothy smile. She shifted her stance onto one foot and raised her other knee slightly before realizing it, contributing involuntarily to her mediocre, unrehearsed flirting stance.

            Midas watched the display with skepticism. He gave her a quick once-over, glimpsing at everything on her figure: from her Full-Moon glasses, past her exposed shoulders under her long-sleeve Annaki Drive t-shirt, down to her black Truffle Canvas hi-tops. The only physical reaction she seemed to get from him was a raised eyebrow. His expression didn’t change, he didn’t speak, and he certainly didn’t wave back at her. A couple seconds went by like that, with his ongoing silence slowly eating a hole in the back of Aurora’s mind. Ultimately…he never acknowledged her gesture. Instead, he wound up turning back to the Splatling guy and shrugging his shoulders.

            “It doesn’t matter that much. I probably won’t end up battling with them anyway.” He mumbled before looking back down at his phone. His hair appendage drooped back in front of his eye, but he didn’t bother to adjust it again.

            Aurora’s smile dissolved rather quickly after that. Her waving hand fell back to her hip, and her raised knee straightened underneath her. Just as the line resumed its movement, spurring her and Eight to continue walking forward with it, she had returned to her original, uncomfortable position. Midas and his friends still needed a moment to catch up behind them, thanks to their large weapons stunting their mobility. Aurora’s first attempt at flirting, if she could even call it an attempt, had been met with rejection. She let out a debilitated sigh, which Eight did not fail to notice.

            Eight looked over at her again the moment they stopped moving, though she didn’t seem to pick up on it until she addressed her another time. When she decided to do so, she had no trouble being blunt about the thing she had just witnessed.

            “…Aurora?”

            Aurora planted a hand on her forehead. “What?”

            “…Is that inkling…your crush?”

            The question hung in the air for a while. A simple yes-or-no question, it was, and yet…it seemed to completely corner her. The hand that was on her forehead slid aside to her cheek as she stood in utter, discomfited silence, her gaze remaining locked on the ground in front of her. Eight kept her eyes on her friend, as she always did when she was awaiting an answer, though her expression did not intensify. Even in a moment like this, it was still impossible to tell just how Eight was feeling about everything, and whether she approved or condemned Aurora’s emotions. The matter was…the longer Aurora kept silent, the more she felt like she was implicitly answering Eight’s question.

            With a slow, defeated breath, she finally sated Eight’s anticipation. “…I suppose you see now……why I choked at the end of the battle earlier?”

            She assumed that Eight recognized Midas as the one that had shot her with the Squiffer earlier that day, and that he had been the reason for her little slip-up thereafter. It certainly must’ve answered many more of her questions, she figured. Then, when she saw Eight nod her head, she knew it to be the case. Eight was an intuitive octo, after all.

            More silence sat over the duo for a few moments while Aurora allowed Eight to stomach the information. Knowing her friend, Aurora knew her secret wouldn’t be spilled to her friends unless some outside force decreed it. Still…she hoped she could confide in her friend on the matter.

            “I think that’s…kind of cute, Aurora.” Eight uttered plainly. Still no smile…still no gesture…still no discernible reaction of any kind. She could’ve been talking with dense sarcasm right then, but Aurora had no way of knowing it for sure.

            “Please don’t try to be nice, Eight.” She emitted another sigh. “It’s really embarrassing. I’ve…never felt this way before.”

            “Oh…sorry.” She stood still for a moment and introduced another moment of silence before continuing. “But…Aurora…?”

            Aurora was already listening, so her friend’s constant need to reestablish her attention was getting kind of annoying. “What is it?”

            “…Octolings aren’t supposed to date inklings.”

            There it was. That damn line again. Aurora was absolutely sick of hearing such a phrase at this point, several months after moving to the big city. She couldn’t exactly say that she had expected Eight to drop it on her like that, especially when seeing her in such an insecure state, but…she could see why it had to be said. Everything in Inkopolis seemed to come down to her species, unfortunately. As a species rooted in opposition to the inklings throughout history, particularly in the Great Turf War, octolings were held in rather low standing within the city’s borders. Shortly after their exodus from Octo Valley, octolings were usually seen walking around the city streets in groups, since it was often difficult for them to find places in inkling cliques. Some shop owners have even been known to arbitrarily raise prices against octoling customers, while others have opted to refuse their business entirely. In such an unforgiving social climate, interspecies couples were among the rarest things one could find when exploring the city. In a trend that had not yet died with the times, octolings were expected to mingle and mate amongst their own ranks, unless an inkling specifically took a liking to them. Any attempts to sneak themselves into inkling culture that intimately were usually met with scorn.

            Things had certainly improved since the days the exodus was going on, however, but nothing was perfect just yet. Many inklings began to see that their newfound octoling neighbors were rather friendly, with only the best and kindest intentions. Most of them were simply moving to Inkopolis in search of a purpose for themselves, particularly after DJ Octavio’s capture left them without an identity. Inklings and octolings now lived in harmony for the most part, but the ones who were unable to overcome their prejudices still shared the same city streets, owned the same shops, and participated in the same turf wars. It was that fact, coupled with the lack of time they’ve had to adjust to the city, that was responsible for the slummy conditions in which most octoling immigrants lived. Aurora and her friends were just one example of that effect, and it sometimes frustrated her a bit.

            “I know, I knoooow.” She lamented. She took a few heavy steps forward with her friend as the line continued to shrink. “But…do you think there’s still a chance?”

            Eight said absolutely nothing. Aurora, having laid all her cards on the table with her, stared at her desperately. Coming clean to Eight about her crush being an inkling had not been on her itinerary for a while, and the horridly inconvenient circumstances in which it had happened made the whole thing even less pleasant for her. At this point, she was standing beside her friend in a truly humbled position, having fallen so far as to plead to her for reassurance.

            “…I do not know.” Eight finally stated.

            Aurora was becoming unsatisfied with the vagueness of Eight’s answers. She craved closure, even for the expense of diving a little deep. “I’m asking you, Eight…as a close friend. Don’t you believe in pursuing a true love interest? Even if…maybe…it involves breaking the rules a little bit?”

            It was a query of dynamite proportions. Aurora could kind of see it in Eight’s expression, which changed ever so slightly at the end of it. A quick tinge of regret welled up within her as she realized she may have just asked a bit too much of her friend. She seemed to give the poor, quiet octo a little too much to think about…and a little too soon, at that.

            “That’s…a big question, Aurora.”

            “Yeah…maybe you’re right.” Aurora felt like she could use a drink. Or maybe two. “…I’m sorry.”

            The two of them fell into more prolonged silence. They walked together with the line as it shrunk some more, bringing them within a few more minutes of their turn at the kiosk. Midas’s friend group dragged rather far behind them, since the Splatling and the Dynamo Roller kept having to hoist their weapons everywhere they went. During that time, with their lack of interaction lasting longer than it should’ve, Aurora got the feeling that her conversation with Eight was pretty much over. It was definitely nice of Eight to try breaking out of her shell in order to talk to her, but…it seemed she may have taken advantage of her friend’s selflessness. Eight was a very reserved individual, and Aurora had to respect that.

            Then, to her surprise, Eight actually answered her.

            “I believe you would be very courageous to give it a try.”

            Aurora grinned, delighted with the unexpected, belated reply. “Thanks, Eight.”

            “Just…be careful.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Around the same time Midas’s group caught up behind the pair in the line, Aurora and Eight heard a familiar voice calling for them from the direction of the food truck. They promptly turned to the sound of the call, and sure enough, they found Ophelia and the others swiftly approaching them through the crowd. They each carried armfuls of food with them, with Bella cradling both Aurora’s and Eight’s orders against her hips. Ula’s hands looked the fullest by a considerable margin, though all the food she was carrying was her own. It looked like Bella and Ula had stopped bickering, thankfully.

            “Glad we found you guys so close to the front of the line!” Ophelia beamed. “Looks like Eight’s plan worked wonders!”

            “Sucks we won’t be finding a place to sit and eat this stuff, though.” Bella added with a shrug. She glanced over at Ula, who was already sloppily chowing down on one of her Seanwiches without a free hand. “Or…perhaps that’s not going to be a problem.”

            Aurora held up her hand again and waved at her friends, immediately remembering how she had done so for Midas not long prior. She buried the idle thought. “Oh, hey, girls. How’d you get through the food line so quickly?”

            Bella stepped around Ophelia and handed Aurora her Schwaffle and her shake as soon as she and the others joined the line. She also handed Eight her Main-Up Guava with a smile, thinking nothing of Eight’s typical failure to return the expression. Her friends usually just assumed that she didn’t know how to smile.

            “Well, we kind of got lucky on that front.” Ophelia explained. “Many of the folks in our line got sick of waiting and left to go to your line before reaching the truck. We moved up kind of quickly, which was nice.”

            Aurora nodded in understanding. Then, Ophelia was cut off enthusiastically by Bella, startling her just slightly. “Oh, oh, also! You’re gonna love this. A dude actually hit on me while we were almost at the front of the line!”

            This elicited a sizable gasp from Aurora, at roughly the same time she saw Ula silently roll her eyes. “Really? No joke?”

            Bella wore a massive grin on her face as she shook her head. “I wouldn’t make this shit up!”

            “…Was it an octo dude?” Aurora blurted.

            “Duh, of course it was.” She answered with a playful scoff. Aurora quickly realized how stupid the question was on her part. “You think I have what it takes to make an inkling like me? Don’t flatter me!”

            “Will he be taking you to the Splatfest?” Eight asked upon taking the first sip of her guava drink. Aurora seconded her question.

            Bella’s energy remained at peak amplitude while she spoke. “Pfft, nah, I totally rejected him. He was, like…a six-out-of-ten at best, and he was planning to join Team Personality. I still got a few days to find myself a real playboy!”

            Aurora found herself empathizing with that octo’s pain. While Midas hadn’t outright rejected her in the line earlier, necessarily, she still got the message that he wasn’t really interested in her. At least…yet, if she had something to say about it. Imagining what he must’ve felt…swallowing whatever nerves he must’ve had to ask out a date and get turned down, right in front of the date’s friends…well, it wasn’t a very enjoyable thought. She feared, rather deeply, in fact, the possibility of having the same outcome if she were to try asking out Midas directly. She would have to bide her time on that.

            “I guess you gotta respect his courage, though!” Aurora squeaked, hoping it would help Bella see things from her admirer’s perspective.

            Bella thought on it for a moment before nonchalantly shrugging her shoulders. “Meh, I suppose.”

            Suddenly, not long after they squeezed into the line, Aurora’s friends got called out. Their conversation was abruptly interrupted as the Splatling guy behind them took notice of their presence.

            “Hey! What the hell do you all think you’re doing?”

            All five of the girls turned around at the barking sound of his voice, alerted by the furious tone it conveyed. It took Aurora’s friends almost no time to recognize him and the others, considering the staunch rivalry they had shared just earlier that day.

            “Oh, shit, it’s you guys!” Bella taunted. “I take it your fragile egos couldn’t handle an evening in the square without your weapons here to support them?”

            “Cut the shit, octo. This ain’t post-battle banter anymore.” The Splatling hissed with a dismissive hand-flap. He didn’t break eye contact, and neither did Bella.

            “What the fuck are you gals cutting the line for?!” The Dynamo Roller piped up, adding to his friend’s aggressive quips.

            Aurora started getting disturbed by the prevalence of swearing that was accumulating in the situation. Bella’s exchange with the inkling boys after the battle earlier had been rather irksome, sure, but it certainly had not been hostile like this one was becoming. The speed at which the tensions seemed to be rising this time, especially between Bella and the Splatling guy, caused Aurora’s comfort to rapidly deteriorate.

            “What does it look like? We’re standing here with our friends, just like you ladies are. And, unlike you, we actually brought food for them.” Bella retorted.

            The Splatling guy stopped leaning against his weapon. His arms crossed in front of him as he assumed an upright stance, trying, with varying degrees of success, to intimidate Aurora and her friends. “You’ve got a lot of nerve talking to me like that, for a pit-dweller. You’d better watch yourself.”

            Aurora and Eight turned away shamefully the moment they heard the incredibly offensive slur roll off the guy’s tongue. Ula, on the other hand, seemed to receive the insult with a whole new level of irritation. She set her food and drink on the ground next to her and immediately got engaged in the quarrel. “Pit-dweller? Are you fucking kidding me?”

            Bella made her best attempt to ignore the remark, despite holding the belief that no octoling deserved to be called a pit-dweller. Her expression faltered slightly, but she managed to keep up the pressure. “What are you going to do? There are five of us…and four of you.”

            “Why don’t you keep fucking testing me, and maybe you’ll find out?” He threatened coldly. He took several muscly steps in Bella’s direction as he said this, expecting her to retreat under his immensely unfriendly glare. The stunt worked well on Aurora, Eight, and Ophelia, but not on Bella nor Ula. When the Dynamo Roller saw this, he also stood up and prepared to support his friend.

            Bella merely smirked in the face of her foe, an action which caused Aurora to flinch internally. Her friend’s overbearing confidence, while on the verge of being beaten up, was too much for her to handle. “You’d really hit a girl? And a pit-dweller, no less? Your mom should’ve raised you better than that.”

            Finally, as the Splatling guy appeared to be rolling up his sleeves, Ophelia stepped forward and rested her hands on Bella’s and Ula’s shoulders, ushering them away from the agitated group of boys. Midas hadn’t been paying attention to any of it, of course, but no one was looking to piss off more inklings than they already had. The two defenders resisted Ophelia’s pull, but the gesture itself was enough to communicate the point to the Splatling guy and his cohorts.

            “Alright guys, enough of this. We’re going to the back of the line now.” She declared.

            “No fucking way, ‘Lia. I’d like to punch this moron’s lights out for thinking he can diss us like this.” Ula rasped in reply.

            To her shock, though, Ophelia stood her ground. “Girls, I said we’re leaving. We’re already starting to attract a lot of attention.” She gave the girls’ shoulders a good yank, making them stumble backwards a couple steps. Ula almost knocked over her mocha, which was sitting close to her heel on the ground. Ophelia then turned her gaze to the Splatling guy. “Look…we’re sorry for getting in your way.”

            The Splatling’s stance seemed to become more relaxed at the sound of that. He could tell that Ophelia was going to keep her friends under control. “That’s the shit I like to hear. Make it fast, so we won’t have to look at you anymore.”

            Ula leaned down and scooped her meal back up, snarling furiously at the inklings standing over her. “Piece of shit…”

            Aurora glanced over at her friends sadly. She felt horrible for being unable to stand up for them when things started escalating. “…I guess we’ll meet you guys back there after placing our votes.”

            Ophelia simply nodded her head in reply. Aurora and Eight then watched her lead the others toward the back of the line, which was now much farther away than it had been when Midas’s friends first joined it. The entire time, she could see Bella’s glare remain fixated on the Splatling guy, a clear indication that she still wasn’t willing to back down. Aurora really worried for her friends sometimes, and…at the same time…she didn’t know what she’d do without them.

            To her utter dismay, however, the Splatling guy didn’t seem to be done yet. As soon as the others were out of the way, he spoke up again with the same irritable tone that had caused her to fold from the sidelines just moments ago.

            “By the way, I saw the way you were eyeballing Midas earlier. Don’t think I didn’t catch that cringy little mating dance you did while he was looking at you.”

            Aurora’s hearts were practically beating out of her chest. “A…All…All I did was wave at him…”

            “Makes no difference. You’re even stupider than I thought if you think you have a chance with any inkling, let alone Midas. Learn your place, octoling.” He spat. Aurora was at least glad he had enough decency to avoid calling her a pit-dweller again.

            The Splating guy seemed deeply adamant about keeping octolings under his inky boot, Aurora thought. Not even the .96 Gal nor the Dynamo Roller seemed to share the level of racism that he had, though their obvious insensitivity resulted in similar behavior anyway. The only one that appeared to be indifferent about the whole deal with Aurora and Eight…was Midas. To her, that fact was already a huge bout of luck. She figured there was no way he could’ve stood in the middle of that fight earlier…with several of his friends fixing to send Bella and Ula to their early graves…and not noticed it happening. Clearly, he must’ve been taking a backseat on purpose. If that meant he at least kept an open mind about octolings, Aurora saw it as a golden opportunity to make him hers, in reckless spite of his friends’ opposition. The hard part was figuring out a safe and appropriate way of asking him out, as the mere act itself was already a blatant taboo.

            She knew that, if she could get his friends’ blessing, asking Midas out would be easy. He would probably feel a lot more comfortable reciprocating her overtures if his friends were onboard with the pesky fact that she was an octoling. And even then, that was assuming he’d actually find her attractive enough to give her a shot. It all seemed hopelessly farfetched. Earning the blessing of a group of inklings that had just called her and her friends pit-dwellers…well, it sounded quite ludicrous.

            But…then again…Aurora was never much of a realist. Aurora was a dreamer. Midas was practically an obsession she had developed in her mind since the battle earlier, and whenever Aurora got consumed by an obsession…she was known to drive herself into the ground trying to attain it. If she couldn’t feasibly earn the blessing of Midas’s friends, then, she thought…

            …What if she could force them to give it to her?

            “…Could I suggest something, maybe?” She babbled hastily. No going back now, she figured.

            The Splatling guy didn’t seem likely to entertain any input from her, but to her surprise, he yielded. “What?”

            “M…My friends are probably going to be upset about all of this for a while.” She began, swallowing a big lump in her throat. “What would you say to a rematch battle? Sometime tomorrow, maybe? You know…to settle things?”

            The .96 Gal and the Dynamo Roller shot her their attention the second they heard her proposal. The Splatling guy, whose contemptuous gaze was already on her, didn’t give an immediate reaction. Eight raised a brow from the sidelines, confused by her friend’s sudden, bold intentions. She didn’t expect such a heedless suggestion to come from her at such a time, freshly after their friends had gotten snuffed out of the line by the inklings in question.

            Eventually, a grin appeared on the Splatling’s face, and he began to chuckle. “A rematch? Are you serious?”

            Aurora nodded her head, determined to carry through her plan with confidence. “Sure, why not? Same time as today’s battle, whatever mode and venue happens to be in rotation. If you win, we’ll never show our faces around you again.”

            The Splatling guy looked around at his friends with growing amusement, touching base with both the .96 Gal and the Dynamo Roller with nothing more than a brief, shared glance. Midas, on the other hand, still wasn’t paying any attention to the exchange going on.

            “And what do you expect us to do if you win?” He rebutted.

            Aurora crossed her arms in front of her and raised her knee again, reviving her flirty pose without having to think about it. She mustered up a cocky smirk. “If we win…you have to set me up on a date with Midas. You’ll let us hang out together for a day before the Splatfest, and then you’ll let him decide if he wants to take me to the big night.”

            The Splatling guy nearly cut her off with a rapturous burst of laughter. The .96 Gal and the Dynamo Roller promptly followed suit, shrouding Aurora and Eight in an overbearing display of doubtful arrogance. Eight shot daggers at her friend when the terms passed her lips, though her wide eyes and woefully uncomfortable frown went completely unnoticed.

            “Wow, that is adorable!” The Splatling guy guffawed. “You’re really something else, octo. I’ll give you that.”

            Aurora did not give an inch. “So, do we have a deal?”

            “Sure, loser. Seems like you’ve been learning a thing or two from that bitch friend of yours. The one with the ponytail.” He punctuated his agreement, as well as his backhanded jab at Bella, by holding out his hand for a shake, which Aurora took dutifully.

            His grip was as firm as steel. Aurora, in her effort to maintain her dominance in the situation, fought against the urge to wince at the strength against her palm. Before letting go, she broke eye contact to glance over at Midas, who still appeared to be scrolling mindlessly through his phone like nothing was going on around him. Hot damn, he was cute. She wished she’d get to see his face when his friends broke the news to him, probably later that day. If he wasn’t into her now…he was going to be.

            Not long after the end of their exchange, the last of the inklings waiting in line ahead of them finished their turns at the kiosk. Aurora was distracted a bit initially, thanks to the uncontainable blizzard of thoughts that were rushing through her mind, but eventually, a gesture from Eight snapped her attention back forward. After an eventful wait in the line, Midas and his friends didn’t seem too bothered by her slowness. After all, they now had battle strategy on their minds.

            A small, googly-eyed jellyfish was stationed next to the kiosk when Aurora and Eight made their approach. He held a large, bulky-looking clipboard in one of his outstretched appendages, and in the other, a ballpoint pen. Behind him sat two sizable piles of t-shirts, one for each team in the Splatfest. The shirts in the stack for Team Looks were a fiery shade of orangish-red, while the Team Personality shirts were some derivative of beachy cyan. They were both beautiful colors in Aurora’s opinion, but she knew which color would be belonging to her.

            They each gave their name to the jellyfish, along with their team declaration. The jellyfish took a few seconds to write their names down on his clipboard, during which Aurora found herself noticing the small sticker that was pasted on the front-facing side of the kiosk. It read, “REMEMBER: All Splatfest votes are final!” She didn’t think it to be a necessary reminder, but…the nature of the statement still left her with a slightly strange feeling. It totally wasn’t regret, though.

            After he was finished, he shimmied to the side and allowed Aurora and Eight to grab their own t-shirts from the Personality stack. Aurora reached forward and grabbed two of them, handing one of them to Eight immediately thereafter. As she stared down at the symbolic piece of clothing, her entry into her first ever Splatfest, a feeling of wonder welled up inside of her. That Team Personality insignia was the thing she would be standing by, donning as her banner in the heat of battle on Splatfest night, for the glory of proving that personalities were indisputably hotter than looks!

            …Weren’t they?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            As the two of them turned away from the kiosk and began to depart for the back of the line to join up with their friends, the Splatling guy stopped them again. Aurora sighed internally, feeling burned out from the events of the evening and wishing they would just leave her and Eight alone, in peace, until the time came for their rematch. Reluctantly, they both turned their heads to see what the guys wanted.

            “Just thought we’d give you girls a parting gift.” The Splatling guy said with a cheeky grin. As he was saying it, the .96 Gal ran up to Eight without warning, swiped her Guava drink right out of her hand, and splashed it all over her. Aurora gave a sharp gasp and put a hand up to her mouth, appalled by the unexpected attack.

            Despite not having the reflexes to dodge the spiteful inkling’s cheap trick, Eight was able to clamp her eyes shut and swing her Splatfest t-shirt out of the way before getting drenched, preventing it from getting any stains. When the deed was finished, and the .96 Gal threw Eight’s now-empty drink cup at her feet, she did not react. Even as the group of boys, minus Midas, of course, proceeded to laugh at what they had done, her expression did not change at all. Aurora, on the other hand, was left staring in dumbfounded shock at the spectacle.

            “While you’re back there, tell your hotheaded friends that that one’s on them!” The Splatling guy sneered. More laughter spilled from the group with the closing remark.

            Aurora looked over at Eight with pure misery in her eyes. “Oh my cod, Eight…are you okay? I…I’m so sorry they did that to you…”

            Eight shook her head wildly for a moment to force some of the fruity liquid out of her hair. Without saying a word, she set out for the back of the line, her expression remaining…as always…perfectly neutral. Aurora followed closely behind her.

            “I am fine.” She insisted calmly. “Just…please be careful, Aurora.”

Chapter Text

            After such a tense confrontation with the inkling boys, the momentum of the evening was pretty much ruined for Aurora and her friends. The frolicking spirits they had shared upon first entering the square were quite diminished by the time they had dragged themselves to the back of the line, and when Aurora and Eight joined them, their feeling was mutual. It also didn’t take them long to notice Eight’s condition once she entered their sight. The way in which their friend’s guava drink, the only thing she had gotten from Crusty Sean’s, had ended up out of her cup and all over her entire body was certainly no mystery to them. Ula was filled to the brim with anger by the boys’ cowardly act, and Bella found it to be no treat either, but Ophelia kept insisting that the girls contain their emotions and avoid doing something that was going to get them deported. Eight seemed to be in agreement on that decree, despite having been the victim of their attack to begin with.

            As the sun continued to fall closer to the horizon, and the crowds scattered amongst the square transitioned to those looking to get their evening battles in, Aurora and her friends waited out their second trial of patience in line by eating their food silently. Ophelia offered to return to Crusty Sean’s to get Eight a replacement drink after seeing the dreadful state she was in, but she politely refused with a shake of her head. Her incredible passiveness boggled her friends’ minds a lot of the time, especially when such an attack against Bella or Ula would’ve resulted in nothing short of fresh inkling calamari. Aurora worried about what her friend’s opaqueness could’ve been hiding, or…if there even was anything to hide.

            The only time their gloominess seemed to subside, if for just a moment, was back up at the Splatfest kiosk. It didn’t take them quite as long to reach it the second time, as there were fewer large groups after dinnertime. Aurora also noticed during their wait that there were more octolings in line than there were at the start of the evening, a likely result of the inklings finishing their errands and dispersing from the square. The change made the atmosphere around them more tranquil, allowing them a chance to indulge in their new Splatfest tees without having drinks splashed in their faces. Bella, Ula, and Ophelia each received their shirts with pride, gawking feverishly at their red-orange hues and flashy, Team Looks insignias. While they knew their shirts were going to be brandished against Aurora and Eight in the Splatfest, their excitement for the battles was still just as unparalleled as it was for the rest of the festivities. Maybe even more so.

            To Aurora’s and everyone’s surprise, as they were all stepping away from the kiosk with their three new t-shirts, another octoling boy approached their group and attempted to ask Bella out to the Splatfest. He explained that he had seen her standing up to the inkling boys earlier, describing her bravery in the ordeal as “inspiring” and “extremely sexy.” Bella’s response, amidst a maelstrom of flattered giggling and effusive ‘veemos’ from Aurora and Ophelia, was a fake smile and a stern “nah, I’m good.” Ula seemed particularly aggravated by the whole thing, like she had been with the first guy, especially with her friend’s reasoning for rejecting her second admirer of the evening. According to Bella, his taste of clothing wasn’t fresh enough, and he looked too much like a Clash-Blaster-user. As if that really mattered.

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            By the time the girls had wrapped up their activities, the streetlights around the square were just beginning to turn on. The square itself was still somewhat lively with squids and octos, however, though Aurora and the others knew that that would change within an hour or so. Once Inkopolis Square went quiet, everyone knew to start heading back to their homes. Aurora and her friends, at least, preferred to do so sooner rather than later. Even Ophelia, who was never reluctant to visit shady areas of the city and deal with shady individuals, knew she had no business wandering the sprawling streets of Inkopolis after dark.

            Luckily, the girls were not homeless. There were indeed a few octolings in the city, and even a few inklings, in fact, who lived that way, but Aurora and her friends knew how to make ends meet. From the very moment they first stepped their wandering tentacles in Inkopolis, they always stuck to each other like glue. Currently, they all shared a single apartment on the lower-end side of town, with the exception of Eight, who owned her own place a few blocks over by the Deepsea Metro station. Eight’s place was supposedly a bit less modest than her friends’, but…since none of them usually opted to intrude on her space and stay there for a night, no one knew much about how she lived by herself. They also wondered how the hell she managed to afford a better place without roommates, for that matter.

            The girls’ apartment was mostly funded by Ophelia’s income with the Grizz, so she was the one who owned the contract. Still, Aurora, Bella, and Ula contributed whenever and however they could. If someone, frequently Ula, couldn’t put forth a sufficient slice of the rent for the month, they usually made up for it by doing the laundry or cleaning their single bathroom. The living space was certainly cramped for four octos, sure, but it was comfortable to them. They were comfortable with each other, after all.

            After departing from the square with their Splatfest tees and their full stomachs, the group recovered their weapons from their storage and took the metro on their way back to the apartment complex. Major parts of the city, like the square, of course, had jump pads to which squids and octos could super-jump, making travel to such places in the morning quick and easy. However, only the nicer districts had those same amenities, like the blocks of luxury high-rises populated by celebrities, business squids, and certified X-rankers. For modest octolings living basic lives…like Aurora and her friends…there was the Deepsea Metro. No jump pads existed within a ten-to-twelve-block radius of the girls’ apartments.

            The ride itself was rather uneventful. Aurora and her friends spoke idly amongst themselves while in the subway car, ignoring the ambient chatter of other octos around them doing the same. Aurora noticed a couple things during the ride, the main thing being the prevalence of glances she and her friends seemed to be getting. Octolings of all varieties dotted the subway car with them, and she noticed that the wandering eyes seemed to be coming from the males, primarily. She wasn’t sure if, perhaps, they had noticed her friends’ little skirmish with the inkling boys earlier that evening, or if they were just checking her and her friends out a bit before the Splatfest. Though she had her hearts set adamantly on winning over Midas, she decided that she definitely wouldn’t mind getting shown a little love from an octo boy or two. Bella was pretty lucky in that regard, she felt.

            When the car stopped at their station, the girls strolled through the tunnels, up the stairs, and out into the familiar sights of their district. It looked like an entirely different city than the one surrounding the square. Fewer streetlights seemed to work properly. There was more trash peppering the sidewalks. Shops had less flashy signs out front. Political statements were graffitied on the walls of alleyways in multicolored ink. To Aurora and the others, though…it felt just like home. Inkopolis Square was certainly a testament to the city’s status as a modern utopia, but it was the rundown districts bordering the slums that accepted Aurora and her friends for who they were. For that, they never grew tired of the sight.

            Aurora, Bella, Ophelia, and Ula still had a few blocks to cover upon emerging from the metro station. The buildings around the station itself were not quite as dilapidated as the ones that housed Aurora and the others, those being a little closer to the actual slums. It was here, though, across the street from the station, that Eight’s apartment was located. Therefore, when the group stepped out onto the sidewalk amongst a few other octolings, the girls had to part ways with their quiet, fruity-smelling friend for the night. Their goodbyes were never too involved. Eight simply slung her E-Liter around her back and turned to give her friends a kind wave before preparing to cross at the crosswalk. Aurora joined the others in waving back to her, and as she did, she saw Eight’s gaze fall directly onto her, where it stayed for a pensive couple of seconds. She wondered what could’ve been implied in that gaze. The one thing she did know about it, though…was that it made her feel bad for leaving her alone again.

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            Following a fifteen-minute walk or so, the girls arrived at their apartment complex and scaled the wall of the stairwell using ink from their weapons. It was technically against the landlord’s policy for tenants to ink the building in any way, but nobody living there really cared much, and neither did the landlord. The way the girls figured, if someone had a problem with them splattering the walls and slithering up them in their octo form, they would’ve heard a complaint about it at some point. Such were the benefits of living in the hovels.

            Ophelia had her apartment key handy when the group approached the front door. She tried the lock a few times, succeeding only after three or four tries, as usual. They were all familiar enough with their living conditions to know that the finnicky lock was never going to get fixed, so none of them bothered to bring it up to the landlord. They certainly weren’t paying for such a luxury, and neither was he.

            The living room of the girls’ home in the city lay just beyond the door, with an old, box TV sitting on a stand to the right, and a rugged, scratchy couch just a few feet in front of it. A loveseat of similar quality sat next to the couch at a slight angle, with various-colored stains dotting its cushions and armrests. Posters were strewn across the walls by the TV, sporting logos and group pictures of the girls’ favorite octoling music groups. The doorway to their only bedroom was on the left wall behind the couch, containing both a twin-sized bed and the bathroom. Through the doorway in the back of the living room was the kitchen, which was never stocked with anything more than cereal and a few assortments of munchies. Lastly, the centerpiece of the living room was the rectangular coffee table between the couch and the TV, where Ophelia usually kept her bong. In fact, the first thing she did after stepping inside and removing her shoes was walk up to the couch, remove her bong from within her jacket, and set it gently on that table.

            Bella, on the other hand, had a much different idea upon entering the apartment and removing her boots. As soon as she felt the liberating touch of their unvacuumed carpet against her socks, she tossed her dualies and her t-shirt to the side, sprinted around Ophelia and the coffee table, morphed into her octo form, and threw herself against the loveseat with full momentum, nearly knocking the furniture over with her unrestrained weight. She let her tentacles fall over the armrest as she sunk into the cushion with a satisfied, bubbly-sounding sigh. Aurora liked watching her do that, though she never had the courage to try it herself.

            “Long day, I see.” Ophelia mused aloud with a slight chuckle. Now that she was free of her shoes and the seaweed paraphernalia in her jacket, she took off her cap and her shades, shook her head to let her inky hair flow freely, and kicked back onto the couch. “Nothing beats the feeling of letting the day’s tensions whisk away.”

            “I’ll say.” Ula grumbled, exhaling profusely. “I think I need to take a shower. Hopefully it’ll help me forget about those faggot inklings from earlier.”

            Bella quickly morphed back into her kid form to shoot a response. “Try running a lighter shade of ink this time. It can help lift your spirits.”

            “Nah, because then the sun will reflect off my hair in the morning and wake me up at the ass-crack of dawn.” Ula quipped while slumping off toward the bathroom. “I’ll take it dark, thank you very much.”

            Ophelia raised a finger to get her attention. “Just don’t run it for too long, because I was probably going to…” She stopped short, mid-sentence, as she heard the bathroom door close in the other room, signaling that Ula had ignored her. She lowered her finger and shrugged. “…or…never mind.”

            Unlike her friends, who appeared to settle right in as soon as they stepped through the door, Aurora still hadn’t brought herself to sit down anywhere yet. It had been a truly eventful day for her, and she couldn’t seem to get her mind to quiet down. There was the Splatfest announcement, her first gaze into Midas’s addicting eyes, the unfortunate confrontation with his friends, and…the rematch agreement thereafter. She felt like there was a certain…bittersweet quality to the whole thing. She may have felt less content now than when she had woken up that morning, but she also had something to shoot for as well. Her hopes of finding a boyfriend were always ever strong since moving to Inkopolis, and now…now she had her target. She just never expected him to be an inkling.

            However, in opening this opportunity for herself, Aurora also created some additional obstacles. For one thing, she had to get her friends onboard with the rematch, and they weren’t even yet aware that it had been set up. She now had until the end of the night to inform them of the agreement…and earn their willingness to take up arms against the inkling boys a second time. After all, without a team, there wouldn’t be a rematch. Considering Ula’s desire to “punch their lights out,” among other things, well…she dearly hoped they’d be capable of settling the differences honorably…for her sake, if no one else’s.

            Also…they actually had to win the rematch, which…was not something she could plan for.

            By reading their body language, Aurora could tell that Bella and Ophelia were not planning to get up from their positions anytime soon. Due to the limited number of comfortable sleeping places available in their apartment, the girls shared a pact to sleep in different areas of the living space on different nights. Someone would sleep on the couch, someone would sleep on the loveseat, someone would be fortunate enough to sleep on the small bed in the bedroom, and the last one would try to sleep in the sleeping bag that was at the foot of the bed. Usually, the only fights that ever occurred between them were over who would have to be stuck with the sleeping bag. Tonight, since Ophelia and Bella seemed to have claimed their territory already, Aurora assumed that she would be contending with Ula over ownership of the bed. Maybe Ula would have the kindness of hearts to let her dear friend lay her weary body on the bed for the night, she thought to herself hopefully.

            Bedtime was still a ways out, though. After coming home from a long day on the town, Bella and Ophelia usually liked to flip on the TV and chat for a while. Aurora, of course, wanted to join them, hoping that the mindless activity would straighten out her thoughts…as if everything else that day hadn’t already failed to do so. Before she could sit back and truly relax, however, she required something important from the bedroom. The first thing she did after finally removing her shoes and setting her stuff aside, then, was wander over to the bedroom to get it. Shortly after she began moving, she glanced over in time to see Ophelia reach for the remote and turn on the TV, which confirmed her assumption from earlier.

            As Aurora stepped around the back of the couch and through the doorway to the bedroom, she surveyed the bed and the sleeping bag in the back-left corner of the space. The thing she was particularly quick to notice was Ula’s clothes, which were strewn across the bed in haphazard fashion. Her jacket, her shades, her leggings, her socks…all of it. Even her underwear was there, sitting on top of the stack like it had been lazily tossed there after everything else. Upon seeing that, Aurora knew that the bed had already been claimed. If Ula was willing to mark her territory on the bed by undressing in the bedroom instead of the safety of the locked bathroom, Aurora figured, then there was no point in trying to dispute her. The sight of her friend’s unwashed undergarments on top of the bed sort of turned her away from sleeping on it anyway. If that had been Ula’s intention, then…it certainly worked.

            With that, she continued with what she had entered the bedroom for in the first place. She was looking for something, though…upon first glance…she couldn’t seem to find it. She had slept in the sleeping bag the night before, so she expected to find it there on top of the pillow, but it was not. Curious, she walked farther into the room, toward the sleeping bag and the dresser that sat beside the bed. She checked around the sleeping bag itself, as well as under its zip-up comforter. After that, she shimmied over to the dresser and pulled open all the drawers, sifting through her friends’ folded clothes in order to search each one thoroughly. Finally, she lifted up the sheets of the bed, taking care not to touch Ula’s discarded clothes, but her item was not there either. She let out a confused huff before turning around and walking back out of the room, ignoring the sound of the showerhead turning on behind the bathroom door.

            She stepped up behind the couch and leaned over it to look at Ophelia.

            “…‘Lia?”

            Ophelia turned slightly, keeping her attention on the TV. “Hmm?”

            “Do you know where he is? I can’t seem to find him.” She asked timidly.

            “Where who is?”

            Aurora tapped her fingers together sheepishly. She was slow to answer her friend. “You know……him.”

            After a short pause, Ophelia turned all the way around and glanced at Aurora. “Who’s ‘him?’ I know a lot of ‘hims.’”

            At that point, Aurora started to feel like Ophelia was messing with her. She knew that Aurora didn’t like saying the name of her special item out loud. She was sensitive about having it around her friends as it was, especially with Bella’s tendency to make wisecracks, so not being able to find it already put her in a state of mild discomfort.

            She glanced over at Bella, who was still occupying the loveseat in her octo form, to make sure she wasn’t paying attention. Then, she leaned further in towards Ophelia’s ear and spoke in a hushed whisper. “…Where’s Wah-Wah?”

            Ophelia failed to stifle a small giggle, which angered Aurora just a bit. Luckily, Bella didn’t seem to hear any of it, as her focus was still on the TV. “Don’t worry, I knew who you were talking about. You’re just cute when you say his name, so I wanted to hear it again.”

            Aurora sighed in exasperation. “Where did you put him?”

            “Hey, hey, relax. He’s over on the kitchen counter.” Ophelia answered calmly, at the same voice level as her distressed friend. “I washed him a little bit before I left for the square this morning. Thought you’d appreciate it.”

            “Oh.” Aurora babbled as she stood back upright, surprised by the sudden kind nature of the incident. “Well, um…I do. Thank you.”

            With that, she turned away from the couch and strolled hastily to the kitchen, allowing Ophelia to return her gaze to the TV. On her way, she noticed Bella’s big, nosy, octopus eyes following her as she passed by the loveseat. She wasn’t sure if Bella knew the thing she was after, and if she did, whether she was planning to poke fun at her again for it. Aurora met her glance with an unreadable expression as she stepped through the doorway to the kitchen.

            Once there, the fretful octo flipped on the light and directed her attention straight at the counter by the sink, as Ophelia had described. When her gaze fell upon the item sitting atop its granite surface, a relieved grin appeared on her face. It was a soft, moderately-sized plush doll of a whale, with pliable fins, black button eyes, and a gentle, but enormous, tentacle-stitched smile. Aurora had been in possession of that plush doll since the dawn of her earliest memories in Octo Valley, and…before she met the other girls…he had been her only real friend. He was the only possession she had decided to take with her on her exodus to Inkopolis, amidst the mocking she had often received for having him. She didn’t care that she was too old for him. He was her Wah-Wah.

            Aurora squeezed the plush tightly against her chest the moment she grabbed it from its spot. He always managed to ease her weary spirit, even after the toughest of days. With him in her grasp, she swung around and pranced out of the kitchen with a rush of renewed confidence. She almost forgot to turn the light back off, even, but she was able to reach her arm out and do so without losing her stride.

            Back in the living room, she was surprised to see Bella in her kid form all of a sudden, sporting a new, casual sitting position that left her feeling suspicious. She also noticed that Bella’s gaze was on her as she passed by the loveseat again on her way to the couch, which piqued her wariness further. Her witty friend had been waiting all evening for this moment. Aurora could tell.

            Just as she reached the empty side of the couch and sat herself down with her childhood companion, it began.

            “Aww, is Wah-Wah gonna be joining us for TV tonight?” Bella quipped with a smug grin.

            Aurora rolled her eyes. “Not tonight, Bella. Please.”

            “What do you mean?” She replied defensively. “I don’t even get to say hello?” She put a hand on her chest in an “offended” sort of manner.

            “No. He doesn’t want to talk to you.” Aurora fired back.

            Bella’s grin was already too wide for its own good. “Why wouldn’t Wah-Wah want to talk to his big Auntie Bella? Doesn’t he love me too?”

            “Quit saying his name! It’s private!”

            “Will he at least give me a hug?” She leaned forward and extended her arms. “Come here, Wah-Wah! I want to play with your little fins!”

            Aurora gritted her teeth as her ink ran to her face, filling her cheeks up with the same shade of purple as her hair. “He doesn’t love you, Bella! Just stop! There’s nothing wrong with having him at my age!”

            Bella fell back against the cushion of the loveseat in a playful fit of giggling, the likes of which pissed Aurora off more than she’d like to admit. She challenged her friend’s seething glare with a puckish one of her own. “You know I love you, Aurora. Even if your plush doesn’t love me. You’re just really cute to mess with sometimes.”

            “You do it all the time, though…” Aurora mumbled under her breath. Bella didn’t seem to hear her.

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            Not long after Aurora got settled in, and Bella finally gave her a break from all the teasing, Off the Hook took over the TV with the late evening news. The girls always loved keeping up with current events in Inkopolis. In doing so, they were ever more engrained in the city’s culture, following wholeheartedly in the ups and downs of its citizens. Of course, there was also the fact that they idolized Off the Hook like a flock of young schoolgirls.

            “Damn…Marina is a goddess.” Bella sighed when the pair first appeared on screen. “How are those jade-tipped tentacles not extensions?”

            “Wish I could rap like Pearl. I feel like I look the part sometimes, but my lyrics fall flat like a hockey puck.” Ophelia chuckled nonchalantly. “She’s like a prodigy at her age.”

            Aurora just smiled softly. “I like their confidence.”

            “Hey hey hey, y’all know what time it is!” Pearl’s adolescent voice boomed through the TV’s staticky speakers.

            “It’s Off the Hook, coming at you live from Inkopolis Square!” Marina followed. “Where it looks like, for the first time in a while, we’re still not alone during our evening broadcast!”

            The girls watched the TV adamantly as Pearl shifted around in her seat and took a quick glance through the glass behind herself, noticing the bundles of inklings that were still wandering around the darkened square. “Wow, you’re right…gee, I wonder why!”

            “Good question…” Marina let herself trail off, putting a beautifully manicured hand on her cheek. “Could it be that thing that we announced earlier this morning?”

            “Riiiiight, that thing…” She paused. “…you mean that big Splatfest?”

            Marina turned to look at the camera. “That’s right, Pearl, and for all you busy bees that missed it! The Splatfest gods dropped a real juicy one on us this year!”

            “I still think you’re selling yourself short by choosing Personality, ‘Rina.” Pearl jabbed.

            “But Pearlie, it’s shallow to chase a perfectly good cephalopod for just their looks. We all have feelings…aspirations…”

            “Get outta here with that drab, my gal! I got you in my life, and you’re, like…the hottest thing to ever swim through ink! I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

            “Aww…Pearl…”

            “Plus, when you’re gettin’ your absolute guts railed outta ya, nine folks outta ten will tell you that they’d prefer a perfect ten at the helm!”

            “PREACH, girl!!” Bella hollered at the TV, causing an occupant of the floor above them to bang something against the ceiling.

            Marina stood straight up suddenly, startled by her brash friend’s suggestive statement on live TV. She put a hand over her face to conceal her cheeks. “Ohh, Pearl, let’s…uh…” She glanced at the camera. “…let’s watch what we say! I, um…I don’t think…the, uh…producer is very happy with us now.”

            “Bite me.” Pearl fired. She locked her eyes directly onto the camera and flexed her eyebrows, sporting a grin that could melt steel. Bella and Ophelia were in absolute hysterics, knowing well the reactions the pop star’s antics were probably causing among the city’s male viewers.

            Marina seemed like she wanted to laugh as well, but she uncomfortably kept her composure. She looked like her producer must’ve been giving her and Pearl quite the death glare at that moment.

            “Well, anyway…we’re finding that this year’s Splatfest has some of the best voter turnout in the events’ history!” She stammered.

            “Hell yeah! I think our stats guy said something about there being more voters today than total participants in last year’s fest!” Pearl exclaimed. “I don’t rock with numbers much, but that sure sounds like a lot to me!”

            Marina nodded enthusiastically before looking back at the camera. “And he also said that it wouldn’t have been possible without my fresh, fellow octos out there joining in on this year’s fun! A big shoutout to all of you!”

            Bella made the classic, “stay fresh” hand gesture at the TV in response to her idol’s mention. When Aurora and Ophelia saw it, they did it, as well. It felt great to be included in something. In answering to Marina like that, the girls loved to imagine what it would be like to actually meet her, the most famed and beloved octoling in the city, in person. Perhaps they would get the chance one day.

            During their gleeful moment, Pearl picked up the baton with the outro to their first segment. “So be sure to jump on out here tomorrow if you haven’t already! It isn’t too late to vote until we take the stage on Splatfest night!”

            “Yep, and don’t be afraid to get down-and-flirty when you do!” Marina added. “The hearts are really going to be flying this year.”

            “Or the clothes, if you’re on Team Looks.” Pearl mentioned with a wink. “Now then, for those of you looking to get the early-bird special tomorrow, here are tomorrow morning’s sunrise venues!”

            Marina’s advice about the flirty nature of the Splatfest made Aurora think heavily about Midas again. She had been sufficiently distracted by both her friends and the comfort of getting home as soon as they had entered their apartment, but now those mental blockades were once again crumbling. Every desire for a romantic companion that she had built up over the years, every craving for a boyfriend’s embrace, every urge to engage in some playful roughhousing, and every private itch that she secretly yearned to have scratched……it had all fallen onto Midas, in just one cursed, cod-damned day. She was going to drive herself crazy over him. As she hugged Wah-Wah heartily against her chest, in fact, she caught herself closing her eyes and fantasizing Midas’s face in his place.

            Those thoughts also, in turn, reminded her of the crucial matter that she still had yet to discuss with the others. They still weren’t aware of the important rematch that was scheduled for them tomorrow. If they lost that rematch, or didn’t even make an appearance, for that matter, her chances with Midas would be shot, unless she took even more reckless measures. She knew the critical significance of informing them about the battle, but…she couldn’t decide whether she should confess the stakes to them…or keep that part a secret. On one hand, knowing that their friend’s future with the new love of her life would be hanging in the balance could encourage the others to give it their all, or…it could cause them to refuse the rematch entirely. Eight had the full story, of course, and Aurora knew that she would fight for her, but she was just one octo out of the four that she needed to convince.

            “You know, I have a feeling those inkling pussies in the square earlier were voting for Looks just because they didn’t want to join Marina’s team.” Bella piped up, surprising Aurora with the similar subject change.

            “Right…she is an octo, like us, after all.” Ophelia replied. “And I think we can all agree that those guys were…um…pretty racist? Even more than usual?”

            “Oh, totally. I don’t think I’ve faced such pointless hatred for octolings since our first week in Inkopolis.” Bella mentioned.

            Aurora had more insight about the boys than her friends did, since she and Eight had been putting up with them for a while before the others had even arrived. Unlike them, she could tell that the real culprit of the fiasco in the square had been the Splatling guy. The .96 Gal and the Dynamo Roller did seem to share in his prejudice, sure, but their rude etiquette seemed to mostly be fueled by his actions. Whatever made that Splatling guy tick…it clearly had something to do with staunch inkling-supremacism. He was driven by his distaste of octolings, his friends were driven by their loyalty to him, and then…there was Midas. What the hell drove Midas?

            “Midas isn’t racist, though.” She blurted, without looking up.

            Ophelia and Bella both turned to her. “What did you say? Who isn’t racist?”

            Shit, Aurora thought, she had just said that out loud. She wasn’t supposed to do that. “M…Midas. I don’t think he’s racist.”

            Bella raised an eyebrow. “Who’s Midas?”

            “…One of the guys. The one with the…Squiffer…” Aurora uttered, trailing off awkwardly. She really shouldn’t have used his name like that.

            “Oh, I think I know who you’re talking about.” Ophelia put a hand up to her chin. “How do you know his name, though? Do you know him from somewhere?”

            She looked up at them. “No…his, uh…friend told us.”

            That response just seemed to make Ophelia and Bella even more skeptical. They shared a glance with each other before turning back to Aurora at the same time. “Why would they tell you what the Squiffer guy’s name was? Weren’t they giving you and Eight a hard time?”

            “Yeah, and why use his name anyway?” Bella added. “I wouldn’t even piss in the ink those bastards swim through. Though, now that I think about it…”

            “Just forget about his name!” Aurora shouted suddenly, cutting off her friend. Their expressions changed at her little outburst. “He was on his phone the whole time we were in the line, and even while they were bothering us. I’m just saying…I don’t think he hates octolings like his friends do.”

            “So…you’re giving him the benefit of the doubt?” Ophelia questioned. “I mean…it’s nice of you to always seek out the good in others, Aurora, but…that Squiffer guy wouldn’t be friends with those other inklings if he didn’t share their opinions about us to some degree. They’re lost causes to us.”

            Bella kicked back a bit and threw her hands up behind her head. “Exactly. Once a prick, always a prick. Not sure about you, but I think Ula and I can agree that we don’t want to deal with those guys ever again. I wouldn’t be held responsible for anything that’d happen if we did.”

            Aurora was saddened by their outlook. Of course, she herself didn’t appreciate getting called a pit-dweller by those guys either, so she couldn’t necessarily blame them for not wanting to tangle with them ever again. However, she needed her friends to tangle with them again, for without that rematch battle tomorrow, her next wave to Midas would be a wave goodbye. Her friends’ intense unhappiness with the boys made her feel kind of selfish for setting up another battle with them without their permission. Eight’s wariness towards her proposal, then…started to make a bit of sense. She was totally about to throw her friends into the gauntlet in order to have a chance at Midas’s tentacle in the Splatfest. Yikes.

            In that case…she figured now was the time to get the hard part out of the way.

            Initially, she could only murmur incomprehensibly in response to Bella’s statement. Both Bella and Ophelia seemed to notice it, and as such, they gave Aurora their attention. However, Aurora didn’t exactly know how to frame the statements the way she wanted. She certainly didn’t want her friends getting angry with her, but…with the deed already done, it was potentially too late to avoid that.

            “Gonna have to speak up, Aurora.” Ophelia said plainly.

            Aurora swallowed a massive lump in her throat, just as she had done before giving the proposal to the Splatling guy earlier that evening. Somehow…giving it to her friends seemed to frighten her even more. “Wh…What if we could…maybe…settle it with them on the battlefield? Instead of…you know…beating them all up?”

            Bella gave her a deeply skeptical glare. “A rematch battle? With those guys?”

            Aurora nodded. “…Sure. We’ve played against them once already, so…we should know their strategy, right? It would g…give us a chance to redeem ourselves.” She stammered. She didn’t feel like she was being very convincing.

            “Didn’t you hear those guys earlier?” Ophelia cut in, sounding slightly bothered. “That guy with the Splatling seems more willing to cut off his own tentacles than yield to a group of octolings. It’s a miracle they even played fairly against you guys the first time.”

            Bella nodded quickly in agreement. “Yeah, and what if we were to win the rematch? Knowing them, I’d worry about them dropping their weapons and trying to club us for showing them up like that. I can take a few hits, but it’s not like I’m eager to go finding a fight where there doesn’t have to be one.”

            “Right. Like I said before, those nasty squids are lost causes to us.” Ophelia stated. “Even if we wanted to, I don’t know how we’d go about contacting them to even arrange a rematch.”

            Here it comes, Aurora thought. She looked between her two friends with diminishing resolve as she listened to their responses, knowing that whatever happened next was going to be at someone’s expense. It was stupid of her to act impulsively on this matter the way that she had. Why did she have to be so impulsive about everything?

            “A…Actually…” She began nervously. “…here’s the thing…”

            Bella cocked her head almost immediately upon seeing her friend’s uneasiness. “Aurora…what did you do?”

            Aurora paused when she got cut off, finding it nearly impossible to resume her previous statement. She started compulsively stroking Wah-Wah’s back while she struggled to find a way to regain the situation. With a quick glance upward, she could see both Ophelia and Bella staring her down intently, eyes piercing through her own like charger shots. They knew how reckless she tended to be, and the fact seemed to show with how quickly they seemed to figure her out.

            Her gaze fell back downwards. She began stroking a bit faster. “I…I spoke to him after you guys left. We’re…supposed to meet them t…tomorrow afternoon. At one of the rotation venues.”

            Silence fell upon the room for a moment, the only sounds coming from the voices of Off the Hook on the TV. Aurora did not want to look her friends in the eye. The regret she felt was already escalating quickly, and she hadn’t even heard their responses yet. Regardless of what they ended up saying, she felt like they were going to hate her for what she did. The only thing she could do…was continue stroking.

            Ophelia, after briefly sharing a glance with Bella, slumped against the back of the couch. Her expression reflected the slightest bit of shock, but in reality, she didn’t seem that rustled. “Well then…that’s a twist.”

            Bella’s face, on the other hand, was a little more animated. “And…what did you do that for, exactly?”

            “Pleeeease don’t hate me! I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea!” Aurora suddenly wailed, pressing her plushie into her abdomen. She didn’t cry, though she did feel quite embarrassed. Embarrassment was usually the outcome of her impulsive actions.

            “Hey, hey, Aurora?” Ophelia cut in, raising her arm in her upset friend’s direction. “What’s the magic word?”

            Aurora held her breath as she glanced to her side. “Um……relax?”

            “That’s it. There are still some goodies sitting on the table for you if you want them. All you gotta do is take some and step out front. Don’t even need to ask.” She explained calmly.

            “Y…You girls aren’t…mad at me?” Aurora whimpered. She looked at both of them with a guilty, sorrowful weight on her conscience. Though her crime was not really that serious, she had a nagging tendency to inflate the direness of her errors in her own head. If she were to take up Ophelia’s offer and step outside with the seaweed, she knew the problem would only become worse.

            “Well, you did kind of put us in a tough spot here.” Bella answered matter-of-factly. “But…nah, I’m not mad at you. I can see why you did it, and…to be honest…it’s really just a bit of an inconvenience. That’s all.”

            “Yeah, just…make sure you ask us before signing us up for any more battles.” Ophelia added with a smirk. Aurora smiled weakly back at her.

            The thing was, Aurora had not, in fact, done what she had done for the reason Bella was thinking. She and Ophelia were assuming that their doubtful and apologetic friend had set up the rematch battle with them in mind, for the sake of taking back the honor that had been stolen from them in the square. That was probably why they were so forgiving of her mistake. She still withheld the guilt of knowing why she had really done it…and whether her friends would forgive her as easily if they knew it as well.

            “So…what are we doing, then? Are we gonna fight them?” Bella asked. “Because I think forfeiting would look…reeeeally bad on us.”

            Ophelia shrugged. “It’s not like I’m doing anything tomorrow. I was actually hoping we would hit up the venues again soon, especially with the Splatfest coming up. Been meaning to stretch out and shoot the gunk outta my Hydra for once.”

            “You’ll do it, then? We’re gonna battle them?” Aurora asked hopefully. An optimistic glimmer shone in her eyes, striking Ophelia and Bella the way it always did.

            “Sure, we can make our comeback that way.” Bella replied blithely. “I wasn’t about to go looking for revenge myself, but seeing how you’ve already set it up for us, well…” She looked back at Ophelia, then at Aurora. “…I guess it’d be pretty fresh of us to try. Which, now that I think about it, we need to get Ula’s ass out here so we can hear what she thinks of it.”

            “Yeah, she’s been running a lot of ink in there. ‘Bout time someone get her before she cleans out my bonus from the Grizz this week!” Ophelia agreed. She made a hand gesture to encourage Bella to go yank their friend out of the shower.

            As her friend stood up from the loveseat and power-walked to the bedroom to disturb Ula, Aurora couldn’t help but smile. She was excited that her friends…or half of them, at least…were miraculously onboard with her crazy rematch plan. They didn’t deserve to be tugged around like that, as pawns in her “ultimate scheme” to get in Midas’s shorts. At least…that’s what she felt like she was doing, anyway. Regardless, she didn’t want to tell them about her crush yet, not because they’d be less willing to battle for her, but because they might scold her for chasing after an inkling. After all, that’s what Eight had done back in the square, after Aurora felt like she could confide in her.

            “Oh, Aurora, did you tell Eight about the rematch at some point? Because we would probably need to text her and let her know.” Ophelia mentioned.

            Speak of the devil, Aurora thought as she nodded her head. “Yeah, Eight knows. She was standing next to me when I brought it up to the boys.”

            “Ohh, pfft…duh. Of course.” Ophelia scoffed and smacked herself in the forehead. “Well, hopefully she’ll be willing to battle with us. Bella and I are down, but…I’m not so sure about Ula.”

            Just then, the two of them heard the echoing sound of the toilet flushing from through the bedroom doorway, followed closely by a loud, pained scream. The scream punctured through all the thoughts going through Aurora’s head at that moment, and it cut her exchange with Ophelia rather short. They both turned around toward the bedroom, where, just a few seconds later, Bella came proudly strolling out. Both pairs of eyes stayed locked on her, in silence, as she walked casually around the couch to the loveseat and plopped back down in it. She looked back at them.

            “She’ll be out in a minute.” The mischievous octo said. She then morphed back into her octo form to wait.

            However, it did not even take a minute. Within moments of Bella returning to her seat in front of the TV, Ula came storming out of the bedroom with a towel wrapped hastily around herself. She clearly hadn’t had time to get dressed, between barreling out of the bathroom after Bella, throwing on the towel, and appearing before her friends in disheveled condition. Her first order of business was to give Bella the most disapproving glare she could muster. As usual, she did not look pleased.

            “What the hell was that for?!” She clamored.

            Bella morphed back into her kid form, revealing a typical, shit-eating grin on her face. Her frequent morphing tended to leave ink stains in the loveseat, but no one really found it to be a big deal. “You were taking a while. I just felt like you needed a little nudge.”

            “Bitch…have you ever tried dipping your entire body into an Explosher vent?” Ula rasped bitterly. “Because that’s what that shit felt like just now.”

            “Well, uh…maybe you should’ve locked the bathroom door!” Bella retorted with a giggle. “I considered just pulling the shower curtain when I got in there, but I decided that I didn’t want to lose my innocence.”

            “Say you’re sorry, then, or I’ll drop my towel right here in the living room.” Her displeased friend challenged. “Don’t think I won’t.”

            “Aww, come on! Don’t be a party-pooper!” Bella pleaded.

            Ophelia fixed her eyes on the TV and refused to look away for the next few moments. “I’d apologize, Bella. Don’t think Ula wouldn’t subject all of us to a punishment like that.”

            She sighed childishly. With pressure from two of her friends, she couldn’t argue. “Ugh, fiiiiine. I’m sorry, Ula. Just don’t make it so easy for me next time!”

            Aurora wouldn’t have put such a thing past Ula, either. It wouldn’t have been the craziest thing she had done. She herself usually took a backseat during her friends’ weird skirmishes, as she had done just earlier that day at the canal. Her only concern was what Ula would think of the rematch news, and beyond that, nothing else mattered.

            “So, what am I out here for, anyway? What’s so important?” Ula queried impatiently.

            “Bills, first of all.” Ophelia chimed in. “I know you’re weary, girl, but running ink all night ain’t cheap. We all gotta chip in on those costs.”

            “You girls know I don’t have any money.” Ula grumbled back.

            “Exactly, so let’s be mindful of how much we use stuff. It’s okay that you can’t shell in on our bills, but you gotta try being a little more conservative. If money gets tight, you know…I may have to quit spending on seaweed for a little while.” Ophelia warned.

            Ula groaned loudly and rolled her head back. “Okaaay, fine, shorter showers it is, then! Anything else to brighten my evening?”

            “Yes, actually.” Bella answered. She pointed at Aurora. “Aurora set us up for a rematch battle with those inkling brats tomorrow. Think you’d be up for that?”

            Ula followed her friend’s finger and settled her gaze on Aurora right as she was giving the announcement. Aurora quickly retreated into herself when she realized she was under Ula’s scrutiny, as she knew her dark-haired, dark-souled friend would not tolerate her actions as much as Bella and Ophelia had. She saw Ula’s eyes squint at her while Bella was giving the news, making her, once again, rather uncomfortable. Therefore, she held up her arms and shielded her face with Wah-Wah.

            Ula continued squinting at her for another moment, then she turned back to the others. She grunted and shook her head.

            “Fuck that shit.”

            “So…you don’t want to get a bit of revenge on the battlefield?” Bella asked. “Blast them with Tenta Missiles, maybe?”

            Ula shook her head again. “Nope. If you girls care at all to see me not wind up in a snow globe next to DJ Octavio, you’ll keep me from ever seeing those turds ever again.” She clenched her fist. “Because if I ever do, it won’t be Tenta Missiles I’ll be blasting them with, that’s for sure. Get Eight to do it.”

            Bella and Ophelia looked awkwardly around the room for a few seconds while Ula’s uncompromising reply hung in the air around them. Aurora’s face was still buried behind her plushie, despite Ula’s attention having fallen elsewhere since her earlier glare. In general, whenever Ula gave ultimatums on such a degree, the overall mood of the room tended to dissolve a little bit. The last time she had actually been seen acting violently towards someone was back in Octo Valley, but it had been enough to establish her disposition as an octo not to be trifled with. Bella’s insistence on messing with her so frequently, then, was quite the mystery.

            After a bit of time spent standing next to the loveseat in nothing but her towel, Ula looked up at the TV just in time to see Pearl and Marina closing out their evening news segment. They stood in their places and made the “stay fresh” gesture with their hands, accompanying the motion with their classic, “Don’t get cooked, stay off the hook!” This time, nobody in the room reciprocated their choreography.

            “Damn…so I missed Off the Hook again. Figures.” Ula groused.

            “Well…you did decide to take a shower.” Bella mumbled quietly. “You didn’t have to do that right then.”

            Ula scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bella, of course I did. I desperately needed cleansing after being insulted by those assholes.” She then turned her head to look at Aurora again, intimidating her in the process. “Better get ahold of Eight, because if she won’t battle, the deal’s off. I’m heading back in there to change into comfy shit, and after I do, I’m going to bed. I’ve had enough inklings for a couple days.”

            Ophelia shrugged. “If you say so. Sleep tight.”

            Bella shrugged as well, adding a friendly wave to the end of the motion. “Dream of sea snails!”

            “Doubt I will.” Ula muttered. Still holding her towel above her chest, she turned around slowly and sauntered back into the bedroom. Bella watched her lethargic trudge until she disappeared from sight, hearing her disgruntled utterances along the way. “Pit-dweller…for fuck’s sake…”

            When all was said and done, the room fell silent again. Nothing interesting was usually on TV after Off the Hook’s evening news session, so Ophelia reached for the remote and turned it off after Ula left. In the absence of the TV’s blueish gleam, the dim overhead light cast a mellow glow over the trio as they sat in their spots and savored the lack of noise. It was the quietest atmosphere the girls had been in since they woke up that morning.

            “Thinking Ula’s got the right idea?” Ophelia queried.

            Bella glanced at her. “About what? Those boys being assholes?”

            “Well, yes, but…no. I was talking about going to bed.”

            “Oh.” Bella chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

            “Speaking of which, Aurora?” Ophelia paused for a moment while Aurora turned to her. “Weren’t you going to ask Ula for the bed in there? I’m pretty sure you already slept in the sleeping bag last night, and Bella and I were probably going to sleep out here tonight.”

            Aurora recalled what she had seen in the bedroom while looking for Wah-Wah earlier. She shook her head. “Ula seems……upset. I’m just going to let her have the bed again.”

            “You don’t have to be so timid, you know. Ula may be grumpy, but we’re still her friends. I bet, if you were to go in there right now and flop down on the bed before she gets changed, she won’t do anything about it.” Bella assured. She sounded completely serious, though…it was hard not to interpret it as a joke.

            “That’s…that’s okay. I’m not going to take my chances.” Aurora declared in reply.

            “Ula raised another good point, though, which I think you should address before you head off to bed, Aurora.” Ophelia mentioned, lifting a finger to get her attention. “You should probably contact Eight, just to be sure she’s willing to join us for the rematch. Better to do so now than the day of.”

            Aurora stared at her for a moment, failing to answer her right away. She didn’t know why she was hesitant to give a swifter response, but she figured it wouldn’t make Ophelia think any differently of her answer. “…Okay.”

            The truth was, Aurora already knew that Eight was onboard with the plan. Unlike her other friends, she had actually gotten the chance to talk to her back in the square, and from that, she felt like Eight understood her enough to be her aide in the struggle. Eight knew what she was after. Ophelia, Bella, and especially Ula, however…they did not. Aurora knew Eight would give it her best shot. She knew she could safely share her secrets with Eight. She knew she could depend on Eight. However…

            …she wasn’t sure how Eight felt about everything she was putting her through.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Nothing in the world could match the feeling of victory.

            When the timer rang, and everyone in the arena knew that the match was over, Aurora and her friends threw down their weapons and celebrated vehemently, flopping wildly around the puddles of ink in their octo forms. Rounds of cheering emanated from the onlookers that were spectating the battle, adding copiously to the triumphant atmosphere that encompassed the octoling underdogs. Indeed, victory came at the price of incredible trial and effort, but this time, the girls’ efforts had certainly paid off for this moment. They had managed to prove themselves against the inkling bullies and reclaim their freshness in the eyes of their peers.

            It didn’t take long after the final bell for the Splatling guy and his two lackeys to swim their way to Aurora and the others. When they emerged from the ink near her friends, in the wake of their own defeat, the inklings faced an eruption of laughing and booing from the crowd. They wielded their weapons with shame, but they took the unkind reception without any sort of reaction. They knew they had been inferior in battle, and they accepted their failure dutifully.

            “Anything you have to say for yourself?” Bella taunted, a dualie-wielding hand on each hip.

            The Splatling guy looked at the ground. He sighed. “You girls pack a punch. My cowardly tactics and cheap splash walls were no match for your agility and prowess. I guess octolings are fresher than I gave them credit for.”

            “Yeah, and we’re not fuckin’ pit-dwellers, you hear?!” Ula yelled from within the crowd of onlookers. She stepped through the squids and octos around her and flashed her middle fingers at the inklings, who took her gesture willingly. They turned away.

            “Yes…you are not pit-dwellers. We can see that now.” He uttered.

            “And don’t you be forgetting it.” Ophelia added with an authoritative glare. She hoisted her monstrous Hydra Splatling upright and intimidated them through the glint of her shades.

            Finally, Eight spoke up from her mysterious silence and gave the losers the sendoff they deserved. “Go away, and never bother us again. And make it fast…so we won’t have to look at you anymore.”

            A savage move by Eight, but it worked out beautifully. The inklings, knowing that they were inherently under the boots of their octoling victors by virtue of their defeat, obeyed their order. Without another word, they morphed into their squid forms and, upon flopping onto the ground and blending in with their ink, swam off into the distance in a trio of ripples. True to Eight’s command, they were never to be seen by Aurora nor her friends ever again.

            That was the case, at least, for the Splatling guy, the .96 Gal, and the Dynamo Roller. However, there was still a face that had yet to make an appearance after everything had wrapped up. It was a face of a particular importance, and luckily, it didn’t take long to arrive after the others took off on their exile.

            Shortly following the disappearance of the three inkling boys, another ripple in the ink came rushing forward from around the corner, stopping just short of Aurora and her friends. They all turned to see who it was, and sure enough, when the squid hidden within morphed into his kid form, they found themselves staring down Midas. Midas, while sharing in the defeat of the rest of his team, had not received the same banishment that they had. Therefore, as he stood before the octo girls and settled his sight on Aurora, they all watched him without a word.

            He stepped towards her very deliberately, stowing his Squiffer on his back without breaking eye contact. He stopped when his feet reached the end of his ink color, prompting Aurora to walk forward and close the gap between them. Her friends continued to watch the exchange without saying anything. Aurora couldn’t even see them anymore. All she could see was Midas…her prize.

            He surveyed her on her approach, drinking in her form like he was seeing her for the very first time. He didn’t smile, but despite that fact, Aurora could see his admiration through his eyes. She was his maiden, having won him in the toils of battle. Though he may have lost with the rest of his team, he felt the effects of her victory all the same, for now he got to be hers…and she got to be his.

            “I loved watching you battle.” He breathed. “You were like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

            “…I did it for you, Midas. I had to have you for the Splatfest.” She answered passionately. She kept reaching for him, stopping herself hesitantly each time. She wanted desperately to feel him against her body.

            “Such valiance…such grace. If you wanted me that badly…all you had to do was ask. I would’ve swept you up in an instant.” He maintained his steady, unyielding expression as he reached through her arms and planted his hands around her waist, eliciting a slight gasp from her. “You are the pinnacle of octoling beauty. You even show it in the way you fight.”

            With his hands now settled on her, inching precariously towards some of her “rounder” features, Aurora found the permission to place her own hands on him. She rested her palms gently against the front of his vest and slid them up towards his shoulders, feeling for herself how poorly the garment fit on him. His chest felt like it could break free of that vest at any moment. She shuddered weakly at the feeling, answering to it by thrusting her own chest against his…so that he may feel for himself the additional curves she had to offer. She hoped…more desirously with each passing second…that he would start getting explorative with those hands of his. Those hands…which were now boldly grasping her ass.

            “Mmm……” She moaned. “…have you ever wondered what octoling tastes like?”

            “Oh, Aurora…you know I’m dying to find out.” He stated seductively.

            Midas leaned his face in at the same time she did, and their lips met in the middle, engaging rapidly in an aggressive kiss. Sparing each other the middle-school stuff, they dove right into battling each other’s tongues, fighting ardently to get in each other’s mouths. Aurora wasted no time in establishing a grip on her inkling, pulling him against her by his lower back. Each time they came up for air, their mouths remained sloppily connected by a stretchy ink strand, whose color was a dirty mixture of its hosts’ team colors.

            The lovers held no regard for the bystanders around them. Within just seconds of starting their intense make-out session, Aurora’s knees buckled underneath her, and she pulled Midas down with her until he was positioned on top of her on the ground. From there, it was only a matter of time. Aurora’s world disintegrated around her as her senses lost focus and became powerfully overwhelmed by Midas’s body. She began losing the turf war going on in their mouths, as she could not hold back the strong moans that kept emanating from her throat. She could really feel how ready he was through both their shorts. It only served to prep her further as well.

            Once he felt her start to falter from returning his kisses, he took it as an invitation to begin planting them down her neck. While doing so, he sifted his hands around to the front of her pelvis and stuck them underneath her shirt, caressing her bare abdomen as if it already contained dozens of his spawn. He slowly worked them farther up from there, feeling around the fabric of her bra…and welling up within her an uncontrollable desire to have it removed. He was being so patient against her yearnful cries…teasing her with his every move…wringing from her every savory drop of lust he could draw…until it drove her to absolute insanity. If he didn’t start removing her clothes soon, she felt like she was gonna…

            …like she was gonna…

            …she was gonna…

            …Oh cod…she was gonna…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Aurora jolted awake suddenly as an unprecedented surge of pleasure exploded through her body, locking her in a sort of vice-like paralysis while her involuntary moans filled the bedroom. Every inch of her was filled to the brim with this feeling, causing her to twitch under the sleeping bag cover with each electric wave of it that passed through her. Her senses failed to return to her completely until about ten or fifteen seconds later, when the rushes slowly began to subside. At that point, she was finally able to piece together what had just happened.

            For one thing, she had just inked the crap out of the sleeping bag. Her hand was already stuffed down her shorts, which explained how she had managed to do this to herself, and by moving her fingers around in there, all she could feel was warm, slimy ink coating the insides of her thighs. It was obviously on her hand as well…and her shorts…and the sleeping bag cover. It was everywhere.

            On top of that, Aurora realized that her wide-open mouth was pressed firmly against Wah-Wah. She quickly withdrew her face from the fabric that made up his cheek, and she reached for it with her free hand to survey the damage. Unsurprisingly, her childhood plushie had unwillingly gone on the ride with her. She had apparently made out with him in her sleep, and in doing so, she had gotten him soaked with her saliva. There was no way for her to know how long she had been slobbering on him like that, so the only thing she could assume was that he needed to be washed again. Badly. And…everything else, of course.

            She had a feeling she would be doing her own laundry tomorrow.

            In the wake of her unexpected orgasm, Aurora’s first sensible thought was whether she had awoken Ula with her moaning. Judging by the snoring coming from the bed, however, her question on that was answered rather quickly. That would’ve been the worst possible level of embarrassment for her. For both of them, in fact.

            Aurora didn’t know what to do with herself. Her comfy bedtime shorts were soaked, and so was the inside of the sleeping bag. Not to mention her Wah-Wah, who also felt too damp to keep close to her body. She laid perfectly still in the middle of it all, hand still in contact with her nether region, panting heavily while her heartrate gradually returned to normal. And, of course, her mind was still saturated with thoughts of Midas. She just…could not get him out of her head. How was she even going to get back to sleep?

            She sighed. After such a crazy dream, her thoughts about what she had experienced continued to swirl around unimpeded. With nothing else to do but lay there and think about her crush, Aurora quickly found herself resuming her previous activity before she could pull her hand out of her pants. Starting with a gentle, circular motion, the lustful octo failed to hold in another long, deep moan as she surrendered herself and let the feeling overtake her a second time. Her bedding was already completely ruined, she figured, so there couldn’t have been any harm in giving her body more of what it desperately craved. She didn’t care that Ula was sleeping right next to her. With all of her walls crumbled, she gave in and just…let it happen.

            She had to win the rematch tomorrow. Every fiber of her feeble being was attached stringently to that cause. If she and her friends couldn’t prevail over the inkling boys, then…

            …were these nights ever going to stop? 

Chapter Text

            The next morning, Aurora dragged herself out of the sleeping bag as early as she could, before the sun had a chance to show its rays through the bedroom window. It was still two hours before she would normally get up, but obviously, today was an exception. She had struggled to get any sleep last night as it was, so she figured those two hours wouldn’t make a difference to her. There were some things she needed to do before her friends woke up, and they needed to be done quietly.

            The first thing she did after picking herself up and setting aside her Wah-Wah was shuffle clumsily to the dresser to grab her day clothes, and then to the bathroom to shower herself off. She did so with stiff, awkward steps, since everything from her waist down was still rather damp with musky ink. As such, emerging from the sleeping bag made her cold and uncomfortable, and she knew from looking down at herself that the mess she had made was excessively noticeable. She was afraid of what she would later find inside the sleeping bag.

            It had not been her intention to spend last night the way that she had, though…it wasn’t exactly like she could control what happened in her dreams. Hell, she couldn’t even control what happened in her mind while she was awake! With such a large part of her mind, and her body, apparently, focused on Midas, her unfortunate little accident was probably nothing short of an inevitability. She thought about these things while she took her shower, feeling stupid, nonetheless, for putting herself in the situation she was in that morning.

            Aurora remembered Bella’s suggestion to Ula the night before, which was to try showering with a lighter shade of ink than normal. It would supposedly lift her mood and help improve her outlook on things. However, while Aurora loved her usual choice of pastel purple for her hair, she felt like tipping the shade any closer to white would make her look like an albino. And, after all, who’d want to date an albino octoling? Not Midas, the way she figured.

            In consideration of how last night had gone for her, she kept her shower as short as possible to avoid letting her mind open to more dirty thoughts. Once she was back out in the bustling public of the city, she imagined, she wouldn’t have as much of an issue keeping her libidinous side in check. Therefore, she cut off the showerhead after just five minutes and stepped around the curtain to dry herself off. She reached up with one hand to grab the towel from the rack, and…

            …she found nothing there. Confused, she proceeded to grasp at thin air for another moment before taking a look at the empty rack. It was at that moment that the realization hit her. Ula had used their only towel to shower the night before. Aurora put a hand on her forehead in exasperation as she began frantically searching the tiny bathroom for the towel, intending to use it anyway in spite of the fact. Unfortunately, the item was simply not in the bathroom. Ula must’ve tossed it somewhere near the bed before going to sleep, and she had just failed to notice it before stepping into the shower.

            Well…she did have one alternative. Since she was already planning to wash her bedtime clothes to begin with, she decided on using her top to dry herself off before throwing on her day clothes. It was obviously not as effective as the towel would’ve been, but it was her preferred choice over trying to streak through the bedroom in search of it. If only she and her friends lived in a more organized manner, then…such decisions wouldn’t be necessary.

            Some areas of Aurora’s body were still dripping when she was forced to discard her top. Despite that, she slid into her day clothes after shaking as much ink as she could out of her hair. The imperfect job she had done resulted in a few damp spots on her shirt and her shorts, but there was nothing she could do about that. After everything, she grabbed her glasses off the counter and pushed them against her face, staring at herself blankly in the mirror with the clear sight they provided. She hoped that, today, the face staring back at her would be the face of a winner. The face that would win over Midas’s hearts after her battle efforts win over his attention.

            Her next order of business was to clean up. Now that she had used her bedtime top in place of her towel, her entire set of night clothes was too soggy to simply toss on the floor and come back for later. She had to wash everything, including her Wah-Wah, and especially the sleeping bag, which was technically a shared item. She had absolutely no idea how she was going to wash the sleeping bag, but…she had to try, at least. Otherwise, the poor octo knew that it was going to come back to haunt her.

            After making sure she looked presentable, Aurora scooped her inky night clothes off the bathroom floor and cautiously opened the door. Ula was easily the heaviest sleeper in their apartment, so she wasn’t too worried about waking her up with her antics. Her real concern was Bella. When she stepped up to the sleeping bag and dropped her clothes on top of it, she bent forward and attempted to pick everything up at once: the clothes, the sleeping bag, and Wah-Wah. She wanted to get all of it into the kitchen in one trip if she could, since multiple trips through the living room would only increase her chances of waking the others with her noises and her passing shadows.

            While the stuff wasn’t very hard to carry, it certainly made her feel a bit…top-heavy. With both arms under the pile, Aurora waddled towards the door on her way to the kitchen. She bumped into the doorframe a couple times, thanks to her obstructed vision, but it didn’t seem to make too much noise. After that, she made a left and snuck past the couch and the loveseat, where she could partially see the splayed-out bodies of Ophelia and Bella during their sound sleep. She held her breath as she passed them.

            Overall, getting to the kitchen didn’t prove to be much of a hassle. However, it was only the first step. Once Aurora tottered up to the kitchen sink with her bundle of soiled fabrics, she dumped them on the tile floor next to her and got to work, starting with her night clothes. She turned on the faucet after placing the plug over the drain, and she lowered her top and her shorts into the sink. Then, she leaned over and swiped the small bottle of detergent that they kept near the windowsill, popped the cap, and squirted a subtle amount of it onto the items. Already, as the sink slowly began to fill with water from the faucet, Aurora could see the light purple ink that was staining her clothes begin to dissolve into the cleaning mixture.

            While the girls’ shower ran distilled, low-tide ink, their toilet and sinks used water. As long as it was restricted to just their hands or feet, water never posed an issue to inklings and octolings like themselves. The kitchen sink was their only option for doing laundry, since they weren’t exactly wealthy enough to treat themselves to a washing machine. Aurora wasn’t too experienced using the sink to wash clothes, so she became rather pleased with herself when she saw the difference emerge in her top and shorts. Ula, who did all her friends’ laundry the majority of the time, was the undisputed expert, but she obviously couldn’t be allowed to know why the stuff needed cleaning.

            Next up, then, was Wah-Wah. Aurora left her night clothes in the sink while it continued to fill up, just to make sure she got every last bit of the ink out, and she leaned over to grab her favorite plushie from the floor. Holding him in front of her face for a moment, she grinned back at his innocent, all-forgiving smile. She felt bad for having to wash him again, so soon after Ophelia had already done it for her. At least he was getting the care she felt he deserved. Before lowering him into the sink and grabbing the detergent again, she silently promised him that she would be gentle, and that she would try not to suffocate him with her tongue ever again.

            With the plush still in her hand, she drizzled an extremely small amount of detergent over the top of his head and began to lather it around. Unlike with her night clothes, Aurora opted to scrub her plush by hand. She found it to be a more intimate gesture, and she figured it would help her wash out the stains more thoroughly. She was also as careful as could be, making sure to preserve his colors and his beady eyes to the best of her ability. During it all, she kept whispering apologies to him for everything she had done to him, even if her only crime had been a slobbery display of love.

            When she was done, and Wah-Wah was feeling sufficiently heavy with water from the sink, Aurora planted a small kiss between his eyes and set him on the counter to dry. He was quite absorbent, even for a plush, so she expected it to take all day. Seeing as she would be spending the day back out in the city, though, she didn’t mind it. She followed up with Wah-Wah’s treatment by extracting her night clothes from the sink and holding them out at full arm’s length to wring them out, doing so cautiously to avoid getting too much water on herself. Then, she laid them next to him on the counter.

            The next part was the part she had been dreading. The last thing still sitting on the floor…was the sleeping bag. Aurora was reluctant to even look inside the thing, for fear of yielding shamefully to the magnitude of what she had done to it. The sheer size and bulkiness of the item was enough to daunt her as it was. She simply could not see how it was going to fit into the sink. On top of that, it seemed nearly impossible for her to wash all of her ink out of it without making it obvious to her friends that she had inked it in the first place. Her only hope was to sleep in it every night until it could properly dry off. After all, she had marked her territory in it…technically.

            She let out a deep sigh as she bent over one more time and mangled the sleeping bag into her grasp with both of her arms. Indeed, there was no way it was going to fit into the sink. Her only course of action, in that case, was to turn it inside out and try to manually scrub the stains out over the sink without splashing too much water everywhere. She was still rather groggy from how early in the morning it was, so the thought of doing that did not fill her with much joy.

            Before going through with it, Aurora unzipped the bag as far as it would go and peered into it nervously. Sure enough, as she had figured, the damage was extensive. The entire lower half of the inside of the bag was stained purple, with additional, various-sized splotches dotting the upper edge of the mess. It was also damp, still, as Aurora found by lightly touching the stains with her fingers. And, of course, it smelled a little off. Most varieties of ink, including the ink she had just showered with, was odorless, but this, well…this was far from it. Her nose turned up a bit at the fact.

            The water in the sink was still running, so Aurora knew it was time to get down to business. She let out another pained sigh and pushed her fist through the back side of the sleeping bag, forcing the inside of it out through the opening she had created with the zipper. In doing so, the stains became a lot more visible under the light of the kitchen. Then, she stepped forward, leaned herself against the counter in front of the sink, and stood on her toes to broaden her access to the running water. She just hoped she would be able to complete her task without messing up the kitchen.

            Just as she was beginning to place the sleeping bag under the faucet, however, her hearts jumped out of her chest when she heard a voice from behind her.

            “…Aurora? What are you doing in here?”

            Aurora immediately cut the faucet and whipped her head around, startled greatly by the unexpected intrusion. She dropped from her toes and gave her visitor a helpless, deer-in-the-headlights glance. It was Ophelia, standing in the doorway to the kitchen in her night clothes. Aurora thought she had been careful in preserving her friends’ sleep, but…luck didn’t seem to be on her side.

            “Oh…‘Lia…” She babbled. “I…um…what are you doing in here?”

            Ophelia cracked a grin. “I’m checking on you, Aurora, because I know that you’re usually up to something when you answer your friends like that. I heard the shower running earlier, and then the kitchen faucet, so I decided to come see what’s got you running around so early in the morning.”

            “I…I guess I just…couldn’t sleep. Decided to be productive to…you know…clear my head a little?” She winced internally, knowing how incredibly obvious her lie was.

            “Mhm…I see.” Ophelia acknowledged, though she didn’t look like she was buying it. She looked at the counter next to Aurora and saw the items she had left there to dry. “So…you decided to do your laundry, then, huh?”

            “Uh…yeah. I wanted to get it done before we all took off later. To make sure it got done.”

            “Well…Ula was already planning to do that tonight, so you didn’t really have to.” Ophelia stated, crossing her arms. “And, uh…I see you also washed your plush again. Did I not do a good job yesterday morning?”

            “No, no, it’s not that, it’s just…” Aurora paused to try and formulate a good response, but she simply couldn’t come up with anything. She knew how incriminating she must’ve looked, with both her plush and the giant sleeping bag in the kitchen before anyone else had woken up. A few moments passed like that, in silence, until the pressure of her friend’s expectant glare made her suddenly crack. “Please, ‘Lia, it’s not what it looks like! I swear!”

            Ophelia smirked again, eventually breaking into a light chuckle. Aurora kept expecting Ophelia to scold her in times like this, but she’d always end up laughing it off and taking it easy. “‘Not what it looks like?’ Girl, I found you in here at the nick of dawn with the sleeping bag in your hands, dunkin’ yourself over the sink. I don’t even know what this looks like.”

            Aurora had no response to give as she bashfully watched her friend walk over to her from the doorway. Even with all the precautions she had taken…she had never prepared for one of her friends to actually catch her. She was at least glad it was Ophelia and not one of the others.

            “…You weren’t supposed to see this…” She whimpered.

            “Yeah, I had a feeling.” Ophelia replied with a patient look on her face. “You don’t normally start stirring like this until well after sunrise. What’s been going on lately?”

            Aurora just shrugged. She repeatedly avoided making eye contact with Ophelia, as she often did when facing embarrassment. “…Just…stuff…”

            When Ophelia arrived at the counter and leaned herself against it by Aurora’s side, she glanced down at the inside-out sleeping bag that was still resting in her friend’s arms. She was not blind to the discoloration of its fabric, as evidenced by her intrigued facial expression.

            “So…I take it you had a bit of an accident last night?”

            Aurora immediately hid her face from view as her cheeks began to boil purple again. A few seconds went by before she silently nodded her head, confirming her dastardly deed to the sympathetic octo. Ophelia did not give a discernible reaction, though Aurora chose not to observe her response anyway. Her morning was not getting off to a good start.

            Without saying anything at first, Ophelia reached forward with both hands and kindly took the sleeping bag from Aurora, setting it in the sink thereafter to soak. The bulky item displaced a lot of water, but she didn’t seem to have any trouble forcing it into the tub so that every bit of it was submerged. Aurora continued to cover her face with her elbow, determined to hide her shame from her friend without an object to help her. Ophelia was used to seeing such things from her, and the sight never failed to make her feel sorry for the fragile octo.

            “Aww, Aurora, it happens to the best of us. I don’t think any of us here have lasted since our move without doing it at least once.” She assured.

            Aurora was suddenly very confused by that statement. She unhid her face and glimpsed up at Ophelia, trying faithfully to maintain an expression that didn’t seem too skeptical. “Wh…huh?”

            “Didn’t you hear Bella yesterday at the canal? She totally lost control of herself laughing at something Ula did. It was pretty funny, but…you seemed to be a bit distracted even then.” Ophelia explained. “It’s not your fault, trust me. No one will think any less of you.”

            At that moment, Aurora realized that Ophelia had gotten the wrong idea. She apparently thought that something completely different had happened in the sleeping bag last night. In all honesty, Aurora did not want to correct her. It was a lot easier for her to stomach the aftermath of her friend thinking she had pissed herself, rather than…what had actually happened. Therefore, she decided to keep her mouth shut and respond with another emotionless shrug. Ophelia seemed ready to offer her friend some support.

            “Do you think that maybe you’re just nervous for the rematch this afternoon?” She asked. “Could that be what caused it?”

            Aurora was glad that she had avoided spilling the truth again, but now, she was operating on a misconception. She shrugged a third time. “…I guess.”

            “Well, perish the thought.” Ophelia declared with a corny grin. “Those guys look easier to splat than a toddler holding an ice cream cone. If you ask me, I think we’re going to kick their asses.”

            “You really think so?” Aurora babbled.

            “Of course. I may be a humble, seaweed-loving octoling from the bottom-feeders’ district, but I know how to handle a Hydra Splatling. You also got Bella, who knows her way around her dualies as if she were born holding them. And Eight, well…we all know Eight.” She paused to chuckle for a moment, which Aurora did not do herself. “What have you got to worry about?”

            The answer to that question was Midas, Aurora thought to herself. She usually had a lot of fun in turf wars and other ink-splatting shenanigans, so they were never a very concerning matter to her. The stakes were just so high this time, though, and she just couldn’t bring herself to confess those stakes to her friends. With Ophelia standing alone in the kitchen with her, giving her nothing but full, undivided attention, she considered surrendering and just telling her friend what was really going on, but she still couldn’t overcome the resistive forces tugging within herself. She didn’t want any of her friends knowing what they were going to be battling for, since she didn’t want it to affect the amount of effort they would put forth.

            The sad thing was, she knew how selfish that choice was. She just didn’t know how else to approach it. Therefore, her response did not directly answer Ophelia’s question.

            “…I trust you guys.”

            “There you go. That’s the spirit.” Ophelia concluded, shooting Aurora an assuring wink. “And hey, for all we know, maybe we’ll get lucky today and find ourselves a date for the Splatfest. The more time spent on the town, the better our chances!”

            As her friend stood up from against the counter and strolled over to the pantry to grab herself an early breakfast, Aurora just stood in place and stared blankly at the wall. If they went out there and won that rematch today, she would have to tell them about Midas, right? She couldn’t possibly keep the charade going forever, especially if doing so would mean keeping her distance from her friends during the Splatfest. On the flip side, however, spilling the beans would come at the price of also revealing the truth about her deceitfulness. What would her friends think about being tricked into fighting for a love interest? An inkling love interest? One that came with the risk of pissing off said inkling’s friends and starting a conflict that they didn’t ask for?

            Aurora really wished that finding love was as easy for her as it was for Bella. After all, out of her entire friend group, she knew damn well that the only one who was likely going to receive any dating invitations was Bella. Though, to be honest, Aurora knew that her chances of getting with an octo boy for the Splatfest became zero the moment she had laid eyes on Midas. No one she would try to court, kiss, nor fool around with was going to hit the same mark as long as Midas was still in her head. She had said it to herself several times already, but she felt like she needed to say it again.

            Nothing was more important than winning that rematch.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Throughout the morning, Aurora remained untalkative. Her first instinct after finishing her heart-to-heart with Ophelia and quietly leaving the kitchen was to go sit on the couch, leaving her bedtime items by the sink. Bella was still asleep on the loveseat when Aurora returned to the living room, so she was reluctant to shuffle too much or turn on the TV. However, when Ophelia came strutting back in with a bowl of cereal and plopped down next to Aurora, she immediately grabbed the remote and turned it on herself, blatantly disregarding her friend’s slumber. At that point, Bella was awake within the next five minutes, whether she liked it or not. After all, half the house was already awake, and when that was the case, the other half was expected to deal with whatever disturbances would ensue.

            For the next hour or so, while Bella begrudgingly dragged herself through her morning routine, and Ula continued to sleep noisily in the bedroom, Aurora and Ophelia passed the time with the pointless, early-morning drabble on the TV. Their real interest was in the morning news, which didn’t come on until a little after sunrise, since they needed to know what venues would be in rotation for the day. Yesterday’s battle with the inkling boys had been just after lunchtime, so, according to their agreement, they needed to show up to whatever venue and mode would be active at that time. Aurora naturally started to get nervous as the announcement grew closer and closer.

            When the time did finally come, Bella had gotten dressed and was in the kitchen fixing up breakfast, and Ula was still in the bedroom showing no signs of life. No one bothered to go in there and say anything, since they knew she wasn’t going to be participating in the rematch anyway. Bella called to Aurora while she was in the kitchen, asking what the deal was with her little setup by the sink, but Ophelia stepped in and saved her by deflecting the question with an undetailed rebuttal. She gave Aurora a trustworthy smile, which Aurora returned thankfully.

            The three of them were rather fond of most of the day’s venues, which included hotspots like The Reef, Albacore Hotel, Mako Mart, and Humpback Pump Track for the morning, and less-booming, outskirts venues, like Port Mackerel, Piranha Pit, Camp Triggerfish, and Sturgeon Shipyard for the evening. However, it was the afternoon’s venues that they were really interested in, and the options they were given stuck out to them…for opposite reasons.

            As always, the mode was stated before the venues themselves, so as soon as the afternoon rotation was announced, the girls knew what type of battle they were going to be fighting. To their excitement, it turned out to be splat zones. Aurora and Bella loved splat zones for its simplicity, while Ophelia preferred it for its static objective, which made guarding from the backlines with a Hydra Splatling much easier on her. Aurora’s nerves were slightly sated by this announcement, knowing that she and her friends were going to be fighting a battle in which they were a lot more versed. More than rainmaker, that was for sure.

            The thing that didn’t look so appealing to them, however, was the venue selection. The only venues that were scheduled to host splat zone battles after lunch were Moray Towers…and Blackbelly Skatepark. First of all, the overbearing verticality on Moray Towers made it a nightmare battleground for Aurora and Bella, whose weapons were better suited for flat, midrange combat. Also, luck did not tend to favor the bold on Moray Towers, where reckless moves often led to cornered situations where the only options were trying to super-jump to someone else…or surrendering shamefully to the opponents.

            Blackbelly Skatepark, in addition, boasted many tight engagements that encouraged surprise attacks, and the massive, cylindrical tower in the center of the arena always caused a multitude of hyper-tense fights in order to gain a pivotal vantage point over both zones. Aurora figured the close encounters on Blackbelly Skatepark would service Bella very well, considering her remarkable agility with the Enperry Dualies, but the issue with the central tower made her a bit wary. If she and Bella could succeed in keeping that tower cleared for Ophelia and Eight, their powerful, back-line weapons could help them use the high ground to its ultimate potential. The problem was in making sure that the inkling boys didn’t accomplish the same task, since yielding the tower to the Splatling guy and the Dynamo Roller would certainly spell disaster for them. Blackbelly Skatepark was the undisputable pinnacle of high-risk, high-reward athleticism.

            As far as choosing between the two options, Aurora and her friends were split down the middle. She and Bella were both in favor of Blackbelly Skatepark, while Ophelia and Eight both preferred Moray Towers. Though Aurora hadn’t actually contacted Eight to ask about her preference, the three of them already knew that Moray Towers was their friend’s favorite venue. Her E-Liter made that obvious. Therefore, it seemed as if the venue they would be playing on would, once again, be up to the inkling boys.

            Unsurprisingly, the news about the battle they would be having, and where it would be, had the effect of raising the girls’ anticipation. Speculation about their rematch, as well as their battle strategy, brewed fiercely in their heads from the moment the venues were announced. Then, as the morning wore on, and Ula finally began stirring around their living space, the three battlers couldn’t keep their minds off the upcoming afternoon. Eventually, their itch to round up their weapons and head out for the square became too strong to ignore. When the time finally came for them to grab their stuff and depart for their critical reunion with the inkling boys, they left Ula on her own in the apartment, per her request, to “weather the storm” and make herself breakfast for lunch.

            Aurora was also instructed to contact Eight as they were descending the stairwell, which she promptly did as soon as they reached the sidewalk. She tried to stay close to her friends while she had her phone out in order to avoid bumping into any passing octolings. And, considering the time of day, there were quite a few. A fair share of them even had their weapons with them, just like Aurora and her friends. The weather was pristine, and, thanks to the upcoming Splatfest, everyone in the city was amped to get their valuable practice in.

            Even through text message, Eight was definitely not outgoing. Aurora’s first message to her was, “Leaving now, u ready?” After an impatient wait of about thirty seconds, she received her peculiar friend’s response, which was simply…“Ye.”

            Aurora tried again, hastily typing out another message while occasionally glancing up ahead for direction. Despite knowing the answer already, she wanted to see what Eight’s venue preference was.

            “What ven is ur fav?” She messaged.

            Sure enough, after another strangely long pause, she received her answer. “MT.”

            Eight’s texts never explained much about her, except that she must’ve had arthritis in both of her thumbs. It would’ve been nice to at least see her use emojis, but even those seemed to convey too much personality for her liking. Aurora felt guilty for not keeping up with her the previous evening after parting ways, but it’s not like anyone could blame her. Eight rarely had much to say. That was precisely why Aurora’s time with her in the square yesterday had felt so memorable.

            She wanted to give it one more shot, though…she didn’t really know what to say. So…she improvised. “U excited?”

            She waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. Forty. A minute. Eventually, she frowned and slid her phone back into her shorts pocket. She had to accept when Eight didn’t feel like talking. Yesterday had been quite a wild ride for her, after all, with both the seaweed and the inkling boys’ ridicule buttering up her mind since the battle. It seemed like Aurora had already been too quick to take her openness that day for granted.

            However, just as the Deepsea Metro station was coming into view about a block and a half away, Aurora felt her phone vibrate. She quickly pulled it out of her pocket, checked the display, and observed Eight’s response.

            “Idk. R u?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            The walk did not take long after that. Within about ten minutes, the girls came to a stop by the staircase of the metro station to wait for Eight. It was quite a busy spot, with inklings and octolings constantly traversing the staircase on their way in and out of the station, as well as the two crosswalks that joined at the corner of the block. Almost everywhere the girls looked, their eyes would fall on a sea of ink weapons moving around the scattered crowds on the backs of their various owners. Clearly, the announcement of the Splatfest yesterday was responsible for it. They had a feeling the venues were going to be pretty packed with onlookers that afternoon, depending on where their battle was going to take place.

            Aurora stayed distracted during their wait, as usual. This time, though, her distraction came from her phone, which she couldn’t seem to stop checking after giving Eight her latest response. She had answered her friend’s question with, “Idk either,” typed rather lazily, and she was hoping to see some reassurance come from her in return. Unfortunately, it never did. Even when Eight finally appeared across the street with her E-Liter and approached her and the girls on the crosswalk, she said nothing about their conversation. Aurora saw something in Eight that she couldn’t describe, and she still wanted to connect with her a bit to find out more about that something, so her introversion over the phone was rather disappointing. As Eight met up with the group and reciprocated their greeting with another kind wave, Aurora pocketed her phone again and remained quiet.

            With the whole team now together, the time had come for the girls to make their way to Inkopolis Square, where the inkling boys would be waiting. They were already standing right next to the metro station, where they had gotten off last evening on their way home, but they did not plan on making their trip back in the same manner. Instead, they opted to save oodles of time by utilizing the square’s landing point and super-jumping there as a group. That’s what most denizens of the city did, after all. If one looked up at the sky on any given morning or afternoon, the most prominent thing in their sight was usually the dozens of squids and octos that were regularly jumping around the city on daily errands.

            Thanks to that very convenience, Aurora and her friends arrived at the square less than half a minute after meeting with Eight. Even Ophelia, who was lugging her oversized Hydra Splatling with her, stuck the landing perfectly. They were there with the specific intent to initiate a battle through the battle tower, knowing that such an intent would grant them the exception they needed to traverse the famous hotspot with their weapons visible.

            The girls surveyed the square and took in the sights around them as they dispersed from the landing marker and began walking towards said battle tower. The streets in the area were still quite crowded, which was understandable. After all, the Splatfest had just been announced yesterday, and it wasn’t like every inkling and octoling in the city had had the time to come vote simultaneously. Aurora and the others gawked at the Splatfest kiosk, which, amazingly, still had a line stretching about fifty feet in the direction of the shoe shop. It seemed like the voting was going to continue like that, on tap, until the moment of the big night. They just hoped there would be enough t-shirts for everybody.

            Aurora fixed her gaze forward as the battle tower loomed before them. She felt like that structure represented the collective sum of all her upcoming tribulations, considering its reputation as the central hub of all ink-splatting skirmishes. Her feeling was further cemented, in fact, by the shocking sight of the inkling boys standing under it already, in the shade of its awning, with their weapons poised. A nervous tingle erupted down her back and exploded into a body-wide maelstrom of anxious tension when she spotted Midas among them. He didn’t have his phone with him this time, and as she approached the tower with her friends, he appeared to be staring at her.

            “Well, well, the octos actually decided to show up. I’m impressed.” The Splatling guy greeted as the girls joined them under the awning. He stood leaning against his Splatling with a look in his eye that truly exemplified his cockiness.

            Bella scoffed. “Duh! What the hell made you clowns think we were going to back down from you? The intimidating snare of your splash walls?”

            “Nah, I just didn’t think you had the courage. If it weren’t for your four-eyed friend over there hitting us up after you disappeared yesterday, you wouldn’t even be standing here right now.” He jeered.

            Aurora self-consciously pushed her glasses closer to her face. She hated the kind of attention they sometimes earned her, especially while Midas seemed to be aware of her as his admirer. Fashion was an integral part of inkling culture, as the girls had learned shortly after immigrating, and glasses like hers didn’t exactly fit the description of “fresh.” Her gaze trailed away from Midas and the Splatling guy and fell onto the ground as she attempted to deflect the eyes that she felt settling on her. Though she’d normally try to strut her stuff in the presence of her inkling crush, her crush’s snarky friends had a way of keeping her from feeling like her sexiest self.

            As she retreated away, Ophelia claimed the spotlight by addressing the boys. “Look, none of that matters. The point now is that we’re here, and we’re hoping to finally put this carp behind us today. Does that sound good to everyone?”

            The Splatling guy smirked. “I mean…I thought it was already behind us yesterday, but sure. We’re at least gonna get more warm-up for the Splatfest off you octos today, so thank you for that.”

            The Dynamo Roller then spoke up from behind his friend. He glared at the girls with an unreadable expression, thanks to the skull bandana that covered his mouth. “And when we win, we expect you to hold up your end of the agreement. Wherever we decide to hang out during the Splatfest, you are not to.”

            No one on Aurora’s team reacted to the spiteful inkling’s decree except Bella, who rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard your edgy garbage before. When we win, we expect you to take back the shit you said about us yesterday and respect us like actual cephalopods. How does that sound?”

            Just then, literally everyone on the Splatling guy’s team, including Midas, looked directly at Aurora. If she wasn’t sure that the entire party’s eyes had been on her just a moment ago, she certainly was now. Their undiscernible glares punctured through every layer of resolve she had within herself and reduced her to an apprehensive wreck, resulting in her composure falling completely apart. Her knees buckled, and she began frantically stroking one of her curly, suction-cupped locks of hair.

            “Sure…among other things.” The Splatling guy declared calmly, keeping perfect eye contact with the quivering octo. Only Eight seemed to notice what was going on.

            Next, the only remaining thing to be done before the two teams could super-jump to the venue was decide what venue they were actually going to be fighting on. Both sides already knew that they were going to be fighting a splat zone battle, and they also knew what their venue options were. Additionally, it was assumed that both sides had already premeditated on their selections, removing the need to discuss them under the tower awning. Aurora was aware that her team had not been able to settle on a venue together, so she found the upcoming resolution to be the most nerve-wracking part of the whole exchange.

            Last time, Aurora and her friends were forced to give in to the inkling boys’ preferred venue, which had been Snapper Canal, by the simple fact that they were desperate for someone to play against. The boys had leveraged the fact that the girls were more interested in playing than they were in a specific venue, so they had essentially refused to fight unless the venue was of their choice. This time, the girls were stuck in a similar position, but, unlike last time, their trap was the fact that they did not collectively share a venue preference at all. Therefore, just as the Splatling guy began fishing around in his pocket for a coin with which to do the coin-toss, Ophelia spoke up to stop him.

            “Wait. There’s…no point in doing that.” She mentioned gloomily. “We’re…undecided.”

            Grins quickly formed on all the inkling boys’ faces, except Midas’s. The Splatling guy retracted his hand from his pocket and returned it to his hip, delighted by the unexpected outcome. He snickered.

            “Alright, awesome. In that case, we’re taking you octos to Blackbelly Skatepark. We decided this morning that we didn’t feel like dealing with your back-line shit on Moray Towers, and we also thought it would be fitting to humiliate you in front of a larger crowd. Makes it more dramatic.”

            Aurora saw herself performing better on Blackbelly Skatepark, but the tradeoff was in that very point that the Splatling guy just made. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to ignore the sheer volume of spectators that would likely be watching her battle. She understood the importance of channeling her focus while she fought, however difficult it would be, even when her audience didn’t seem to be in her favor. She glanced at her friends to see what their reactions were, expecting them to be mixed, though…she instead observed a levelheaded acknowledgement from each of them. Once again, Bella looked the most confident out of the four of them.

            “Whatever you say. If it’s BS you want, it’s BS you’re gonna get!” Bella retorted, feeling rather clever from her pun. She removed her dualies from her hips and started twirling them in front of the boys. “Are we just gonna stand around now? Maybe ask each other out to the Splatfest? Or are we gonna get you guys’ defeat out of the way?”

            The inklings promptly hoisted their weapons into their grip to signal their readiness, which Aurora and her other friends did as well. Then, they watched the Splatling guy and his lackeys step to the side a bit, clearing a path to the tower’s interior, where they would be super-jumping to the venue. He gestured regally with one of his hands, encouraging the girls to do the honors. In doing so, his gaze returned to Aurora.

            “Ladies first.”

            Another chill blitzed down the perturbed octo’s back as she fell under the inklings’ scrutiny once again, completely under the noses of Bella and Ophelia. Meanwhile, her friends took the Splatling guy’s invitation at face value and began marching towards the tower’s sliding doors, leaving Aurora behind them to pass by the malicious group at the peak of their intimidation. She began walking after them without hesitation, though the pressure she felt standing so close to Midas and his hostile friends translated into a physical feeling of weight that prevented her from moving at more than a snail’s pace. She held her Kensa Splattershot close to her chest as if it were her only guardian against their unforgiving glares.

            Despite her fear, however, Aurora still managed to snag a glimpse at Midas while she was passing in front of him. As she expected, he was already looking straight back at her, and as their eyes met, they studied each other viciously. His glossy, blue eyes and well-groomed hair appendage worked absolute witchcraft on her pheromones, forcing another breakdown of her resolve beneath the resilient impression she was trying to maintain. However, she continued to power through her overloaded psyche, even going as far as to use her state of mind to her advantage. She craned her head to the side as she passed to extend their exposure to each other, and, when she was sure she still had his attention, she gave him a provocative wink. Additionally, she began swaying her hips more with each step, hoping to present to him the aspects of her physique that she thought were most enticing. After being forced into a retractive position by having her glasses insulted, Aurora wanted to regain control of her situation by eliciting a lustful response from Midas. The more he checked her out, the more validated she felt.

            Unfortunately, that was all yanked out from under her rather quickly when the Splatling guy discreetly stuck out his heel, tripping her in the midst of her flirtatious flair. She gave a small cry as she stumbled forward and threw her arms out in front of her, causing her to drop her Splattershot and falter to her knees. The inklings, now standing directly over her, proceeded to laugh heartily at her expense. Aurora’s friends turned when they heard the sound, stopping just short of the jump platform on the other side of the door.

            The Splatling guy had a special sort of underhanded kick to his laughter that made it sound more directed at her. On top of that, the remarks he made were just atrocious.

            “Damn, octo, if you wanted to please him that badly, maybe you should just stay on your knees like this. I think it suits you better.”

            His statement was punctuated with more supporting laughter from his friends. Even Midas cracked a small grin, which Aurora noticed when she glimpsed up at her oppressors and adjusted her crooked glasses. She hated having to look up at the inklings like this. The humiliation it made her feel was practically insurmountable.

            Luckily for her, Bella was nearby, and she wasn’t going to stand for it. After hearing the events unfold and turning to see her friend on the ground, she took a few steps in the inklings’ direction.

            “Did you seriously just trip our friend? You’re really going to descend to cheap-shots like that?” She scolded.

            The Splatling guy stood his ground. He kept his disinterested stance. “You call it a cheap-shot. Little Four-Eyes here just needed another reminder of where she belongs. Caught her trying to whore over our Squiffer behind your backs.”

            “Oh, get over yourselves. It pains me to think about how lonely you kids must be to call it ‘whoring’ whenever a girl so much as looks at you. Aurora wouldn’t hurt a fly, and it’s sad that you think you can just push her around like that because of it.” Bella rebutted strongly. She did not break eye contact with the boys, nor did she even blink.

            “What are you going to do about it?” He sneered.

            “Step through that fucking door, and you’ll find out.” She declared coldly, pointing in the direction of the sliding door as she did so. Both groups recognized her response from the similar one given by the Splatling guy the day before, in the line for the Splatfest kiosk. “Go ahead, kiddos.”

            The manner in which her dualie-wielding friend steadfastly prolonged against the inkling boys in her defense had a way of propping up Aurora’s spirits where they were otherwise collapsing into tears. She had suffered a lot of abuse the last twenty-four hours, whether at the tentacles of the inkling boys, or…in her own head. Her chance to pick herself up off the ground and grab her Splattershot while Bella faced the adversaries on her behalf was more imperative than she could ever communicate to her. It granted her the confidence to stand by her friends and face Midas again after the blow that had essentially sealed off the remainder of her self-esteem.

            Likewise, the Splatling guy irritably lifted his weapon into its primed position after being told off by Bella with his own words, and he motioned for his friends to begin following him to the sliding doors. Meanwhile, Bella and the rest of the octo girls stood adamantly in place, waiting for them to make their departure before doing so themselves. As the boys passed, each member of their team locked eyes fiercely with a respective member of Aurora’s team. It was the last show of rivalry that would occur between the bickering sides before the battle that would determine everything. They all understood the gravity of the upcoming rematch, and their motivations to win were ever strong, even if they were for different reasons. Only as Midas’s eyes once again met with Aurora’s did she finally realize, in full clarity, how intense this battle was about to be.

            The Splatling guy turned to them when the last of his team stepped onto the jump platform.

            “I’m going to make you eat those words.”

            The four of them then morphed into squids, and before the girls knew it, they were off. Bella led her friends onto the platform shortly after their disappearance, neglecting to say anything until the seconds leading up to their own exit. A very solemn mood dwelled over the group as they prepared to launch themselves into the most consequential battle of their citizenship thus far.

            “He must be scared of me.” She huffed. “He didn’t even give me a chance to respond.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Blackbelly Skatepark never failed to attract some of the youngest, freshest sets of tentacles in the city. Inklings and octolings of all backgrounds flocked to the halfpipes of the booming hangout whenever the sun was present in the sky, sometimes remaining there even after the streetlights came on at night. Compared to the sprawling high-rise environment of Moray Towers, it was a land of ever-burning, excitable youth, and it was currently prepped for a splat zone skirmish that would rock the park visitors’ afternoons.

            As with all the venues, the battle arena was barred from entry on all sides while battles were being hosted, preventing the patrons of the park from disrupting the events. The only way to access the arena was to super-jump from the tower in the square, which is how Aurora, her friends, and the inkling boys had made it to their spawn platforms. Aurora had gotten a brief look at the arena from the sky a split second before landing forcefully in the fuchsia ink pool that filled her team’s spawn platform. Her and her friends’ hair was instantly dyed the same color as soon as they touched down in the stuff, solidifying, visually, their opposition to the sky-blue color of the inkling boys’ ink.

            Sitting against the guard rail behind the girls’ spawn platform was a set of four ink-tanks, each filled to capacity with the corresponding, pinkish ink with which they would be fighting. Their weapons were already equipped with the means to store ink, but everyone in the city who had ever participated in an ink-splatting battle knew that victory was dependent on the harness-mounted ink-tanks’ ability to refill while submerged in the battlefield. The girls wasted no time in fastening the devices to each other’s backs as soon as they arrived at the arena, assuming the boys to be doing the same thing over on the other spawn platform.

            The first thing Aurora noticed in the ticking moments before their battle was…exactly what she had feared. All around the arena, in the unrestricted regions of the skatepark surrounding the guard rails, were swathes of cheering onlookers. Inklings, octolings, jellyfish, urchins…it was an absolute freakshow. Judd was probably hanging out somewhere within the crowd as well, though he obviously wasn’t visible from their position. Never, in all the battles she had fought, had Aurora seen such an audience. She figured the packs of viewers had to be a result of the Splatfest announcement. It seemed to have the effect of livening up the entire city in ways she couldn’t fathom, considering her and her friends’ humble upbringing in the pits. The poor octo could recall her most dreadful experiences of harassment after losing in front of big audiences, so the presence of such an overwhelming quantity of spectators opened a hollow pit in her stomach.

            “Alright, girls, here we go.” Bella rallied, gesturing her friends together with the dualies in her two hands. “We’ve been here before, so we know how this goes. That tower in the center is our number one priority. Protecting it should be just as important as protecting the zones. Eight, do you think you could start us off by keeping your laser on that so ‘Lia can sneak on top of it?”

            Eight showed absolutely no sign of interest in anything that was happening, but regardless, she answered Bella in her classic, minimalist manner.

            “I can.”

            Bella nodded. “Cool. In that case…here’s our game plan, y’all. Eight’s gonna hold the tower from the ground long enough for ‘Lia to stake her claim up there with the Hydra, while Aurora and I rush the middle and split up. I’ll take the zone on their side, since I’m expecting them to cover it with the Splatling and the Squiffer, and I can dodge that shit fairly easily. Aurora, you take the zone closer to us, with ‘Lia and Eight as your backup pairs of eyes. Once we have a foothold on the tower, Eight can push up there after ‘Lia, and we’ll have the two of them cover us from above while we defend the zones from the ground. How does that sound to everyone?”

            “Sounds horrible.” Ophelia joked. “I’m totally down.”

            “Aurora, what about you?”

            Aurora stopped nervously adjusting her ink-tank after realizing that she had been doing so rather compulsively. She mustered up the courage to stop shivering in place and nodded her head once. “…Okay.”

            She and her friends got no more than a few seconds after Bella’s explanation before the crowds enveloping the arena began to count down with loud voices. The sound of it caught Aurora off guard, prompting another dizzying wave of nervous energy to careen through her body. Her friends, on the other hand, responded to it by shifting into their prepared, starting stances. It was game time. The splat zones, the crowds, and most importantly, the inkling boys, were waiting. In the next five, short minutes…she’d be able to score Midas. She and her friends just had to play their cards right.

            The audience projected their synchronous countdown euphorically, getting louder with each decreasing number. “…five…four…three…two…one…SPLAT!”

            Immediately, Aurora and Bella opened fire with their weapons, covering the ground in front of the spawn platform with shiny, magenta ink. Ophelia and Eight could not fire their weapons without first building up a charge, so to save time, they withheld from their triggers until they could get a little closer to the center of the arena. Instead, they morphed right into their octo forms the instant the battle began, and they proceeded to move forward through their teammates’ ink paths. Aurora and Bella were both quick to go octo as well, sliding in and out of the puddles in rapid alternation in order to quickly move to the edge of their turf and continue claiming more. Such was their classic rollout procedure, designed to carry them toward the objectives as quickly and efficiently as possible. The focus that filled their minds as soon as their fingers hit their triggers ultimately prevented them from hearing the overpowering roar of cheering from the observing crowds.

            A small ledge of grating, a mere few feet off the ground, existed just left of what was considered the “main” area of the arena, overlooking the zone that sat by the girls’ side of the tower. Eight pursued this ledge as soon as she was within shooting distance of it, climbing the resulting ink splat on the wall in order to position herself. The spot gave her a decent overview of the entire valley in which Aurora would be defending, while also providing her with an adequate angle to snipe perpetrators on top of the tower. In accordance with Bella’s plan, she chose to do the latter first.

            Meanwhile, Ophelia opted to cover the resulting weak spot over Aurora’s jurisdiction from behind a small panel of cover that jutted out from the edge of the drop-off, near the stairway that descended into the valley on the inkling boys’ side. She did so with the intent of quickly repositioning to the tower the moment she got the all-clear from Eight. She patiently generated a charge with the Hydra Splatling and aimed its spinning barrel down-sights along Aurora’s lane, waiting just long enough for Aurora to swim past her toward the zone before releasing the charge in a spectacular barrage of long-range ink shots that coated the entire valley in thick sheets of turf for her friend to use. Combined with Aurora’s firepower down in the valley itself, their splat zone was fully claimed within seconds’ time.

            Finally, once Bella passed the drop-off into mid next to Aurora, she split off to the left in pursuit of the boys’ zone, exactly as she had described before the battle. She focused on covering as much turf as possible, aiming each of her dualies in random, haphazard directions with the hopes of quickly obtaining her special Ink Jet. Out of the four of them, she knew her job was going to be the most difficult. As such, she remained on high alert the entire time, checking every corner around her as she rounded the tower to make sure there were no looming signs of blue ink in her vicinity.

            And those signs certainly didn’t take long to appear. The boys arrived at the drop-off on their side of the tower a little later than Aurora’s team, thanks to their bulky weapons slowing their swim speed considerably. When they did arrive, however, they announced their presence with displays of powerful, aggressive might. Bella was only just beginning to cover the edge of their splat zone with the first few droplets of ink when the Dynamo Roller emerged from a stream of turf along the edge of their drop-off, reeling his massive, destructive weapon backwards for a strike that would not take prisoners. Bella, after eliciting a surprised gasp, retreated backwards through her turf in time to avoid a blanket of blue ink that propelled across the entire lane with the Roller’s flick. She planned to maneuver her way back and fight valiantly for the zone, but when the .96 Gal appeared on top of their ledge of grating to dispense supporting fire upon their valley, she was forced to keep her distance and resort to tossing curling bombs for deterrence. The boys’ zone was claimed by the Roller’s greedy ink globs without so much as a hint of resistance from Bella.

            At the same time, Aurora started receiving some pressure from the Splatling guy over on her side. His arrival in the valley on the girls’ side of the tower came at quite the opportune moment, freshly after she had used her Splattershot ink to cap the zone. The first thing she saw was a splash wall over by the ramp leading to the top of the tower, which immediately alerted her of his incoming attack. Ophelia noticed it too, luckily, and by the time he emerged behind it to begin flinging ink in Aurora’s direction, both she and her timid companion were ready to retaliate with overwhelming force. Aurora cracked into his wall considerably with a quick suction bomb, taking a second to refill her tank in the ink a second thereafter, while Ophelia ripped the petty barrier to shreds from her spot on the drop-off using the titanic range and ferocity of her Hydra shots. She was able to overtake the Splatling guy’s position without having to move herself, thanks to the glaring superiority of her Splatling’s range over his. The Splatling guy retreated rapidly before his splash wall could be destroyed, knowing that he had picked the wrong battle.

            However, he didn’t seem to be content with cutting his losses so easily. Instead of swimming back within the safe embrace of his teammates’ lineup, he slithered around the tower to a spot he had already inked, and he climbed up the side of the mighty cylinder to shoot down at Aurora and Ophelia from a better angle. It was an unusually aggressive move for him, and as he flopped forward at the apex of his climb, he became the first combatant in the arena to claim the tower for his team.

            Eight spotted him against the sky like a sore thumb, though, and within a second of his arrival there, she dispatched him instantly. The sound of her E-Liter atop the grating thundered across Aurora’s lane as the compressed ink shot it released nailed the Splatling guy perfectly. He went down in spectacular fashion, showering both the top of the tower and the adjacent ramps in sheets of magenta ink. The crowd reacted excitedly to the opening splat, though it wasn’t yet clear whether their uproarious feedback was positive or negative.

            “It is clear.” She declared to Ophelia. “Climb it now.”

            “Cool, just keep me covered!” Ophelia replied from behind her friend. She promptly submerged in the ink and swam the short distance to the tower, using the trail left by the E-Liter to ascend to its peak. In the meantime, Eight kept her crosshair where it had been, prepared to shoot down any inklings that got the same idea.

            The shaded octo was greeted with a sprawling pool of Eight’s turf at the top of the tower, thanks to the splat that had just occurred there. It didn’t seem to her like anyone was going to try following in the Splatling guy’s footsteps, so when she emerged from the ink in the most focal location of the arena, she immediately got to work. She first got the barrel of her Hydra Splatling spinning in the few seconds it took her to walk to the tower’s opposite ledge. Then, when she got close enough to peer down upon the boys’ lane and spot Bella fighting a losing battle, she released the trigger and discharged a catastrophic rain of ink at the .96 Gal and the Dynamo Roller, who were both too slow to notice the attack against them. The .96 Gal barely had time to toss a sprinkler up at her before succumbing to her barrage, but aside from that, neither of them were able to put up a fight. The sprinkler was easily destroyed with a few stray shots, and just like that, the girls had control of both lanes. More intense reactions came from the crowd as Bella cleaned up the mess and took the second zone, giving full map control to the octo girls. Their score began increasing rapidly, with a KO victory waiting for them if they could hold the zones, uninterrupted, for sixty seconds.

            “Good shit, ‘Lia!” Bella called up to her from below. “You really saved me from that pinch!”

            Ophelia smiled, satisfied with her and Eight’s collaboration. “All in a day’s work! Now, Eight, come join me up here before those guys come back. We can cook these clowns in less than a minute if we stay vigilant. Has anyone seen their Squiffer yet?”

            Bella and Eight both admitted to the contrary, as did Aurora. While Aurora hadn’t yet seen Midas since starting the battle, her thoughts never deviated from him. Every moment that passed, she stayed constantly on edge, expecting his smoking hot figure to emerge from any splotch of blue ink that entered her sight. She heavily doubted her ability to fight against him if he were to appear, for reasons reminiscent of her last such experience at Snapper Canal. His mere presence was tough enough on her mind and body while resting, but in battle, he was her kryptonite.

            She absently continued to cover more turf in her lane as she pondered this, building gradually towards her Tenta Missiles while there weren’t any enemies to oppose her. Then, as she was beginning to reach the end of the side lane back to her spawn, it happened. By pure coincidence, considering what had been on her mind, she noticed a blue laser closing onto her chest from an unknown direction. Her thoughts shattered, and her panic response took over.

            “Girls, girls! I found him, I think he’s over—”

            It happened while Eight was climbing the tower to meet with Ophelia. By the time any of them could turn and address her call, however, she had already fallen mercy to him again. She emitted a weak exclamation when the shot hit her, and the splash of blue ink that resulted from her demise caked the surrounding surfaces, including part of the ramp leading to the top of the tower. One by one, the inkling boys were respawning at their platform and preparing to super-jump to their stealthy Squiffer, and meanwhile, the girls were now one defender short. Ophelia and Eight frantically scanned Aurora’s lane in search of the missing assailant, knowing that the entire group of boys was going to be spilling from his location at any moment. They needed to buy some time.

            The only one in the arena who had inked enough turf to earn their first special weapon was Bella. Bella’s special was an Ink Jet, a devastating combination of back-mounted jetpack and oversized bazooka. It was her favorite feature of the Enperry Dualies. Her aim with it was impeccable, and every time it coughed out its last drop and sent her flying into the air before landing back in the ink, she felt an adrenaline rush that was nothing short of addicting. No weapon was worth using to her if it didn’t come with an Ink Jet.

            Once she realized that Aurora had been splatted on the other side of the tower, she inked her way up its side and deployed the Jet at the highest elevation she could achieve, ensuring that her field of vision encompassed half the arena before exposing herself. Her transition from ground to sky was met with more applause from the audience, but it wasn’t until the violent exchange afterward that their reactions reached their peak intensity.

            First, Bella strafed towards the ramp on the right, where Aurora’s slip-up had been, as soon as she noticed an expanse of blue ink growing around the corner. The inkling boys were obviously returning from that location, having jumped to their one surviving teammate, and she was determined to stop their resurgence before they could retake the zones. Midas, Aurora’s two-time assassin, was at the front of his team’s new attacking point. They noticed each other at the same time.

            “Come here, you sneaky bastard! Have a taste of what this feels like!” Bella exclaimed through her wicked smile. She fired off her first ink blast, which rocketed through the air and exploded right where Midas was standing.

            Midas was quick with his squid form, though, and he dodged the blast effortlessly by slithering to the side and emerging just out of Bella’s sight, behind the cover that was nearby. Bella quickly fired off another blast, and then another, all while hovering a strategic path towards their safe spot. She did not plan to yield until she saw the detonation of at least one inkling. After all, even just one splat would even the tides until Aurora’s return.

            Suddenly, however, Bella was caught off guard when Midas leapt back out at her from around the corner with a charge stored in his Squiffer. He had built it up in the brief moment he was behind cover, and with its crippling delay now mitigated, he flicked his aim up at her from below and released the trigger, ending her ambitious push prematurely. Blue ink rained down upon the halfpipe after her jetpack thudded onto the ground. With her out of the way, he and the rest of his hidden team began rapidly swimming forward to close the point gap that had been opened in the girls’ favor.

            Ophelia and Eight saw the direness of their situation. At first, they considered super-jumping back to their spawn platform to preserve themselves over allowing their deaths to contribute to the boys’ territory, but their minds changed when Eight gained a tactical triumph over Midas. The agile Squiffer’s only mistake was his decision to lead his team’s push back out to the zones…for when Eight saw his ripples in the ink, she reacted almost robotically with her aim. From atop the tower, at too far a distance for Midas to challenge her, she fired off another colossal shot from the E-Liter and pinned him while he was still swimming through his turf, turning his small, blueish figure into a giant stain of pink ink. It was a shot of justice on her part, after his guileful antics had resulted in the splatting of half her team. His swift elimination was enough to keep the two of them fighting with renewed confidence, even while their odds at defending the zones were stacked well against their favor.

            Meanwhile, Aurora had respawned by then, and the desperation that was slowly building within her compelled her to super-jump to her friends on top of the tower for a faster resurgence. A marker appeared next to Ophelia and Eight as she morphed into her octo form, indicating the spot at which she would be landing. The defenders upped the ante when they saw it, knowing that her survival would depend on their support until she could regain her bearings and begin shooting. They continued to ink as much as they could off the sides of the tower, hoping to restrict the boys’ movement while their influence on the center of the arena began to spread out.

            Ophelia tried to throw an auto bomb at a blue ink splotch that seemed to be coming from the .96 Gal, but she was stopped by the lack of ink in her tank. She instinctively submerged in the ink to refill as soon as she noticed, leaving Eight to weather their containment breach for just a few brief moments. Unfortunately, those few moments were undercut by a ruthless ambush by none other than…the Splatling guy. Unbeknownst to the girls trying tirelessly to defend the zones from the edges of the tower, the Splatling guy had snuck around to the girls’ side of the structure after Midas’s slip-up, inked over their pink trail with a blue one of his own, and scaled the surface behind them without being detected. They didn’t last another second after he reached the top, once he got his barrel spinning again, and Aurora was immediately forced to suffer the same fate as soon as she landed next to him on the tower. She didn’t even have the time to chuck a suction bomb at her feet before his onslaught of firepower tore through her, leaving only him atop the blue-coated tower, laughing arrogantly at his triple-splat.

            “A Hydra Splatling on top of a charger perch? And you losers said we were the ones with the lack of balls!” He scoffed.

            The inklings capped both zones very shortly after that, halting the octo girls’ score at fifty-seven points remaining. It was not a bad opening streak, by any means, but getting kicked off the zones never came with a satisfying feeling. They now had to push their way back into control, and they had to do it completely from scratch…a task often seen as the most difficult of any splat zone battle. In the end, none of them had survived the inkling boys’ first resurgence. And that was about to come with a price.

            Bella had already respawned since the massacre. While waiting for her friends to appear back at the spawn platform, she made use of her time by scouting the territory nearby, inking everything in sight to build her way towards another Ink Jet. She knew she wouldn’t stand a chance pushing against them alone, and the rest of her team wouldn’t stand a chance without at least one special weapon to boost their upcoming attempt. The girls had spread a lot of pink throughout the arena during their control, so it was likely that the boys were going to have some specials of their own waiting for them when they returned.

            It only took a couple seconds. Before she knew it, a pair of wispy, pink essences floated down into the respawn platform behind her, and like magic, Ophelia and Eight emerged from the ink therein like nothing had happened. A third essence scurried through the air right after them, merging in the ink next to them and forming into Aurora, who looked a little…frazzled, to say the least. The group was back together again, after the tides had turned against them.

            That was, at least, until Aurora decided to sink into the ink and take off towards the zones without waiting to touch base with the others.

            “Wait, Aurora, hold up!” Bella shouted at her. “Don’t leave us behind again!”

            “There’s no time! They’re going to take the lead!” Aurora cried back. She staunchly kept swimming after giving that answer, leaving her friends in the dust.

            Eight was the first to start swimming after her, and once she did, Bella and Ophelia were not far behind. If one of them was going to throw themselves into the mosh pit, they all had to, or they were never going to make any progress. They were somewhat confused by their friend’s sudden need to throw herself recklessly at the enemies, though…when they thought about it…that did seem to be what Aurora did best. Clearly, something must’ve been motivating her. Perhaps she just really wanted to reclaim her honor, they figured.

            The center of the arena was crisply visible to them as they approached in a single-file line, with Aurora leading the charge. Even from a distance, the state of the arena was no mystery to them. The boys had converged upon the hotspot of the battlefield, holding various positions among the sea of blue ink that was now covering everything. The Splatling guy was the one holding the tower, and even as the girls were still getting there, he could be seen distributing gallons of ink around the arena from the height advantage he enjoyed.

            Aurora’s victory was in jeopardy as long as the boys were in control, and she felt irrepressibly obsessed with turning that fact around. All chances of her performing with a strategic mindset were gone already, despite them only losing control to the boys a single time. As she slithered rapidly towards the lane she had previously been watching, she prepared to blitzkrieg her way through the blue turf…and her opponents…with all the blind, emotional strength she could muster. Her friends tried to keep up with her, but they simply couldn’t match her determination when her engines got running. And now, after twice getting pushed away from her prize, they were certainly running hard.

            Just as the girls reached the ledge from which they’d be mounting their resurgence, an unknown projectile came flying at them from somewhere to their left. It landed right next to Ophelia, causing her to reflexively flinch sideways in the ink. Instead of exploding on her, however, the object instantly enveloped the girls in a mysterious, blue aura, revealing their locations to the inkling boys through all surfaces. It was a point sensor, and judging from their lack of certainty about where it came from, they assumed it belonged to Midas. Already, they seemed to be plagued with a serious disadvantage.

            “Shit…should we retreat?” Ophelia asked skittishly upon emerging from their ink. With all four of them now stripped of their ability to hide from the opponents, she did not find an immediate push to be worth the effort.

            “No! We have to get them off the zones!” Aurora hollered in reply, surprising her friends with her sudden defiance. She hurled a suction bomb in the direction of the closest zone, without aiming first, and took off in a frenzy towards the hostile turf.

            Bella swam forward a couple feet and attempted to grab her friend, but she did not react quickly enough. “Aurora, slow down! This isn’t like rainmaker! You can’t cap the zones by yourself!”

            Her desperate warning was met with a cold shoulder. Therefore, she and the others had no choice but to watch hopelessly as Aurora’s crazed maneuver took a predictable turn. Their friend dropped into the valley from the ledge around the same time her suction bomb exploded, and she began wildly shooting everything around her in a vain attempt to cap the zone and reveal opponents that may have been hiding in it. The aura from the point sensor was still showing off her location, though, and the inkling defenders knew how to take advantage of that with unforgiving efficiency. The .96 Gal emerged from a pool of his ink on the other side of the lane and began shooting at her from a distance, causing puddles of restrictive turf to land by her feet. She tried to defend herself by shooting him back, but the range of her Splattershot was pitifully outclassed by that of his weapon, ensuring that none of her shots landed anywhere near his location. While she was doing that, the Splatling guy stepped up to the edge of the tower overlooking her position and proceeded to fire down at her himself. Before long, with her movement choked by the overpowering amounts of blue ink around her, Aurora fell victim to the coordinated defense without drawing a sweat from her opponents. Her own body became the bomb that ultimately painted the zone blue again, as it had been just seconds prior.

            Bella closed her eyes and shook her head, disappointed with Aurora’s latest failed display of showmanship. Whatever was motivating her recklessness this time, it was going to be her and her friends’ undoing. Someone needed to talk to her about that at some point.

            First, though, they had to deal with the situation her foolishness had given them. The girls’ positions were still being broadcast from the point sensor, and they were now missing Aurora again. Their only option was to retreat and wait for her to respawn. However, the inkling boys were not going to let them escape that easily. Right as they were beginning to turn around, the Dynamo Roller deployed his sinister Sting Ray, a pressurized beam with the ability to fire through solid surfaces, from somewhere else in the arena. The sound of the Ray produced an immediate survival response from Aurora’s friends, which was to scatter in three different directions and swim as evasively as possible.

            Escaping would’ve been a manageable task under normal circumstances, but the girls were not, in fact, under normal circumstances. The point sensor aura still clinging to their bodies gave the Dynamo Roller a perfect visual of their locations from the other side of the arena, ensuring that their scrambled attempts at avoidance were utterly useless. Ophelia’s swim speed was limited by her heavy weapon, so when the beam converged on her first, it eviscerated her within seconds. It then started to sweep to the side and focus on Eight, who struggled against the deadly vector for a bit longer than Ophelia. Regardless of her efforts, however, her E-Liter made her too slow as well, and she succumbed to the relentless force of the Ray’s penetrative ink blast. Bella was next, but her lightweight prowess and chaotic patterns of movement were enough to evade the torrential beam until it shrank and dissipated. Immediately thereafter, the aura around her also vanished.

            The damage done to the girls’ progress was becoming extensive. While the boys had managed to retake the arena and cap the zones after just one resurgence attempt, Aurora and her friends had failed in theirs…after taking too much time to initiate it in the first place. Therefore, around the same time Aurora, Eight, and Ophelia respawned to join Bella for another try, the boys’ score surpassed their own, making them the new leaders. The octos’ chances of victory were dependent on how rapid and decisive their next move would be.

            Aurora was focused on rapidity, at least, but her mindless pushes were not exactly decisive. The second she appeared back on the respawn platform, she sunk into the ink and darted forward again, her mind locked on taking the objectives without any sort of planning. No matter how many times they would splat her, she was going to continue getting back up and rushing at them until the moment the buzzer sounded.

            The thing was…Bella was anticipating her this time. When Aurora breezed in front of her during her frantic journey back to the zones, she stowed her dualies, bent over quickly, and snatched her bespectacled friend by her motor tentacles, gripping firmly onto them with each hand to prevent her from swimming any farther. Aurora was startled by the sudden whiplash, and she began resisting by wriggling feverishly in her friend’s grasp. Despite her efforts, though, Bella managed to pull her right out of the ink and hold her in the air at arm’s length, letting her dangle upside down by her appendages. Aurora didn’t like being seen in her octo form, so when she glanced up and saw Bella holding her prisoner, she writhed even harder.

            “No use trying to break free, Aurora. This isn’t the first time I’ve held someone like this.” Bella said sternly. “You need to stop rushing past us and let us fight this battle together. We won’t stand a chance if you keep trying to do it all yourself. Understand?” She waited a moment for her friend to answer, but then she remembered that Aurora couldn’t respond while she was in her octo form. So, she improvised. “Flop towards me if you understand.”

            Aurora did not flop in any direction, but rather, she expressed her opinion a little more bluntly. When Bella seemed to have her guard down, she swung herself the other way so that her appendages were directed at her face. She then produced a sharp contraction and ejected a spurt of ink into Bella’s eyes, causing her to flinch backwards and pinch her eyes shut.

            “Ack, son of a bitch!” She exclaimed as she brought her hands to her face, dropping Aurora in the process. As soon as Aurora was submerged back in her turf, she resumed swimming towards the zones.

            A moment later, Eight and Ophelia swam up to Bella from the respawn platform. Ophelia looked confused, having only partially seen the event unfold.

            “What just happened? Did Aurora take off without us again?” She asked.

            “Fuck yeah, she did!” Bella replied irritably. She reoriented herself after finally getting the slimy fluid out of her eyes. “She won’t fight normally! I don’t know what’s gotten into her!”

            Eight spoke up suddenly, giving a reply that neither of them saw coming. “I will join her.”

            “You’ll what?” Bella retorted. She watched with skepticism as Eight submerged and departed hastily for the zones, stopping only briefly to answer her friend from a distance away.

            “We must join her! It is the only way!” Eight reiterated, using a voice that was only slightly above her usual quiet tone. Bella and Ophelia barely heard her, but upon seeing the second of their friends scurry off towards the enemies, they reluctantly followed suit.

            They pretty much only had time for that final push, anyway. If they failed again, the boys were almost certainly going to KO them.

            On that note, Aurora reached the ledge within a couple seconds, with Eight slithering close behind her. Her plan, or lack thereof, rather, was to dissuade the Splatling guy atop the tower from shooting down at her by tossing her suction bomb upwards, hoping it would land next to him and force him to jump off the edge. Unfortunately, her execution was once again sloppy, resulting in her explosive projectile landing near the far edge of the tower instead of the center. She then dropped into the valley to try capping the zone as before. By landing her suction bomb inaccurately, though, she unwittingly drove the Splatling guy towards the edge overlooking her side. Before she could finish clearing out the blue ink in her lane, he aimed over the side and began spinning up his barrel again.

            Luckily, Eight was watching. She had approached the ledge with her attention fixed on the tower’s summit, expecting the Splatling guy to peek from there when Aurora got close. When she saw her prediction come true, she emerged at her current location and built a charge up against the side of his head, releasing it just in time for his weapon to begin shooting. Aurora heard the sound of her friend’s shot, and she felt the droplets of pink ink from the Splatling guy’s death land in her hair, but she didn’t realize that her life had just been saved. She was too busy acting on the goal that was completely consuming her mind.

            Normally, Eight was a passive fighter that preferred to give value to her team by picking off targets from a distance. However, she also wanted to help her team win…for Aurora’s sake, if no one else’s. The only way that could happen, with Aurora acting so uncontrollable, was for the rest of them to act uncontrollable with her. Careful strategies took too much time, and if a member of the team wasn’t following them, what was the point? The way Eight figured, only persistent, team-wide unity was the key to victory.

            After sniping the Splatling guy off the tower, Eight got to work following in Aurora’s footsteps. Using the trail left by her E-Liter shot, she rushed forward and rapidly scaled the tower, ignoring the potential risk of getting splatted by one of the three inkling boys still roaming the arena. Protecting Aurora was her top priority, so once she emerged and built up another shot in her weapon, she slithered to the edge overlooking Aurora’s lane and peered down steadily with her laser. A hidden ink mine, left by the Dynamo Roller to protect the Splatling guy, detonated on her as she did this, dousing her in hostile ink and revealing her location a second time. She survived the explosion and continued to keep her vigilant watch despite the damage she had taken.

            Down below, Aurora finally halted the boys’ advancing score by capping the first zone with her Splattershot ink. It was only a minor feat, but it still bought some more time for her team. She then turned her aim back upwards when she started taking fire from the .96 Gal again, who was careful about keeping his distance advantage over her. Even so, Aurora refused to give up. She pushed forward as much as she could against his shots, hoping to clear him out before his powerful weapon could do the same to her.

            Eight had a clear visual of the exchange from her perch. She knew, as well as any other cephalopod with experience on the battlefield, that Aurora didn’t have a prayer of surviving a push like that, directly into the line of fire of a .96 Gal, whose range and damage put her wimpy Kensa Splattershot to shame. Only a few weapons could contend with a .96 Gal in such conditions, for that matter. Thankfully, she was holding one of them, and without hesitation, she built up a charge with it and used it to obliterate her friend’s opponent before he could send her back to the respawn platform. After that, as far as she and Aurora could tell, their lane was clear of enemies.

            Meanwhile, Bella and Ophelia banked a left upon reaching the ledge, their sights focused on the zone in the boys’ lane. Ophelia had a healthy amount of cover to utilize from that side, and the range of her Hydra was sure to allow her some flexibility with her risk. She got right to spinning up her barrel the moment she emerged in her ideal spot, but when Bella emerged next to her, she did not immediately push forward.

            “How are we doing this? You cover from back here while I head in?” She queried.

            “I don’t know about you, Bella, but I’m just gonna start shooting when I see an inkling.” Ophelia replied candidly. “Just do what you did with your Ink Jet earlier. Go by instinct, not by planning!”

            It took Bella quite a bit of time to find her bearings after the hard splat she had taken from Midas earlier. She always presented herself as a free-flowing spirit that loved to take life by each stroke of her tentacles, but whenever hardships stared her in the face, she needed to feel in control of everything. Yesterday’s rainmaker battle at the canal had been little more than a fun exercise for her, in which the outcome of her efforts did not affect her enjoyment. This time, though, her and her friends’ honor was hanging in the balance. She wanted the inkling boys to shut up and fuck off with every fiber of her being, and because of that frustration, she tended to take her team’s battle tactics too seriously.

            “Um…right. Got it.” She murmured.

            Ophelia held her position with the Hydra Splatling while Bella reluctantly pressed forward with her dualies, using a curling bomb to paint a convenient trail to the zone. Eight had even transitioned to the side of the tower overlooking their region after eliminating the competition on Aurora’s side, and Aurora herself was quickly inking her way there as well. As Bella surged forward to begin capping the second zone and setting their team’s score back on track, the rest of her team was converging on said zone to provide maximum support.

            The boys’ defense was left in the hands of Midas and the Dynamo Roller, at least until their teammates could return to the front lines. Midas was nowhere to be seen again, of course, so rather, the pressure fell entirely on the latter. He emerged from the ledge on their side, as he had done the last time Bella approached his zone, and he took a defiant stance against her when the ink started firing from her dualies. Before he could finish winding up his giant weapon for a flick, however, Aurora swam up behind him and clocked him in the back with her Splattershot, marking her first splat in the entire battle. Bella expressed her approval with a light grin, but Aurora didn’t return the favor.

            “Nice splat, Aurora. Your timing was perfect.” She acknowledged.

            Aurora ignored her friendly remark. “Where’s Midas?”

            “…Who?”

            “Midas! I already told you who he was! Where is he?”

            Bella, who was trying to relax and open her mind up after her tense encounter with Aurora at the respawn platform earlier, was taken aback by her bluntness. Granted, she had been the one to grab her shy friend by the tentacles and hold her against her will for a few seconds, so she understood if Aurora was still kind of salty about that. That’s what she assumed was going on, at least.

            “Oh, the Squiffer? Yeah, uh…good question. I haven’t seen him since he fucked up my Ink Jet earlier.” She confessed.

            Without another word, Aurora submerged in the ink next to her and began swimming away from the zone, towards the halfpipe on the left side of the arena. It was the symmetric equivalent of the halfpipe in which Midas had hidden during their first team-wipe, but it was the one leading towards the inkling boys’ spawn, not the other way around. Some blue ink was still visible around that corner, leading Aurora to believe that she’d find Midas there. Bella capped the second zone in the meantime, which caused the girls’ score to begin counting down again. They were only down by twenty-two points to the inkling boys after taking the zones back from them, so once they overcame their small penalty, they’d only be about fifteen seconds away from reclaiming the lead. Aurora was determined to keep them from losing the zones again, and if that meant facing Midas directly to prevent his team from jumping to him a second time, then so be it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            She emerged by the corner when she reached the end of her turf and immediately began inking every drop of blue in her sight. Since she knew she wouldn’t be able to spot Midas hiding among the turf in front of her, she decided to simply rid the halfpipe of it altogether. The time to play passively had ended for her. Whether he liked it or not, she was going to savor that damn inkling’s juicy lips if it was the last thing she’d ever do.

            Luckily for her, she had predicted correctly. Within seconds of turning the corner, she ran into his hiding spot by covering over it with an ink shot on her way by, forcing him to emerge and defend himself. Aurora reacted joltingly to his appearance after seeing his figure rise out of the ink, having failed to expect him from that particular location. Her head turned quickly to the side, and she reflexively tossed a suction bomb in his direction.

            Midas dodged the projectile with little to no effort. Before it could stick to the wall behind him and explode, he jumped a few feet to the side, where he still had some ink to maneuver in, and he turned to face Aurora. Aurora prepared to bite back her hormones and fight him with every ounce of willpower she could scrape together. However, before she could squeeze the trigger on her Splattershot, something unusual happened. Midas lowered his Squiffer, and…for the first time ever…he spoke to her.

            “Just who are you, anyway?” He asked plainly.

            His voice. Oh cod, his voice. Aurora had never heard it before, and all she could think was…wow. He sounded even better than in her dream. All of a sudden, her psychotic maelstrom of goal-driven ink-flinging came to a screeching halt. Her unplanned meeting with him was about to go very differently than she had expected.

            Her hearts started skipping beats again. A tingle crept up her back. “Wh…What?”

            “Who are you?” He repeated. “I know you’re the octo chick from yesterday, but like…who are you really?”

            At that point, Aurora lowered her weapon as well. She kept trying to make eye contact with her crush, but now that he was engaged in direct conversation with her, she couldn’t do so without looking away each time. The closest thing on which she could get her eyes to stay focused was his Squiffer.

            “You mean…you…you don’t know? Your friends didn’t…tell you?” She stuttered sheepishly, reaching up with her free hand to start playing with one of her hair curls.

            “My friends told me to look out for ‘the pit-dweller with the geeky glasses.’” He explained, caring little for his accidental use of the anti-octoling slur. “They told me my ‘sanity was at stake’ if we didn’t win this battle. What the hell am I supposed to make of that? I’m assuming they weren’t talking about your Hydra Splatling chick.”

            Aurora ignored his use of the slur. Rather, she focused on how hot she thought it was that he kept calling her and her friends “chicks.” Though…she didn’t know how her friends would’ve felt about it. It wasn’t exactly the most respectful term.

            She continued stroking her hair curl while struggling to speak concisely. Hearing him talk to her made it considerably more difficult to resist the feelings rushing back into her. “Yes…my glasses are the geeky ones. M…My name’s Aurora.”

            “…Okay.” He replied blandly. “Do I…know you from somewhere? Any explanation for that weird show you put on for me back at the battle tower?”

            Aurora blushed extremely hard when he mentioned that. This whole time, she had been assuming that he already knew everything. She wasn’t prepared to have to explain the terms of the battle to him, nor the fact that she secretly wanted him to mount her like a bull shark. She juggled a few different ways to implicitly answer his question, but nothing clever came to mind. The response she did end up giving was not exactly that subtle, though.

            “Listen, do…do you…think I’m cute?”

            “Do I what? What do you mea…” He paused suddenly. As his expression shifted to convey his understanding, so did his stance. His hands dropped to his sides, and he glanced away from her awkwardly. “…Oh. Um…uhh…cool. How nice. This is about the Splatfest, then, I’m assuming?”

            “Sooorta…” She murmured. She couldn’t stop stroking her hair. She felt like it probably looked annoying to him. “…I was hoping we could…I d’know…go for a drink first? Then the Splatfest the day after?”

            “You are aware of how many stares I would get if I’m seen with you, right?” He prompted, looking somewhat off tilt. “Octolings aren’t viewed as very fresh in my social sphere, you know.”

            “I can be fresh! I promise!” She exclaimed suddenly, making undivided eye contact with him for the first time since their encounter. Her face felt so overheated…she figured her blush must’ve made her entire head look the same color as her hair.

            “I don’t know, octo. You’re trying to cross some strange boundaries here.” He stated frankly. “Octolings aren’t supposed to date inklings.”

            Aurora felt something rise in her gut. A certain…fire. It was there every time she heard that phrase, and every time, it got stronger. Perhaps it was some kind of defiance. Or a gentle rage. She didn’t know. All she knew was that the city’s status quo was a bullshit waste of everyone’s time. She wanted him. She needed to feel his intimate touch. And he was going to be hers. She’d like to see them try to stop her.

            “Oh yeah? Well…if you’re too afraid to cross those boundaries with me, then…” She flashed him her version of a seductive glare, and she aimed her Splattershot at him. “…you got about thirty seconds to go cap those zones.”

            She then squeezed the trigger, and Midas’s shocked face was gone within a second. Ink from his explosion splattered across her face and her clothes while blanketing the blue turf around her in pink. Damn…did it feel good. Before retreating back to the center of the arena with her friends, Aurora threw a suction bomb onto the ground, where his death had been, to deal with the super-jump marker that had appeared there just prior. She wasn’t going to let his team recover. They weren’t going to like her very much later, but that wasn’t important now. She was doing it for him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            By the time Aurora returned to the tower at the center of the arena, her team had an iron grip on a vast amount of territory. No one was able to get near the two valleys from the inklings’ main drop-off, thanks to the all-encompassing range of Eight’s E-Liter atop the tower. Their side lane was shot as well, with Aurora’s suction bomb having terminated one of Midas’s teammates right after he went down himself. The boys’ options for reaching the front-lines were pretty much nonexistent, especially with Bella and Ophelia having moved up to their drop-off to snuff out their breathing room. They were left with little territory, little time to regroup, and little time to resurge. On top of that, all the girls except Aurora had their specials ready to deploy. The tides of battle were not only back on the girls’ side, they were overwhelmingly signaling the girls’ victory, to the point where the boys would’ve been better off just cutting their losses and accepting the defeat.

            Regardless, they pushed on until the bitter end. The Splatling guy and the .96 Gal were the only remaining attackers after Aurora’s ruthless double-execution in their side lane, and their efforts to approach the zones from their drop-off were met with unmatchable force by Bella and Ophelia on the front-lines. Ophelia once again asserted the dominance of the Hydra Splatling by obliterating the Splatling guy’s splash wall without having to get within throwing distance of it. Then, right after it was destroyed, Bella rolled up with her dualies and laid waste to both of them. It was utterly impossible for them to contend with her at such close range. With the segmented timing of their respawns, between Aurora’s and Bella’s kills, coupled with the lack of time they had to stop the girls’ rapidly climbing score, the boys were suddenly facing an unfathomably steep uphill battle. And that wasn’t even considering the Splashdown, Ink Jet, and Ink Storm that the girls were hiding up their sleeves.

            They weren’t even able to push forward again until they had their entire team together. That delay alone was enough to close out the girls’ penalty time. Before they even had the group stability to mount a final resurgence attempt, the girls took the lead back from them and carried on towards the KO. The boys gave everything in their last push, even going as far as to split their push in two different directions to undermine their opponents’ unwavering foothold on the main drop-off. Unfortunately for them, the girls’ special weapons were not going to stand for it. Eight’s Ink Storm over the main drop-off kept the Splatling guy buttered up for an easy elimination by Aurora. Ophelia climbed to the top of the tower before using her Splashdown off its edge, smearing the walls below with the remains of the Dynamo Roller and the .96 Gal. Then, lastly, Bella deployed her Ink Jet and sought out Midas one more time, exacting her vengeance against him in a satisfyingly violent manner after finding him stuck in a corner by his side lane.

            They never recovered. There was only time for one more resurgence after that, and the boys could not find an angle that wasn’t already under watch from a better position by one of the girls. Unable to anchor themselves effectively, and without the time to wrench control of the zones from the inside like they had done before, the inklings’ goose was officially cooked. In the next few seconds, the girls’ remaining score counted down past ten…then seven…then five…three…one…zero.

            Cheering. Prodigious amounts of cheering. It was the first thing the girls heard upon achieving their victory on Blackbelly Skatepark. Aurora realized just then, in fact, that she had completely forgotten about the crowd’s presence around the arena during the heat of their battle. All the ambient noise accompanying their pivotal moments, like their clean sweep of the inkling boys during their successful resurgence, their retaking of the zones, and their usage of specials to defend those zones, had fallen into the background while it was all going on. Now that they had attained their knockout victory, the audience’s excitement and approval filled the moment with exhilarating energy. The girls wondered how many octolings were in that crowd, screaming and applauding their fellow underdogs as if this splat zone battle had been the decider of a great race war.

            Despite the apparent gusto in the crowd’s cheering, their ovation was completely overshadowed by Aurora, who reacted to the victory with an insatiable display of triumph and joy. She jumped around in her spot by the drop-off, shouting her pleasures to the clouds above.

            “Yes! Yes yes yes yes YES! Veemo!” She cried exuberantly.

            Bella and Ophelia watched her with delight. Eight also saw her emotional outpouring from the tower behind her, but her face did not reflect the spirit of the occasion. While Aurora made her ecstasy known to the entire venue, Eight stood in the shade, reactionless…taking the win as nothing more than the completion of another chore. Not the last one they’d be dealing with, either.

            A satisfied smile appeared on Bella’s face during Aurora’s episode. “Damn, Aurora, I’ve never seen you react to a win like this. Looked like you were really pushing for this one!”

            “I agree!” Ophelia chuckled. “Glad to see you feeling better. Pity I left the seaweed back at home, ‘cause now seems like it’d be the best time for it!”

            Within the next minute, shortly after Judd appeared through the crowd to officiate the octo girls’ superiority and generate more hype in the audience, the inkling boys approached the center of the arena. They seemed to have removed their ink tanks and left them back at the respawn platform before arriving. None of them looked very pleased, especially the Splatling guy. They didn’t look angry, though, just…inconvenienced.

            “How do you like us now, assholes?” Bella jeered at them through her smug grin. “Looks like you’re the ones facing the embarrassment today!”

            “Yeah, cocky of you to talk such a big game and then get your tentacles plucked by a gang of lowly octolings!” Ophelia added.

            The Splatling guy stared at each of them for a moment without saying anything. The girls tried to deduce something about his opinion on the matter by reading his expression, but they couldn’t quite figure him out. His feelings about the loss seemed…mixed.

            “You octos are reeeally patting yourselves on the back right now, aren’t you?” He snarled. “You think you’re some hot shit?”

            “Hot shit, indeed, kiddos! Hot shit that you’d better start respecting!” Bella ordered with an authoritative flair. “You squids lost, and the conditions of the rematch say you have to take back your bullshit from yesterday. We’re equals now!”

            There was a moment of silence after her declaration, until suddenly, the Splatling guy started to laugh, along with the .96 Gal and the Dynamo Roller. Bella and Ophelia became greatly confused by it, as evidenced by the disappearance of their smiles and the raising of their eyebrows. Why were they laughing? What the hell was so funny about getting their smug rug of supremacy pulled out from under them?

            “You’re fucking adorable, you know that?” The Splatling guy cackled. “Those weren’t the conditions of the rematch at all!”

            Wait a minute. What did he just say? Bella and Ophelia answered to that twist by staring at the boys in dumbfounded silence. Their inflated body language vanished in an instant, as did the cocky resolve that they had built up in the wake of their epic triumph. The longer they stared, the more the inkling boys began to get back on their high horses.

            “Those…weren’t the conditions? What the hell are you talking about?” Bella stammered.

            The boys didn’t answer verbally. Instead, they all stood back and allowed Midas to step forward from their lineup and face the befuddled octo girls alone. They all studied him with the same shaken looks on their faces, including Eight from the tower in the background, as he walked up to Aurora and gave her another quiet once-over. Aurora looked back at him with a display of true, unbridled admiration in her eyes, the likes of which Bella and Ophelia caught from their spots next to her. Their gazes shifted rapidly between their lifelong, lovestruck friend…and the mysterious inkling boy with the Squiffer. Neither of them had the slightest clue what to think.

            He spoke with a level head, whisking Aurora’s hearts away with his every word. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Meet me in the first floor lobby of Albacore Hotel before lunch, and…” He paused. “…try to look fresh, please.”

            “I’ll be there.” She stated in reply, flashing him a suggestive wink. “I’ll be radiating freshness for you.”

            Midas simply nodded once, then he turned back around and began walking away. The rest of the inklings proceeded to follow him off the battlefield. Before the Splatling guy joined them, though, he stopped and addressed the octo girls one more time.

            “Try to keep Four-Eyes under control. I’d better not see her pit-dweller lips all over Midas at the Splatfest, because if I do, you’ll be dealing with all of us. Write it down.”

            He picked up his Heavy Splatling and, after giving Aurora an intensely threatening glare, proceeded with his departure. His intimidation did nothing to quench her spirits, though. She was so over the moon about her scored date with Midas that she wasn’t fully aware of her situation. Her friends’ shocked stares fell on her after his disappearance, growing more resentful with each passing moment. It took Aurora another several seconds to notice the state they were in, and when she did, her smile faded quickly.

            None of them shared her excitement. Aurora glanced at Bella, then at Ophelia, and finally Eight, realizing with each of their faces that reality was beginning to set in for them. Everything from the last twenty-four hours was officially out in the open now.

            Uh oh.

Chapter Text

            The girls could not wait long after the inkling boys marched off the battlefield before doing so themselves.  It was already proving to be a bustling day for Inkopolis, and as such, the venues were constantly flowing with new sets of battlers.  Blackbelly Skatepark was expected to host splat zone battles for at least the next couple hours, including a few high-level league matches between some of the mode’s most formidable teams.  Aurora and her friends didn’t know exactly when those league matches were going to take place, but they decided to play it safe and avoid holding up a coveted showdown by standing in the middle of the arena.

            Upon exiting the ink-coated terrain near their former spawn platform and finding a comfortable place to stand, the girls were repeatedly approached by nearby members from the crowd, each of which congratulated them on their victory.  Some just came to swoon, some came to thank the girls for winning them a large gambling sum, and others came to boo them or spit at them.  Only a negligible portion of the crowd came to antagonize them like that, though, and the girls simply assumed that the ones that did were associated with the inkling boys somehow.  Therefore, brushing off their unkind behavior took minimal effort.

            In general, neither Aurora nor her friends took much notice of the bystanders.  A more significant matter was dangling amongst them in the wake of their clutch triumph.  It was a matter that put Aurora at the center of her friends’ scrutiny again, a place she had been in many times before, and a place from which she always desperately sought escape.

            “What the hell was that earlier?  What did you tell those boys yesterday?”  Bella asked demandingly.  She seemed considerably upset about the turn of events.

            Aurora held her Splattershot close to her body.  She shuffled uncomfortably.  “I…I…uhh…”

            Ophelia cut her off with additional input.  “You did shake that Splatling guy’s hand, didn’t you?  Inklings take their battle agreements very seriously, but you have to shake hands to make them official.”

            “I…I did shake his hand…”

            “Then why are we standing here like this?  Why did those cretins still give us the boot after losing our rematch?”  Bella enquired with a disgruntled huff.  “Did you let them trick you into accepting false terms or something?”

            “No…”

            “And why did their Squiffer dude invite you to Albacore Hotel with him?  Have you talked to him before?”  Ophelia chimed.

            Aurora tightened her grip on her Splattershot, squeezing the handle until it nearly dented the plastic.  She shot her gaze directly at her friends, her cheeks boiling with embarrassment, and replied to them with a sudden outburst.

            “His name is Midas!  I already told both of you that!”  She shouted defensively.  “He’s going to be my date for the Splatfest!”

            Their eyes widened suddenly.  The pair of octos stopped questioning Aurora for a moment and just stared at her…unsure of how to address that information.  They glanced at each other a few times, as well.  As shocking as her statement was to them, it certainly answered a few of the questions that had arisen for them during the last twenty-four hours.  Only Eight managed to keep her level gaze, having known about Aurora’s escapades since their inception back in the kiosk line.

            Ophelia, on the other hand, needed a minute to process it.  “Wait, so…that Squiffer is your boyfriend?”

            “His name is Midas, not ‘that Squiffer!’”  Aurora corrected her again.

            “Fine, ‘Midas,’ whatever.”  Ophelia scoffed apathetically.  “He’s your boyfriend, though?  Since when?”

            “Well, since…um…never.  I only just met him at the canal yesterday…”  She mumbled sheepishly.  As much as she really wanted to call him her boyfriend, she couldn’t technically do so until he made the choice for himself.  She hoped that decision would happen at Albacore in a couple days.

            Ophelia seemed confused by everything, but Bella was having no trouble putting the pieces together.  With each passing second of Aurora’s time under the spotlight, the ponytailed octo’s expression grew more and more dissatisfied.  Her body language also seemed to communicate her escalating irritation.

            “Okay, okay, hold up.”  She declared.  Her eyes locked onto Aurora, causing a typical dissolution of her friend’s confidence.  “Those guys hate octolings, so there’s no way that this ‘Midas’ guy would’ve actually invited you on a date unless he had no choice.  Did you…force him to go on a date with you…y’know…as our rematch condition?  Instead of asking for our freshness back?”

            Aurora didn’t answer her.  Instead, she pathetically dodged the question by turning from her friend to look at the ground, where she then weathered the next few seconds by kicking pebbles.  Bella had pretty much struck the nail on its head, but Aurora wasn’t willing to make the final confession verbally.  She figured the two of them would interpret the silence as a ‘yes,’ which they seemed to do after another brief moment of staring.  Their faces seemed to reflect the exact instant her assumption was confirmed.

            Ophelia slumped against her Hydra Splatling when the realization hit her.  “…Oh.  So that’s what this was about.  Seems like you got a little, uh…hooked on Midas, then?”

            Aurora still couldn’t form a response for at least another few seconds.  When she finally did, she glanced up shamefully at her friends with the pose of a guilty kindergartener.  “…I’m sorry…”

            “I’m sure you are, Aurora, but that doesn’t change the boat we’re in now!”  Bella blurted, throwing her hands up suddenly to show off her exasperation.  “You do this kind of stuff to us a lot!  It’s starting to get really annoying!”

            “Okay, easy does it…”  Ophelia began.

            Bella cut her off, though.  “No, I feel like this needs to be mentioned.”  She glared at Aurora again, prompting her to divert her culpable gaze back at the ground.  “You always go into this kind of unstoppable freak mode whenever you want something, and you don’t seem to care who you step on in order to get it!  You don’t even seem to consider your friends!”

            “It’s not like that!  I do consider you!”  Aurora tried to defend.  Her voice was weak.

            “No, Aurora, there’s no way you’re considering us when you do stuff like this.  If you were, you wouldn’t have decided to trick us into fighting for your chance to suck off an inkling during the Splatfest!”  Bella accused.  “You would’ve at least told us the truth about it before roping us into it!”

            “Bella, chill out!  You’re being a little tough on her!”  Ophelia urged, hoping to assert a level of authority by shifting her stance upright.  Arguing against Bella’s insatiably strong resolve was impossible, though, and she knew it.

            “Maybe I’ll chill out when Aurora promises to stop using us as pawns in her crazy schemes!”  She turned to Aurora yet again after snapping back at Ophelia, but Aurora’s face was already lost behind her Splattershot.  “If it weren’t for your stupid games, we’d all be back at the apartment with Ula right now, smoking seaweed and forgetting that those bratty inkling boys even existed!  Octolings probably shouldn’t be flopping around with inklings anyway!”

            Finally, Eight stepped forward from the shadows behind her friends and stood herself between Bella and Aurora.  She stowed her E-Liter on her back and assumed a powerful, wide stature that stopped Bella’s rant in its tracks.  With flared, serious eyes and a cold expression that could belittle a kraken, she faced Bella.

            “Enough.  Leave Aurora alone.  She said she is sorry.”  She commanded.

            Bella took a step back, surprised by the mellow octo’s staunch interruption.  She met Eight’s gaze without hesitation, though, her resolve initially unwavering.  “You’re defending her?  Aren’t you upset about having done all this for nothing?  About being lied to, no less?”

            Eight did not shift her stance.  She did not even blink.  “Aurora did not lie to me.  I already knew about Midas.”

            Bella was confused by that at first, but it wasn’t long before she remembered the confrontation in the kiosk line.  Eight had been standing right next to Aurora in the line during the entire ordeal, so she had clearly witnessed Aurora’s suggestion to the Splatling guy in-person.  That still left a burning question in her mind, though, which Ophelia was quick to ask on her behalf.

            “You already knew Aurora’s reason for instigating the battle, and yet…you still decided to fight it with us?”  She queried curiously.  “…Why?”

            For that, Eight didn’t seem to have a clear answer.  She did a good job at maintaining her stance, allowing her to hold onto her dominance in the situation, but it was obvious that she lacked a prepared response.  She looked over at Ophelia upon receiving the question, where her eyes stayed for several moments thereafter.  Aurora, grateful for Eight’s benevolence, lowered her weapon and glanced up at her friend from behind.  All eyes were on her for this one.

            “…I will always fight for Aurora.  She is my friend.”  She finally declared.

            Her words struck a very certain chord with Aurora, though…she couldn’t figure out what that chord was.  Up front, she became quite shy by them, retracting her face back into her Splattershot to avoid catching her friends’ gaze when they were spoken.  Deep down, however, she felt rather…flattered.  Of course, it wasn’t the first time one of her friends had stood up for her, especially in the last twenty-four hours, but it was definitely the first time she could remember being placed on a pedestal like that.  Perhaps…underneath the ever-concealing layer of silence that perpetually blanketed her true self…Eight held Aurora in very high regard.

            Unfortunately, the same could not currently be said from Bella and Ophelia.  While Ophelia was at least mindful of Aurora’s fragile self-esteem, Bella’s grievances were a little too strong for her to consider sparing her friend’s feelings.  She certainly wasn’t the vengeful type, though, luckily.  She simply didn’t know what to do about Aurora’s unquenchable affinity for getting herself and her friends into trouble.  Eight was technically taking the high road by choosing to support her closest companion, even going as far as to ditch the others by joining her Splatfest team.  Despite that, Bella just wasn’t sure if she could trust Aurora to keep the whole group’s interests in mind when dealing with the inkling bullies.

            “But…she’s our friend too, Eight!  Don’t you think it’s at least somewhat irksome that she won’t fight for you in return?  She dragged us all into this so she could fight for herself!  She didn’t even join our Splatfest team, and you validated her for that, too!  I thought we agreed to always have each other’s backs when we moved to this city!”  Bella spouted.

            Eight shook her head.  Even while facing Bella and her intimidating flair, she continued to talk back with a stunningly calm and monotone voice.  “I did not move here with you.  I have always lived here.  I admire Aurora’s passion, so I will fight for her.”

            “And what about the rest of us?  Do you just…not care?  Do you even consider us your friends at all?”  Bella rebutted.

            “I do.”

            “Well, we have passion too, so what does Aurora have that we don’t?”

            Eight suddenly fell completely silent again, leaving Bella’s question dangling in the air.  Bella and Ophelia expected her to answer the question swiftly, as she had been doing with Bella’s other questions, despite knowing that such promptness from Eight only came once in a century.  The usually secretive octo had clearly been disturbed enough by Aurora’s trial-by-fire to step further into the spotlight than she ever had before.  Though she continued to hold her stance in front of Bella, it seemed like her point had been made, so she returned to her typical silence without any sort of warning.  The pair waited impatiently for Eight’s final explanation, but it never came.

            When it became clear that Eight wasn’t going to answer them, Ophelia stood up from her Splatling and took a step in Aurora’s direction.  Aurora glanced at her, as did Eight while retaining her position in front of Bella.

            “Aurora…listen to me.  As you can probably see, Bella and I are feeling a little shaken by all of this.”  She began, trying very deliberately to keep Aurora from feeling despised at the boot of Bella’s scolding.  “And you know…when Ula finds out about it herself, she’s not going to be as nice about it as we’ve been.  I’m afraid things are going to be a little complicated for a few days.”

            “Wha…What do you mean?  What are you suggesting?”  Aurora asked her diffidently.

            Ophelia sighed, unsure of how to word her upcoming question.   “Do you think you might be able to stay with Eight in her apartment for a couple nights?  At least until the Splatfest?  Eight seems to support you no matter what, and I’m worried that having you home with us will cause fights.  At least…the way things are now.”

            “So, you’re…banishing me?  What about always watching each other’s backs?”

            “How exactly have you been watching our backs in all of this, huh?  Think about it!”  Bella spat.  “Besides, it’s not like we’re leaving you to shrivel up in the street.  Eight even has a nicer place than we do!”

            “She’s right, Aurora.”  Ophelia added.  “As you can tell, Bella’s not very happy right now, and I know Ula’s going to be worse when she finds out about it.  We’re just asking that you give us some time to cool off before coming back to our cramped space with us.  It’s in everyone’s best interest.”

            Aurora was in no position to argue.  By knowing about her deception in the process of setting up the battle, her crimes against her friends were technically deliberate, and as such, she deserved whatever punishment they wanted to give her.  On that note, spending a few nights with Eight wasn’t actually much of a punishment at all.  In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it began to sound like a blessing.  She was going to be sheltered from both Ula’s wrath and the tight space of their tiny apartment, all while getting to hang out with Eight and prepare for her big day with Midas.  Not only that, she’d get to avoid sleeping in the sleeping bag another night.  Maybe her friends were looking out for her, even after everything she had done to them.  What else could she say?

            “…Okay.  I…I guess I’ll see you girls at the Splatfest, then.”  She muttered contritely.  “I left my Splatfest shirt over there, though, so…um…I’ll have to come back to get that at some point.”

            “We’ll bring your t-shirt to you on Splatfest night.  Don’t worry about it.”  Bella responded with a dismissive hand-wave.  She didn’t even look at Aurora directly when she said it.

            “…Alright.  Thanks.”

            Then, just as the girls were about to depart from the skatepark and go their separate ways, a slick-looking octoling boy approached Bella from behind and tapped her on the shoulder.  He carried a current-year model skateboard in his right, gloved hand, accompanying his look with his sporty tank top and the black seahorse shoes on his feet.  A few tentacles of his hair stuck out from underneath his special-forces beret.  Bella saw these features when she turned around.  He looked amazing, as even Aurora and Ophelia had to admit.  Ophelia, hoping to look more presentable, even took to adjusting her ponytail as he drew near.  He was an eight-out-of-ten, at least.

            “Hey there, beautiful.”  He greeted her with a confident smirk.  “Been shreddin’ around the park here with my pals, and I couldn’t help but notice the beating you gave those inkling kids down there in the arena.  That was some sexy splattin’ you pulled off.”

            Having snagged another admirer with her own apparently attractive features, Bella jumped right into his flirting game with a returned grin.  “Ooh, ain’t you a feisty one?  I suppose you aren’t just here to congratulate us on the win, then, huh, big boy?”

            “You’re pretty smart too, aren’t you?  My pal thinks you’re out of my league, but I think you and I got some synergy.  I’m really diggin’ your curves.”  He bluntly stated, eyeing Bella’s figure from head to toe.  She giggled and adjusted her stance slightly, arching her hips toward him and puffing out her chest to give him a cleaner view of the important stuff.  Aurora and Eight watched silently as he seemed to eat the display right up.

            Aurora was quick to notice the fact that Bella wasn’t rejecting the octoling right away, as she normally did with the ones that approached her.  Instead, she willingly allowed herself to play into his little ritual, returning his compliments with her own witty banter, and further inflating his interest by giving him exclusive angles from which to peek at her eyepopping physique.  Clearly, she was interested in him as well, and her friends couldn’t blame her.  Aurora and the others began to wonder if this octoling skater-boy was going to become Bella’s lucky date to the Splatfest.

            “Mmm, you like what you see?  Are these the curves you’re looking to bring to the Splatfest with you?”  She teased, flashing him a seductive glare that outclassed all of Aurora’s seductive attempts towards Midas.  Somehow, Bella was a master at driving the boys crazy.

            “Oh, you know it, babe.”  He answered desirously.  “In fact, I’d like to take those curves a lot farther than just the Splatfest.  You dig?”

            While keeping her slightly lidded, provocative eyes trained directly on his, Bella decided to take her victim’s libido to the next level.  She reached her hand forward and gently grabbed ahold of her admirer’s skateboard before pulling it slowly out of his grasp.  He allowed her to do so without any resistance, as his attention was still focused on her bodily features.  She then set the item on the ground next to herself and reached forward again, this time with both hands, to grab the octoling’s wrists and pull them towards her, which forced him to stumble forward a few steps.  Once she had his hands by the sides of her head, one on each side, she laid them to rest on her own shoulders.

            “Why don’t you tell me what you think of them, then?  Go on, don’t be shy.”  She purred.

            Enthralled with the opportunity she was giving him, the skater dude began gingerly stroking his hands down the length of Bella’s hips, feeling the details in his palms through the layers that separated them from her inky flesh.  He shuddered when he got to the outward bend of her thighs, bringing his arms around the back of her waist to caress the smooth mounds of her ass with the same level of care as that of a mother caressing the cheek of her newborn hatchling.  Aurora and Ophelia watched this happen with deep intrigue visible on their faces, wondering just how much farther their friend would be willing to take the charade before reclaiming her personal space.  Eight, on the other hand, observed the spectacle with nothing but pure indifference.

            After giving him a few more seconds to explore her body in this manner, Bella gave the skater guy one last treat.  She reached around her waist and grabbed his wrists again, prompting him to stop rubbing her hindquarters and let his hands fall limp.  He understood the rules of the game, in that betraying her trust would soil his chances of getting to later feel her ass without her shorts in the way.  But then, to his delightful surprise, she took his hands and placed them directly on her breasts, after which she encouraged him to give them a few quick squeezes.  He eagerly obliged, of course, snickering excitedly in response to the exhilarating sensation.  Aurora put a hand to her mouth as she watched from a few feet away.

            Bella continued to look him in the eye while he happily played with her boobs through the fabric of her jersey.  She let out a long breath.  “So…how do you like them?”

            “They’re fuckin’ amazing…”

            She grinned.  “That’s what I like to hear.  In that case, then…”  She grabbed his wrists one more time and pulled them away from herself, guiding them back down to his sides before letting go and returning to her previous stance.  The skater boy, disappointed that his free trial had ended, promptly bent over and retrieved his skateboard from the ground as Bella cut to the chase.  “…I think this is the part where you ask me to the Splatfest.”

            “You know it!”  He repeated jubilantly.  “You wanna fight for Team Looks with me?”

            “Hmm…I’m not sure.”  Bella answered, putting a finger to her chin.  “Do you think you could do something for me first?”

            “Yes, yes, anything!”  He blurted in response.

            She smirked at him.  “Go down there, into the arena, and win a splat zone battle for me, please.”

            The skater boy’s exuberant smile suddenly disappeared.  He stared blankly at her for a moment, unsure of how to respond to her unexpected request.  The whole time, her smirk remained on her face, working further to confuse him after the abrupt conclusion of her playful foreplay.

            “Uhh…come again?  I’m not sure I understand.”

            “You got to watch my friends and I kick those inklings’ asses earlier, so now I want to see you do it.  Go get your lil’ skater buddies together and show me how well you splat!”  She ordered cheekily.  “If you win, then I’ll go to the Splatfest with you.  I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.”

            “O…Only if I win?”  He stammered.

            She nodded.  “Of course!  I’m veeeery picky with my mates, you see.  You’re definitely hot enough, but you also gotta show me that you can put up a fight.  Do that…and I’m yours.”

            The skater boy stood in place for a moment while he tried to process his love interest’s words.  His dominance in the situation was pretty much gone at that point, having been swiped right out from under him by Bella’s cunning tease.  It also didn’t help that her friends were standing around them.  As the girls all awaited his response, the pressure he felt began to grow.  He had just been given a taste of his prize, but now he was expected to earn it for real.  If anything, he felt like she was testing him on his masculinity.

            “A…Alright then.  You’re on.  I’ll go tell my pals.”  He declared uneasily.

            He then turned around and took off in a flash, heading straight to his group of friends to rally them up for a battle.  Bella continued to stare at him for a moment while he took his leave.  Her friends watched as well, though it wasn’t long before one of them, namely Ophelia, felt the need to comment on what had just transpired.

            “Wow…you took that a lot farther than I ever could.”

            Bella shrugged carelessly.  “Meh, maybe a little.”  She then turned around and addressed Ophelia with more excitement.  “Did you see that guy, though?  That was the hottest piece of ass I’ve seen since the Splatfest was announced!”

            “Yeah, and he was totally into you, too!”  Ophelia replied.  “But…why didn’t you accept his proposal?”

            “Hey, I still might!  I just wanna…you know…see if he’s actually worth his weight in talent.  I definitely don’t wanna date a pushover, even if he is candy for the eyes!”  She mentioned with a wink.

            “Just remember to keep an open mind.  If you keep being too picky with your admirers, you may wind up going to the Splatfest single!”  Ophelia reminded her.

            Bella simply chuckled.  “Oh, believe me, he’s not gonna be the last of ‘em.  I still got two days before the Splatfest, and these octos have been turning up a dime-a-dozen.  I’m not worried.”

            During all of that, Aurora and Eight had been standing on the sidelines without saying a word.  Aurora didn’t originally plan to stick around for as long as she did after essentially being exiled by Bella and Ophelia, but she had decided to wait a bit longer after the skater dude showed up.  She was greatly interested in the exchange they had just shared, especially in Bella’s bold choice to let the stranger…touch her the way that he had.  By lowering her barriers and letting the guy enjoy her body for a few moments, Bella had basically turned him into putty in her hands.  Aurora recalled seeing his giddy reaction to holding her concealed breasts in his palms, and she wondered just how malleable he would’ve become if Bella had allowed him to go further.  Their bodies seemed to hold more power over the boys than she originally thought, provided they knew how to use them, like Bella.  Aurora was curious about this discovery.  Quite curious, in fact.

            “Okay, well…I think Eight and I are going to head out now.”  She informed, her voice quiet amidst her whirlpooling thoughts.

            “Alright then.  It’s looking like Bella and I are gonna stay here for a while.  Gonna see how that skater dude’s battle goes.”  Ophelia responded.  “Sorry about everything, Aurora.”

            “Pfft, I’m not.”  Bella snapped.  “See you at the Splatfest, Aurora.  Maybe by then you’ll know what it means to look out for your friends.”

            Aurora didn’t say anything.  Without looking at her friends, nor showing any kind of reaction to Bella’s remark, the ostracized octo turned around and walked off, her Kensa Splattershot still poised in her two hands.  Eight departed at exactly the same time, choosing to walk beside her companion instead of behind her.  The gargantuan E-Liter attached to her back made her look more like Aurora’s bodyguard than her trusted friend, but she didn’t mind at all.  If anything, she was grateful to still have Eight by her side.  Eight always seemed to be there for her.  She knew Eight would protect her during her couple days away from the others.

            As they walked, eventually reaching the streets outside the skatepark, Aurora glanced over at her pal.

            “Hey, um…Eight?”  She waited for Eight to turn before continuing.  “…Thank you.”

            Eight nodded once.  Even then, she still had yet to smile.  “Friends stick together.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            The two girls walked along the street with each other for quite some time, not knowing where they planned to go.  The day was still as clear and lively as any other, spurring a healthy population of squids and octos to spend their time traversing the sidewalks around them.  Many of their fellow city-goers were also boasting weapons on their backs, so the girls’ E-Liter and Splattershot blended in well amongst the fray.  Neither of them talked during their trip, of course.

            Since the moment she and her friends had won the splat zone battle earlier, Aurora knew exactly how she wanted to spend her afternoon.  Having earned herself a date for tomorrow, the wishful octo hoped to visit a shopping center, preferably a mall, before sundown to buy herself a fresh ensemble that would win Midas over.  For some reason, though, she didn’t bother to tell Eight about it right away.  The tranquility of their first hour or so together, strolling through the blocks of inner-Inkopolis among the ambient sounds of other denizens doing the same, made the time completely worth it, even if they didn’t spend it with a conversation.  Sometimes…all they needed was a change of pace.

            Blackbelly Skatepark was nestled within one of the richer districts of the city, with oodles of restaurants, arcades, and other public hangouts dotting its perimeter.  Aurora and Eight still found themselves surrounded by such amenities, even after walking a couple miles from the park itself.  In addition, the district was home to hundreds, if not thousands, of inklings, and not nearly as many octolings.  Eight, of course, knew this as if it were common knowledge, but even so, the fact could easily be inferred by just looking around at all the bystanders.  The battle tower had certainly taken them far away from the square, that was for sure.

            Eventually, Aurora started yearning to kick her afternoon plans into gear.  On any other given day, she would’ve had no issue with basking in the city’s peaceful atmosphere next to Eight until they both dropped from exhaustion.  Today, however, there was an obvious urgency.  An urgency, of course…to prepare herself for her ultimate score.  Midas, her glorious, chosen alpha, wanted her to look fresh for him, and fresh she would look, indeed.  She didn’t want to arrive at any department stores later and wind up not having enough time to browse.  So, as the girls’ walk began to take them near an infamous country club with inkling-only access, Aurora stopped and gave her friend the question.

            “Hey, Eight?”

            Eight stopped as well, turning shortly thereafter to look at Aurora.  She didn’t say anything in reply, so Aurora interpreted her gaze as an acknowledgement.

            She continued.  “So…I was just thinking, since I got my date tomorrow, and we didn’t really have any plans for today…would you like to go shopping for a bit?  Maybe…get some new clothes for the Splatfest?”

            “…I would love to.”  Eight answered immediately.  Her fast response gave Aurora quite a surprise, as it was against her nature to do so.

            “Veemo!  I’m glad!”  Aurora beamed.  Her cheeks were practically gushing with happy vibes.  “I can’t wait to see you try on some new stuff.  That leather stuff you wear just looks so…uncomfortable.”

            Eight looked down at herself and shrugged.  “It is okay to me.  But…if you would like me to wear something different, I will do it.”

            “No, no, you don’t have to do that.”  Aurora urged.  “You can wear whatever you want.  I’m…sorry.”

            “I want to wear something that you like.  If you think something looks good, I will wear it.”  Eight repeated declaratively.

            Aurora wasn’t used to having her opinion venerated like that.  Rather, she was used to her friends making decisions by themselves, and only themselves, unless they felt divided about a certain choice.  Ironically, Eight presented herself to Aurora as the most independent of their entire friend group, and yet…she seemed to prefer Aurora’s opinion on clothes over her own.  On top of that, Eight’s voice remained so devoid of any kind of emotion that Aurora couldn’t make heads or tails of the octo’s deeper reasoning.  Was it that she trusted Aurora’s fashion sense over her own?  Did she value her friendship with Aurora enough to exalt her opinions without having to hear them?  Was she just being nice?  Or…did she just not have a taste in anything?

            Aurora wished she knew a way to ask her friend this stuff without sounding too direct.

            “Well…maybe when we get there and have a chance to look around, you’ll find something that you love.”  She stated with a friendly grin.

            “Okay.”  Eight replied.  She did not return the grin, of course.

            Regardless, Aurora kept her smile, and she began awkwardly tapping her toes against the sidewalk.  She didn’t know why, but Eight’s happiness and well-being seemed to be growing into a major goal for her.  Maybe she was just grateful that Eight had taken her under her wing after Bella and the others had turned their cheeks.  Even still, though, as much as she cherished and appreciated Bella, Ula, and Ophelia, there was something about Eight that gave her…comfort.  She felt like Eight understood her better than her other friends.  She also felt like Eight took her words to heart more than the others.  Whenever she spent time alone with Eight, including their time spent in the kiosk line the day before, she felt like her troubles were easier to share.  Aurora flourished in Eight’s company, and she wanted to return the favor.

            “So, how about The Reef?  I was originally thinking about going to Arowana Mall, but the news this morning said that The Reef was going to be hosting turf wars until dinnertime.”  Aurora explained.  “Maybe we could have dinner while we’re there and watch a few of them?”

            She waited nervously for Eight to answer, but luckily, her response was once again swift.  The expressionless octo reacted to Aurora’s proposal with the same gusto as her first one, using the same words as well.

            “I would love to.  It sounds fun.”

            Aurora’s grin grew wider.  She clapped her hands together with glee.  “You’re gonna love it, I just know you will!”

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            On top of the good food and the turf wars, The Reef had another convenience that Aurora hadn’t even mentioned.  Compared to Eight’s apartment, relative to Inkopolis Square, the popular shopping center was located directly on the other side of town, putting the square itself between the two destinations.  Therefore, Aurora and Eight were able to super-jump to the square to drop off their weapons in storage before heading out on their shopping spree.  Weapons were allowed at The Reef, of course, but the two girls didn’t feel like dragging them around the entire afternoon, and they certainly didn’t want to take the long subway trip back to their district to drop them off at home first.  Once they decided to head back to Eight’s apartment later that day, they’d be able to grab their weapons back from the square on their way to the metro station.  Easy peasy.

            Aurora offered Eight the honors.  Naturally, Eight had no problem doing whatever Aurora proposed, so she reacted to her invitation by simply morphing into her octo form and rocketing off toward the square, saying nothing in the process.  Aurora did the same herself shortly thereafter.  In a matter of seconds, the duo touched down in the square, where they hastily made their way to Sheldon’s shop to check in their weapons for later.  The street in front of the storefronts was still occupied by dozens of chatty inklings and octolings, almost all of them in line for the Splatfest kiosk.  The girls went about their way, dodging through the bystanders as they passed.  No one paid them any mind.

            The errand only took a minute or so, as it always did.  When they were done, and their backs were free of the extra weight, they set their sights on their main destination for the afternoon.  The Reef was among Inkopolis’s most prominent hangouts, located just a couple miles from Wahoo World, and seconded only by the square itself in daily visitors.  For this reason, it obviously had its own jump pad, of which the girls promptly took advantage after stepping back out onto the sidewalk.  Aurora had only ever been to The Reef to participate in battles with her friends, so she hadn’t gotten to visit any of the shops yet, but she knew, even with her limited experience, how crowded the venue tended to be.  As she jetted through the air in her octo form next to Eight, she thought about all the fresh styles she’d be able to copy from the other shoppers.

            Eight landed first, followed by Aurora a split second later.  The landing point for visitors was within viewing distance of the fenced-off arena, so the first thing the girls saw upon stamping their feet into the cement was the sideline of a turf war that was currently in progress.  The edges of the arena were lined with onlookers, all cheering wildly and pumping their fists in the air like the fate of the city depended on the battle’s outcome, so the girls weren’t able to see the combatants from their position.  Likewise, they couldn’t see the ink on the ground well enough to determine who was winning.  They could, however, see ink shots and missiles flying through the air above the battlefield, and from that, they could tell that the skirmish was rather intense.  They were curious to see how the next few battles would go, once they had a chance to settle down and observe from a nicer perch.

            The Reef itself was nestled in a busy hotspot for the city, surrounded by high-rise structures and overcast by several suspended monorail tracks, on which railcars would occasionally zip past the crowds of shoppers below.  Wahoo World’s proximity to the consumerist utopia was marked clearly by its famous, giant Ferris-wheel, which loomed on the horizon just beyond the farthest visible building.  It was often said that The Reef was so endowed with the urban density of its district…that it never got darker at night.  According to the rumors, the abundant light of its shops and its surrounding environment was enough to mimic sunlight throughout the area, even well after dusk.  Whenever Aurora stepped foot in the place, she was always reminded of how extravagant inkling culture really was.  Nothing in Octo Valley came close to matching the grandeur of Inkopolis.

            Eight stood perfectly still on the landing point with her eyes fixed in the direction of the arena, until she noticed Aurora walking briskly in the other direction.  She broke out of her trance and immediately started following her at that point, assuming her haste to be a result of her uncontrollable excitement.  There were shops all over The Reef, each of which contained dozens of potential options for new, fresh looks.  Dinner and turf wars would have to come later, Eight figured.  She couldn’t blame Aurora for that.

            “Where are we starting?”  She asked Aurora dully.

            Aurora didn’t look at her when she answered, as her focus seemed to be centered on the buildings to their left and their right.  “I want to get a nice bag to put my stuff in.  So many inkling girls I’ve seen have really cute bags, and I just…I want to be fresh like them.”

            Eight glanced around the walkway at the bundles of inklings and octolings that were sharing the sunny day with them, observing their fashion senses as they passed.  Once again, as with many areas of the city, there were way more inklings walking the streets than octolings, making Aurora and Eight stand out a bit more than they desired.  She noticed, though, true to Aurora’s word, that at least nine out of every ten inkling girls in her sight were carrying bags of some kind.  Some had purses that hung from either their wrists or their shoulders, some had tiny handbags that couldn’t have held anything more than cellphones and a bit of money, and some had long-handled bags that slung around their bodies and dangled by their hips.  Almost all of them were walking with a group of friends, and the ones that weren’t were instead holding hands with an inkling boy.  Eight had only begun to see them after Aurora’s mention of them.  They were apparently common enough among the population to blend in as subtle details.

            Eight considered saying something about the phenomenon, but before she could, Aurora suddenly grabbed her by the wrist and began pulling her off their course, toward a shop that stood to their left about fifty feet ahead.  She didn’t interject, despite having her balance thrown off by the precipitous action.

            “Ooh, ooh, over here!  This looks like an accessory shop!”  Aurora zealously announced, shortly after nearly causing Eight to faceplant into the ground.  Eight simply went along with her friend’s insatiable eagerness, feeling little of it herself, but still valuing the time they were sharing together in her own, secretive way.

            The flashy building loomed over the pair of octos as Aurora led them towards it feverishly.  She let go of Eight’s wrist when she reached the double-door, just a handful of seconds after first spotting it in the first place.  A full team of inkling girls inside the shop, having likely just finished a turf war over at the arena, seemed to be on their way out at the same time Aurora and Eight got to it, so when Aurora placed her hand on the handle and pulled the door open, she stood out of the way and granted them passage.  Eight then took it upon herself to pull open the other door as well.  One of the inkling girls smiled at them as she stepped through the entrance, but the other three seemed too absorbed in their conversation to acknowledge their selfless gesture.  They all carried Kensa weapons on their backs, but not one of them was a Splattershot like Aurora’s.  More notably, though, they were all sporting a variety of new bags, bracelets, and earrings, among other things that the accessory shop seemed to sell.  To Aurora and Eight, they looked…incredibly rich.  Or perhaps they just had rich boyfriends.

            Aurora slipped into the store the moment the group was gone, leaving Eight completely in the dust.  Eight didn’t pay it any mind, though.  She herself walked calmly into the air-conditioned environment and drank in its selection after Aurora had already disappeared into the rows of items like a young octopus being let loose in a toy shop on Squidmas Eve.  Aside from the bags and assorted piercings that adorned the mannequins in the store’s windows, the place also appeared to sell small wearables like bracelets, necklaces, and most prominently, shades.  The entire right wall of the outlet was covered with shades, almost to the point of obscuring the polished wood surface behind them.  It was fascinating to see the sheer quantity of goods that could be fit in such a small space, and Eight wondered just how many of them, if any, Aurora was going to want to purchase.

            Meanwhile, Aurora was deeply entranced by the arrays of bags available from the shelves on the left side of the store.  They came in a booming selection of colors, as well as a number of different styles, but they all seemed to hail from just two designer brands, so their prices all fell within a similar range.  Aurora noticed, as she ran her hand along the surface of each item, that the bags seemed to be comprised of soft velvet, with tightly sewn seams and an embroidered insignia on the more premium models.  Most of them had a large flap over the top that secured with a single button on the side.  The aspiring octo didn’t care much about the function of the bags, as long as they matched the style of her inkling peers on the streets.  She needed to live up to the inklings’ standard if she was going to seduce Midas.  Whether the thing was easy to use or not…well, that didn’t matter at all.

            Aurora carefully inspected every single bag on all the shelves she could find, an action which took about half an hour all on its own.  During that time, Eight joined her on that side of the store, where she proceeded to browse her own section of bags in passive silence.  She flew completely under Aurora’s nose while she shopped, thanks to Aurora’s razor-sharp interest in finding the perfect look for herself.  Eight expected that trend to continue in her friend through all the shops they were going to visit.  She was okay with it, though.  She understood Aurora’s needs.

            Interestingly enough, the bag that had grabbed Aurora’s attention the most during her search was located on a shelf right next to the area Eight was browsing.  After meticulously judging every single bag in the store’s inventory, Aurora strolled right back to the bag that had caught her interest, causing Eight to glance over at her as she approached.  Aurora smiled at her again, but she didn’t smile back.  Instead, she halted her own search while she watched Aurora pick up her favorite bag, sling it onto her shoulder, and step to the side to observe herself in a nearby mirror.

            “I really like this one.  It’s not too bulky, but it’s also not one of those miniature ones that the prude inklings carry.”  She explained to Eight while striking different poses in front of the mirror.  She tried holding the bag at different arm-lengths, ranging from her shoulder down to her wrist.  “I’d say the dark purple velvet even complements my hair!”

            “You like that one?”  Eight asked curiously.

            “Yeah, I think this one’s a keeper.”  Aurora answered happily.  “There’s no way Midas won’t think this is fresh.”

            Eight stared at the bag on Aurora’s arm for another few seconds while she continued to flaunt it in front of the mirror.  Before long, though, she turned her attention back to the stuff on the shelf, having nothing noteworthy to say about her friend’s choice.  She agreed that the dark purple coloration did wonders for Aurora’s hair, and she personally found the bag to be a major improvement to her overall appeal as a fresh date for the Splatfest, but she couldn’t speak on whether Midas would have the same opinion.  Rather, as she resumed surveying her options for her own stylish bag, Eight pondered the aspects of her look that her own desired mate would likely want to see the most.  Unfortunately, despite being the first of her friends to settle in Inkopolis, she was not a fashion expert.

            “Aurora?  …What bag should I get?”  She asked innocently, without turning around.

            She waited patiently for a few moments.  However, she didn’t seem to get a response, even after a handful of seconds had ticked by.  A bit curious, the indecisive octo turned back to the mirror, only to find that Aurora wasn’t standing there anymore.  It seemed that she had moved on after finding the bag she liked, without Eight even noticing.  She turned her gaze to the rest of the store upon seeing this, scanning thoroughly among the rows of shelves until she found her standing near the opposite wall, studying the shades that were hanging there.  Eight merely shrugged and turned back to resume her decision-making.  She could just make the choice on her own, she figured.

            Over by the shades, Aurora didn’t seem to notice that she had left Eight behind again.  The deeper she got into shopping around the store, the less aware she became of the friend that had graciously gone on the trip with her.  She’d catch back up with her later, of course, but right now, as with the bags…only the shades mattered to her.  As her eyes drifted across the spread of hooks that displayed every style and color of shades imaginable, Aurora once again forgot that she was standing in a department store and not on the roof of Albacore Hotel with Midas.  Her surroundings became nonexistent in her head as she tried tirelessly to imagine herself in every single item that was hanging from that wall, even though there were clearly too many to choose from.

            The whole process took her about ten minutes.  Each time a pair of shades caught her interest, she’d stand on her toes to retrieve them from the wall, pull her Full-Moon glasses off of her face, and replace them with the shades to see how she felt about them.  Aurora was nearsighted, so she needed her Full-Moon glasses to see properly at a distance, but the effect on her vision was not drastic enough to concern her.  In total, Aurora sampled about two dozen pairs before finding the ones she wanted to show Midas.  When she finally walked away from the wall of shades on her way to the front counter, her Full-Moon glasses were in her left hand, and a pair of highly reflective, tinted shades were in front of her eyes, with a black frame and dark purple lenses, once again complementing her hair in a way that pleased her.  With the shades on her face, and the velvet bag on her arm, she was now one step closer to achieving the look that would drive Midas crazy.

            Eight was already waiting for her by the front counter when she finished her search.  Without her usual glasses on, she couldn’t see her friend in full detail until she reached the counter herself.  Even before getting there, though, she was able to decipher the outline of a bag around the quiet octo’s shoulder.  It seemed to be of the same brand and material as her own bag, as well as the same dark color.  However, instead of purple, Eight’s bag was dark red, and it appeared to be the long-handled kind that hung down to her hip like a messenger bag.  Aurora guessed that her friend’s choice of color was to complement her magenta hair, just like she herself had done for her own lavender locks.

            “Aww, that one looks so good on you!”  She cooed.

            She thought for sure that Eight was going to smile at that compliment, but she didn’t.  “Thank you.  I am glad you think so.”

            “What do you think of the shades I found?  Fresh enough for Midas?”  She hummed playfully.

            Eight simply stared at her.  “…I think you look very fresh.”

            Aurora blushed shyly at Eight’s remark, despite hearing it in her usual bland tone.  After just an hour and a half or so of hanging out with Eight, she had almost completely forgotten about the mess from back at the skatepark.  She was greatly emboldened by the chance she was getting to beautify herself for her date, alongside a friend that not only agreed with everything she did, but also took her struggles to heart.  Her spirits remained lifted, perhaps the most they’ve been in weeks, as she removed her items and set them on the counter to be purchased.  Eight then promptly did the same with her red velvet bag.

            The cashier of the store was a jellyfish, so Aurora and Eight knew they wouldn’t have to hold a conversation with him.  He grabbed their items with one of his long, wavy appendages and slid them towards himself to be scanned, allowing the girls a moment to stand around while he tallied up the price.  The number displayed on the register went up with each scan until, finally, Aurora and Eight knew how much their accessories were going to cost.  Aurora’s shades clocked in at a mere 350 coins, while each of their bags fetched a heftier sum of 6,000.  Even with a higher total than Eight, Aurora knew she had the money to pay for her stuff.

            Once the final price appeared on the display, the two octos reached into their pockets to retrieve their funds.  It was at that moment that Aurora made a disheartening discovery.  Both of her pockets were completely empty.  She had forgotten her money back at the others’ apartment.

            When she noticed this, she gasped.  “Aww carp, Eight…I didn’t think I’d be going shopping today when I left home…”

            “Did you forget your money?”  Eight asked plainly, eliciting a slow, defeated nod from Aurora.  She did not seem fazed by her friend’s disappointment, though.  “Do not worry.  I can buy these for you.”

            Of course, that did the trick.  Aurora’s face lit up with hope as Eight extracted her money from her pocket.  Instead of a vessel for carrying coins, however, the item she held up was a tiny, zip-up wallet, which looked incapable of storing anything thicker than a kelp cracker.  Aurora stared at the item with curiosity, at least until Eight pulled her card out of it, at which point her confused expression turned into one of shock and amazement.

            “Wait a minute…you have a credit card?  A real credit card?  I thought only rich inklings had those!”

            Eight handed her card to the jellyfish for him to complete their transaction.  She did not react visibly to Aurora’s fascination.  “Yes, I do.”

            “Where did you get it?  And when?”  Aurora pestered.

            “I got it from a friend.  Before you moved to Inkopolis.”

            “Wow…that’s so cool.  I never thought I’d get to be friends with an octo that has a credit card…”

            Eight kept her gaze fixed on the jellyfish while he ran her card through the system, leaving Aurora’s dumbfounded remarks dangling in the air.  Aurora was the first of her friends to see her wielding such a status symbol, and she knew that there would be more secrets for her friend to discover in the coming days.  Things that would most definitely seem impossible from an octo of her…seemingly simple nature.  Therefore, she expected her to have many questions.

            The thing was…she didn’t feel comfortable answering any of them just yet.  Not while they were out in public.  And certainly not while Aurora’s mind was still attached to Midas.

            Luckily, though, Aurora didn’t seem to dwell on it at all.  The jellyfish finished processing her payment within a few seconds’ time, and he handed back her credit card with a friendly wave from his free appendage.  The girls waved back at him before scooping up their items and strolling away from the counter.  Due to her excitement, Aurora consistently walked a few paces ahead of Eight, even going so far as to hold the door open for her on their way out of the accessory shop.  Eight watched her place her Full-Moon glasses in her bag as she stepped past her into the afternoon’s warm breeze, leaving her new tinted shades on her head to wear through the remainder of their trip.  Apparently, looking fresh was suddenly more important to her than being able to see correctly.

            As the duo took to the streets of The Reef once again, their new bags swaying from their shoulders for all their fellow denizens to see, Aurora remained difficult to hold down.  With every step they took, her attention kept darting in all directions as she searched manically for the next shop that would catch her interest.  She scarcely noticed Eight walking closely behind her the entire time, almost as if her presence was hardly more than an afterthought.  Eight knew that her crazy scampering was merely a side effect of her frenzied attraction to Midas, but…it still concerned her a bit, nonetheless.  The way she figured, if that loveless inkling were to ask Aurora to jump into a vat of saltwater, she’d probably do it.

            She didn’t have long to ponder this, though, as Aurora closed in on her next target within a mere minute or two of exiting the accessory shop.  The Reef was as dense with shops as it was with visitors, after all, so their lack of time outside wasn’t exactly surprising.  Aurora pointed her finger at her next selection and announced it eagerly, barreling straight for it the moment thereafter without giving Eight much time to react.  Groups of inklings walking in the other direction were forced to stop on a dime as she blurred past them, producing annoyed glares that wound up falling on Eight as she tried to keep up.  On her way to the store’s front entrance, well after Aurora had already thrown open the door and disappeared inside, she glanced up at the store’s front sign and found it to be a shoe store.  The fact was further evidenced by the store’s windows, which displayed different styles of extravagant footwear on tilted pedestals.  It all looked rather expensive, but Aurora didn’t seem to pay attention to that fact before barging into the building.

            Their experience inside the shoe shop was much the same as it was inside the accessory shop, but to a far greater extreme.  The store was noticeably bigger on the inside, first of all, and the number of options it presented to its shoppers was practically second to none.  Eight could smell rubber from hundreds of shoe soles as soon as she stepped through the door, and even that pungent sensation couldn’t compare to the vast sight of the items themselves.  Every visible wall, even the back wall behind the counter, was lined with shoes, as well as the shelves that separated the aisles.  The store’s inventory was rather impressive, Eight had to admit.  Just standing at the front entrance, having just walked inside, she could see all varieties of foot coverings, including hi-tops, lo-tops, basics, pull-ons, boots, dakroniks, flip-flops, sandals, pacers, and even a collection of secondhand ankle bracelets from Grizzco’s exclusive payroll.  Clearly, there was nothing that the place didn’t sell.  And Aurora was not going to leave until she sampled everything inside at least once.

            Her journey began, once again, on the left side of the store.  Before Eight had even gotten the chance to follow her through the front doors, she sallied over to the furthest row of displays and began tearing into the first shoebox.  Thoughts of Midas were pushing harder into her mind with each passing minute, and as they did, her goal-driven tendencies began to control her actions again.  After all, Midas wanted her to look fresh for their date.  Therefore, looking fresh became the new “goal” that would continue to infect her mind until she saw him at the hotel the next day.  Her original intention of going to The Reef, which was to prepare for her date while also spending some personal time with Eight, quickly began to narrow the more she shopped.

            Aurora rushed across every nook and cranny of the shoe store, inspecting all the specimens she could find, which consumed about an hour and a half of daylight.  She skipped over shoes that were being sampled by other shoppers, as a gesture of courtesy, but as soon as they were done, she would always come back and look at them herself.  Any shoe that went unnoticed had the potential to be fresher than her current top choice, and she absolutely could not allow herself to exit the store without the best possible option, so she simply made sure to check every pair that was in stock.  Time was not a concern for her.  Of course, it might’ve been for Eight, but…that fact wasn’t really on her mind.

            Eventually, after meticulously running her sights over more footwear items than one octo could ever hope to buy, Aurora found exactly what she was looking for.  Her jittery adventure throughout the store came to an abrupt halt when her eyes settled on a unique-looking pedestal in front of the cashier’s counter, the glint of which had forced her attention away from the aisle she had been pursuing.  The shoes atop that pedestal were unlike anything she had ever seen in the city before.  A curious expression grew on her face as she stared at them, and before she knew it, her legs were taking her in the direction of the pedestal without a second thought from her rapacious brain.

            The shoes in question were a pair of special-edition high heels.  The closer she got to their display, the more details she could make out.  They appeared to be made of shiny, black leather that covered the whole foot, much like the armor and boots that Eight liked to wear, with zippers along the top that fastened them to the ankle.  Each shoe’s heel-cap was distinctly separated from the rest of its sole and protruded about three inches straight down.  Along with the heel-cap, the sole of each heel was comprised of some sort of polished, metallic material, which also reminded her of Eight’s boots.  If she had to be honest, everything about the pair of shoes seemed to share aspects with Eight’s outfit, the only difference being in their fashion-oriented focus.  While Eight’s ensemble seemed to emphasize flexibility and sturdiness, the heels’ elegant shape and style made them look like something an inkling stripper would wear.  All that was missing was their brand, which Aurora couldn’t find from checking the tag.

            Her eyes sparkled with wonder as she took in the heels’ features, and her mouth curled into a childish, desirous grin.  She could only imagine what they looked like on her feet, since the sign in front of the store forbade shoppers from trying on display pieces.  Not even the classiest inklings among The Reef’s visitors were wearing heels like those, for if Aurora had ever come across such inklings, she would’ve remembered seeing them on their feet.  They were enough to communicate sexiness and confidence in their wearer without the need for anything else, and if Midas were to see her wearing them, he’d surely be on top of her in no time.  This, she knew.  She needed those heels.

            She knelt down in front of the pedestal and let out a long, dreamy sigh.  Just then, Eight walked up behind her with a shoebox under each arm.  She looked down at Aurora, before the covetous octo could notice her presence, and caught a glimpse of the shoes she was admiring.

            “Do you like those shoes?”  She asked in her usual, robotic manner.

            “Oh, Eight…they’re perfect.  Midas would love me in these.”  Aurora answered with a flutter of her eyelids.

            “How much do they cost?”

            “Oh, right.  Um…”  She leaned forward on her knees and grabbed the shoes’ tag, realizing that she had forgotten to check that important detail while looking for the brand.  She struggled to read the tiny print without her glasses, but once she leaned in further and squinted her eyes, the font became easier to decipher.  Once she saw it, she gasped in shock.  “…120,000 coins?!  Are you squiddin’ me?”

            Eight stood in silence as she was told the price, watching Aurora drop the tag and lower her head in defeat after reading it.  Seeing the way in which the store had displayed the shoes, on a shiny pedestal directly in front of the cashier’s counter, she kind of expected them to cost a fortune.  After all, if the flashy heels hadn’t made a single appearance on the streets of Inkopolis in the past, there had to be a reason for it, right?  They had to be among the best of their kind.  Or the newest, at the very least.

            Realistically, Aurora did not need shoes like those.  In fact, Eight found it better for her to stay away from them.  They were way too expensive for her own good, since octolings in high social standings tended to clash with competitive inklings, especially those with a familiar superiority complex.  On top of that, the shoes had a bit of an erotic feel to them, and Eight worried that, by wearing them in public, Aurora would get swamped with unwanted advances from licentious individuals.  She thought inwardly about these things while Aurora stared at the floor in front of them, her face cast over by a despondent expression.  Eight hated seeing her like that, above all the concerns she had regarding the expensive heels.  Therefore, she made the pivotal choice.

            “I will buy these shoes for you.  You deserve to be happy.”  She bluntly stated.

            Aurora’s head shot up, and she turned around quickly to face her friend.  “Really?  You will?”

            Eight nodded once, knowing that her bill at the end of the month was not going to be pretty.  “Yes, I will.  They don’t cost that much.”

            “Aww, Eight, thank you soooooo much!  I don’t even know what to say!  Veemo!”  Aurora squealed, jumping up from her kneeling position to grab Eight’s shoulders and yank her into a hug.  Eight dropped both shoeboxes as she was pulled tightly into her friend’s embrace, but she wasn’t complaining.  Something about the sensation sent waves through her…waves she had never experienced before.  Aurora was such a cute friend to have.  It was strange to admit that her cuteness was enough to make her recklessness tolerable.  Their other friends didn’t know how lucky they were to have her in their group.  Though Eight couldn’t feel herself doing it, when she extended her empty arms to return Aurora’s affectionate gesture, she grinned…ever so slightly.

            Their moment ended when Aurora turned back around and scooped the heels off their pedestal, placing them on the floor in front of her.  To Eight’s surprise, instead of waiting to pay for them at the counter, the enraptured octo immediately kicked off her hi-tops and placed them in her bag before unzipping the fastener on each heel, sliding her feet into them, and securing them to her ankles.  She figured the cashier was going to frown at them for defiling the ritzy shoes right there in the store, but since they were going to be paying for them on the spot, she didn’t expect them to encounter any trouble.  Aurora wobbled a bit as she stood back up, having never worn high heels before.  They certainly made her a lot taller.  In addition to beating Eight’s height by an entire forehead, Aurora suddenly looked a lot more…mature.  She was like an octoling queen, commanding a formidable stature that she knew would give the boys a run for their money.

            Eight took a minute to admire how the heels looked on her friend, then she bent over and picked up the shoeboxes she had dropped.  Once Aurora seemed to have her new stance figured out, Eight pulled the lid off both boxes and held them out for her to inspect.

            “Which of these would look fresher on me?”  She asked diligently.

            Aurora glanced at the two pairs briefly, but she didn’t give them more than a couple seconds of her attention.  “It’s up to you.  You can wear whatever you think your Splatfest date will like the most!”

            “…I want your opinion, though.”  She reiterated.

            Aurora was caught off guard by Eight’s insistence.  She was happy to provide feedback for her, but she hadn’t expected the eccentric octo to prefer another’s tastes over her own.  She looked back down at the two choices with a hint of uncertainty on her face.  One of the boxes contained a pair of Musselforge flip-flops, and the other one bore a pair of glossy red power-stripes.  The flip-flops looked much comfier than the power-stripes, and they were also a lot cheaper.  However…Eight’s question was not about comfort, and since she was apparently capable of paying for anything, the prices didn’t seem relevant either.

            “Well…if you really want my preference, the power-stripes look really nice.  I think they’d look super fresh on you.”  She smiled kindly, trying not to seem imposing.

            Eight nodded.  “I see.”

            “Y…You don’t have to get them, though!  I’d rather you wear stuff that you like!”  She urged.

            “But I only like stuff that you like.  If you think something looks fresher on me, I will wear it.”  Eight repeated for the second time that day.

            Aurora couldn’t conjure a response to that.  She couldn’t figure out why Eight seemed to value her opinion so heavily.  The way it looked to her, Eight’s only criterion for good clothing items was what she, her crazed, socially awkward friend, thought about them.  Sure, they were really good friends, but…Eight had to have some kind of personal opinion, right?  Did she completely lack a sense of fashion, relying entirely on her trusted pal to steer her away from dry-looking clothes?  Or…did she really value Aurora’s opinion for its own sake?

            Right after making her declaration, Eight stepped away to return the box of flip-flops to the aisle in which she had found them.  Aurora couldn’t do much but stand there pridefully, in her new, sexy heels, until she got back.  When she did, the two of them ventured to the cashier’s counter and proceeded with their purchase.  Aurora kept glancing over at Eight while she ran her card through the system, but she never glanced back.  For an octo that was currently flushing away more money than her average kind made in a year, Eight’s thoughts were still completely undecipherable.  Aurora didn’t know how to feel about it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            The sun was beginning to lean towards the western horizon by the time the girls transitioned to their final store.  Across The Reef, crowds were gradually filtering out of the shops and into the restaurants as dinnertime drew near in the city.  More and more visitors were appearing on the walkways with weapons on their backs, having likely come from the nearby arena to wind down and eat with their friends after their turf wars.  Many of them took immediate notice of Aurora’s new heels, though her awkward stumbling in them ensured that none of the wandering eyes were lustful.

            Aurora’s last target was a clothing shop, which was a little further up the path on the same side of the walkway as the shoe store.  With less than two hours before The Reef would stop hosting turf wars, the girls knew that they had to make their time count if they wanted to spectate a few battles.  Aurora was aware that their time crunch was her own fault, for if she had been a little more decisive in the previous two stores, they would’ve had more daylight to work with.  On top of that, her new heels prevented her from rushing around the store as quickly as she’d like to, and even if she could, there was no way she would have time to sample everything in the clothing store.  After all, unlike with shoes or accessories, trying on clothes required a changing room, and those had a way of…getting in the way.  If she wanted to find the freshest option for Midas this time, she’d have to make some difficult choices.

            The two girls stepped through the doors of the shop simultaneously, and almost right away, Aurora’s hearts sank.  For the first time since their arrival at The Reef, Eight began wandering through the aisles ahead of Aurora, since Aurora’s legs refused to move after witnessing the extent of what was presented before them.  The clothing store’s selection was unfathomably massive, putting the combined inventories of the previous two stores to shame.  The place even had a second floor, atop which Aurora could barely see a row of changing rooms behind its additional shelves.  Despite the blurriness of her vision, Aurora inferred the shapes of inklings and octolings walking in and out of the changing rooms in regular intervals, each carrying bags that were probably bulging with clothing items.  Overall, the place was not a normal store.  It was practically a superstore, the daunting scale of which kept Aurora glued to her spot on the foyer, unsure of how to even begin traversing its jungle of options.

            All that mattered to the inundated octo was finding something that would excite Midas.  Unfortunately, in a store that huge, with very little time to browse, she couldn’t rely on trying everything in order to find the freshest outfit.  She needed some way to narrow down her options, but…without any knowledge of Midas’s preferences…doing so would prove to be impossible.  Should she go for a stylish t-shirt and shorts?  A dapper schoolgirl ensemble with a fluttering skirt, perhaps?  Or maybe she could ditch pants entirely and wear a dress?  How was she supposed to know where to begin?

            While pondering that stressful question, something crossed Aurora’s mind.  In knowing that she had to seduce Midas during her date, Aurora suddenly remembered the moment after their splat zone battle earlier that afternoon, when Bella had done the exact same thing to the octo with the skateboard without having to think about it.  Bella’s natural affinity for attracting suitors seemed to know no bounds, and when she deliberately set her focus on molding a specific victim, the results were often quite explosive.  Who needed to be fresh for freshness’s sake…when cheating the system with feminine charm worked just as well, if not better?  If anyone knew exactly what Aurora needed to get in Midas’s shorts, it was Bella.

            Aurora dawdled deeper into the store to stop herself from blocking the entrance, and she pulled her phone out of her bag.  In the process of swiping through it to reach her contacts, she kept glancing ahead of her to make sure she didn’t bump into anything.  She tapped Bella’s name in the list, opened a new conversation, and started typing out a message.

            “Hi Bella.  :)  How r u doing?”

            Aurora continued walking while she waited for her ponytailed friend to answer.  She meandered all over the first floor, traversing some aisles several times, having nothing specific to search for on her way.  The minutes slowly ticked by like that, with Aurora repeatedly sauntering past the same few shoppers with her face in her phone, waiting for a reply from Bella to appear on the screen.  When none came through, even ten minutes later, she began to suspect that her annoyed companion was simply giving her the cold shoulder.

            But then, just as she was considering putting her phone back in her bag, the object buzzed in her hand, and Bella’s belated response appeared before Aurora’s eyes.

            “Do u need something?”

            Aurora bit her lip.  Bella’s reply looked a bit impatient, so she tried to hold onto her attention by avoiding the question off the bat.

            “What r u up to?”

            “At home with Ula.  Waiting for Lia to get back.  Ula smoked all of our seaweed.  >:( ”

            “Oh no :( ”  Aurora stared at her phone uncomfortably while she tried to think of a better way to respond, but her brain fell flat as usual.  “Is she ok?”

            “She’s passed out on the couch.  Didn’t even hear us come in.”

            Aurora couldn’t say she expected a tangent like that, even though it made perfect sense from someone like Ula.  She just hoped that Bella and Ophelia were planning to go easy on her for it.  No one else in their friend group needed to feel guilty today.

            With that, Aurora attempted to lead into the big question she wanted to ask.

            “How did it go with the skater boy?”

            Bella took longer than usual to reply.  From the looks of it, she seemed to be backspacing a lot.  “Rejected him.  Turns out he and his buddies use INK BRUSHES.  They got their asses whooped.  :/ ”

            “Aww.  :(  He looked kind of good, too.”

            “R u kidding?  He was fuckin’ HOT.”  Her text was accompanied by several fire emojis.  Aurora grinned at them slightly.  “But I’m not dating an ink brush.  Especially one that can’t fight."

            Bella was kind of a savage, Aurora thought.  It was almost like she knew that she was at the top of the food chain when it came to hooking up, and she was determined to use that power to grab herself the most alpha octoling in the entire city.  She really hoped…that, during her date tomorrow, Midas wouldn’t treat her the same way Bella tended to treat her admirers.  He was at the top of her food chain, after all.  At least…the way she thought of him.

            She took a deep breath and held it while she typed out her next response.  “So listen…about how u seduced that skater boy…”

            “U want the 8==D from Midas?”  Bella replied, before Aurora even had the chance to finish typing her follow-up text.

            Aurora recoiled from her phone when she read that message, her cheeks flushing purple once again.  She covered her mouth to keep from interjecting in the store.

            “Bella!!!”  She typed frantically, along with a slew of five blush emojis.

            Bella’s only response to her friend’s embarrassed outburst was a smirk emoji, which ultimately went unacknowledged.  Aurora was too shocked by her prior message to say anything else about it.  Luckily, Bella knew to continue without being prompted.

            “Look, ur lucky I’m helping u, cuz I’m still pissed that u used us to get to this guy.  “Must be the pot smoke still wafting around in here.”

            “Thank u.  I’m sorry.  :’( ”  Aurora drabbled with a guilty look on her face.

            With that, Bella began typing her instructions.  Her first message took a bit of time to appear on Aurora’s screen.  “U see, boys r simple creatures.  If u want to get Midas interested in u, u just have to show him what ur made of.”

            “What do u mean?”

            “I’m saying…if ur just trying to get the D, it ain’t gonna come down to havin’ class.”

            Aurora blushed again when she read that text.  It seemed to happen to her whenever naughty subjects entered the conversation, regardless of how open she tried to be about them.  The fact that she had injected the sleeping bag with ink from dirty thoughts earlier that morning was…rather ironic, put simply.

            Bella continued with another message.  “Think of it like this.  U want to flop around with Midas?  All u gotta do is show him what he’d get if HE flops around with U.  Catch my drift?”

            Aurora stared at her phone for several seconds, confused by her friend’s strange wording.  “…No.”

            “Be loose!  Be a whore!  Give the hunky squid a taste of Aurora when she wants the D!”  Bella spewed rashly, adding a number of sea cucumber and clam emojis to further drill her point.

            The vulgar and confronting nature of Bella’s reply slammed at Aurora when she read it.  She nearly dropped her phone, but she managed to keep her reaction under control.

            “Quit saying it like that!”  She whined.

            “U still haven’t denied it.”

            Aurora started to type out her objection, but before she could, she noticed that Bella’s status had suddenly changed to “Away.”  Just like that, with no warning, Bella had left the octo hanging, holding her phone out in the store with a wide-eyed look that could only be described as dumbstruck.  She glanced uneasily at the other shoppers around her, as if expecting them to give her dirty looks, but obviously, none of them could see the texts she had just received.  In fact, none of them were paying attention to her.

            She continued to stand in place for a few moments after Bella’s disappearance, unsure of what to do with the advice she had given her.  She knew what it all meant, of course, but it took a bit of time for her to piece together how it could translate into a good clothing choice.  After all, she couldn’t just show up naked to Albacore Hotel tomorrow, and even if she could, she figured the lack of subtlety would shock Midas out of their date before it could even begin.  How would she be able to hit the mark without just tackling him in the lobby and tearing all their garments off?

            As these flurried thoughts were bouncing around in her head, Aurora’s gaze drifted across the rows of clothing items that lined the aisle in which she stood.  It seemed as if she had wandered into the sports section while texting Bella, since the only items she could see surrounding her were tank tops, basketball shorts, and team jerseys.  Aurora could actually see Eight running her hand through a few jerseys on the other side of the aisle, but besides her, the aisle was pretty much populated entirely by inkling boys.  Some of the boys were already wearing tank tops, with oversized armholes and collars that drooped far down their figure and exposed much of their shoulders, as well as an extended region below their armpits.  They seemed well-suited for…well…playing sports.  They probably also worked great for turf wars.

            Seeing the loose-fitting coverings on her fellow shoppers gave Aurora a devious idea.  Her derogated expression slowly morphed into a scheming grin as she worked out the perfect way to advertise herself to Midas without breaking any decency laws.  Before giving Eight the chance to look up and notice her in the same aisle, she swiped a Navy King tank top from the rack in front of her and scuttled out of the sports section as fast as her heels would allow.  She then made her way to the nearby summer section of the store, where seasonal items like bikinis and sleeveless tees were flying off the shelves in time for the Splatfest, and grabbed the shortest, skimpiest pair of beach shorts she could find.  Finally, with an item in both hands and her bag dangling from her elbow, Aurora quickly stumbled her way upstairs toward the changing rooms to try out the look, her frantic feet nearly tripping on every step.  When she stepped into the first vacant room and closed the door behind her, she knew she would soon be emerging as a changed octo.  Well…on the outside, at least.

            The changing room contained a large mirror that covered the entire right wall, as well as a bench on the opposite side, upon which Aurora promptly seated herself after locking the door.  While staring at herself in the mirror, she set her bag, her shades, and the two clothing items next to her on the bench before proceeding with the undressing process.  She first unfastened her high heels and slid them off her feet, which allowed her the clearance to grip her shorts at the waist and pull them down past her ankles.  Eager as she was, instead of leaning forward and removing her shorts from her ankles by hand, she used her legs to shake them onto the floor while she immediately began extracting her long-sleeve Annaki Drive t-shirt.  The sports bra she had chosen to wear for her splat zone battle that day came into view as the seam of her t-shirt came up to her shoulders.  She briefly adjusted her grip on the collar, and she pulled the garment up over her head with little effort.  In mere seconds, the octoling staring back at her in the mirror was already half naked, her exterior coverings laying discarded on the floor.

            Next, she grabbed the beach shorts from the bench with the frenetic urgency of a young octo grabbing a present from under the Squidmas tree.  In her hands, the garment looked no more concealing than a pair of briefs, and when she pulled them up to her waist after inserting her feet through the holes, she saw for herself how short they really were.  They barely managed to cover up her underwear at the thighs.  In fact, whenever she sat the wrong way or crossed her legs, the fabric would actually retract upwards and reveal a bit of her underwear.  Even Aurora had to admit…those shorts were kind of risky.  Regardless, they were exactly what she had been looking for.

            With that, the last thing to be applied was the Navy King tank top.  Aurora could already see the extent of her transformation in the mirror with just the shorts, but she knew she needed the tank top to complete her look.  She could feel the anticipation rising within herself as she picked up the loose covering, moved closer to the mirror, and fervidly draped it over herself.  Of course, it fit terribly.  Around her neck, it was clear that the thing practically had no collar.  It almost seemed to fall into position when she put it over her head, requiring no effort from her to pull it past her face.  As a tank top, it also had no sleeves, so the only things keeping the piece tethered to her shoulders were its dangly shoulder straps.  The interesting thing was…the tank top itself wasn’t actually that big on her.  From her bra to her hips, it actually fit her curves rather comfortably.

            The area around her shoulders, however, was an entirely different story.  Aurora snagged a long, thorough look at herself in the mirror after putting on the top, and from what she could see in her appearance, her sports bra seemed to be doing a lot of the talking.  As she expected with such a clothing choice, the better part of Aurora’s entire bust was shamelessly revealed by the tank top, thanks to the lack of snugness in its upper half.  The extent to which her sports bra was exposed to the light made the entire point of the tank top seem questionable.  In fact, with how much of the area was showing, Aurora wondered if just going to the hotel shirtless would be an easier alternative.  After all, she had one chance to convince Midas that she would be an ideal mate for the Splatfest.  Without the tank top, her sports bra would obviously still be showing, but she’d also have the added benefit of exposing her abdomen for him as well.

            Aurora fell deeper into thought the more she stared at herself in the mirror.  She liked how the tank top gave her chest area a bit of breathing room, but she wasn’t a fan of how her sports bra looked behind it.  She didn’t mind the bra itself, but its colors didn’t really mesh well with the top, and if she was planning to show off her bra, she much preferred to go all out and exclude the tank top altogether.  Unfortunately…she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to get away with that.  A bra without a top was…definitely out of the picture.

            But…what if, she thought lewdly…she could try it the other way around…?  Aurora bit her lip hard when the unorthodox idea popped into her head.  She knew she couldn’t show her face in public with only a sports bra covering her upper body, and she didn’t like the way the tank top and her bra looked together, so…that only left her with one alternative.  The thought of it slightly intimidated the adventurous octo…but it also filled her with nervous excitement.  She wasn’t entirely sure whether she’d be able to get away with it, and if she had to be honest…that fact was exactly what made it so enticing.

            For every moment that Aurora spent thinking about the idea in front of the mirror, her hearts would beat faster.  The way she figured, if she were ever going to give her idea a try, she would have to do it quickly.  Therefore, before she even noticed herself doing it, she grabbed the tank top by the waist, pulled it back over her head, and set it on the bench behind her.  Then, she took hold of the bottom seam of her sports bra, and…after a quick, deep breath…she took that off as well.  As Aurora worked to get the garment up to her shoulders, her breasts were tugged upwards with it, until they eventually broke free and fell back to their natural position.  When she discarded her bra and turned back to the mirror to inspect herself, she was greeted by the familiar sight of her own boobs in the reflection, her purplish nipples staring right back at her like a second pair of eyes.

            Aurora was obviously quite used to seeing her own breasts, but something about viewing them under the fluorescent lights of a public changing room gave her riveting vibes.  She could step through that door any time she wanted, and every boy in the store would probably want to divebomb her right on the spot.  Of course, there was really only one boy that mattered to her.  As she stood completely topless in the center of the space, she began imagining Midas in place of her reflection, gawking fondly at her feminine physique while slowly approaching her to act on his desires.  Her boobs were just hanging there in the open…vulnerable to any frisky cephalopod’s prying tentacles…yet she wanted Midas to be the one to take them for his own.

            Before reaching for the tank top to put over her exposed body, Aurora cupped a hand under each of her breasts and gave them a few tender squeezes.  The action reminded her of Bella’s stunt with the skater boy earlier that afternoon, minus the fact that the skater boy had been a lot less gentle to Bella’s boobs.  Aurora imagined herself in Bella’s situation, replacing the skater boy in the scenario with Midas, and just like that, her squeezes began to get a little more intense.  She closed her eyes and let out a yearnful sigh amidst her toying.  Unbeknownst to her at first, her walls were starting to break down again, as evidenced by the buildup of pressure in her lower body and the gradual increase of movement in her hips.  One of her hands eventually trailed down from her embonpoint and into her beach shorts, where she ardently resumed performing those delectable, circular motions, and even then, Aurora failed to notice the danger she was posing to the clothing store’s changing room.  Luckily, she stopped her activities before she could drench the floor in ink, thanks to being snapped out of her trance by the loud, fervent moan she emitted.  A heavy blush crossed her face when she returned to reality.

            At the conclusion of her brief self-love session, all of Aurora’s doubts were pretty much eradicated.  She knew for sure that she wanted Midas’s hands and tentacles on her, even if it meant facing the potential drawbacks of indecent exposure.  It wasn’t about to be the most subtle of choices, but then again, nothing Aurora did was ever that subtle.  When she had her mind set on something, she attacked it with absolutely no restraint.  Midas would just have to be ready to see a little more of his date than he expected.

            Once she was back to thinking straight after nearly collapsing into another inky mess, Aurora swiped the tank top from the bench and slipped it back on without her bra.  The loose area around her shoulders brought her breasts dreadfully close to complete exposure, especially without an undergarment to keep them constrained while she moved.  She could even feel the sensation for herself, which was comparable to just staying topless, but she ignored it.  The entranced octo stuffed her previous clothes in her bag, including her sports bra, put her heels back on, and scurried out of the changing room.

            Back in the main shopping area of the store, Aurora was surprised to see Eight waiting for her by the base of the staircase.  She must’ve known that Aurora had gone up to one of the changing rooms, or she could’ve simply seen her ascending the stairs.  Either way, she was glad she wouldn’t have to search for her.

            After waving down to Eight, Aurora grabbed onto the handrail and started down the flight of stairs as fast as she could.  She stumbled quite a few times, even needing the handrail once or twice to keep herself from falling, but overall, she felt like she was rapidly getting the hang of her high heels.  On her way down, however, she felt her breasts bounce a lot with every movement she made, and at one point, she suspected that one of her nipples might’ve poked out from behind the tank top’s droopy shoulder straps.  Eight was watching her while she descended the steps, and when this supposedly happened, her eyes seemed to widen a bit.

            When Aurora reached the bottom and let go of the handrail, she noticed Eight’s eyes trailing down to her bosom.  It was rather unusual for the quiet octo to address others without direct eye contact.

            “…Aurora…?”

            Aurora looked at her innocently.  “Yeah?”

            “What…are you wearing?”  She uttered, her eyes still stuck on her friend’s chest.

            “Isn’t it feisty?  Bella told me to be direct and give Midas what he wants, so I’m branching out a little bit!”

            Eight seemed extremely uncertain.  Aurora played with one of her hair curls a bit while she waited for her gaze to turn back up.  However, Eight seemed unable to draw her eyes away from the elephant…or elephants…in the room.  Nearly all the parts of Aurora’s breasts were showing through the tank top’s baggy shoulder straps.  Without any securing agents around her bust, her intimate mounds hung freely behind the fabric, and thanks to the top’s oversized apertures, the flesh of said mounds could be seen at almost any angle.  Aurora’s nipples were essentially the only parts not showing directly, but they were still poking noticeably through the tank top’s thin fabric, and whenever she moved too swiftly, she risked flashing nearby squids or octos with their bounce.  It was all too much for her, but Aurora didn’t seem to share that mindset.

            “But, Aurora…”  Eight stammered weakly.  “…it’s so revealing…”

            Aurora glanced down at herself.  From her angle, she could see everything underneath.  “Yeah…I suppose it kind of is…”

            “Are you sure it’s what Midas wants?”

            “Well…Bella says boys are simple creatures.  If Midas sees me like this, he’ll have to find me attractive.”  She gave Eight a friendly smile, but Eight was still captivated by the poorly concealed boobs in front of her.  “I just know he will.”

            “Please…you have to be careful.”  Eight urged.  She sounded a bit more emotional than Aurora was used to.

            “I’m being careful, Eight.”  She shot back.  “I can’t get in trouble if I have something covering my chest.”

            “Your chest is not covered, though.”  Eight argued.  “And it’s not the legality I am worried about.”

            Aurora rolled her eyes.  “Eight, it’s fine.  Nothing’s going to happen to me.  Don’t you have shirts you want to show me or something?”

            Eight was taken aback by Aurora’s stubbornness.  Regardless…she decided not to say anything else about it.  As rude as her friend’s last statement was, she was correct.  Eight had done some quick searching throughout the first-floor aisles, knowing that they only had limited time to browse, and she had once again narrowed her findings down to two choices.  She finally looked up to meet Aurora’s gaze after blatantly staring at her mammaries for several minutes, and she held up the two shirts without saying a word.  One of them was a classic, black t-shirt by Squidforce, with very short sleeves and emphasized curves at the hips, and the other was an extremely familiar OctoKing HK jersey by Enperry.  Aurora raised a brow when she saw the jersey in her friend’s hand.

            “Hey…isn’t that the exact same jersey Bella wears?”

            “It is.”

            “Well…why are you choosing this one?  You don’t think Bella would find it awkward?”

            Eight shrugged carelessly.  “I do not know.  It looks comfortable, and I like the number 8 on the back.”

            “Then you should get it.  Get the one that you like more.”  Aurora sternly suggested.

            “I like both of them.  I want to know what you think.”

            “I don’t know, Eight!”  Aurora suddenly blurted, causing Eight to take a step backward.  “You just have to dress yourself in whatever you think your Splatfest date will like the most!”

            “I do not know what my ideal Splatfest date will like.  That’s why I am asking you.”

            “Well, I’m not your Splatfest date, so I don’t know either.  Personally, I like them both too, so I say just get both of them.”  She stated dismissively.

            Eight stood silently for a few moments with an increasing hint of bleakness in her expression.  Meanwhile, Aurora waited impatiently for her response.  Ever since her carnal clothing choice was criticized by the reserved octo, her kind and tolerant attitude seemed to dissipate.  Nothing about being told what to wear sat well with her, especially when her clothing choice was an integral part of her plan to claim her goal.  She seemed to differ greatly with Eight in that regard.

            After an awkward couple of seconds, Eight finally gave a reaction.  “…Okay.  I will be back.”

            While Eight disappeared up the stairs to change into one of the shirts she had selected, Aurora marched over to the cashier’s counter to wait for her.  The cashier of the clothing store was an inkling girl with braided hair and an elegant uniform, and the whole time Aurora was standing in her line of sight, she had her undivided attention.  She couldn’t tell if the look she was giving her was approving or skeptical, but she knew for a fact that her eyes were making her a tad uncomfortable.  To deal with it, she directed her body away from the counter and tried to distract herself with other things.  By the time Eight was coming back down the stairs in the OctoKing jersey, holding the black t-shirt in her hand, Aurora had received glances from a number of shoppers throughout the store, both boys and girls.  The boys’ attention made her feel empowered, while the girls’ attention had the contrasting effect of making her feel ashamed.  She took another look at her breasts, which were drifting dangerously close to the tank top’s armholes as she leaned, and sighed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Aurora and Eight didn’t talk much for a while after finishing their shopping.  Neither of them said a word while Eight approached the cashier and paid for their clothing items, even after the cashier had felt the need to comment snootily on Aurora’s…perky protrusions.  They had simply completed their transaction and moved on their merry way without acknowledging her.  Afterwards, they walked regally out of the store and directed themselves toward the turf war arena without looking back.

            Despite their recent squabble, Aurora and Eight still stuck faithfully to their evening dinner plan.  Therefore, as they made their way back to the arena, they set their sights on a picnic table near the fenced perimeter.  Aurora had nearly perfected her stance in the high heels, and as such, her walking posture on their way down the path projected a sense of confidence and maturity that drew in tons of attention.  And of course, once she had the bystanders’ attention, there was no stopping them from rapidly noticing her lack of bra.    Inklings and octolings were practically stopping in their tracks when she walked by.  Sunglasses were lowered, hats were turned around, and in pretty much all cases, jaws were dropped.  Both she and Eight were well aware of the disruptions she was causing.

            By the time the duo found an ideal table, a turf war between indigo and yellow-colored ink was just ending.  They had managed to find a spot atop a raised terrace that looked down upon the arena, with several carry-out restaurants lining the walk behind them.  It was practically perfect for their needs, and with their superb timing at the end of the previous battle, tables were opening up left and right.  They were glad to have the added convenience.

            Aurora and Eight sat down across from each other, with both of their seats angled adequately to view the activity below.  They intended to remain there and relax for a battle or two before getting food.  Aurora wished she could make up for her and her friend’s disagreement by buying dinner for her, but…she didn’t have her coins with her.  She certainly owed Eight some money after today, that was for sure.

            Just before she could open her mouth to ask Eight which restaurant she wanted to eat from, she noticed a pair of shadows creeping up behind her seat.  Aurora turned around and timidly looked up at her visitors, finding them to be a pair of thirsty-looking octo boys.

            “What’s up, sexy mollusk?  Enjoying the warm weather?”  The first one said.

            “You must be, ‘cause you seem to be missing something.”  The second one added with a lascivious grin.  Aurora retracted into herself significantly when the boys began talking to her.

            “Don’t worry, little octo, we heard your message loud and clear.  Followed you here from the shop to see if you and your friend wanted to come home with us for a little turf war.”  The first one declared raunchily.

            When Aurora failed to reply to her harassers, Eight spoke up on her behalf.  “Hey, leave her alone.  She is saving herself for someone.”

            “Saving herself?  Are you joking?”  The second octo scoffed as he stepped around to Aurora’s side and leaned over her, trapping her treacherously in her seat.  “You look to me like you’re open for business!  Those rockin’ burst bombs of yours are tellin’ us the whole story!”

            The first octo built upon his friend’s imposing by stepping around to Aurora’s other side and glaring into her tank top for a better view.  “Yeeeah, those suckers look ready to pop.  How can you be ‘saving yourself’ when you’re walking around with these things out in the open?”

            Aurora immediately crossed her arms in front of her in a vain effort to conceal her breasts from her attackers.  She kept lowering her head to avoid seeing the octos’ faces again.  Eight stood up from her seat and put her hands on the table when the boys started invading her friend’s personal space, but the gesture didn’t seem to deter them from their prize.

            The second octo got even closer to Aurora, causing her to pinch her eyes shut and turn her face the other away.  “A beautiful octoling like you deserves a bit of pampering.  I’d say you could use a little massage, don’t you think?  Those ink tanks of yours are looking a little full!”

            Aurora jumped a mile in her skin when the second octo reached into the armhole of her tank top and began groping one of her boobs.  He smirked while he did so, clearly enjoying the treat he was giving to himself.  The first octo, enabled by his friend’s actions, descended further onto her shortly thereafter.  Finally, Eight shoved her chair out from the table and stormed around to the second octo after seeing Aurora’s distress.  She grabbed his wrist and forcefully yanked it away from Aurora, much to his surprise.

            “Get away from her.  Can’t you see she is not interested?”  She ordered threateningly.

            “A fighter, huh?”  He rasped.  “What are you trying to rain on our parade for?”

            “Yeah, what gives?  Why would you let your friend dress like a whore if you weren’t going to let her have a bit of fun?”  The first octo demanded.

            “I do not ‘let’ Aurora do anything.  She is an independent octopus, and she can wear whatever makes her happy.  I am stopping you because she is not interested in you, and you are unfairly forcing yourselves on her.  Now get lost.”  Eight stated with unwavering authority.  Aurora had never heard such a monologue from her.  It was probably the longest ongoing statement she had ever made.

            “Pfft, what a white knight.”  The second octo muttered in response to being put in his place.

            “Exactly.”  The first octo added.  “Why don’t you lesbos take each other to the Splatfest?”

            The two oppressors snickered in unison to the jab as they turned around and strolled away pathetically.  Aurora’s face remained hidden to the side for a while after they left, leaving Eight staring at her with concern.  In an attempt to pull her back out of her shell, she walked up behind Aurora and laid her hand on her back.  The day had been going so well for her.  Eight just hoped that the two negative events at the end didn’t ruin the entire excursion for her.

            Aurora let out a long, defeated sigh.  “…Being loose is hard.  I don’t know how Bella does it.”

            “Do not blame yourself.  Those guys are worthless bottom-feeders.  Midas should not be like that.”  Eight assured.

            Aurora didn’t give an immediate response to her friend’s encouraging statement.  Eventually, though, she gave Eight the words that she fully deserved to hear after all she had done for her that afternoon.

            “Thank you so much, Eight.  I don’t know what I would do without you.”

            Another slight grin appeared on Eight’s face, which Aurora, once again, did not see.

            “Friends stick together.”

Chapter Text

            Following the incident with the octo boys, Aurora struggled to return to a talkative state.  She had prepared a few personal questions for Eight before asking her to come to The Reef that day, and their dinner together was supposed to be the perfect time to ask them in a private, peaceful setting.  However, after nearly having her innocence stolen from her by her dastardly visitors, she couldn’t muster the energy needed to carry on a conversation.  Eight understood completely.  Being the laconic cephalopod that she was, she avoided saying anything that would make Aurora uncomfortable, choosing instead to amuse herself with the events of the turf wars happening below.  Aurora wound up doing the same after she and Eight had returned to the table with their food.  As a result, the two octos spoke very little during their dinner.

            The activity around The Reef never slowed down during the remainder of their stay.  The girls were lucky to have found a table when they did, as another ten minutes in the shops would’ve rendered the terraces near the arena untouchable.  Squids and octos were scattered all over the sidewalks, producing a constant stream of zestful chatter that never seemed to quit.  Just like everywhere else in the city, the upcoming Splatfest was taking the hotspot by storm.  Aurora even spotted a number of Splatfest t-shirts among the fray, and as her eyes scanned over them, she kept a mental tally of each side’s popularity.  For every aqua-blue Team Personality t-shirt she saw, she counted about…three Team Looks shirts.  She didn’t really know what to make of those numbers.

            Over the course of their meal, which lasted roughly an hour, the turf wars continued on tap with raging, and rather entertaining, ferocity.  Though some battles had longer waits than others, the overall density of inklings and octolings looking to splat away their evenings kept the arena lively the entire time.  The girls had to guard their food a few times from rogue Sting-Rays and Ink Storms, but in their opinion, that aspect was part of the fun.  It certainly beat sitting back at the apartment with Bella and Ula…considering the disharmony she had introduced between them.

            Eventually, when the streetlights around The Reef began to illuminate, and the arena started to close down at the end of the last skirmish, Aurora and Eight were not quick to stick around.  Shortly after the last shots of ink left the combatants’ weapons, and the winning team was announced, the duo stood up from the table simultaneously, gathered their belongings, and removed their trash from the table to be discarded.  A posh-looking inkling couple swooped in to take their seats as soon as they had vacated them, each glaring disgustedly at Aurora’s tank top before sitting down.  Aurora looked the other way and refused to let herself feel any more shame for her raunchy clothing choice.

            Once everything was in order, the girls directed themselves toward Inkopolis Square and super-jumped before anyone else could hassle Aurora over her appearance.  They still needed to recover their weapons from storage before heading back to Eight’s apartment.  It never took long for them to do so, of course, but after the way things had gone on the terrace, Aurora didn’t want to take any chances.  After all, the square was still alive with scores of Splatfest applicants, and it only took one pair of wandering eyes for things to start going south again.  Eight had to break into a light jog to keep up with her friend as she bolted towards Sheldon’s shop to retrieve their stuff.  They knew Sheldon wouldn’t judge.

            It wasn’t until after they had finished this task, with Eight’s E-Liter on her back and Aurora holding her Splattershot in front of her chest, that the two octos finally spoke to each other again.  Eight piped up first, just as Aurora was beginning to make her way towards the nearby metro station.

            “Aurora…wait.”

            Aurora stopped and turned around.  “What?”

            “We should not take the metro.”  She uttered, pulling out her phone and tapping the screen with her finger.  “I am calling a taxi.”

            “A taxi?  But...the metro is so much faster.”

            Eight glanced up from the screen for a moment, meeting Aurora’s gaze directly.  Aurora tried to read her friend’s expression, but to no avail.  “I am just looking out for you.  You are dressed very provocatively.”

            “…Oh…”  Aurora mumbled.  She stared down into the drooping collar of her tank top again while Eight summoned a taxi to the outskirts of the square through an app on her phone.  As convenient as the metro station would’ve been, Aurora understood why Eight deemed it a risky move.  The metro was used almost exclusively by octolings, the majority of which were likely to lack restraint upon seeing Aurora’s exposed curves bouncing around with the movement of the subway car.  Once again, her friend was doing her a subtle favor.

            The taxi driver, a well-groomed inkling boy with a casual perm and glasses thicker than Aurora’s, remained quiet during the ride back to Eight’s apartment.  Aurora was relieved by that fact, caring very little about whether he was doing it out of courtesy or contempt.  As far as she was concerned, a quiet ride was a peaceful ride.  She spent the entire trip leaning against the car door with her weapon on her lap, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk outside the window.  A certain turmoil remained ever present in her mind, making it difficult for her to focus on one thought for more than a few minutes.  It seemed like the problem was rapidly getting worse…with no end in sight until the moment she got her happy ending with Midas.  She wanted to vent about it so desperately…to pour out her feelings in every last besotted, perverted detail…but she didn’t know if Eight would be any more willing to listen than her other friends back home.

            In such a jumbled state of mind, she didn’t really notice the passage of time.  The taxi zigzagged along the streets of the city, with the girls in tow, for about twenty minutes before reaching Eight’s apartment building and coming to a stop along the sidewalk.  Even then, it wasn’t until Eight leaned forward to hand her card to the driver that Aurora noticed they were at their destination.  The buildings had a tendency to start looking the same when her mind was lost in other things.  Without waiting for Eight to finish paying, she stepped out of the car and began trudging toward the lobby doors.  Eight followed her at a relaxed pace just a few moments later, after exiting the car herself.

            Right away, two things jumped out to Aurora about the building that housed her dear friend.  Firstly, there was the fact that it had an indoor lobby.  In contrast, the stairwells and hallways of Aurora’s home were all outdoors, resembling something like scaffolding instead of an actual part of the building’s structure.  Their place didn’t even have a formal office on the first floor, while Eight’s building had a long desk in its lobby that, from the looks of it, was occupied by a couple of octoling employees at all times of the day.  Aurora could only imagine how nice it must’ve been for Eight to be able to report issues without having to pester the landlord over the phone.  That aspect alone was enough to put Eight’s living conditions a league or two ahead of her own.

            The other thing Aurora noticed upon entering the blissfully air-conditioned building was the elevator on the back wall of the lobby.  The humble octo almost couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw it.  Eight’s apartment building actually had a real, functioning elevator.  If the rest of the interior didn’t already prove the superiority of the place, the elevator was definitely the deciding factor.  Aurora had never even stayed in a hotel with such a luxury, let alone considered living in a place with one.  She still had yet to see Eight’s foyer at that point, and she was already flabbergasted by the gaping chasm that seemed to separate Eight’s and her friends’ economic standing.

            Aurora kept a careful eye on the other octos in the lobby as she and Eight made their way to the mystical elevator.  The lobby wasn’t actually that crowded, considering the time of day, but Aurora preferred to be cautious anyway.  The treatment she had gotten from those octo boys earlier had a way of making her wary of her surroundings.  Therefore, she tried avidly to maintain an inconspicuous stride beside her friend as they approached the sliding doors.  Even after Eight pushed the up-button on the panel, while they were waiting for the elevator to descend, Aurora stood very close to the doors with her back to the rest of the lobby.

            It took the elevator about fifteen seconds to arrive at their floor.  Aurora tapped her foot impatiently during the wait, eager to reach the safety and privacy of Eight’s abode so she could change into comfier clothes for the night.  When the elevator reached the lobby, and the doors began to open, Aurora stood herself as close to them as she could.  Unfortunately, just as she was preparing to barrel into the elevator, she was startled by the sight of an octoling already standing inside.  He stepped forward to exit into the lobby as soon as the doors granted him clearance, but he stopped once he caught a glimpse of Aurora’s front side.  The two of them gasped simultaneously, and Aurora whipped her body to the side to conceal her chest from the unexpected stranger.

            With Eight watching vigilantly from behind, Aurora sidestepped her way into the elevator with her back turned to the octo dude.  He merely stood and watched her as she moved, his eyes trailing to several different places.

            “Damn, girl, are you lookin’ for a Splatfest partner?  We don’t normally get cute veemos like you around here.”  He flirted.

            “N…No thanks.  I already have a Splatfest partner.”  She replied shakily.

            The boy raised an eyebrow.  “You sure you’re happy with him, though?  With the way you’re dressed, you look to me like you’re fixin’ for someone else to take your reigns.  Know what I’m sayin’?”

            “These aren’t for you.”  She repeated.  She kept her back to him the entire time, unwilling to drive up his desire by giving him another peek.  Eight positioned herself a little closer to her friend.

            “Well, what are you showin’ them to me for?  And everyone else in the city?”  He rebutted with a provoking chuckle.  “I’m not the only guy who’s gonna see all that and assume you’re out for a mate.”

            Eight stepped between Aurora and the boy on the elevator, obstructing his view of her.  She then faced him, narrowing her gaze to instill dominance in the situation once again.  “Why are you still trying?  You have been rejected.  Move on.”

            He rolled his eyes.  “Pfft, fine.  A word of advice, try putting on a damn bra if you can’t handle all the attention.”

            The boy marched off the elevator toward the front doors of the building without looking back.  Hoping to avoid another unwanted encounter, Aurora urged Eight to press the correct button on the panel the second they had the elevator to themselves.  Eight quickly obliged by leaning over in front of her and pressing the button for the fifth floor.  Neither of them talked during the elevator’s ascent, but Aurora was still ever grateful for her friend’s protection.  Without her, her clothing choice at The Reef would’ve probably gotten her abducted before long.  She just hoped that Midas would provide her with the same security.

            On the fifth floor, the elevator doors opened to reveal a junction, where the hallway extended an equal distance to both the left and the right.  Aurora had never been inside Eight’s apartment building, so she let Eight lead the way after stepping onto the carpeted floor of the waiting area.  She followed her friend as she took the left side of the junction and strolled down the hallway toward her front door.  Her E-Liter swayed slightly on her back with each step, the narrow tube on the end nearly colliding with the light fixtures on the ceiling on her way by.  She seemed confident that her gigantic weapon wouldn’t hit anything in the narrow space, which made sense, considering how often she walked through it on a daily basis.

            With Aurora tottering close behind her, Eight stopped on the fuzzy welcome-mat in front of door number 588 and extracted her apartment key out of her new satchel.  Aurora had always been curious of which exact room number Eight lived in, but once she saw it on the plaque above the knocker, she was not surprised by it.  She waited quietly behind her friend while she briefly fiddled with the lock, anxious as ever to see the luscious interior of her middle-class apartment.  The sound of the lock giving way after a few short seconds made her hearts flutter a bit.  She couldn’t wait to see how nice it was.

            Eight turned the handle and pushed open the door, returning the key to her bag immediately after finishing with the lock.  Aurora peeked over Eight’s head using the added leverage from her high heels and observed what she could from the doorway.  Right away, she was blown away by what she saw.  It already looked like paradise on earth, but it wasn’t until she stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind her that she got the most encompassing view of Eight’s home.

            The foyer opened straight through to the living room, which was teeming with the natural light of dusk from the tall windows that lined the back walls.  The setting sun on the cusp of the city’s skyline was actually the first thing Aurora saw upon entering the apartment, along with the orangish glow it cast over all the furniture.  Compared to her own living room with the girls, which lacked direct access to the sun, it created a delightfully pleasant and refreshing atmosphere that could be felt the moment she had immersed herself in it.

            The kitchen was located just left of the living room, and unlike the girls’ kitchen, it was not separated by a doorway.  Rather, it was connected to the living room as one large space, marked only by the floor’s transition from carpet to tile.  The kitchen itself was loaded with exquisite amenities, including a dishwasher, an oven with an electric stove on top, an overhead microwave, and even a stainless-steel refrigerator.  There was even a bowl of fruit on the counter in the middle of the room.  Aurora was most impressed by the open-style bar that faced the living room, allowing guests in the apartment to sit at the countertop without having to enter the kitchen.  It was like something straight out of the TV shows.

            On the other side of the space from the kitchen, a narrow, straight hallway extended beyond the right wall of the living room, ending in a trio of doors that couldn’t be seen in much detail from where she was standing.  She decided to wait for an invitation from Eight before bolting down that hallway to see what her bedroom looked like.  As for the living room itself, the quality of its contents was second to none.  The right wall hosted a flat-screen TV beside the entrance to the hallway, mounted above a glass entertainment center that served almost no purpose.  A long couch with black leather upholstery was positioned facing the TV in the middle of the room, with ample space behind to walk around and access the bar.  A coffee table sat right in front of the couch, just like in the girls’ apartment, but its top was also made of glass instead of wood.  Through the windows, much to her amazement, Aurora could see what appeared to be a balcony, with two lawn chairs and a miniature side-table bedecking its concrete surface before the falling sun.  It wasn’t immediately clear to her how to reach the balcony from inside, since the back wall did not have a door leading to it.

            Everything in Eight’s apartment, at least from what Aurora could see, was extremely clean and tidy.  Aside from how spacious and cozy it was, the neatness was probably the biggest aspect that set it apart from the girls’ apartment a few blocks over.  The only object sitting atop the entertainment center beneath the TV was a mist-dispensing air freshener, which Aurora could smell the moment Eight had opened the front door.  While there weren’t many stray items to be seen throughout the apartment, the things she could see were arranged in a consistent, orderly manner.  For instance, the TV remotes on the coffee table were placed perfectly parallel to each other, exactly the same distance apart.  On top of that, the posters she kept on the front wall by the door were organized in a grid-like pattern, leaving no error in the gaps between them.  Several of her posters matched the ones in the girls’ apartment, but it threw Aurora off to see them exhibited so neatly.

            “Holy kraken…”  She uttered.  “You live like an X-ranker compared to us…”

            “It is sufficient.”  Eight replied.  She bent over in front of Aurora and began taking off her shoes, prompting Aurora to do the same.  It looked to her like Eight spent hours cleaning her home on a regular basis, so the last thing she wanted to do was track dirt and dust on the carpet.

            “Sorry for asking, but…how do you afford a place like this?  Do you work in one of the upper districts?”

            Eight didn’t respond right away.  After setting her E-Liter against the wall and pushing her shoes aside with her foot, she walked across the living room and embarked down the hall towards the three doors.  “I get help.  From a friend.”

            “A friend?  Is it the same friend that gave you your credit card?”

            Aurora stayed right by Eight’s side as she went, but Eight did not turn to acknowledge her.  As usual, her friend did not seem eager to answer her question.  She wondered if she was starting to get too personal for Eight’s comfort, or if her pestering was annoying her into staying quiet.

            At the end of the hallway, Eight stepped briskly into the door on the right, with Aurora following close behind.  Once she got close enough to crane her head around and see what was inside, however, she stopped in her tracks and blushed sheepishly.  It was a bathroom.

            “Oh…I’m sorry.  I’ll…uhh…I’ll give you a moment.”  She stammered.

            Eight nodded once before closing the door behind her, leaving Aurora standing by herself in the hallway.  Her first instinct was to turn around and dawdle back to the living room, since she didn’t want to make Eight uncomfortable by standing within earshot while she was trying to freshen up.  She was still curious as ever to see Eight’s bedroom on the other side of the hall, but she knew she needed to be courteous in her friend’s home.  Especially considering how kind and selfless she had been to her all day.

            On that note, Aurora returned to the living room, set her Splattershot next to Eight’s weapon by the front door, and took another moment to drink in the sight of her spectacular residence.  Her sense of awe was further amplified when she shimmied over to the couch and sat down, feeling the soft leather encase her weary appendages as she sank into the cushions.  She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that her own friend…an octoling like her…was basically living like an inkling under her nose.  Wealth and freshness, at least at the level enjoyed by inklings, were things she had accepted as being forever beyond her reach.  Of course, even her humble little existence in the bottom-feeders’ district was a step up from her childhood in Octo Valley, so she never really expected anything more.  All this time, though…Eight had been secretly proving that a life of luxury could truly be lived by anyone.  If only Aurora and her friends knew how she did it.

            Thinking heavily about these things, and slowly dissolving from the blissful comfort of Eight’s couch, Aurora let her gaze trail off toward the windows, where the tiniest shred of sunlight could still be seen backlighting the skyscrapers of Inkopolis.  The city’s lights were just about the only things illuminating Eight’s apartment by this hour.  The tranquil feelings they created were unlike anything Aurora had felt before.  As far as she was concerned…her stresses were momentarily suspended by their glow.

            However, it was not long before her mind returned to the present.  While staring out at the city past Eight’s balcony, Aurora noticed a small glint on the side-table from through the window.  Her eyes focused on the disturbance, but without her usual glasses on, she couldn’t tell what it was from the couch.  Everything about the apartment made Aurora curious, and the contents of the balcony were no exception.  The longer she stared, the more it bothered her.  Eventually, without really having to think about it, she stood up from the couch and walked over to the window before pressing her face to the glass for a better look.

            She couldn’t make out much from the limited lighting, of course, but she was able to infer the shape of a thin, rod-like object sitting atop the foldable side-table on her friend’s balcony.  It looked narrow enough to be a writing utensil…of some kind.  That would’ve made the most sense to the quizzical octo, but the object didn’t seem to be accompanied by any paper, and she didn’t find it sensible for someone as clean and organized as Eight to leave a pencil or pen sitting out on her balcony instead of on a desk or in a drawer.  As if that weren’t strange enough, the side-table also seemed to host a small collection of mint-sized pods, which were glassy in texture, and stored in a shallow dish that was barely visible under the conditions.  It was a quaint little setup, and one that quickly piqued Aurora’s interest.

            After a few more seconds of staring, she was forced to withdraw her face from the window by the sound of Eight approaching from down the hall.  Regardless, she kept her gaze fixed on the balcony.  Eight was rather intrigued by it when she emerged in the living room in her pajamas.

            “Are you alright?”

            “Yeah, yeah, it’s just…”  She pointed out the window.  “…what’s that thing on the table out there?  I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

            “My clear pen?”

            Aurora turned to look at her.  “Clear…pen?  So it is for writing?”

            “No, it is not for writing.”  Eight answered, shaking her head.  “Those pods in the tray are filled with seaweed extract.”

            Aurora blinked a few times.  She wasn’t quite sure she heard her friend correctly.  Eight continued to stare at her as she stood completely frozen in place, trying unsuccessfully to keep her shocked reaction under control.  She stuttered incomprehensibly for a few seconds.

            “Y…You smoke seaweed?  On your own?  I thought only lower-ring octolings like us did stuff like that!”

            Based on Eight’s temperate expression, she didn’t seem to find the fact strange at all.  “I did not used to, but Ophelia got me into it.  If I am feeling stressed, it helps me go to sleep.”

            “That’s just…so…wow.  I did not know that about you.”  Aurora put a hand on her hip.  “I didn’t even know you could get stressed.  You’re like…the most rigid octo I’ve ever known.”

            “Everyone gets stressed, Aurora.  There is a lot more to life than we are both aware of.”

            “Yeah…”  She muttered weakly.  She broke her gaze with Eight and glanced down at the carpet as more images of Midas passed through her mind.  “…I guess you’re right.”

            A moment of silence transpired between the two girls while Aurora stared at the floor.  Neither of them moved from their spots.  Aurora could not imagine Eight being stressed about anything, so it was difficult for her fathom the secret aspects of her life that would cause her to feel grief.  She was practically rich, she lived in a nice place, she had a gang of tight-knit friends that cared about her, and she was, more or less, really good at everything.  How could Eight, the octo with the golden toothpick, have anything to stress about?  The answer was just going to have to come as another surprise.  After all, with her, there were always many.

            “Would you like to have some with me?”  She asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

            Aurora looked up at her.  “You want to…smoke seaweed?  Right now?  On the balcony?”

            Eight nodded while maintaining her straight face.  “I do.  It is a beautiful night.”

            “Uhh…I…well…”  She hadn’t expected such a question, that was for sure.  Knowing how the stuff tended to mess with her head, especially with her big date tomorrow, she needed a moment to think it over.  “…I suppose we could…”

            Eight made a gesture with her hand.  “Follow me.  We can get to the balcony from my bedroom.”

            Aurora perked up at the sound of that.  Eight turned around and began walking back down the hallway without waiting for her friend’s response, but at that point, she had already grabbed Aurora’s interest.  Aurora promptly jogged across the living room to join the PJ’d octo in time for her to reach her bedroom door, which was across from the hall from the bathroom on the left.  As Eight grabbed hold of the handle and pushed the door open, Aurora felt a greater level of excitement than she had while waiting outside the foyer.

            Her first view of the room came when Eight stepped inside and headed towards the door to the balcony.  Aurora’s eyes immediately settled on the kraken-sized bed in the middle of the room.  It didn’t surprise her much that Eight had made her bed that morning, having tucked the comforter into the edges of the mattress with stunning expertise.  The comforter itself was adorned with the famous logo of the Squid Sisters, featuring the cartoonish graphic of the celebrities’ hands in the “stay fresh” position.  The room itself was sparse on decorations, save for the bookshelf behind the bed, which displayed numerous specimens of Inkopolis memorabilia, ranging from album covers and figurines of the Squid Sisters…to framed pictures of Aurora and the girls on their many adventures in the city.  She had framed several pictures of the girls together as a group, as well as a picture of each of them individually.  It seemed that, from the looks of it, Eight liked to keep lots of memories.

            While Aurora was most intrigued by the bed and the items on the shelf behind it, she also noticed a simple four-legged desk in the opposite corner of the room by the wardrobe.  Atop the desk lay a small collection of pens, each a different ink color, along with a stack of notebook paper.  Not a single sheet was misaligned in the stack, and the pens were all kept exactly parallel to each other, just like the TV remotes on the living room coffee table.  It was set up like a nice little writing station.  Aurora felt a sudden, powerful urge to go snoop around that desk the moment she laid eyes on it.  Writing was the last hobby she would’ve ever imagined Eight having, so she felt inclined to discover what the quiet octo liked to write about.  She didn’t get the chance right then, however, as Eight was already waiting for her by the balcony door.

            Aurora thanked Eight for holding the door open for her before stepping back out into the calm, late-evening air.  The sun itself had recently disappeared from the horizon, and the last remnants of its radiance were just beginning to fade from the sky above.  Despite this, though, it was still slightly warmer outside than in Eight’s apartment.  Aurora’s tank top was drafty enough to make the weather feel beautiful.  She admired the feeling of it, as well as the fifth-floor view that accompanied it, as she sat down on the lawn chair to the left of the side-table.  Eight closed the door behind herself shortly thereafter and sat down in the other available seat, grabbing the clear pen from the table before Aurora had a chance to look at it more closely.

            “You know…I never would’ve guessed that you’d be so into this stuff.  Octolings like us usually do it, because…we don’t really have anything else.  Ula even says it’s all she has…”  Aurora babbled, trailing off slightly.

            “I always join you whenever you and the girls have some.”  Eight replied blandly, keeping her usual expression while she twisted the end of the pen and removed the empty pod that was inside.  “Don’t I?”

            “Well…yeah…”  Aurora stuttered.  “…but I just thought you were doing it to fit in with us.  With all the nice things you have…and all your money……you remind me more of an inkling than anything else.”

            “I am an octoling, just like you.  I like to have fun.  You and the girls thought this was fun, so I joined you.”  She paused for a moment, setting the old pod carefully on the table and grabbing a new one from the dish to put in the device.  “We are not that different.”

            Aurora nodded slowly.  “I see.  I guess I just found it interesting that you started doing it on your own.  Y’know…without any of us around.  And with that…weird…pen thingy.”

            Without looking at Aurora, Eight fastened the cap back on the clear pen and pressed down on a small button that was located on its side.  She held it there, motionless, without blinking, until a tiny green light appeared next to the button.  Aurora watched her do it with unbridled fascination.  She had been around seaweed much of her adolescent life, but she had never seen such a strange way of doing it before.

            “It is electric.”  Her friend explained.  “It heats up the seaweed extract in the pod, which turns it into vapor.  It is easier to inhale than smoke from a lighter.”

            “Whoa…that’s the freshest thing ever.  I didn’t even know that was possible!”  She stated keenly.

            Aurora thought Eight was going to explain more about the intriguing contraption, but instead, she got right to demonstrating.  With the little green light illuminating her thumb, she brought the straw-like device to her mouth, closed her lips around it, and drew in a slow breath.  Aurora listened intently to the soft crackling noise made by the object as air was pulled through it into Eight’s lungs.  She wasn’t sure how hard she would have to inhale, nor for how long, but she figured she’d get her answers by watching her friend do it.  It looked quite slick to her, and without the added hassle required by Ophelia’s bong, it seemed to hold a lot of promise.

            Eight withdrew the pen from her face after a couple seconds and sucked in a larger breath to end her hit.  Under Aurora’s enthralled glare, she exhaled gently, releasing a pale mist of spent vapor into the air through her mouth and nose.  She held the pen between her fingers while she expelled the cloud.  Aurora couldn’t get over how cool it looked compared to the bong.  Ultimately dismissing her prior skepticism, she sat forward in her seat and waited eagerly for Eight to hand the pen to her, which she graciously did after allowing her hit to simmer for a few moments.

            As soon as Aurora had possession of the device, she mimicked Eight by pressing down on the button with her thumb until the green light came to life in her hand.  She then raised the tip of the pen to her mouth and sucked in greedily, her eyes widening to convey the gesture.  Eight observed the spectacle with her typical, calm expression.  Once the seconds began to tick by like that, with Aurora’s lips still closed around the pen, she had to intervene.

            “Okay, Aurora, I think that is eno…”

            Aurora cut her off slightly as she sputtered once, dispensing a small puff of vapor from her face, and then instantly plummeted into a fit of violent coughing.  She whipped the pen away from her face and managed to hold it out for Eight to take while she balled her other hand into a fist in front of her mouth.  With each high-pitched cough that wracked her throat, a thick, hazy plume of vapor erupted from her mouth and enveloped her in her seat.  The urge to cough had overtaken her so quickly, and now it was too late to rescind.  She thought she was handling it rather well at first, as most amateurs often did, before her lungs were suddenly awash with fire from the hot mist.

            “I thought…you said…that this thing was easier to hit!”  She wheezed between coughs.

            “It is.”  Eight insisted, fanning some of her friend’s cloudy coughs away from herself.  “But you are not supposed to hit it like a bong.  Seaweed extract is very potent, so you do not need to take so much of it.”

            Aurora gained enough control of her coughing after a few moments to focus on Eight once more, just in time to see her return the pen to her mouth and take another hit.  The same familiar crackling sound graced the balcony another time as Eight drew in a moderate amount of vapor from the device without so much as a glimmer of protest from her lungs.  Aurora knew when she had handed it back to her that she had over-salivated on it as a result of her coughing, but Eight hadn’t bothered to wipe it off before putting it back in her mouth.  Rather, she seemed more concerned with showing her friend the proper way to hit a clear pen like a true middle-class octoling…and getting delightfully high while doing it.

            The experienced octo removed the pen from her mouth and, while holding her breath, held it towards Aurora at arm’s length for another try.  Aurora reached up and shyly plucked the device out of her friend’s outstretched hand, watching her exhale her dose at exactly the same time.  She made it look so easy.  Aurora was amused, and quite a bit impressed, at Eight’s crafty little display of showmanship.  If Midas were to ever take a hit of seaweed like that in front of her, she thought to herself, she would melt into a puddle right on the spot.

            Eight sat back in her seat after her second hit.  Aurora, with the pen poised comfortably between her thumb and index finger, let out the breath she was holding to prepare for her follow-up toke.  Before taking it, though, she glanced right at Eight and attempted to make up for their missed conversation during dinner.

            “So…you’re a fan of the Squid Sisters, huh?”

            Eight turned her head and looked right at her friend.  As Aurora brought the pen to her mouth and drew in her second breath, she noticed a change in Eight’s posture.  Her ears seemed to perk up initially, followed by the rest of her figure as she adjusted to a more upright position.

            “I am.  Their music inspires me.”

            A short response, it was, but it was a good enough start for Aurora.  She finished inhaling an ample dose from the pen, held it in for a moment, and then let it out with a calm, controlled sigh.  Eight was right; the clear pen was a nice little piece when hit correctly.

            She handed the device back to Eight, expecting her to raise it up for another hit.  Instead, however, she saw her friend turn it off and set it back on the side-table.

            “Two hits is good enough.  I would still like to be able to walk in a couple hours.”  Eight declared.

            Aurora giggled at her joke.  Eight just kept her usual, straight face.

            “Anyway, which song is your favorite?  Do you have favorites?”  She asked innocently.

            “Of course.  My favorite is the Calamari Inkantation.”  Eight answered.  She kept every ounce of her attention on Aurora after she had started the conversation.  “I love it very much.”

            “You know, I had a feeling you were going to say that.”  Aurora winked.  “The Inkantation is sooooo good.  It’s what put the Squid Sisters on the map for most of us.”

            “Yes.  If it weren’t for the Calamari Inkantation, I would not be here today.  I have been very fond of the Squid Sisters since the day I first heard it.”  Eight explained.  Now that the seaweed was beginning to take root in her system, she was hopelessly stuck against the back of her chair with her arms splayed out on the armrests.

            Aurora’s eyes widened.  “Whoa…so, you’re saying…that the Calamari Inkantation…saved your life somehow?”

            To that, Eight shook her head.  “No, actually, I would say it saved…my future.  I would not be here, living in Inkopolis, if it weren’t for that song.”

            “Oh, I see what you mean.  How did it do that?”

            Aurora hoped she wasn’t being too nosy with her questions.  She was already quite impressed with how open Eight was being with her, considering how secretive she always was about her history.  Aurora, along with Bella and Ophelia, had tried numerous times to learn about Eight’s background in the past, especially while sharing seaweed from the bong, but they could never get the taciturn octo to crack.  Aurora’s biggest issue at the moment was wanting to know too much about her dearest friend…and not having the restraint to avoid prying.  After all, she had just taken a thunderous toke off the pen, and as her body began to shut down and glue her to her seat, her mind took off like a motorboat headed for the Ruins of Ark Polaris.

            Eight didn’t say anything for a while.  Aurora’s question still hung in the air, awkwardly untouched, for several seconds while the two octos stared beyond Eight’s balcony at the columns of lights that aligned the nearest buildings.  Eventually, the escalating chaos in Aurora’s brain caused her to forget about her question altogether and default to a zombie-like state, with a dead gaze that seemed to stretch on forever.  Her eyelids felt heavy, yet her hearts felt like they were beating miles out of her chest.  And they wouldn’t stop getting faster.

            Finally, Eight broke the silence.  She completely dodged Aurora’s question, though, opting instead to introduce one of her own.

            “How are you feeling?”

            Aurora couldn’t think straight.  She could hear herself taking slow, heaving breaths.  “I…I feel……gone…”

            “…Gone?”  Eight echoed, turning her head sluggishly.  “Do you…at least…feel good?”

            “I…don’t know.  I th…think I do…”

            “You took in a lot more than normal.  You will just need to relax for a while.”

            “Oh, believe me…”  Aurora wheezed.  “…I am very relaxed.”  She giggled stupidly, despite barely having the energy to lift a single finger.

            At this point, it was clear to Eight that Aurora was well beyond stoned.  If her immoderate breathing and increasingly delusional tone didn’t already give it away, her unfocused gaze certainly did.  She was staring somewhere off in the distance without responding much to Eight’s presence on the balcony with her.  Eight knew it had been a while since Aurora’s last hit of seaweed.  With the way things now stood, concerning the big date at Albacore Hotel tomorrow, she didn’t actually think Aurora would be willing to toke up on such short notice.  Now that they had this time together, Eight tried to break out of her shell a bit more and address the things that had been bothering her all day.

            “…Aurora?”

            “Huh?”  Aurora answered, responding as if she had just been startled out of a vivid daydream.

            “Are you sure you want to go to Albacore Hotel tomorrow…dressed like that?”  She asked monotonously.  She wished her words would sound as emotional as she felt while saying them, but she never really learned how to communicate emotion.

            “Of…course I do.”  Aurora replied between deep, gulping breaths.  “How else…am I going…to win over Midas?”

            “I will not be there with you tomorrow.  What if you are harassed?”

            “I want…Midas…to harass me.  When he sees me in this top…and those new heels……he’ll have to want me!  He’ll just have to!”

            “Aurora…”

            Aurora turned her head finally, cutting Eight off with the full brunt of her baked glare.  Eight could already see discoloration in her eyeballs.  “Boys are…simple creatures, Eight.  I’m gonna show Midas…that I want the D!  His cute, sexy…inkling D!”

            Eight let out a huff.  “This is not healthy, Aurora.  There is something you should know about Albacore Hotel.  And about inklings.”

            “Something I should know?  What else…is there to know?  Albacore Hotel is…my favorite place to splat.  It’s all nice and…tropical ‘n stuff.”  Aurora produced another demented grin as she pictured the place in her head.  “Midas and I are gonna get so drunk together…and kiss a lot…and maybe go flop around behind the concert stage on the water…”

            “Please listen.”  Eight finally blurted, cutting Aurora off for the very first time.  “I am not comfortable with you going to the hotel tomorrow.”

            “Wait…huh?  You’re not?”  Aurora stammered, cocking her head slightly in confusion.  Her eyes were far from white at this point, and Eight could see it.

            Eight shook her head again.  “No.  Albacore Hotel is a dangerous place to go without friends to support you.”

            “That’s…ridiculous.  Albacore Hotel is…the nicest place in Inkopolis!  Plus, I’m going to have Midas with me.”

            Eight was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of their conversation the longer it went on.  She had hoped that sharing seaweed with Aurora would settle the obsession in her mind and make her more receptive to a calm, open discussion, but it was actually the opposite that seemed to be happening.  In fact, it seemed like the best part of their conversation on the balcony was actually the beginning of it, before the vapor had had a chance to go to her friend’s head.  Aurora was becoming rather manic now, thinking only about how hard she wanted to get inked by Midas while in the midst of a full-body stone that prevented her from moving anything below her neck.  All of a sudden, Eight felt like she had done her pal a disservice by offering to share the clear pen with her.

            “Aurora, Midas is not your friend.  He will not support you.  I think…”  She hesitated for a moment before continuing, which was another rarity for her.  “…I think he is trying to get rid of you.”

            Aurora was taken aback by that statement.  She eyed Eight directly and let out a hearty scoff.  “What?  What…makes you think that?”

            “You see…the thing about inklings is…they are very territorial.”

            “So?  We are, too.”

            “Yes, but we are already in our territory.  Albacore Hotel is inkling territory.”  Eight explained.  “It is right in the middle of the richest part of the city.”

            Aurora, with a bit of effort, put a hand up to her cheek.  “I…I don’t understand.  We’ve…been to Albacore Hotel before.  We’ve had…turf wars there.  We’ve even gone and…gotten drinks there before!”

            “The splatting arena is for everyone.”  Eight mentioned.  “The inklings at the bars like to watch battles.  They do not care who is part of them.  They also will not bother anyone that is part of a large group, which is why we have been able to go there and enjoy ourselves on occasion.  But…if you go there with Midas tomorrow…you may not be so lucky.”

            “I…don’t get it…”  Aurora muttered, sounding slightly despaired.  “I thought…there were only a few inklings in the city…that didn’t like us.  Why would the hotel…be any different?”

            Eight could not be sure that Aurora was going to take her words to heart.  All she could do was tell her the truth and hope she saw the risk for herself.  She had to recognize Eight’s experience in the city, right?  Eight had seen more of the underlying nature of Inkopolis than all four of her friends combined, so she was confident in the dangers of trespassing into the wrong areas of the inklings’ world.  She prayed internally that she could get the message across.

            She spent a moment trying to find the best way to answer Aurora’s question.  Aurora kept her gaze rigidly pointed at her in the meantime, waiting patiently in her dazed state for the explanation she was looking for.

            “There are inklings in this city that have not forgotten about the Great Zapfish.”  She began, still hesitating occasionally in the pursuit of the best words.  “After the incident with Callie’s disappearance, they began to hate octolings like us.  We were the cause of all their problems.  Then, when all of you began migrating here from Octo Valley…they were angered.  They had already claimed the whole city of Inkopolis as their territory.  You, Aurora, are an intruder.  And so are the rest of us.”

            “…Wow, I……wow.”  Aurora babbled.  “Why don’t they choose…to hate DJ Octavio, then?  Most of us weren’t even involved with him!  Well…we think Ula might’ve been……but she won’t talk to us about that.”

            “It does not make a difference to them.  These inklings believe that all octolings are their enemies.  That is why they often gather at Albacore Hotel to escape from us.  It is the most upper-class hangout in the city.”

            Aurora sunk even further into her seat.  The more she listened to Eight warn her about her upcoming date, the heavier her body began to feel.  It was as if an invisible bundle of tentacles was wrapping itself around her and dragging her downwards through the lawn chair.  Her eyelids drooped to the point of being nearly closed, and her rear proceeded to slide forward until she was slouched against the back of the seat.  Everything felt like jelly.  Her mind, however, was already severely outpacing the frantic thudding of her hearts, enshrouding her in a deranged stupor that left Eight’s warnings hitting a wall in her ears.  She understood everything her friend was saying, but the only thing her mind was able to process was her lush daydream.  She still only wanted one thing, and she would not be deterred.

            “Midas…wouldn’t…do that to me.”  She mumbled, on the verge of incoherence.  “Those inklings…should be able to handle at least one octoling…in their precious hotel.”

            Eight saw what was beginning to happen to Aurora.  She strongly regretted the decision to bust out her clear pen for this discussion.  “You would have to be quite lucky for that.  Ever since Midas said he would meet you at Albacore Hotel, I have been hoping that you would not run into any trouble.  However, if you go to the hotel dressed like that……there will be no hope for you.  You are going to offend the other visitors.”

            “Come on, Eight…my clothes aren’t that bad.  I just wanna…push Midas’s buttons a bit.”  Aurora replied with a roll of her eyes.

            Eight rebutted by crossing her arms in front of her and giving Aurora a stern, disapproving glare.  “Aurora, I can see one of your nipples.  You have been flashing me for the past several minutes.”

            “Whaaat?  Why didn’t you…tell me sooner?”

            Eight opened her mouth to respond, but she stopped herself from saying anything.  Aurora remained slouched in her lazy position, waiting for Eight to give her answer without doing anything about her rogue breast.  The two of them fell into another brief period of silence while Eight tried awkwardly to think of something to say.  After Aurora’s initial reaction, she didn’t seem bothered by the fact that she was unintentionally exposing herself to her friend.  She seemed to stare right through Eight with a plethora of lethargy and general disinterest toward her risks.

            “Aren’t you going to…cover up?”  Eight finally asked.

            “Mmm…meh.  Too much work.  I’m…comfortable like this.”  Aurora sighed in response.  She sucked in a big, tired breath and let it out slowly.

            Eight took that response with another huff.  “I wish you would be more modest, Aurora.  Your obsessions are making me worried.”

            “Well, Eight…”  Aurora began with a dismissive flair.  “…I wish you would be a little less modest sometimes.  Why aren’t you trying to find a date for the Splatfest, huh?  What’s got your tentacles in a twist?”

            Eight was completely blindsided by that question.  Her eyes widened, and her parental stance in the situation seemed to falter suddenly.  She was facing Aurora from a different angle now.

            “…What?”

            “The Splatfest is the day after tomorrow, you know.  I don’t know why you’re spending so much time worrying about me…instead of trying to put yourself out there.  You’d…probably have at least one boy knocking on your door by now.”  Aurora muttered, still refusing to adjust her tank top.  “Why don’t you want a date?”

            “…I do want a date.”

            “Then…what gives?”

            “I am just trying to protect you.”  Eight mentioned diligently.

            Aurora frowned.  “You already have protected me, Eight.  Back on the terrace, and also in the lobby downstairs.  I’m…really grateful for that, by the way, so…thank you.”  She waited a moment for Eight to respond, but all she got was a simple nod.  So, she continued.  “But…it doesn’t make sense that you’re so bent out of shape over what I’ve been choosing to wear.  The Splatfest is your chance to make a good impression to the boys!  Why aren’t you taking it?”

            Eight wanted to avoid that question, and she made it known to Aurora rather quickly.  She adjusted her sitting position and rested her hands in her lap.  Her eyes also kept glancing down to the side, where Aurora’s right breast was still shamelessly sharing in the glow of the city lights.  Aurora watched her do this through her lazy, drooped eyelids.  She always got a weird feeling whenever Eight struggled to answer a question.

            “…Eight?”

            “It is complicated for me.  I am still trying to figure it out.”  Eight suddenly answered, pulling her eyes away from her distraction to look Aurora directly in the eye.

            Aurora didn’t feel satisfied with her response, but she knew it was probably the best one she was going to get.  She and the other girls knew that Eight was rather inept at expressing herself, which was obviously a hindrance to picking up mates.  It seemed like Eight just didn’t know how to be flirty.  Hell, it wasn’t like Aurora was any better at vamping, but she at least knew how to demonstrate her attraction to a boy when the time came, even if her attempts were incredibly sloppy.  Eight didn’t even know how to smile when passing a friendly stranger on the street.

            “…Uh huuuh.”  She hummed.  “You just gotta try being brave.  I get really jittery and nervous whenever I’m around Midas, but I managed to get this far by powering through it and focusing on how great it would be to mix colors with him at the Splatfest.”  She explained, giggling stupidly at the end as her mind was filled with another raunchy daydream.

            Eight was beginning to lose her confidence.  The seaweed had caused Aurora’s shell to break down quite noticeably, unleashing a flurry of inappropriate thoughts and nosy questions that would otherwise go unshared.  Unsure of how to move forward with the conversation, Eight glanced down at the ground for a moment, then back up at Aurora.

            “…Brave?”

            “Yeah, like…I wouldn’t be any closer to having Midas as my boyfriend…if I hadn’t faced those inkling boys and asked for that rematch.”  Her entire body lolled to the side against the armrest as she said this, causing her breast to come further into view through her tank top.  Eight had an extremely hard time pulling her eyes away from it.  “Once you find that perfect match…you just gotta go for it.”

            “Aurora…”

            “Is there a boy that you want to date?  Someone you think is cute?  Or really sexy?”

            Eight yanked her gaze away again, but this time, she didn’t glance back.  Her focus returned to the city-lit horizon beyond the balcony, where it remained for the next part of their discussion.  Aurora noticed how long it was taking her friend to answer.  Once again, she could not explain the feeling she got from it.

            When Eight finally gave her response, it was not an answer to Aurora’s question.

            “You are not really on Team Personality…are you, Aurora?”  She asked in a hushed voice.

            It was a question with deep implications, but Aurora, in her impaired state, took it at face value.  “Um…I guess not.  I chose Personality because I thought Midas would be on that team.  Why?”

            Eight slowly shook her head, her gaze still fixated on the buildings before them.  “…I will try being brave, like you have said.  But, Aurora…your ‘bravery’…I think it is reckless.  It has divided us.”

            Aurora let out a long breath, which could be felt by Eight a few feet away.  “Maybe a little…but it isn’t something we can’t overcome.  We’ve made it through much worse together.”

            “Yes…but we have also never experienced a Splatfest together before.  Bella and the others are mad at you…and we are also on opposing Splatfest teams.  We are very divided.  Is Midas worth all of that to you?”  Eight queried.

            “There will be more Splatfests.”  Aurora fired back.  “But Midas is the one.  I have to be with him.  He has to love me back.  He has to.”

            Aurora’s eyes closed at the end of that last statement.  With Eight still looking the other way, she slid further back against her seat to the point where her neck was propped up on the bottom of the backrest.  The rest of her body protruded forward from the chair, distracting Eight again as her feet made their way into her personal space.  It was as if a powerful trance had overtaken her upon letting Midas enter her mind again.  Her grip on the world around her started to loosen…and be replaced by the lucid sensation of her crush’s tentacles enveloping her body.  It was happening again, just like it had in both the sleeping bag and the changing room.

            When Eight snuck a glimpse in her friend’s direction and saw her reaching under her tank top to squeeze her own boobs a few times, she immediately stood up from her chair and marched back to the balcony door.  Aurora was jolted out of her hypnosis by the sound of the knob turning.  Her eyes opened quickly, and she sat up fully in her seat.

            “Wha…hey…wait!  Where are you going?”  She babbled.

            “I am going to bed.  The seaweed has made me tired.”  Eight declared somberly.  “Feel free to sleep wherever you want.”

            “Wait, you can’t just leave me out here!  I still need to borrow some night clothes!”

            Eight looked visibly displeased.  “I never said you could not come inside.  There are spare pajamas in my wardrobe for you to wear.”

            “Oh, uh…okay.  Thank you.”

            Aurora stood up weakly from her seat, nearly collapsing back into it from her apparent wooziness.  Despite feeling somewhat off tilt about the events of their talk, Eight gave Aurora mercy by holding the door open for her while she recovered her balance and waddled over to it.  It was right as Aurora was passing Eight and stepping through the doorframe into Eight’s bedroom that she made a dispiriting realization.  She didn’t have her Wah-Wah with her.  He was still back at the girls’ apartment, probably by the sink where she had left him that morning.  When the fact crossed her mind, she whimpered sadly.

            “Is something wrong?”  Eight asked upon stepping inside and closing the door behind her.

            Aurora trusted Eight not to make fun of her like Bella always did, so she felt comfortable explaining the cause of her woe.  “…I left Wah-Wah back at home…”

            Eight raised an eyebrow.  “Wah…Wah…?”

            “Yeah…he’s a plushie.  I’ve had him since I was a hatchling.”  She sighed.  “I…I can’t sleep without him…”

            Eight stood behind her sulking friend without saying anything.  Certain forces always seemed to act on the phlegmatic octo whenever she saw her friend in despair, like when she was forced to watch her mope in silence in front of the high heel display back at The Reef.  Those forces were, of course, acting on her again, growing stronger with each wordless moment that passed between the two of them.  Eventually, her agitated temperament began to dissolve.  She looked down to the side again, entering a deeply pensive state for a few seconds.  She thought about some of the things Aurora had said during their conversation.

            “…Would you like to sleep with me tonight?  In my bed?”

            Aurora’s response to that was…mixed, to say the least.  She turned around slowly and glared at Eight with a confused expression.

            “You’d let me sleep…with you?”  She stammered awkwardly.  “We…uhh…we don’t…do that kind of stuff back at home…”

            She couldn’t help but feel like Eight’s offer was a joke, but when she studied her face, she observed no change in her expression.  As always, her face remained perfectly indecipherable.  It was just so strange to her.

            “Perhaps I am not like the other girls.  I am happy to do it if you need company during your sleep.”  Eight stated.

            Aurora pondered the decision for a few more seconds, murmuring and stuttering the entire time.  It was quite an unusual proposition to her, especially coming from Eight, but it also sounded delightfully warm and thoughtful.  Considering how she often felt trying to get through the night without Wah-Wah in her arms, she found the offer to be massively superior to sleeping on the couch in the living room by herself.  She really couldn’t refuse.

            “A…Alright.  I guess I can join you.”

            Eight’s stance appeared to change completely.  She nodded once.  “Veemo.  There are comfortable clothes in the bottom drawer.  You can take anything from there and go change in the bathroom.”

            Aurora acknowledged her instructions, but something else had caught her attention.  “Did…did you just say ‘veemo?’”

            “…I did.”

            “Um…okay.”  She chuckled.  “I just…never heard you say that before.”

            “I can say it more if you would like me to.”

            “Nah, it’s…fine.  You can say whatever you want.”

            Aurora left Eight standing by the door to go raid her wardrobe for something to wear to bed.  Eight clearly had nothing to hide, nor did she seem to favor a particular item in her wardrobe, but Aurora still wanted to respect her friend’s belongings.  Therefore, when she knelt in front of the wardrobe and pulled open the drawer beneath the main cabinet, she picked through the clothing items inside very selectively.  They were, of course, folded as neatly as could be, while also being organized by the colors of the rainbow.  She expected no less from her companion at this point.

            Meanwhile, Eight had begun pulling back the comforter and the sheets on her bed with careful precision.  She started on the side closest to the door shortly after Aurora had stepped over to the wardrobe, peeling the layers back as if she were peeling the world’s most fragile banana.  Then, while Aurora was still distracted, she walked around to the other side of the bed and peeled back the other side, revealing a perfectly linear strip of mattress where the pillows were nestled.  After that, she climbed onto the bed and crawled steadily to the new crevice she had created, where she proceeded to insert her body under the covers and lay her head on one of the pillows.  Such was her daily routine, meticulously finessing her bed every time she planned to get in or out of it.

            By the time Eight was finished, laying in a snug position with her head slightly propped forward by her pillow, Aurora had already disappeared to the bathroom with a loose-fitting ensemble from the drawer.  Eight merely laid there, staring at the opposite wall and reminiscing on her conversation with Aurora while she waited for her to return.  Of course, since Aurora hadn’t been wearing much to begin with, it didn’t take her long to wrap up and return to the bedroom with her newly store-bought day clothes wadded up in her fist.  She grinned at Eight as she stepped through the doorway.

            “Just so you know, I didn’t spend too much time looking through your wardrobe, because……there’s something I wanted to ask you.”  Aurora mentioned as she turned off the light and strode over to the bed to join her friend under the covers.

            “What is it?”  Eight prompted.

            Aurora dropped her day clothes lazily on the floor by the side of the bed.  “Is it okay if I…sleep as an octo tonight?  I’m usually pretty insecure about my octo form…”

            Eight shrugged.  “Of course.  Is something bothering you?”

            “No, no, I just…”  She paused for a few moments as she struggled to find a euphemism.  “…I just…kick around a lot when I dream.  I don’t want to disturb your sleep.”

            “Oh.  Okay, then.”

            Aurora chose not to share the actual reason for going to sleep in her octo form.  Looking back on the rest of the day, she knew that she had no choice.  She was way too prone to touching herself whenever Midas entered her mind.  The problem was especially evident at night, during her most intense dreams, if her friends’ soiled sleeping bag was any indication.  If she were to accidentally ink all over Eight’s fancy bedspread…she’d certainly want to jump off the balcony before sunrise.  Sleeping in her octo form was the only way she could prevent that from happening.

            Eight watched her through the darkness of the room as she climbed onto the bed next to her and morphed into her octo form.  She was about to help Aurora get under the covers by lifting them up and granting her entrance, but she seemed to have no trouble slithering up to the spare pillow and pulling the covers over herself with her wriggly tentacles.  Once she was settled, she glanced at Eight with her big, googly eyes and blinked once.

            “Goodnight, Aurora.”  Eight uttered in a quiet, soothing voice.

            Aurora extended one of her tentacles and tapped Eight once on the thigh as a way to return the favor.  But then, just as she was beginning to close her eyes and drift into a peaceful sleep, Eight did something that completely shocked and confused her.  She turned her whole body towards Aurora under the covers, and…in a soft, gentle motion…she wrapped her arms snugly around her mantle.  The perturbed octo’s eyes initially shot back open as she felt this, but over time, she became deeply relaxed by the intimate sensation.  Before she knew it, the warm, sheltering feel of Eight’s grasp caused her to pass out within minutes.

            One of the last things to pass through Aurora’s mind before she slipped into her most blissful slumber was how amazing it felt to be close to someone else.  Almost immediately after feeling Eight’s arms close around her, she had completely forgotten about her Wah-Wah.  It was almost as if…she didn’t need him anymore.

            One thing was certain.  She could not wait for Midas to do this to her.

Chapter Text

            The next morning, back in the bottom-feeders’ district, a sound caused Bella to begin stirring in her sleep.  The sun had not quite reached the horizon yet, and the streets below the girls’ apartment were still mostly desolate.  Inkopolis was fast asleep at the moment, save for the few early-risers that sluggishly traveled the districts on their way to work.  It was too early for any disruptive street activity outside their window, too early for any footsteps on the floor above them, and certainly too early to expect any noises inside their apartment.

            And yet, Bella’s sound slumber on the comforting cushions of the loveseat was rocked by the sound of voices.  The voices initially snuck their way into the dream she was having, but it wasn’t long before their persistence nudged the sleeping octo into a groggy, hypnopompic state.  It sounded like two male acquaintances, perhaps a pair of inklings or octolings, having a room-volume conversation.  Their idle chatting was accompanied by an abrasive, bluish light, the likes of which also worked to pull Bella out of her pleasant rest.

            She groaned begrudgingly, around the same time her tired eyes peeled open to survey the room.  Immediately, she noticed that the TV was on, playing some early-morning sitcom that featured two octoling characters having a debate.  That explained the voices she was hearing, as well as the light that was rudely shining in her face, but it quickly raised another question.  Who the hell had just turned the TV on?

            Bella shifted in the loveseat a bit, her comatose mind struggling to gain its bearings after being ejected from its dream so suddenly.  She lifted her head as far as she could to get a glimpse of the couch, and once she did, she found the culprit to be none other than Ula.  She was sitting straight up with her legs sprawled out on the coffee table in front of her, her hair mashed in weird formations atop her head, and a steaming mug in her two cupped hands.  She didn’t seem to acknowledge Bella, even after hearing her loud groan and fidgety movements.

            “Mmmmm…muhhh……Ula…”  Bella mumbled, reaching outwards with both arms to purge the stiffness in them.  “…you’re awake…”

“Uh…yeah.  Not like I died or anything.”  Ula griped back at her.  Already, it seemed like she didn’t care much that she had just woken up her friend.

            On top of having disturbed her slumber with its noise, the TV also shone brightly in Bella’s sleep-drenched eyes, causing her to pinch them back shut after identifying Ula on the couch.  She straightened her limbs a second time, stretching with every ounce of energy she could muster and emitting another deep, elongated grunt.  Ula stared straight ahead at the TV, ignoring the friend she had just carelessly forced awake.  She silently raised the mug to her lips and took a sip while Bella meandered through the process of waking up.

            It wasn’t until Bella had managed to fully sit up and rub the crust from her eyes that she caught a whiff of the room.  Sensing a familiar smell wafting between herself and her grumpy companion, she sniffed a few times to confirm, and a confused expression crossed her face.

            “Do I smell…coffee?  Are you drinking coffee?”  She asked Ula upon reaching behind her head and fixing her ponytail.

            “Yes.”  Ula answered swiftly.  “And no, you can’t have any.  If you wanted some, you shouldn’t have slept in.”

            Bella’s confused expression turned foul.  “Wha…I…I don’t even think the sun is up yet, Ula.  You’re never awake this early.  The only reason you’re not the one being woken up by me and Ophelia is the fact that you stole our seaweed and then slept through all of yesterday!”

            Ula shrugged mindlessly.  She took another sip from her mug and refused to look at Bella.  Bella wasn’t taking their encounter well so far, considering Ula had wiped out their seaweed stash without asking, wrenched her from sleep at an ungodly hour, and then had the gall to tell her she “shouldn’t have slept in.”  Frankly, after also being used by Aurora for her own selfish deeds, Bella was beginning to run short of trust in her own friends.

            “Where did you even get coffee?”  She blabbed.  “Last I checked, we don’t own a coffeepot.”

            “The neighbors across the hall left their door unlocked.”  Ula answered, still staring at the TV like nothing else existed.

            Bella put a hand over her eyes.  “So, you’re telling me…that you just strolled into the neighbors’ apartment in the wee hours of the morning and made yourself a pot of coffee in their kitchen…all without waking them up?”

            Ula took another sip.  “They’re heavy-ass sleepers.”

            “What are they supposed to make of that when they wake up and see that someone had ransacked their kitchen?  …And is that even our mug?  I’m not trying to get kicked out of this apartment, Ula.”  Bella scolded, glaring at her friend through the hand she had just moved to her forehead.

            “Of course it’s our mug, Bella, don’t you recognize it?”  Ula replied with a roll of her eyes.  “You must think I’m a savage.”

            Bella scoffed.  “Like the coffee not being ours is any better?  It’s not like it’s much of a stretch.”

            Just then, before Ula could dispense another disinterested response to Bella, a voice piped up from the bedroom behind the couch.  As the girls’ apartment only had three occupants at the moment, the voice was obviously that of Ophelia, making her recent wakefulness known to the bickering pair the way only she could: like it didn’t really matter.

            “Early-risers today, aren’t we?”

            “One of us, you could say!”  Bella chimed back.  “See if you can guess which one!”

            Ophelia stepped through the bedroom doorframe and into the glaring light of the TV, which was the only light that filled the room, before answering Bella’s somewhat-playful query.  Having enjoyed the privilege of sleeping on the bed that night, her night clothes looked rather ruffled, suggesting that her sleep had been restful and complete.  Her ponytail was even undone, which was extremely uncommon for both her and Bella.

            “Was it our favorite little free-loader?”  She cooed in a cute voice, smirking cheekily in Ula’s direction.  “Good morning, Ula.”

            Ula’s eyes were still defiantly glued to the TV, so she didn’t see Ophelia’s snooty gesture.  She grunted and took a deliberately noisy sip from her mug.  “Lay off the carp, girls.”

            “Well, you did suck down all the seaweed I had worked so hard for last week.  It’s only fair that we get to yank your ropes a little bit.  I also think it earns you a few more chores for the next few days.”

            Bella nodded her head vigorously from the loveseat, while Ula grumbled about it under her breath.  Once again, she was left unable to argue.  Her actions the day before were the result of nothing but poor self-control, and with her friends riding the same wavelength, she didn’t exactly have any leverage.  It seemed like her day of blissful baking was going to be paid for dutifully, whether she liked it or not.

            “Yeah, and maybe, since you helped yourself to all of our goodies, we should get to have your share of them the next time we smoke together.  Who knows, maybe when Aurora decides to stop being a sociopath, she’ll want to take your ration for herself.”  Bella mentioned.

            Her statement caused Ula to snap her head towards the loveseat, finally breaking eye-contact with the TV to shoot her a threatening glare.  The surly octo’s gaze boiled with fervorous detestation, the likes of which even Bella was not used to seeing.  Bella raised an eyebrow at this display, while Ophelia shook her head in disagreement to her suggestion.

            “No, Bella, we’re not going to take it that far.  Ula also doesn’t have any money to help contribute to our living conditions, but you don’t see us kicking her onto the streets for it.  Keeping our place shipshape is a good enough trade for us to be able to settle on.”  She cupped her hand at the side of her mouth for the next part, as if she were going to spill a secret, despite Ula being able to hear it clearly.  “…You know how much Ula can depend on our goodies.”

            Bella sighed as her two friends stared her down, unable to formulate a good comeback.  She wasn’t quite as witty when her brain was still trying to wake up with the rest of her body.  “Fine, Ula.  Since you’re our friend, and you didn’t totally screw us over like Aurora did, we will show you mercy.  I still don’t know why I bothered to answer her texts yesterday…”

            Her mention of Aurora caused Ula to adopt a curious expression, realizing that she had not heard from, nor even seen, her bumbling companion around the apartment since waking up.  She remembered seeing her whale plushie on the counter next to the sink while grabbing a coffee mug from the cupboard, but after hearing Aurora’s name mentioned a couple times, she took notice of the juvenile octo’s absence.  She took another intrigued sip of her stolen coffee.

            “…Where is Aurora, anyway?”

            “That’s right, you had missed all the bullshit from yesterday.”  Bella remarked.  “Well, to fill you in…you know that rematch she had set up for us with those miserable inkling brats?”  She waited for Ula to nod her head before continuing, which she did after a brief pause.  “Basically…Aurora fucking used us.  She had us believing that the rematch was to regain our freshness after being stomped by the boys in the t-shirt line the other day, but the real reason she had set it up was to score a damn date with their Squiffer guy.”

            Ula’s eyes widened.  She was in the process of sipping more from her mug, and when she heard the news spill from Bella, she nearly spat it back out.  “Whaaaat, are you fuckin’ serious?!  You can’t be serious right now.”

            “I wish I were joking.  To make matters worse, we actually won that battle.  And now, instead of sitting atop those inklings’ smug, stupid faces, we’re stuck in the same lowly position we were in before while Aurora prances around in preparation for her big date.  She’s over at Eight’s apartment right now, probably with a fresh new outfit waiting for her when she wakes up.”  Bella explained begrudgingly.  She watched Ula’s mannerism seem to transform again with each word of her unfortunate summary.

            “I can’t believe it…that little bottom-feeder caught feels for an inkling.  And, as if that’s not bad enough, she made you girls fight for her dirty little crush!”  She quivered slightly as she said this, clearly digesting the same level of anger that had plagued Bella back at the skatepark after the whole thing had been revealed.  “That’s exactly the type of twisted shit I would expect from Aurora.  I’m glad I decided to sit that battle out, because I would’ve wrung her out like a damn dish towel if I had been part of her little scheme……”

            Bella nodded in understanding while listening to Ula’s venting.  From the moment she had first discovered Aurora’s plot for herself, she knew Ula was going to share her opinion on it.  She and Ula took their dignity, as well as their autonomy, way more seriously than the other girls, so having them both violated by Aurora put them on the same page with each other: a page of disgust, betrayal, and…in Ula’s case…minor vindictiveness.

            “Yeah, I’m pretty pissed off too.  Aurora becomes freakin’ feral when she gets her mind on something.  This isn’t even the first time she’s violated our trust, and what is she gonna have to show for it?  A dumpster-fire of a date when the bystanders at Albacore Hotel realize an octoling is trying to date an inkling?”  Bella pondered aloud, rolling her eyes with several of her statements.

            “It’s what the bitch deserves.”  Ula scoffed.  She held a finger up to Bella while gulping down the remainder of her coffee with her other hand.  “Y’know…maybe it’s not such a bad thing that you answered her texts yesterday.  Her little fantasy world is gonna come crashing down on top of her when she’s seen strutting around town with an inkling.  Let her figure that out for herself.”

            “I suppose you’re right…”  Bella babbled with a hint of uncertainty.  Neither of them paid any mind to Ophelia, who seemed to shoot Ula a dissatisfied look after hearing her call Aurora such a name.  “She really tossed us aside to get in that dude’s shorts, and I think she deserves to feel bad for it.  Still, though…you girls don’t think the inklings at that hotel are gonna treat Aurora too harshly…do you?”

            Ula threw her arms up in the most blatantly careless shrug imaginable, communicating to both Bella and Ophelia that her hearts, as usual, were not of the most loving and understanding variety.  She kicked her feet beneath her and stood herself up, presumably to go rinse out her mug.

            “Get a load of Bella over here, acting so noble.”  She sneered.  “Personally, I don’t think they’re gonna treat her harshly enough.  In fact, when I go take this thing to the sink, I think I’m gonna tear her precious little whale plushie a new blowhole.”

            As Ula took her first step in the direction of the kitchen, Ophelia suddenly grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back down against the couch cushion, causing her to elicit a startled gasp.  She then reached around and plucked the coffee mug out of her hand before she had a chance to turn her head and ask her what the hell her problem was.  Ophelia, now holding Ula’s mug with the intent of bringing it to the kitchen to wash it herself, looked down at the acrimonious octo with a rebuking glare.

            “No, Ula, no one is going to lay a tentacle on Aurora’s Wah-Wah.  I think you need to tone yourself down a bit.  While Aurora does have some issues getting her priorities straight, she’s still our friend.  In case she does end up getting grilled during her date, we shouldn’t be doing things that are going to make her scars deeper.”  She declared strongly, reminding her embittered friends of the important precedent by which she wanted them all to live.  After all, in the sprawling, first-world city of Inkopolis, they were each other’s cornerstones.  They needed to be able to depend on each other.

            Ula opened her mouth briefly to protest, but ultimately, she wound up slumping herself further into the couch cushion and relenting to Ophelia once again.  Ophelia took the defeated gesture as proof that she had defused the situation, and with that, she turned from the couch and began marching towards the kitchen to wash out the coffee mug.  Bella trailed her friend’s path with her gaze and watched her disappear through the doorframe, while Ula stared straight ahead at the TV with slouched posture and a pouty temperament.  A few minutes went by without any interaction between the girls, the only sounds in the apartment coming from the TV and the running water from the kitchen sink.  Were Ula to be given the decision, she probably would’ve chosen to spend her entire day like that.

            Bella, however, had other plans.  Eventually, she cut through the silence by speaking at a volume she knew would be heard by both Ula and Ophelia.  “So, uh…girls!  The Splatfest is tomorrow night.  Do we wanna spend the entire day here at the apartment, or do we wanna do something about it?”

            “That depends on what you’re talking about!”  Ophelia called from the kitchen.

            “Yeah…”  Ula added, tossing Bella a skeptical glance from the couch.  “…what are you talking about?”

            “Well, we’re about…thirty-six hours from the biggest night of our lives, give-or-take a bit.  And as of right now, Aurora is the only one with a potential date for that big night.”  Bella reminded the girls.  “If we really wanted to get back at her, we should hit the town today and find ourselves some hot dates of our own, don’t you think?  We can’t truly represent Team Looks until we show up to the shindig in the arms of some macho octos!”

            Ula shifted uncomfortably on the couch.  “Oh…you’re saying you want to go…mingle.  That sounds……fun.”

            “Um…yeah!  Don’t you want a looker to help you steal Aurora’s thunder on Splatfest night?  I’m sure you could find a total freak to throw you around a little bit, like you said the other day.”  Bella offered with a wink.

            “Ehh…maybe, but that means I would have to go out and interact.  Socially.  With octos I haven’t met before.”  Ula shuddered with each of those statements, as if she were disgusted by the mere thought of them.  “Plus, we know you’re just gonna steal the spotlight from us.  If I had a coin for every dude that tried to pick you up back in Octo Valley, we certainly wouldn’t be living in this shithole right now.”

            “It just takes confidence, Ula.  That’s all.  I mean…yeah, it’s obviously easier when most guys seem to find you attractive, but even if you average a five-out-of-ten, you can get boys to eat out of your hand simply by taking ownership of your appearance.  And, of course, if you really wanna turn up the heat on them, it never hurts to use your body to your advantage, as long as you understand your own limits.”  Bella explained.  She maintained eye-contact with Ula to get the seriousness of her point across, and to her surprise, Ula kept her undivided attention on her in return.  Ula was typically dismissive about everything that wasn’t related to seaweed, so it spoke volumes to Bella to see her so invested in her advice.

            At the end of her friend’s short spiel, Ula gave a huff through her nose.  “I wear thick, black clothes for a reason, Bella.  I don’t give octos much to look at.”

            “Oh please, Ula, you are a goddess.  You gotta start believing that for yourself.”  Bella cooed, causing Ula to turn away and give a hearty snort.  “And I think black looks sexier on you than the rest of us combined.  Tell you what…let’s go to Arowana Mall together later today.  We can grab you some black clothes that show off your curves a bit more, and then we can try our luck finding mates for tomorrow night!  How does that sound?”

            While Bella was giving this suggestion, Ophelia trekked back into the room on her way to the shower.  “Just make sure to take it easy on the spending, girls.  I don’t wanna have to cut back next month, and I’m sure I’m not just speaking for myself.”

            Bella ignored her warning.  “What about you, ‘Lia?  Wanna come vibe with us at Arowana Mall today?”

            Ophelia stopped at the bedroom doorframe for a moment.  She shook her head.  “No can do, ladies.  I gotta work today.  The Grizz needs his sparkly salmon eggs, and I need money to keep this roof over our heads.  You know how it goes.”

            “Aww, damn.  Well…maybe you’ll at least find some hot coworkers to flirt with!”  Bella grinned hopefully.

            Ophelia simply chuckled.  “Nah, I ain’t got the game for that.  I’ll be rootin’ for you gals, though!”

            The placid octo didn’t stick around for long after that, retreating back into the bedroom to take a shower and prepare for her shift out on the oceanfront later that morning.  Bella’s eyes returned to Ula after Ophelia’s egress.  Ula’s focus, likewise, was still on her, having never left during Ophelia’s brief passage.  As soon as the room was returned to them, she gave a sigh and met Bella’s gaze directly.

            “You drive a hell of a bargain.  Fine, I’m in.”

            Bella beamed from ear-to-ear.  Ula could feel a bit of her exuberance from her spot a few feet away.  “I think you’re gonna have a good time, Ula.  Just don’t let yourself overthink.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            All three of the girls decided to start their day around lunchtime, for various reasons.  Obviously, none of them were keen on leaving the apartment too early in the morning, especially after waking up in ways they had not intended.  Ophelia, grateful for Mr. Grizz’s generous open-schedule policy, opted to give herself a slow, leisurely morning before heading to the docks to grind out the rest of her day.  As for Bella and Ula, their plans were dictated by the day’s venue schedule, which they had caught from Off the Hook’s morning broadcast before turning off the TV.  Arowana Mall was poised to host battles for the entire afternoon, with turf wars transitioning to Clam Blitz skirmishes at the start of the evening.  The abundance of activity was almost certain to attract plenty of onlookers, increasing the girls’ chances of scoring a flirt session with an octo boy or two.

            Knowing they would be changing into different clothes at some point, Ophelia and Ula chose to don their usual outfits before departing.  Bella did the same thing, in fact, but only because she already felt confident in her ability to win suitors without the help of a special ensemble.  Ula resented her slightly for her cockiness in the matter, as she had a few times before after witnessing some of her flirty “encounters,” but since Bella was going to be helping her land a date this time around, she found it easier to shrug off.

            The trio left the apartment at the same time, with the intent of traveling to Inkopolis Square together before going their separate ways.  Ophelia locked the door behind them on their way out.  Since she was in possession of their only apartment key, she promised Bella and Ula that she would arrive back home before them to prevent them from having to sit on their doorstep all evening.  That, of course, depended on them spending an adequate length of time at the mall before returning home, which they were quick to promise their friend in return.

            They walked about as far as the metro station, chatting idly amongst themselves while absorbing the late-morning atmosphere of their district on Splatfest Eve.  They were continuously amazed by the bulging population of the city around them, which, from the repeated uptick of squids and octos sharing the sidewalks with them, was more plainly evident than ever before.  Even Eight’s apartment building, which had come into view across the street from a few hundred feet away, spewed tenants from its doors at a steady rate.  Bella and Ula paid close attention to this upon reaching the station itself, wondering to themselves if they were going to see Aurora or Eight step into the sunlight among the fray.  Alas, they did not seem to have the right timing.  Considering Aurora’s current standing with them, though, it was probably for the best.

            With that, the girls collectively decided to super-jump to the square together, an obvious choice over dealing with the shoulder-to-shoulder cram that was likely to plague the metro until sundown.  Alongside handfuls of cephalopods with the same idea, they morphed into their octo forms nearly simultaneously and, after a brief pause, propelled themselves through the air at breakneck speeds, their sights honed on the landing pad at the center of Inkopolis Square.  It was never the smoothest experience, especially when having to aim the jump to avoid colliding in the sky and flopping onto a random skyscraper, but it was infinitely better than having to deal with alternative transportation on the second-busiest day of the year.

            Bella was the first to land on the ground, as gracefully as was possible with the force exerted.  Ula and Ophelia landed immediately after her in much the same way.  Just moments after making their arrival, the trio gave a large gasp at the eye-popping spectacle that was Inkopolis Square on the day before the Splatfest.

            To the girls’ astonishment, the city’s most ravenous hotspot was now under an active transformation.  Little-known to them, except from what had been briefly mentioned in Off the Hook’s broadcast earlier that morning, the battle tower was newly becoming the first piece of a frantic puzzle that would rapidly come together over the next twenty-four hours to form the ultimate Ground Zero for the biggest party of the year.  Unlike what the girls had seen the day before, the entrance to the tower was now overcast by an extended ledge, supported by beams that spanned the underside of its circumference.  Atop the new ledge sat a plethora of premium-looking musical equipment, including a synth keyboard, a portable mixing station, a microphone stand, and a giant grid of bass speakers.  The familiar grand monitor that had always adorned the front face of the tower was now enhanced on all sides by pristine, crystalline banners, sporting diamond designs that struck their eyes and brought the whole ensemble to a new level.  The changes were absolutely dazzling, and that was before even considering the rest of the square.

            “Wow…”  Ula muttered in shock.  “…holy shit…”

            “Oh, it’s starting to get real now!  Ain’t it, girls?”  Bella spouted eagerly.  The excitement in her voice was supported by jumpy body language that truly exemplified her jubilance for the upcoming event.

            Ophelia simply stared at the grandiose setup with an intrigued expression.  “Damn, I can’t believe they managed to put all of that together so quickly.  That’s impressive!”

            The trio began walking in the direction of the tower to clear space on the landing pad, which was still receiving numerous arrivals with each passing moment.  The square was already more crowded than the octos had ever seen before, and at the current rate, there was no telling how busy it would get by the time the midday broadcast rolled around.  From what they could see, the majority of the squids and octos filling the street seemed to be either standing in line for a Splatfest t-shirt or waiting beneath the newly-constructed stage for an opening in the battle tower.  Inkopolis, as the evidence continued to reveal, would absolutely not rest until the Splatfest’s conclusion.

            “It is impressive, and it doesn’t even look like they’ve finished building everything yet!  Just imagine what this place is gonna look like tomorrow!”  Bella exclaimed with an oversized grin on her face.

            “Pssh…I’m almost afraid of the square becoming a health hazard tomorrow.  We’re gonna show up here and have heart attacks from the atmosphere before we can even dance to the music.”  Ophelia mused, shaking her head.

            “Who cares, we’ll each have two more!”  Bella rebutted.  “If anything’s gonna kill me tomorrow, it’s gonna be my hunky date accidentally biting my neck during foreplay.”

            “Alright, Bella, chill the fuck out.  It’s a Splatfest, not an orgy.”  Ula grumbled, rolling her eyes and shaking off a disturbed tingle that had formed at the base of her spine.

            “That depends on who you ask!”  Bella winked.  “Besides, with something like ‘Looks versus Personality’ as the theme this year, everyone is gonna be looking for opportunities to get raunchy with their dates.  Well…everyone on Team Looks, at least.”

            “How do you know?  When did you suddenly become the expert on Splatfests?”  Ula quipped.

            Bella opened her mouth to answer her friend and keep the somewhat strange debate going, but just then, the girls passed by the entrance to Flow’s hat shop.  The shop almost went unnoticed by the traveling trio, thanks to the overwhelming quantity of inklings and octolings coating the sidewalks.  The girls even saw some of the square’s visitors carrying their friends around in their squid and octo forms to save space, and in cramped areas like the shop entrances, the occurrence was actually quite common.

            Ignoring these sights completely, as well as the response Bella was about to give, Ula suddenly perked up and pointed her finger at the hat shop.

            “Hey, ‘Lia, look!  Time for a detour, eh?  How ‘bout it?”  She pleaded.

            Ophelia glanced reflexively in the direction of Ula’s finger, but she caught herself as soon as she recognized the place they were passing.  She shook her head.  “We ain’t got the money for that right now, Ula.  That’s part of why I’m putting in work for the Grizz today.  If my coworkers and I can pull a good haul, I’ll use the bonus to buy us more seaweed.  Otherwise…we may have to wait until after the Splatfest to have another smoke.”

            She did not need to repeat herself.  As soon as the first part of the rejection had rolled off her tongue, Ula’s outstretched arm dropped back to her side, and her head fell to the ground in front of her.  Knowing that their lack of goodies was her own fault, she didn’t mope nor carry on about being turned down, but her disappointment was still evident in her body language.  Ophelia frowned slightly upon seeing this, feeling bits of sympathy for her despondent companion.  Bella, on the other hand, stared straight ahead and ignored the display as the trio continued to approach the battle tower, the alleyway on the left of which housed Mr. Grizz’s humble consulting outlet.

            The transition from the bustling, decorated environment of the square to that of Mr. Grizz’s infamous alleyway was stark.  In all the time the girls had spent in the city since their big exodus, they could never figure out just how the mysterious, gruff-sounding employer managed to hold down a location so close to the most expensive avenue of the entire coastal area.  Ophelia knew Mr. Grizz much better than her friends did, and even she couldn’t understand how his salmon egg business could be so lucrative.  Whatever it was, it paid their rent, so she never bothered to pry.

            The girls stepped around the inklings and octolings that loitered against the surrounding buildings until they reached the outlet’s entrance, where staticky radio music could be heard spilling into the alleyway.  Ophelia separated herself from her friends and took a few steps toward the open doors before turning around and facing them one last time.  Bella smiled at her, while Ula squinted to catch a better look at the stacks of crates and computer monitors that littered the interior of the outlet behind her friend.

            “Well, ‘Lia, enjoy your shift.  Wish you were able to spend your Splatfest Eve having fun like the rest of us!”  Bella sighed.

            “Who says work can’t be fun?”  Ophelia shrugged.  “Sometimes there’s beauty in the grind.  Gives me a sense of purpose to be the breadwinner for y’all.”

            Ula cackled slightly.  “More like the weedwinner, am I right?  Couldn’t live without you, ‘Lia.”

            Ophelia grinned and shook her head, charmed once again by her favorite little free-loader.  Now that everything was in order, it was time for her to depart into the outlet to change into her uniform and receive her dock assignment.  She waved to Bella and Ula, who waved fervently back at her before watching her turn around and dip into the store, disappearing around the corner in less than a few seconds.  Just like that, they were on their own, and the next leg of their journey could officially begin.

            “So, Ula…” Bella began deviously, turning slowly in place to present the drug-craving octo with her aroused expression.  “…are you ready to go consummate our standing on Team Looks?”

            Ula stared blankly at her, unsure of how to interpret the weird energy she was giving off.  Her friend seemed…deeply excited to get the show on the road.

            “Uh…whatever you say.  Lead the way.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Arowana Mall, a cultural epicenter rivaling the likes of Inkopolis Square itself, presented its visitors with a backdrop much resembling the loaded sidewalks of The Reef, with towering buildings, miles of perimeter roadways, and mighty blimps sporting the logos of various big-name clothing brands.  While The Reef enjoyed the density of its district and the proximity of Wahoo World as means to bolster its unrelenting population, Arowana Mall had the advantage of residing just a couple blocks north of the square, making the battle tower a commanding presence in its horizon, and allowing the booming hangout to accommodate more shoppers than its many businesses could even handle.  Every day, hundreds of free-spirited squids and octos took pleasure in walking to the mall from the square, reveling in the city’s temperate climate while carrying themselves to yet another one of its premier hangouts.

            Bella and Ula could’ve done this themselves, but they were not exactly the most patient individuals.  Bella, especially, was too absorbed in the enthralling prospect of capturing a Splatfest companion to bother walking to their destination.  Her thoughts swirled with countless fantasy scenarios for the evening as she morphed into her octo form and blasted towards the mall, landing rapidly before Ula could even realize that she had been left in the dust.  Of course, with the mall being so close to the square, Ula was able to arrive and catch up to Bella before falling too far behind.  She could only imagine how far her somewhat-delirious friend was going to stretch her before either of them scored a date.

            “Oh man, Ula…where should we even start?  It looks like half the city is here today.”

            “Well, yeah.  The Splatfest is tomorrow, obviously, so…”

            “Exactly, and do you know what that means?”  Bella tapped her fingers together as if all the pieces to her maniacal plan were beginning to come together.  “It means everyone in this mall today is desperate for a Splatfest date.  All these luscious octo boys…they should be nothing but juicy, low-hanging fruit!”

            Ula raised an eyebrow.  “‘Desperate for a date,’ huh?  You mean as desperate as we are?”

            Bella turned to her.  “Hey, I am not desperate.  I could get any octoling under the Zapfish to bend backwards for me.  I’m just biding my time for the perfect-ten to arrive at my doorstep.”

            “Uhh…I don’t think that’s a very effective strategy, Bella.”  Ula countered, rolling her eyes slightly.  “You’re lucky the guys find you so beautiful, but I still think you should be casting a wider net.” 

            “Look at you, all of a sudden!”  Bella cooed.  She strolled up to Ula and placed her hand gently on her shoulder, grinning nonchalantly.  Ula frowned crudely back at her.  “I appreciate your concern, Ula, but I’ll be alright.  If you remember, I’m actually here to help you find a date, yeah?”

            “You don’t have one either, though, and you’ve been out a lot more than me since the Splatfest was announced.”  Ula mentioned with a huff.

            “Listen, if my goal was to grab a boy of any shape and size to take to the Splatfest, I would’ve found one already.  I am simply a queen that likes to be picky with her subjects.  You don’t need to be a catch to land a date, but if you do happen to be a catch, you might as well wait to fetch the best date your looks can get you!”  Bella’s grin remained on her face, the cockiness of which caused Ula to scowl internally.

            “Fine then, don’t let me get in your way.  I’m not a ‘queen’ like you are, so let’s just get to putting some better clothes on my body to help improve my chances.”

            “Have you forgotten what I told you earlier?  You’re not a queen, Ula, you are a goddess.  When it comes to clothes, I think you’ll find that you can do more with less.”  Bella paused for a moment to allow her friend’s self-esteem to marinate in the compliments for a few moments.  In her pause, she noticed a few subtle changes to Ula’s expression, which grew to exemplify a bit of…uneasiness.

            “Um…how little are we talking?  Like I said earlier, Bella…this is a Splatfest, not an orgy.”

            Bella guffawed.  “And like I said earlier, Ula, that depends on who you ask.  You even said yourself that you wanted an octo who could throw you around a little bit!”  She paused a second time, but Ula’s expression did not change.  “Look, I’m not calling for anything crazy, so don’t worry.  Just some thinner leggings, a crop-top, and a push-up bra, and you should be off to the races!  Sound good?”

            It took quite a bit of time for Ula to respond, which was unusual, given her typical blunt nature.  She sighed quietly and bit her lip, staring soulfully at Bella through her concealing shades.  “Okay.  I’m trusting you a lot for this, though.  Don’t give me a reason not to.”

            “Veemo!”  Bella exclaimed, her cocky grin morphing into one of delight.  “You know me, I would never try to steer you the wrong way.  Once you catch your new look in the mirror for the first time, you’ll thank me.  Just watch.”

            At the end of her spiel, Bella swung around on one foot and commenced her stroll through the bustling crowd.  Ula was quick to follow her, knowing damn well that her chances of finding a date for the Splatfest rested entirely on her smug, ponytailed friend’s shoulders.  She could tell that Bella was not in a hurry of any sort, as her departure from the landing pad seemed rather slow and relaxed.

            The girls walked along a ridge that overlooked the length of the mall’s linear-shaped arena, with roughly an equal distance between the two teams’ spawning platforms.  Thanks to the roaring popularity of ink-based sports within the city, it was common for the big hotspots to place landing pads near their respective splatting arenas.  After all, in as little as thirty hours, hundreds of eager squids and octos were going to be flocking to Arowana Mall in droves, along with every other arena in the greater Inkopolis region, specifically to spectate intense, emotionally charged turf-war battles.  Bella and Ula were already experiencing a hint of this pent-up excitement in the frantic mobs of onlookers that were clogging the railing along the edge of the ridge.  They could certainly hear the events of the current, ongoing turf war loud and clear through the crowds, but they could not see any of them.

            Ula’s eyes were constantly scanning the area as they walked, glaring cynically at nearly every one of her fellow mall-goers.  “There are a lot of inklings around here…”

            “Arowana Mall can be a mixed bag sometimes.”  Bella replied idly.  “But don’t worry, there are plenty of octos here too.  You just gotta know where to look.”

            Bella kept her leisurely stride as she led the two of them to a fork in the walkway and turned left, directing them away from the ridge between the adjacent shop buildings.  Mall-goers still lined the sidewalk in good numbers, and as the girls traveled farther away from the arena, they observed an increasing frequency of shopping bags hanging from the denizens’ arms.  Likewise, the prevalence of weapons fastened to denizens’ backs seemed to decrease.

            Seeing the trend as they went, Bella held her hand out in front of her.  “Y’see, these are the folks that came to Arowana to trade glances.  The crowd back there only came here to scream and watch ink fly.”

            Ula surveyed as many of the passing shoppers as she could, due partially to her natural wariness, but also to a budding curiosity of the fashion scene.  She did, in fact, notice an increase in the number of octolings since escaping the landing pad, though it was still clear that the streets of Arowana Mall were mostly dominated by inklings.

            “I see quite a few couples around too.”  She grumbled, throwing her hands in her pockets.  “Looks like much of the scene is already snatched up.”

            Bella scoffed slightly.  “That’s funny, because I’m looking at groups of singles almost everywhere I turn.  This place seems to be teeming with them.”

            “…How can you tell that they’re single?”  She raised a brow behind her shades.

            “Ula, Ula, Ula…who’s gonna be out here in public without their dates the day before the Splatfest?  Any octo I see that isn’t visibly gluing themselves to another octo is getting marked as single to me.”

            Ula, once again, scowled at her friend’s flamboyant flair.  Were she not intrigued by the direction of their outing so far, and somewhat appreciative of Bella for trying to prop her up, she would’ve ceased tolerating getting subtly derogated by her rhetoric.  Nonetheless, when she trailed her eyes up and down the street one more time…she could admit to seeing a decent count of octo boys with wandering eyes not much unlike Bella’s and her own.

            “Aren’t you gonna go after someone?  We all know the drill by now…it’s not like they’re gonna say no.”  She queried.

            Bella turned her head and glanced at Ula while she walked, giving her a cheeky grin that, like many of her friend’s grins, kinda got under her skin.  “I could ask you the same question!  If any guy you see happens to catch your eye, Ula…don’t be afraid to make the first move.  As for me…I just haven’t found one yet.”

            “Are none of these guys good enough for you?”

            “Hey now, when you put it that way, it makes me sound kind of stuck-up, doesn’t it?  But…yes, I would say that I’m looking for something better.”

            Ula shook her head.  “Suit yourself.  The best ones were probably taken days ago.”

            “Enough about me, I’ll shoot my shot when the time comes.”  Bella waved her hand dismissively.  “We’re at a mall, so…aside from the splatting arena back there, shops and restaurants are the only places for folks like us to collect and hang out.  With that in mind, let’s get our asses into one and start browsing some fresh looks for you!”

            The restless octo took a sudden turn toward the other side of the street in pursuit of a mid-sized department store that had appeared in her view, forcing Ula to stumble in her quest to keep up.  Despite maintaining a calm pace in order to appear laid-back, she knew that her posture couldn’t quite compare to Bella’s.  Bella knew what they had come to the mall for, and her focused demeanor made the fact known to Ula.

            Upon reaching the entrance, next to which several octos were loitering, Bella eagerly threw open the door and ushered her friend inside.  Ula was presented with a relatively open shopping space, adorned with plenty of shelves containing a gaping variety of clothing types.  Rather than organizing the clothing types into different areas of the store, the items appeared to be arranged in sets, with matching merchandise residing near each other beneath a couple of mannequins.

            Throughout the store, inklings and octolings alike explored their options, chatting amongst themselves with a Splatfest-Eve zest that filled the duo’s ears as they took in the environment.  Bella nodded in approval, her smirk growing wider as she looked around.  Ula put her hands on her hips.

            “Can’t remember the last time I stood in a place like this…”  She uttered.

            “Couldn’t have been that long ago, girl.”  Bella replied.  “We haven’t exactly been living here that long.”

            “Alright, alright.”  Ula griped.  “Now, what am I supposed to be looking for here?  You’re the one with the money.  And…I guess…the fashion sense.”

            Bella clapped her hands together and rubbed her palms, scheming her pessimistic friend’s imminent rise to freshness.  “Isn’t it obvious?  We’re looking for something your body can actually breathe in.  Preferably something summery, because summer means skin, and skin means boys.”

            “You couldn’t drop a boy in my lap right now to wear something summery, Bella.  We’re gonna have to draw the line somewhere.”  Ula bluntly stated.

            “Hey…I can still work with that.”  Bella yielded, putting her hands up.  “Gotta get rid of that thick leather thing you wear, though, unless you’re trying to woo a biker dude.  Just follow my lead, and we’ll have you transformed in no time.”

            Ula took an uneasy breath as she began to follow Bella further into the store, tailing her closely on the official introduction to their retail adventure.  All the while, she kept her jittery thoughts concealed behind her usual, lethargic expression.  Never had she considered changing her appearance a second time after her initial move to the city, especially in a manner that would expose more of her octoling physique.  Her dependence on Bella’s judgement was stronger than ever at this point, much to her discomfort.

            As the pair walked the linoleum floors of the department store, their eyes darting around in search of an eye-popping mannequin, Ula began to notice a few gazes from the corners of her vision.  She glanced warily at each one of them, taking advantage of the subtlety her shades gave her.

            “Ooh, right over here!”  Bella exclaimed after a moment, pointing somewhere ahead of them.  “I see a lot of dark colors in those collections.  Perfect place to start, huh?”

            Ula nodded and turned back to her friend.  “Uhh…sure, now you’re speaking my language.”

            “Looks like the Tentatek section.  I bet some of that shit would fit you like a glove…”

            Bella power-walked her way over to the shelves and promptly began scanning everything on display, leaving Ula to saunter up to her a few seconds later.  Running her finger along each item as she went, she hastily assessed the various colors and styles of the collection while stealing several glances at Ula to imagine them on her figure.  Ula watched her intently in the meantime, noticing how quickly she seemed to skip over items that looked too baggy or wintery.  Once again, she sucked in an uneasy breath and let it out in a sigh.

            “I thought Tentatek was a Splattershot brand.”  Ula noted idly, scratching her temple.  “They make clothes too?”

            “C’mon, even I know that Splattershots are just their side-gig.  Most of the Tentatek shit I’ve seen around the city is pretty bright-colored, but it looks like a lot of the stuff in this collection is closer to what you’d enjoy.”  Bella mentioned in reply.  Almost immediately after saying this, her face lit up, and she scurried around to the other side of the adjacent mannequins.  “These leggings, for instance, you gotta come see these!”

            Ula raised an eyebrow.  Reluctantly, she stepped around to the row of shelves that were currently under Bella’s scrutiny.  A part of her expected to find ultra-thin, translucent fabrics when she glanced down at the folded items, knowing Bella’s recent insistence on the girls using their bodies to get their way.  However, when she examined the first few displayed variants of Tentatek’s take on legwear, she wasn’t immediately turned off by what she saw.

            “Hmm…”  She droned, taking off her shades for a closer look.  “…interesting.  Do these have…tears in them?  It looks almost like someone wore them already.”

            “Exactly, that’s what you’re paying for!  Both fresh and rebellious at the same time, and it shows off a little bit without going overboard.  Tell me I’m not right.”  Bella beamed in her usual, alluring way.

            “…They do look kinda fresh…”

            “You girls need help finding anything?”  A male voice suddenly piped up behind them.  Bella and Ula instantly stopped what they were doing and turned around, surprised to see a pair of octo boys dressed head-to-toe in Toni Kensa’s latest lineup, each sporting a rather inviting gleam in their eye.  “Assuming that you’re…here with a goal in mind, that is?”

            Bella gave her visitors a brief once-over.  She didn’t answer the guy right away, as she needed to take a moment to decide whether he and his friend were gonna be worth her time.  Ula, on the other hand, recognized the boys from a few minutes prior, when they had been checking her and Bella out from afar.  She glared at them a little more intently, observing their body language and somewhat pretentious fashion sense.  Unlike Bella, she didn’t mind the pure black-and-white of their outfits, and from the way the boys carried themselves, she could easily tell that they meant business.  They each had the apparent freshness of an S+, at minimum: something Ula considered far out of her league.

            Bella’s skepticism also began to diminish as she took notice of the boys’ dapper hairstyles and, in spite of their snooty attire, attractively smooth confidence.  Her jaw slightly opening, she let her gaze travel up and down their figures a second time before glancing back at Ula.  Ula returned the favor, leaving both of them in a brief, awkward state of silence.  The boys stood patiently, their smiles growing as they found amusement in the girls’ faltering response.

            “Uh…I don’t know, Ula.  Do we need help finding anything?”  She uttered, sending her friend a clear signal.

            Ula glanced repeatedly between Bella and their potential dates.  To her, everything had happened too quickly.  She hadn’t been expecting anyone to make the first move on her during her outing, let alone so early into it.  Swallowing a nervous lump that had formed in her throat, she looked back at the boys and tried to imagine herself at the mercy of either of them, arriving before the raving Splatfest crowds in Inkopolis Square as a proud, powerful Team Looks couple.  It was difficult for her to pick a favorite.

            The boys, however, seemed to be paying a bit more attention to Bella than they were to her.  Before she could give her response, the second octo boy cut into the exchange with his eyes also on her ponytailed companion.

            “I’d say you could use some help!  A fresh slice of veemo like you shouldn’t be wasting her potential on such a loose-fitting jersey.”

            “That’s what I’m sayin’, it’s like you chose to protect your fellow octos from slippin’ in their own drool!”  The first boy added, biting the side of his finger as he checked her out further.  “Mm…you look like you would know how to handle a Goo-Tuber…”

            “I’m actually a lot better with dualies.”  Bella teased with a lidded expression, glancing between the boys’ trousers and flexing her eyebrows.  She was an expert at flipping her provocative rhetoric on and off like a light switch, and the boys’ lustful attitudes had presented her with the perfect opportunity.

            Both of the boys howled at her innuendo, signaling to Bella that she had hit her mark.  The first boy craned his head back and let out a whistle.  “Hooo boy, you sure don’t mess around, little miss.  We’re forming a Looks squad that would be a perfect fit for you.  What do you say?”

            The second boy crossed his arms in front of him and fervently nodded his head in approval.  “Hell yeah, she’s a dirty little mollusk!”

            Ula watched the flirty interaction happening before her with increasing dissatisfaction.  She was beginning to feel certain that, despite them having addressed both the girls when they first walked up, the boys were interested solely in Bella and not her.  She wasn’t surprised by the fact, to an extent, but it still hurt to have her hopes dashed after a seemingly promising double-date invitation.

            It was true, however, that she hadn’t managed to break her silence at all since the boys had approached them.  Therefore, she figured she would at least speak up and test her theory before throwing in the towel.

            “I get to join too, right?  I do know my way around a blaster, y’know.”  She eyed the boys directly and lowered her shades, giving them a taste of her intent.  “They’re much bigger than dualies.”

            Bella smiled at Ula, delighted to see her coming out of her shell with her own tease.  The boys, on the other hand, did not seem as impressed by it.  As Ula continued to eye the two of them with everything on the table, the second octo boy gave her nothing more than a dismissive glance, while the first one sank her spirits by eliciting a demeaning chuckle.

            “Squad’s full now, sweetheart.  We already got a third guy back at the square who would love to meet your crazy hot friend here.”  He sneered.  “If you can’t wait up, though, we could let you join as our attendant!”

            The second boy snickered at his snide remark, while Ula appeared to absorb the rejection without reacting.  She continued to glare at Bella’s admirers for a few more seconds, unmoving, before returning her shades to her face and assuming an upright stance.  She placed her hands on her hips.

            “Alright, fuck you, then.”  She finally spat, turning her head to the side.  “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

            The first boy smirked, producing a vape pen from his pocket and powering it on with no regard for the department store’s policy.  “No need to worry about us.  With Miss Dualie-Expert here on our team, we’re gonna have a Splatfest you couldn’t pay for.”

            “Okay, let’s slow down for a second.”  Bella cut in, stealing the spotlight back from their rude visitors.  “First of all, unless there’s seaweed in that pen, y’all just dropped from a seven to…like…a five.  Also, Miss Blaster-Expert here is my friend, and the baddest bitch in the entire city, so don’t think I’m just gonna let you toss her aside like that and snatch me up in the same stride.  If it’s a gangbang you want, then we come as a set.  You take either both of us, or neither of us.”

            “C’moooon, no need to be like that…”  He drawled, taking a pause to bring the pen to his face for a hit.  While doing so, he checked out both girls’ features another time, still captivated by Bella’s charm and unfriendly to the idea of letting her slip away.  “…I dunno, dude, what do you think?”

            The second octo boy scratched his chin for a moment before nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders.  “Meh, I mean…It’s more action, ain’t it?”

            “Alright, fine then.  So be it.”  The first boy declared rather quickly.  He traded glances with both the girls.

            “Wait…you’ll take us both?”  Ula babbled in surprise.

            “Sure, whatever.  Two is better than one, I suppose, and you girls seem like you’re gonna be wild to have together.”  He asserted, sounding slightly inconvenienced to have Ula haggled back into the deal, but willing to do it for his Splatfest intentions.

            Bella flashed the boys two thumbs-up and gave them a fake grin that lasted about two seconds.  “How kind of you fellas!  Unfortunately, Ula and I are officially not interested.  Beat it.”

            Both the boys blinked a few times, not expecting the sassy octo’s sudden curveball.  The second boy’s cheeky grin seemed to disappear for the first time since the pair had approached them.  Even Ula turned to give Bella a curious look.

            “You’re turning…us down?  After all that wicked banter earlier?”  The first boy uttered.  He and the second boy looked over at each other like deer in each other’s headlights.

            “Yep.  The clothes, the vape, the attitude…none of that is doing it for me.  No wonder you kids are still searching.”  Bella retorted, dismissing the duo with a simple hand-wave.  “Thank you, but…next.”

            “Pfft, wow…”  The first boy scoffed.  With a light shake of his head, he turned his back on the girls and ambled off, prompting the second boy to follow him a moment thereafter.  As the second boy followed his friend to another part of the store in the distance, he flashed them a petty middle finger.

            Bella and Ula both watched the boys’ exeunt without a flicker of care in their hearts for the send-off they had just received.  If anything, the gesture had only served to cement the soundness of Bella’s judgement in steering the girls away from them.  However, in the wake of the tactless octos’ disparaging remarks towards her, Ula felt strangely at fault for the bitter way in which everything had gone down.

            “Bella…”

            “They weren’t worth it.”  Bella stated, still staring in the direction of their departure.  “I had my bar set way higher than them from the very beginning.”

            “Ah, got it.”  Ula glanced at the ground.  “Though, at first, you did seem…kinda…”

            “Ehhh, I was mostly just testing the waters with that ‘dualie’ talk earlier.  I was already turned off when they tried to push you out of the picture, and then that guy had to go whip out a damn juicer…”  Bella remarked, shuddering.

            Ula grinned slightly, but the expression didn’t last long.  Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she stared down at the torn leggings she had been eyeing earlier and let out a huff.  “Y’know, if I’m being real…I really don’t think I would’ve wanted to join a gangbang.  The sound of it is…just…”

            “Don’t worry, Ula, I know.  Showing up on a Splatfest-after-dark website was never my intention either.”  Bella assured.  “I’d still like to get lucky for my first Splatfest, don’t get me wrong…but it’s not like I’d have room to enjoy myself if my face is stuffed with three other octos.”

            “Yeesh…thank you for that imagery.  Not getting that out of my head anytime soon.”  Ula grumbled.

            Bella giggled at her comment, which worked nicely to ease the tension that had arisen from the boys’ visit.  Ula glanced back up at her friend from behind her shades and grinned again, this time with more fervor.  The girls shared a lighthearted moment while they stood beside the Tentatek shelves in the wake of the incident, shaking off the stresses of boy-hunting with a good laugh.  To Ula, perhaps getting out and seeing the town a bit before the Splatfest wasn’t so bad.  As long as she had friends by her side, that was.

            “So, anyway, how about we get back to what we were doing?”  Bella offered with renewed gusto.  She reached over to the shelf and picked up the folded pair of ripped leggings.  Then, as Ula watched with interest, she unfolded them and held them out in front of her for a toast.  “To Splatfests, not orgies?”

            Ula beamed brightly at the offer, probably for the first time since Ophelia had arrived at the canal with the bong the other day.  To Bella’s surprise, instead of grabbing a second pair of leggings with which to return the toast, she took off her leather jacket and held it up against the leggings instead, leaving her stained undershirt exposed to the open air.

            “To Splatfests, not orgies!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Ophelia’s dock assignment was not one she had been hoping for, but it certainly wasn’t the worst one in the city either, at least in her opinion.  After changing into her slop suit and stuffing her day clothes in one of the outlet’s available lockers, a jellyfish wearing an orange Grizzco polo pointed her on the map to a jump pad that was located just shy of the peninsula off the western outskirts of downtown Inkopolis.  Ophelia had already launched from that port several times in the past, and she knew that the dinghy posted there would transport her and her coworkers to the infamous Spawning Grounds for their afternoon of hazardous egg-fetching.

            The jellyfish also slapped one of its wriggly arms against a clipboard that was sitting face-up on the counter, prompting her to look down at it and see that she was the last worker joining her crew.  Realizing that her coworkers must’ve already been waiting for her at the dock, she wasted no time in rushing outside, morphing into her octo form, and blasting herself back into the sky.  The squids and octos sitting nearby in the shade of the alleyway watched her as she disappeared, completely indifferent to the familiar, daily operations of Grizzco Industries.

            It was a rather long jump to get all the way out to the dock from the heart of the city, so Ophelia had to catch her breath for a moment after arriving on the landing pad.  As usual, the weather was much drearier on the side of the bay they were launching from, but the sedulous octo knew from experience that their shift wasn’t going to get rained out.  The Grizz knew the weather better than the best reporters in Inkopolis, after all, so the simple fact that she had been assigned to this spot was all the assurance she needed.

            Adjusting her hard hat and her earpiece as she went, Ophelia marched up the dock to where the boat was waiting and caught sight of her three coworkers, all leaning against various support posts.  They didn’t seem to be interacting with each other much, presumably as they were psyching themselves up for their high-risk excursion to one of the city’s most notorious salmonid-migration spots.  From what she could see as she approached, her colleagues consisted of two inklings, a boy and a girl, and an octoling boy.

            All three of them glanced up at her on her way towards them, allowing her to see their faces and get her first impressions of who she would be working with.  The octo boy looked rather friendly to her, returning her gaze with a relieved smile after seeing that she was, in fact, an octoling like him.  The inklings, on the other hand, seemed to have the opposite reaction to her arrival.  As she made her way up to the group and introduced herself with a gentle wave, the stuck-up squids each rolled their eyes and turned their heads elsewhere.  The octo boy, of course, waved back eagerly and flashed his teeth.

            Ophelia wondered, silently to herself, why her luck seemed to be so poor with inklings lately.  In order to get her job done, though, she knew she had to get along with them.  She was about to open her mouth and break the silence by offering the group a proper greeting, but as soon as she reached the end of the dock, her earpiece suddenly came to life.  Everyone else’s earpieces did the same, causing their stances to shift as they gave their attention to the faceless voice of the boss-man himself.

            “Good, you made it.  I almost sent the crew out without you.”  Mr. Grizz commented in his distinct, throaty voice.  “Alright, everyone, hurry up and get in the boat.  We’re on a tight schedule here.”

            The octo boy was standing closest to the boat, so he turned around and threw himself onboard as soon as the order was given.  The inkling pair boarded close behind him, and to Ophelia’s surprise, she saw the boy laugh and slap the girl squarely on the ass while she was pulling herself over the side of the hull.  Ophelia expected the girl to be agitated from it, but rather, she gave the boy a puffed-up look and slugged him playfully on the shoulder.  From this, Ophelia could gather that her inkling coworkers had probably hooked up for the Splatfest.  As long as they were productive on the job, she figured, their public displays of affection wouldn’t be a big deal.

            The boat engine roared to a start just as the inklings were making it over the hull, before Ophelia had even moved from her spot.  She had been deliberately giving the inklings extra space to board in order to avoid any confrontations, but once the sound of the engine hit her ears, she kicked into gear and scrambled towards the bobbing vessel.  Placing her hands on the rim of the boat and hoisting herself up, she swung her legs around and managed to plant her feet on the dock just as the boat had started to move.  The sudden, premature movement of the boat caused her to stumble and throw her weight against the wall of the cabin to avoid falling over.

            Now that they were in motion, leaving the shoreline that had just hosted them drifting steadily into the distance, Mr. Grizz was quick to begin briefing the crew on their shift.  Ophelia’s earpiece woke up yet again while she was still regaining her bearings from her rough departure.

            “Welcome back to Grizzco, everybody.  I’ve seen most of your faces at least once before, so I trust that you know how this works.”  He began, going as lightly on the formalities as Ophelia had always remembered.  “Your weapons are located in the cooler by the stern of the vessel.  Anchorage at the Spawning Grounds will be in ten minutes, sharp, so I am expecting full super-jump readiness by that time.”

            Ophelia realized that she happened to be standing near the stern.  Upon hearing the start of their briefing, she turned to her side and noticed the weapon cooler a few feet away, looking as enticing as ever.  Part of the fun of working as an egg-runner for Grizzco was the “lottery” aspect of receiving the assigned weapons, since the Grizz didn’t seem to have the logistical means in his company to assign the same ones consistently.  Ophelia’s weapon was always different in every shift she worked, and sometimes, she would even get the privilege to bear a Grizzco-exclusive arm with powerful mods and an even more powerful appearance.  As she stepped briskly up to the cooler and placed her hands on the latch, eyeing it desirously, she pictured what it would be like to see it filled with Grizzco chargers and sloshers.

            Mr. Grizz was still speaking into their earpieces, but naturally, once the weapon cooler had been mentioned, everyone’s attention had promptly shifted to the lottery.  Ophelia could already hear the footsteps of her coworkers approaching behind her while she fiddled with the latch and eagerly pulled the box open.  Right off the bat, the glitter in her eyes went away when she saw that they had not been given any Grizzco weapons, but once she had a chance to peer around and inspect the crew’s options a little more closely, the glitter quickly came back.  Their weapon choices consisted of an Undercover Brella, a pair of Tetra Dualies, a Rapid Blaster Pro, and…a Hydra Splatling!

            Ophelia gasped with delight and immediately reached into the cooler with both her hands to extract her titanic prize from underneath the smaller weapons.  Before she could take hold of the Splatling’s handle, however, the inkling boy slapped her hands away and shoved her aside with his hip, causing her to reel over and fall on her ass with a startled cry.  Both he and his apparent girlfriend stared down at her with contemptuous glares, while the octo boy put a hand to his face in shock.

            “Wait your turn, octo.  The missus and I get first dibs.”  The inkling boy snarled.  He reached up to his ear and pushed the small talk-button on his earpiece.  “Yo, Grizz, is a Hydra Splatling all you got?  These other weapons don’t look like they’re gonna do shit.”

            As soon as the inkling boy spoke words to her, a trigger in Ophelia’s mind went off.  She actually recognized his voice.  Thinking her mind was playing tricks on her, she fought her instincts and glanced directly up at the inkling’s face while he was looking off in another direction.  She studied him for a moment, staring through the transformative appearance of his hard hat and his slop suit.  Once she was able to make note of his eye color, and a bit of his hair underneath his hard hat, her hearts sank.  It was the Splatling guy, the ringleader of the racist inkling gang that had been tormenting her and her friends.  Suddenly, the poor welcome she had received from him and his new girlfriend made perfect sense.  Her luck really was bad when it came to inklings.

            While Ophelia was making this discovery, Mr. Grizz answered the Splatling guy with an irritated tone.  “If you don’t like the weapons, feel free to stay in the boat while your coworkers pull the haul for you.  Just don’t expect a paycheck, kid.”

            “Hey, weaker weapons means fewer eggs for you, old man.  Not sure why you don’t invest in some better equipment for your employees.”  The Splatling guy fired back, clearly unfazed by the possibility of getting blacklisted from Grizzco.

            “You try running a business, little squid, and maybe you’ll learn to appreciate when things are being given to you.”  Their gruff boss rasped through their earpieces.  “Our premium weapons were handed off to a crew at Lost Outpost just earlier, because they were supposed to face the full brunt of this season’s migration head-on.  Your task at the Spawning Grounds is to intercept what remains of the wave of salmonids that are moving in from Lost Outpost as we speak.”

            Mr. Grizz continued to spit more things into their earpieces, most of them directed at the Splatling guy, but Ophelia wasn’t hearing any of it.  Her mind was still frozen on the revelation that her long afternoon of grinding was about to be made infinitely worse by the worst inkling she and her friends had ever met.  His new girlfriend didn’t seem like she was going to make matters any better, considering the way she had been death-glaring at Ophelia since her late arrival.  The bullied octo couldn’t figure out how such a cruel and uncaring squid could attract the likes of anyone in the city, but she had to admit…if his choice of Splatfest team was any indication…it was probably because he was a good lay.  Not that she would ever want to know.

            “Hey, miss…need a hand?”  A voice behind her chirped, cutting off her disturbed thoughts.

            Ophelia turned around and looked up, forgetting that she was still sitting on the ground.  In doing so, she faced the octo boy, whose arm was held out in front of him.  She reached for his hand and graciously accepted his offer.  “Oh, yes…thank you.”

            “I noticed the look you had when you opened that cooler.”  He mentioned idly as he helped her to her feet.  “You looked like a little octopus opening her first ink-shooter on Squidmas morning!”

            Ophelia chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck.  “Eh, well…it’s not often that the Grizz shells out on our weapon assignments.  I was just thrilled to see something good for once.”

            Just then, with rather unfortunate timing, the Splatling guy hoisted the massive Hydra Splatling out of the cooler and swung it around in a quick motion, nearly hitting the two octos.  Ophelia’s eyes trailed him with quiet envy as he marched past them with the weapon, the smirk on his face making his selfishness ever more apparent to her.  His girlfriend followed closely behind him, having just swiped the Tetra Dualies from the box without acknowledging her coworkers.  During all of this, the octo boy ignored his inkling colleagues and opted, instead, to study Ophelia’s expression.

            “You a Splatling girl?  You like big weapons?”  He asked.

            She chuckled again, glancing at the ground.  “…Guilty, I suppose.  Guess I didn’t hide my disappointment too well, huh?”

            “No, not at all.”  He smiled.  “I could tell you were interested in that giant piece of metal.  It’s not for everyone, I must say.”

            “Yeah…I’ve always been a back-liner.  I like to fight my turf wars the same way I fight my life wars, y’know?  From a comfortable, passive perch in the background.”  She explained, eliciting an impressed look from the octo boy.  “That, and…I’m not nearly as nimble as my friends.”

            He nodded.  “Not bad.  I can get behind that.”

            “How about you?  You sound like the anchor-type to me as well, if I’m being honest.”

            “I skirmish, mostly.  I like to get in the action, but I also like to feel in control, if that makes sense.  Hand me a Sloshing Machine, I’ll vibe, but something like an Aerospray?”  He scoffed and waved his hand around.  “Squelchers are my favorite, though.  I could’ve still vibed with those Tetras in there, but…you know.”

            Ophelia looked over from him to the cooler with a saddened expression.  Neither of the remaining weapons really matched their fighting styles.  They both knew, being veterans of the status quo, that disputing the matter with either Grizz or the inklings wasn’t going to get them anywhere.  While it did seem like the inklings had left the pair with the weakest links in the lineup, one thing was still certain to them.  One weapon was definitely better than the other.

            “You can have the RBP.  I’m cool with the Undercover Brella.”  The octo boy said dutifully, shortly after giving her his weapon background.

            “Hey now, you don’t have to do that.  Big-weapon girls can still adapt!”  She rebutted.

            “Ridiculous, of course I do.  You said yourself that you’re a back-liner, so that blaster would suit you way better than the shitty Brella.  You can call it chivalry, but it’s also good strategy!”  He flexed his eyebrows at the end of his statement, turning away from Ophelia to retrieve the Brella from the cooler before she could react to it.

            Ophelia pondered their conversation for a moment, remarking at the octo boy’s relatability and polite temperament.  Interestingly, his dedication and propensity for planning kind of reminded her of Bella.  It was also a stroke of luck that their weapon preferences were so different, as they were both still able to split the lame-duck weapons in the lineup without drifting too far from their comfort zones.

            Just as she was about to put her thoughts to rest and step forward to grab the blaster from the cooler, the octo boy turned back around and held it out to her with one hand, having retrieved it for her while he was hunched over it himself.  His other hand was now holding the Undercover Brella.

            “Oh…thanks!”  She babbled.

            “Name’s Eli, by the way.”  He stated.  He flashed his teeth again, which she didn’t fail to notice.

            “Ophelia.”  She answered cordially.  “My friends call me ‘Lia, and you can too, if you want.  Fewer syllables and all.”

            “Ophelia?”  He repeated with awe, letting out a long sigh.  “Damn, that sounds great.  Haven’t met anyone with a name like that before.”

            “If you’re trying to butter me up for the Splatfest, mister…”  She grinned, keeping herself and her body language reserved.  “…you’re gonna have to try harder than that.”

            He laughed and put his hands up.  “Hey now, no one said anything about the Splatfest!  I’m just being a friendly neighbor, since you seemed like you could use one.  …Good to know where I should be aiming, though.”

            Having distributed the last of the weapons between himself and Ophelia, Eli reached for the lid of the cooler and flicked it shut.  Despite there being much more room to stand over by the bow of the vessel, where the inklings had gone, neither of the octos felt the least bit compelled to walk over there.  Eli could tell from everything he had witnessed that the inklings in their crew were no good, and Ophelia, well…she had already seen enough of the Splatling guy prior to being pushed onto the deck by him over a weapon choice.  Whether they liked it or not, the boundaries of their upcoming shift had already been drawn for them.

            Ophelia grew slightly quieter over the next couple minutes as their boat ride wore on, as she often did in the moments leading up to an egg-running shift.  The tranquil, candid life she lived in Inkopolis with her friends was paid for in large part by the stress she endured off these shores for a few afternoons each week.  Her performance on the job had a direct effect on the gear she and her friends could buy…or the nutrition they could get in their diets…or the amount of seaweed they could smoke together.  She expected the pressure to be especially strong in this particular shift, considering Ula’s recent consumption of all of said seaweed, as well as a work crew that was almost certainly destined to go down quickly without much swinging.  Thus, as she steadied her mind to the sight of the murky waves drifting by, she stood in silence with her blaster in-hand.

            In her silence, however, she could very easily hear the Splatling guy and his girlfriend muttering between themselves over by the front of the boat.  She and Eli both took a peek in the inklings’ direction and saw them leaning against the boat’s outer railing with their thumbs sliding over their phone screens.  They seemed to be rather pouty, like they really didn’t want to be spending their Splatfest Eve answering to the Grizz alongside a couple of octos, at least until the Splatling guy guffawed at something he was looking at.

            “Heh…babe, check out this shit Midas sent me.”  He held his phone out to his side for her to see.

            Ophelia recognized Midas’s name when she heard it.  He was Aurora’s date.  Her expression changed as she listened more closely.

            A moment passed as the inkling girl leaned toward his phone and examined the screen.  In spite of what the intrigued octo was expecting, the sound the girl made was not a laugh, nor a snide remark, nor even a shocked gasp.  Rather, it was a disgusted, rebuking scoff.

            “Ugh, what a whore!”  She exclaimed.  “What the hell is a loose bitch like that doing at Albacore Hotel?”

            Ophelia raised an eyebrow.  At this point, she turned her head slightly in the direction of the inkling pair, her attention fully assigned to their conversation.  It wasn’t yet clear whether the girl was talking about Aurora, and without the ability to see the Splatling guy’s phone for herself, Ophelia doubted she would ever know for sure.  Regardless, she began putting all of her energy toward her eavesdropping.  Her instincts told her that the girl’s remark could not possibly have been directed at Aurora, since Ophelia did not know Aurora to be a whorish type, and the timid octo had also elected to join Team Personality for the Splatfest.  If anything, Aurora’s date was either going perfectly smoothly, or it was already over after Midas had refused to show up.  How could there be an in-between?

            The Splatling guy shook his head.  “Midas knew that the crowd at Albacore wasn’t likely to give that pit-dweller the time of day.  But this?  Looks like he’s getting way more than he bargained for.”

            “Yeah, she looks so skanky!  I feel bad for him…octolings are such a terrible tease.”  The girl groaned.

            “Exactly, and they especially have no business trying to date inklings.  I hope the regulars at that hotel teach the little bottom-feeder to stay in her lane.”  He griped.  “Midas could be out there in the city finding himself a real date for the Splatfest…instead he’s stuck on that rooftop having to humor her.”

            Ophelia definitely didn’t like the sound of that.  She couldn’t deny that the inklings’ remarks did, in fact, seem likely to be about Aurora.  She was pretty sure that Midas had requested Aurora to meet him at the hotel sometime before lunch, so the way she figured, Aurora had to have been at least an hour or two into her date by now.  What did she get herself into?  Why was the Splatling guy’s snobbish girlfriend calling her such names?

            “Hey, you good?  You got kinda quiet there.”  Eli cut in.

            The sound of his voice shook her out of her trance.  She started to answer him, just as their earpieces rang to life once more.  “Oh, sorry, um…”

            “Look alive, everyone, the Spawning Grounds are approaching along the port side.  You all know the drill; super-jump is in less than sixty seconds.  No slacking!”  The Grizz barked over the wire, killing Ophelia’s chance to explain the situation to Eli.  The inklings stood up from the railing and shifted towards the launch side of the boat, causing the two octos to slowly begin moving as well.

            “Never mind, we can talk more later.”  He assured her.  “For this, let’s try to move together and watch each other’s backs, because I have a feeling our coworkers won’t be doing the same.”

            “Agreed.  I’m trying to have a first-Splatfest that doesn’t suck, so my friends and I really need this dough.”  Ophelia declared wearily in response.  She nodded her head once while sharing her gaze directly with Eli.

            He grinned.  “You and me both, sis.”

            Right at that moment, the inkling couple morphed into squids and took off from the boat to their workspace a half-minute early, leaving the conversing octos still standing on the deck in preparation for their own jump.  They weren’t able to for long, however, before the boat horn suddenly sounded around them, blasting their ears with its assaulting volume until they finally flopped into their octo forms and jettisoned themselves toward the Spawning Grounds in pursuit.  Ink from the inkling girl’s dualies was already covering the ground when the duo made contact, and when they emerged from the mess with their weapons firmly in hand, they put aside their prior conversations and joined her and the Splatling guy in spreading as much turf as possible over the little island before the creatures of the sea came to terrorize them.

            Mr. Grizz, who had most likely triggered the boat horn to get Ophelia and Eli to pick up the pace, leveraged a few more of his bells and whistles to summon a large, netted receptacle from beneath a protected hatch in the center of the island.  The Splatling guy positioned himself on the raised ledge directly adjacent to it, firing the monstrous Hydra Splatling in all directions to drench the island in ink for easier movement.

            “The egg basket is ready and waiting.  Don’t let me down!”  Their grizzly boss ordered.

            As Ophelia popped shots from her long-range blaster onto some nearby walls for her coworkers to use as escape routes, her mind remained glued on the stuff she had heard from the Splatling guy and his girlfriend a few moments ago.  Aurora liked to look cute, sure, but she was not a “loose bitch,” by any stretch of the term.  Even when dirty topics would arise amongst the group during their trademark seaweed sessions, Aurora was always the one to get uncomfortable and avoid participating.  However, at the same time, her flaky friend also did not understand the concept of restraint, so if her crush for Midas happened to be overwhelming enough, then the sheer thought of what she was capable of made Ophelia shudder.  And that was before even considering the fact that she was fending for herself at Albacore Hotel.

            Ophelia had said herself that she liked to fight her life wars from a comfortable, passive perch in the background.  Unfortunately…sometimes even that was more difficult than she gave it credit for.

Chapter Text

            Earlier that same morning, Eight’s apartment was bathed end-to-end in crisp, serene silence as the city outside was being steadily brightened by the glow of the sun.  Occasional footsteps and chatter in the hallway beyond the front door rippled throughout the living room against the deafened backdrop.  Detached from the urban bustle by its altitude, and isolated well from its neighbors, Eight’s living space experienced a potent, enveloping type of silence each morning that almost had a way of altering the flow of time.  The rest of the girls had never experienced such silence in their entire lives, let alone as a granted daily feature of the place they slept in each night.

            This, of course, also applied to Aurora, whose gentle rustling under the sheets disturbed the silence that had been soothing her.  Her stiff, tired tentacles stretched and curled rhythmically under the covers of Eight’s bed to signal her sluggish awakening, accompanied by a few gurgling sounds from her beak.  Her eyes remained pinched shut for a while, at least until the bluish light of dawn had begun to seep through the window of the balcony door and onto her eyelids.

            The sun worked quickly to ease Aurora from her rest.  Another contributing factor, though, was the magnitude of the silence that draped her beyond the comforter, well after the break of dawn.  It almost seemed…too quiet.  On top of that, as the morning glow pulled the sleepy octo from her romantic dream, she quickly noticed that she was no longer being held in Eight’s grasp.  Lacking an affectionate embrace, and missing her forgotten Wah-Wah, Aurora was not captivated by the lure of the bed for much longer.

            When she opened her eyes, she stirred under the sheets and looked around the room.  Immediately, she noticed that Eight was not in the bed with her.  She wasn’t even in the bedroom, in fact, and the door to the living room hallway was closed.  Therefore, Aurora was left alone to survey the contents of the room around her while she laid in comfortable wait for her octopus body to wake up.  She didn’t focus on anything particular, though the general sparsity of decorations in Eight’s room made it difficult to do so anyway.  Most of the personality that Eight decided to display in her place of rest was condensed on the bed itself, including the headboard shelves supporting the many items behind it.  Looking out from the bed, there really wasn’t much to see except the wardrobe.

            Next to the wardrobe, however…she noticed Eight’s writing desk.  The trailing movement of Aurora’s lethargic gaze came to a sudden stop when her attention fell on the desk.  Having just emerged from the sensual hold of her untamed dreams, her mind had been continuously feasting on thoughts of Midas, but nonetheless, the desk still managed to overcome the thoughts’ influence and snap her into the moment.  She had first taken an interest in it on her way out to the balcony the night before, and the curiosity it stoked in her was fiercely bothersome.  That curiosity was now back in the center of her mind, and unlike the night before, Aurora now found herself alone in the room with nothing distracting her from its pull.

            Why did Eight have such a desk?  What topics permeated the stolid octo’s mind when she was alone?  More importantly, how did she come to express those mysterious topics through writing?  What did her language look like?  Aurora quivered as the desk revived those questions in her, along with several others.  Just briefly, her choking infatuation with Midas became suspended.  She simply had to go snoop.

            Now fully awake, the nosy little octo wriggled out from under the comforter of Eight’s bed and onto the pillow.  Then, she jumped over the side and flopped noisily onto the floor, morphing into her kid form and grabbing her glasses from her bag shortly thereafter.  She wobbled for a moment and rested her hand on the mattress, still feeling woozy from the depth of the seaweed-induced slumber from which she was just emerging.  Tenacious as ever, though, she scurried around the foot of Eight’s bed and plopped herself down in the desk chair, stealing a thorough eyeful of everything her friend had set up.

            Right off the bat, Aurora found the meticulous organization of the desk’s contents to be no surprise.  The parallel alignment of the pens, the perfectly straight stack of blank notebook paper, the grid-like arrangement of colorful, memento erasers…it all looked like a damn museum exhibit.  Aurora couldn’t help being absolutely baffled by the extraordinary effort Eight went through to keep her surroundings so tidy.  Even the chair, prior to Aurora swiping it and sitting in it, had been pushed neatly into the center of the desk, leaving a measurably equal distance between the table legs.  She almost had to wonder if Eight’s real passion was actually just organizing things, and that a desk simply gave her another surface to straighten up.

            Of course, that would not have been a satisfying final discovery.  It was during that thought that Aurora noticed a storage drawer built into the underside of the writing surface, with a knob protruding just barely into the light for her to see from the chair.  Answering to her curiosity above all else, she immediately reached for the knob and yanked the drawer open as soon as she realized what it was.  That action, followed by her leaning forward and peering into the drawer to check its contents, was all it took for her latest theory to be debunked.

            The drawer to Eight’s writing desk, yielding for the first time to a pair of eyes not belonging to Eight, contained a treasure trove of the reticent octo’s deepest musings.  Upon opening the drawer, the first thing that stole Aurora’s attention was a second stack of notebook paper, arranged with the same care and discipline as the stack above, but with each sheet bearing the unmistakable, pristine marks of Eight’s handwriting.  Aurora could even see little doodles adorning the empty spaces of the sheet on top of the stack, leading her to believe that Eight chose to decorate the rest of her writing in much the same way.  The words themselves, taking up only a tiny fraction of the page at the center of each sheet, were written in near-perfect Inklish, despite Eight’s supposed octoling heritage.  More impressively, however, was the words’ masterful arrangement in their chosen medium.  Eight’s choice of language was not narrative, not even prose, but rather…poetry!

            Aurora’s expression changed dramatically when she saw all of this, a small gasp escaping her throat.  Her own friend, the octo with the credit card, the spacious apartment, and the golden toothpick…also hid the ability to write poetry in Inklish.  Aurora and the girls knew just enough Inklish to support their residency in the inkling-dominated city, but they certainly didn’t have enough experience to write in it, especially something as advanced as poetry.  The words, tiny as they were in Eight’s penmanship, looked almost alien to the wonderstruck octo, made dazzlingly so by the fact that Eight was the one who authored them.

            Aurora reached into the drawer with quivering hands and extracted the first few sheets from the top of the stack, bringing them close to her face to resolve the small lettering.  She had to squint through her glasses to discern some of the longer words, and even then, her understanding of Eight’s language was…rudimentary at best.  However, that didn’t stop her from trying to read it anyway.

            “Mistakes of youth teach us a lot…we skate too fast and have a blast…and learn quickly not to get caught.”  She whispered slowly, holding the paper even closer to her eyes while she read.

            The verses were incredibly intriguing.  Aurora’s mind instantly got to work after confirming that she had read the poem correctly, analyzing the rhymes and pondering what her friend could’ve meant by them.  Her eyes darted around the page at the doodles Eight had drawn in various ink colors, hoping they would help shed some light on the thoughts being conveyed in her poem.  The doodles were all exactly the same, differing only in their color, their size, and their orientation.  They almost seemed to resemble the familiar Jr. Mark sticker that adorned the stocks of most beginner weapons.

            Aurora couldn’t decipher anything from that first page, so she flipped it over and peeked at the other side.  It, too, contained another poem with accompanying doodles.  Eight didn’t like to waste paper, it seemed.

            “I pack my feelings in a box…a parcel stuffed with hope and love…and trimmed with stamps unorthodox.”  She stuttered aloud, this time above a whisper.  She had to pause several times while reading it, especially before attempting to translate the last word.

            The doodles adorning this poem were different from the previous ones, but once again, they all depicted the same thing.  Aurora recognized them quickly as the iShipIt logo, which had made its rounds throughout the city on all forms of advertising.  Eight definitely seemed to have the popular shipping service in mind when she wrote this one.  However, Aurora was certain that the verses were meant to hide a deeper meaning.

            The curious octo placed the first sheet back in the drawer on top of the stack, then flipped through the ones that were still in her grasp.  Each and every page was covered in doodles, much to her amazement.  From how it all looked, Aurora could tell that Eight had spent many hours at this desk, laboring away with her pens like the rest of the world didn’t exist.  As she browsed through dozens of instances of her friend’s work, she couldn’t help but wonder if her inspiration came from a deep past, or if she simply liked to vent her creativity after hitting her clear pen on the balcony.  Either way, Aurora felt like the poems told an immersive, compelling story about the octo whose privacy she was actively breaching.

            One of the sheets even featured doodles of Callie and Marie, the world-renowned members of the Squid Sisters.  It seemed that Eight had taken the time to write a poem for each one of them individually, as one side of the sheet was blanketed with drawings of Callie, and the other, Marie.  Aurora knew that such a page had to be hiding somewhere in Eight’s stack of work, considering how important the pop stars were to her.  With a delighted grin, she pulled the sheet from the others and uttered them both aloud, starting with the one for Marie.

            “The tides go out and take the light.  How will I greet you when we meet?  It keeps me up on inkstained nights.”  She murmured in awe, her eyes trailing across the words as she spoke them.  She greatly appreciated how Eight was able to allude to Marie’s famous solo, “Tide Goes Out,” in her first verse.  Impressed by the craftsmanship of her friend’s language, she flipped the page and followed up with the Callie poem, which made a similar reference to Callie’s own solo.  “Your song inspired a blush of love.  It gave my hearts a fresh new start.  Now I ascend to shores above.”

            Aurora let out a quiet hum, both amused and fascinated by her findings.  Had she the time to spare, as well as Eight’s permission, for that matter, she would’ve loved to sit back on the bed and read every single one of her remarkable poems.  Or, even better…have Eight read them to her.  Alas, she understood that now was not the time for it.  After all, the last thing she wanted to do was over-indulge in Eight’s writing and keep Midas waiting at Albacore Hotel.  Perhaps, after clinching Midas’s interest and resolving her “single” status at the Splatfest, she could return to Eight’s apartment on occasion and act on those desires.  For now, though, she elected to keep her meddling a secret and return her friend’s creative endeavors to the drawer in which she had found them.

            Setting the pages she was holding back on top of the stack, Aurora took one last look at the contents of the drawer before closing it with one hand and standing up from the chair.  She then stepped to the side and pushed the chair back into the desk, making sure to center it perfectly so as not to raise Eight’s suspicions.  The desk was still so tempting to look at, even after her discovery of what Eight used it for, and the thought of her friend putting her steady mind to work with a pen in-hand made Aurora swoon in a way she couldn’t describe.  As such, upon ridding herself of her previous curiosity, she couldn’t help but stare pointlessly at the thing for several more seconds.

            It was during that idle staring, however, that Aurora noticed one more hidden detail.  More specifically, she noticed a slight discoloration of the paper on top of the unused stack, which was supposed to be devoid of any pen markings.  The faded marks appeared to be in the center of the top sheet, exactly where Eight had written her poems on all the sheets in the drawer.  Aurora’s expression changed again as she leaned forward, captivated by another small dose of curiosity.  Indeed, it seemed that her introverted companion had already broken ground on her next piece of writing.

            Based on its appearance, Aurora could tell that the marks were showing through the other side of the top sheet.  Her head cocking slightly to the side, she swiped the sheet from the stack and flipped it over, expecting to see an unfinished poem.  Instead, she was presented with a piece that was just as elegant and fleshed-out as all the others, different only in that it lacked doodles to liven it up.  The overall blankness of the page, with just the tiny poem in the center, made it almost seem eerie.

            “You want to break the status quo.  Your reckless zeal and cute appeal…make me want to do the same, though.”

            The room returned to silence after Aurora uttered the words.  Her eyes simply stared at the page, unblinking.  Seconds turned into minutes as her brain roiled over the verses, alight with theories into the possible sources of Eight’s inspiration.  Without doodles to bring context to the words, she could only guess whom Eight was trying to depict in her latest work.

            Aurora did, however, notice that the verses seemed to describe her rather well, at least until “cute appeal” was mentioned.  Blindingly goal-driven as she was, she was still self-aware.  Reading Eight’s language as it seemed to address her, in the second-person, made Aurora feel like her friend had intended the poem for her.  She didn’t really think she was that cute, but if Eight seemed to think that she was, then the boost to her self-esteem was always welcome.  As for the poem’s message…what exactly was Eight’s idea of “breaking the status quo?”

            The inquisitive octo pondered some more, becoming somewhat hypnotized for a few moments with the paper still in her hands.  She struggled to read deeply enough into Eight’s character to actually understand the thoughts being portrayed in those tiny words.  Her poems represented a side to her that could not be shared through simple conversation.  Aurora was already much closer to understanding Eight than the girls were, but not enough to draw conclusions from the cryptic way in which she chose to express her feelings.  Without essentially confessing to Eight that she had rummaged through her writing stash, her only way to make sense of the verses was to bank them away in her memory and wait for Eight to communicate them to her naturally…assuming she ever would.

            Eventually, Aurora regained herself enough to gingerly return the page to the top of the stack and retreat away from the desk with slow, pensive steps.  She couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t supposed to know about Eight’s poetry yet.  Would her friend be upset to learn about her snooping?

            Suddenly, Aurora’s phone started buzzing from within her bag, which produced a loud enough noise to be heard on the other side of the room.  Aurora turned toward the sound, skeptical at first, but quickly emitted a sharp gasp when she remembered why her phone was going off.

            “Carp, my alarm!  I’m supposed to meet Midas soon!”  She blurted, obliterating the long-standing silence in the room.

            In the blink of an eye, as if a starter pistol had just fired, Aurora dropped the subject of Eight entirely and kicked into action.  Stumbling over herself in her initial scramble, she bounded back around the bed toward the balcony door and bent over to toss her wadded-up date attire onto the comforter.  She then started feverishly undressing right where she stood, neglecting to relocate to the bathroom until she was ready to touch up her face and her hair.  That was probably going to be a gamble anyway, she figured, since the contents of Eight’s bathroom were completely unfamiliar to her.  She was also not much of a makeup maestro, for that matter.

            Her borrowed PJ shirt was the first to come off, followed by her cozy, long-legged pants.  She kept her underwear on, simply because it was the only pair she had brought with her, and discarded the bedtime clothes on top of the comforter before grabbing each piece of her store-bought set.  At her frantic pace, her transition didn’t take long.  After pulling up her shorts and applying some socks to fit in her zip-up heels, Aurora simply draped her new tank top over her bare upper body and called it a day.  She planned to keep her shades in her bag, at least until she arrived at the hotel.  The sports bra she had worn to the skatepark the day before was crammed in her bag as well, but despite all of Eight’s attempts to warn her on the balcony…she did not intend to let the garment see the light of day.

            The moment she felt like she had everything she needed, Aurora marched briskly toward the hallway door and threw it open, leaving Eight’s PJs strewn across the bedspread.  Instead of heading straight down the hall towards her shoes, however, she crossed into the bathroom and proceeded to labor over her hair for a few minutes.  As the manic octo fought against her bed-curls and browsed hastily through Eight’s modest makeup collection, she felt her nerves begin to well up.  Staring at herself in the mirror, the way she was now, did not have the same effect as it had in the department store changing room.  She began to feel truly anxious in the hour leading up to her date, wondering with increased doubt whether her octoling body would be good enough for Midas.

            Sure, both she and Midas were on Team Personality, but…a bit of extra skin never hurt a girl’s chances, right?  Bella always knew best, after all.

            Had she given herself more time to prepare, Aurora would’ve scrutinized her appearance to the point of wasting all of Eight’s facial products.  Not that her friend had many, from what she could see.  While continuing to wrestle her tentacled hair into submission using one hand, she used her other to pick at various objects that were on the countertop, reading their labels and evaluating what she could wear to further increase her appeal.  She was fascinated by the fact that Eight even owned any makeup, since she couldn’t recall ever seeing her wearing any, and her disposition didn’t really present itself as favoring a “girly” appearance.

            Aurora ultimately decided on a small vial of jet-black, Krak-On branded eyeliner to accentuate the thick, wispy borders around her eyes.  To her surprise, the cap of the vial was quite difficult to twist off.  Her face scrunched slightly as she worked to remove the cap, and when it finally came off, she was even more surprised to see that the thing was full…like Eight had never opened it before.  It could’ve been old, or instead, perhaps a secret purchase that her friend had made at The Reef.  Either way, Aurora assumed she would be permitted to cop a few brush-strokes’ worth of it.  Leaning closer to the mirror, Aurora brought the tiny brush to the corner of her eye and got to work.

            Midas wanted her to look fresh for their date.  He had requested it of her face-to-face at the skatepark, in front of both their friend groups, and his words continued to stick with her through her efforts.  She was going to give him fresh.  She was going to overwhelm him with fresh.  In spite of her time crunch, and even her relative inexperience with eyeliner, Aurora put careful deliberation into her look in order to sell herself to her inkling lover.  She would make sure that they were going to hit it off.

            Her time in the bathroom totaled roughly ten minutes, most of which was spent on her eyes.  Aurora wasted no time in resealing the vile and slipping out of the bathroom as soon as the deed was done, neglecting to review her full stature in the mirror before doing so.  Having completed her transformation from her head to her knees, all she had left to do was fasten her awesome new heels to her feet and barrel out the door.  Her sexy Squiffer was waiting for her.

            The zealous octo rushed down the hall and into the living room, her sights set on the foyer, where she had left her shiny, leathery heels.  Her urgent resolve to get to Albacore Hotel was nearly insurmountable.  However, upon stepping through the mouth of the hallway and into the natural light that bathed the lounging space, she stopped.  There, sitting on the edge of the couch against the armrest farthest from the window, was Eight herself, apparently still in her PJs.  She was scrolling through her phone with one hand, and in the other, she held what appeared to be a half-eaten papaya.  As soon as Aurora entered her view, she set her phone aside and shifted her attention to her guest.  The two friends made eye contact.

            “Good morning, Aurora.  Did you sleep well?”  She greeted, at a rather low volume.

            “Oh, uh…good morning!”  Aurora chuckled awkwardly.  “I guess I did sleep pretty well.  Better than I thought I would, for sure.”

            Eight nodded her head once.  “I am glad.  The seaweed is good for that.  You went through a lot of hardship yesterday.”

            Aurora rubbed the back of her neck, unsure of how to carry her friend’s small-talk on such short notice.  “I gotta say, Eight…I didn’t really expect to see you out here.  You weren’t in the bed with me when I woke up, so I kind of…just…assumed you had left for the day.”

            “Why would I leave you behind?”  Eight queried, looking as indecipherable as she always did.

            Aurora shrugged.  “I don’t know…maybe to go look for Splatfest dates or something.  I’m about to go meet Midas at the hotel, so I figured you wouldn’t want to stay here by yourself.”

            Eight paused for a moment, letting the room fall to silence again after Aurora’s statement.  Aurora had glanced off to the side after speaking, her gaze locking onto the heels that were sitting in her line of sight by the front door.  She desperately wanted to save their friendly conversation for later and hightail it out of the apartment, but she didn’t want to rudely toss Eight aside after everything she had done for her.  She let out a soft, exasperated sigh.

            She waited for Eight to respond to her, but after several seconds, the silence between them remained.  Aurora glanced back at her friend, wondering if there was more she wanted to say.  When she did, she found Eight still staring at her, having leaned forward on the couch with her eyes fixated on her own.  Her glare seemed to be packed with intent.

            “Um…Eight?  Are you okay?”  She stammered, feeling suddenly scrutinized by the mysterious octo.

            Rather than providing an answer, Eight took another bite of her papaya and stood up from the couch, her gaze still narrowed directly on Aurora’s eyes.  Aurora didn’t move a muscle as her friend approached her, but her instincts were yelling at her to run for the door and escape with her heels before she could receive a scolding from her gracious host.  She was currently guilty of several crimes, such as defiling Eight’s writing desk, leaving her bedspread in disarray, and stealing some of her makeup.  She would understand if those actions were to upset Eight to some degree, but she hoped not to have to face any consequences until after her date.

            Eight was clearly drawn to something about Aurora.  As the nervous octo stood frozen like a deer in headlights, she stepped up to her and leaned forward to analyze her face.  Aurora, while managing to maintain her expression, swallowed a lump in her throat.

            “Are you…wearing my eyeliner?”

            “Maybe…”  She glanced away again.

            Eight studied her for a bit longer before dropping her verdict.  Once again, she didn’t smile.  Aurora held her breath.

            “It looks very fresh on you, Aurora.  I love it.”

            “Th…Thank you.”  The compliment made her relax a bit.  “Y’know…I’ve never seen you wear eyeliner before.  Or any makeup, really.  I was surprised to see the options you had on the bathroom counter.”

            “I bought the makeup long ago, a few days after I met you.  I have not been able to commit to it.”  Eight stepped back toward the couch and sat on the armrest, but she continued to stare at Aurora’s eyes.  “I think you are much fresher with it, though.  I hope Midas is pleased with it as well.”

            Aurora managed a small grin.  “That means a lot, Eight.  You just raised my confidence a little bit.”

            “Of course.”  Eight replied.  She brought the papaya to her face for another bite, all while continuing to indulge herself in her friend’s appearance.

            Aurora flourished in the rare, endearing moments she had with Eight.  Sure, she was still miles away from sharing the same bond as she did with Ophelia, Bella, and Ula, but it wasn’t difficult for her to see that Eight held her in much higher regard than the others.  Ever quiet as she was, the octo with the golden toothpick only seemed to poke out of her shell when she felt maximally secure in doing so…and whenever she was alone with Aurora, she spoke a lot more than usual.

            Furthermore, when Eight took it upon herself to prop up Aurora’s self-esteem, her compliments hit with a unique impact.  They felt a lot more genuine than she was used to.

            With that, the anxious octo adjusted her bag on her shoulder and aimed herself toward the foyer, where the last, powerful piece of her dating ensemble awaited.  She felt a rush in her chest as she approached her new high heels, reliving the dominance she felt while wearing them in public.  She had skimpy, tight-fitting shorts to show off her back curves, an open chest under a dangly tank top to show off her front curves, and a successful makeup job to show off her facial curves.  In the next few moments, she was going to make herself about five inches taller, and then her attractiveness would officially be at its peak.  It was time to show Midas just how fresh she could be.

            Eight stood back up from the armrest shortly after Aurora passed her by the couch.  She walked swiftly behind her friend until they reached the foyer, then she stepped around Aurora and positioned herself by the door.  Aurora, not paying any attention, bent over next to her heels and eagerly began working them onto her feet, making soft grunting noises from the effort.  Eight stared down at her from her spot by the doorknob, noticing how egregiously her companion’s breasts were hanging in the open while she was zipping up her shoes.  She took a bite of her papaya as she watched.

            As she was finishing, Aurora wobbled in her stance and pressed her hand against the wall for support.  Though she had gotten used to wearing her heels the day before, she still needed a minute or two to orient herself with her new stature.  Eight, now looking up at her, crossed her arms in front of her.

            “I’m heading out to my date now, Eight.  I should be back…probably by dinner.  Maybe.”  Aurora declared with an innocent smile.

            “Not yet.  I think you are missing something.”  Eight answered bluntly.

            “Missing something?”  Aurora raised a brow.  She naively opened her bag and peered inside.  “Pretty sure I got everything…”

            “Please put on a bra, Aurora.  Please.”

            Aurora glanced back up at her friend.  “…What?”

            Eight spoke plainly, in a way that slowly began to resemble the way she spoke to Bella.  It starkly contrasted the defusing tone she had employed earlier.  “I have had ample time to think about this.  I will not move until you cover your chest.  Please put a bra on.”

            “Eight…”  Aurora let out a sigh, realizing where this was going.  “…I only have this one chance with Midas.  Bella can basically pluck any boy she wants off the street, and she told me that this would work.  All I can think about is Midas.”

            “Bella told you to expose your breasts?”  Eight retorted, her tone sounding slightly more stern.

            “No…she told me that I needed to show Midas what I’m made of.  You know…show him what he’d get from me if he takes me.”  Aurora glanced down at herself briefly as she said this.

            “Aurora, you have not thought any of this through.  Midas is not the only one who will be seeing what you have to offer.”  Eight stressed.  “You are both on Team Personality, and yet you are endangering yourself to give your body to this inkling.  It is troubling me.”

            “Midas will protect me, I’m his date!”  Aurora reacted with a bit more gusto this time.  “I believe in love for love’s sake.  Everyone keeps telling us that it’s wrong to date inklings.  It doesn’t matter that he’s an inkling.”

            So far, every rebuttal that Eight had to give was delivered quickly and decisively.  This time, though, she took a pause beforehand.  “…Right now, you are convinced that what you are feeling is love.  It is not my belief that octolings don’t deserve to be with inklings that they love.  But in much of this city…in the upper districts…we are just not allowed.”

            Aurora’s hand clenched into a fist by her side.  “That rule was always begging to be broken…”

            “It will not be broken at Albacore Hotel, Aurora.”  Eight held her stance firmly, while also doing well to maintain her composed demeanor.  “You cannot give into your impulses at that place.  You must put on a bra.  Please.”

            Aurora was the next to cross her arms in front of her, pouting in a way that only she could.  “I don’t like the way my bra looks with everything else!  It looks really tacky!  I have to impress Midas in any way I can, because I only have this one chance.  And, right now…I’m just a pit-dweller to him.”

            “Watch your language.”  Eight calmly asserted.  Her gaze narrowed on her friend.  “I have several bras you could try.  I will not let you leave here without one.”

            The lust-driven octo, ill-tempered when her goal was being challenged, experienced a distinct shift in body language.  “That sounds like a threat.”

            Eight said nothing in response.  Her own body language displayed a hint of alertness, but was otherwise masked very well.  She staunchly kept her focus on Aurora, who received her scrutiny rather unwillingly.  Without having to continue their unexpectedly tense exchange, they each came to the conclusion that the resulting standoff would only end in one of two ways.

            Initially, Aurora struggled to wrap her head around the notion that Eight would actually enforce a house-arrest on her, especially when it had the potential to soil her only chance at having a Splatfest date.  She glared rigidly at her friend as the two of them shared the foyer, unable to detect whether Eight was planning to back her words with actions.  After a few seconds, hoping she could subvert her friend’s demands by ignoring them, Aurora took a defiant step forward and attempted to reach around Eight for the doorknob.  Eight reacted instantly by dropping her papaya, grabbing her wrist, and holding it in place by her side.

            The action startled Aurora, who promptly began yanking her arm in a vain effort to resist Eight’s grasp.  “C’mon, Eight, knock it off!  Let me go!”

            Eight was just as quick to react when Aurora instinctively engaged with her other arm, snagging her wrist and tightening her grip on both to restrain the struggling octo.  “Humor me, and I will humor you.”

            “Hnnnnngh…let go of me!  Eight!”  Aurora whined.  Her feet shuffled on the ground a few times as her weak balance was thrown around by her squirming.  “I’m already late!  You can’t force me to wear anything!”

            “Someone has to look out for you.  I am trying to protect you from yourself.”  Eight declared.  None of Aurora’s thrashes were able to faze her in the wide stance she had assumed.

            “This is what I want!  You can’t try to keep me from him!  It’s not fair!”  Aurora wailed.  Her feet kicked with more intensity now, causing her heels to clack against the foyer tile.  Eight braced herself in case her friend’s tantrum descended into melee; after all, the berserk octo had a proven history of being difficult to pin down.

            Instead, Eight’s grip on her friend was strained when Aurora suddenly blipped into her octo form.  Her arms reshaped into her slippery motor tentacles, which forced Eight to react again and swipe at them a few times.  She also stumbled forward as her center of gravity was thrown off.  However, her resolve was still stronger than Aurora’s, so she eventually managed to recover her grip and hold the appendages in place while the rest of her friend flipped upside down.

            Aurora did not stop there, though.  Agitated by the circumstances, and rendered just as immobile without her motor tentacles, she retaliated to Eight’s stubborn hold in a familiar manner.  In a quick motion, she swung her mantle away from her captor and performed a super-jump contraction, which sprayed a load of ink directly in Eight’s face.  Eight leaned back sharply at the attack and shook her head around, flinging some of the goopy droplets onto the door and the adjacent wall.  The rest of the ink covered her face and her chest, but ever vigilant as she was…she still maintained her grip.  Aurora writhed in her grasp when she realized that her trick didn’t work.

            “…You did not have to do that.”  Eight muttered.  Her eyes were glued shut, as she was unable to wipe the ink from her face while her fists were still closed around her prisoner’s appendages.

            Meanwhile, Aurora continued to fight against her imprisonment with all of her strength, having exhausted her other options.  She hoped to free herself from Eight’s grasp so she could make a break for the balcony, where she could super-jump toward the open sky and bypass her friend’s protective restrictions.  Alas, Eight’s grip was strong, and she was equally aware of the potential escape route.  Therefore, while she still had a firm hold, she began to secure her dominance in the situation by making Aurora’s escape truly impossible.

            She worked blindly, through the ink in her eyes, to establish a permanent lock against her dear, lovestruck companion.  As she began taking steps away from the front door, Aurora still dangling in front of her at arms’ length, she adjusted her grip several times until she was holding the octopus by her sides, rather than by her precarious motor tentacles.  Aurora still fought vehemently while she did so, but Eight could feel her efforts getting weaker over time.  Eventually, she was able to flip her friend upright and press her firmly against her chest with her big, angry eyes facing outwards.  This gave Eight a moment to wipe the ink from her face with her bicep, after which she completed the hold by closing her arms over Aurora’s mantle in an X-shape, much like she had done in their slumber the night before.

            Now, Aurora was basically fastened to Eight like a young squidling fastened to its father’s chest at the park.  She was unable to morph back into her kid form, as was always the case when her octo form was being immobilized by someone else.  The obstinate octo’s displeasure with the situation was plainly evident in her eyes, which stared out the window with drooped lids.  Her squirming eventually stopped when she accepted that she had finally been subdued.

            Despite her victory in the situation, Eight knew that she would have to release Aurora eventually.  After all, it was never her intention to prevent Aurora from going on her date.  Once she felt her inky octopus friend finally relax against her grip, she picked up her stride and began walking the two of them down the hall towards the bedroom.  She felt her friend’s now-limp tentacles swish back and forth against her thighs while she walked.

            Emerging through the bedroom door, Eight paid no attention to the PJs strewn across her disheveled bedspread.  Instead, she marched straight up to her wardrobe and used one hand to open it, one component at a time.  She pulled open a drawer containing her chest coverings, scooped them all into her free hand, and carried both them and their stubborn constituent to the bed.  Aurora tried to look up at her self-appointed guardian as she climbed onto the sheets and sat upright against the headboard, still holding her snugly against her chest.  Before her, in Eight’s other hand, was a modest assortment of bras.

            “Here you go.  You can wear any one of these.”  She insisted.  She laid them out in front of the detained octo.

            Aurora still wanted to protest, but she lacked the strength to overcome Eight.  The way her parental companion was holding her, all she could do was slap her tentacles around, and since she knew that those would do nothing to help her situation, she didn’t bother.  It seemed like donning a bra was the only way she was going to make it out of Eight’s apartment, as much as she hated to admit it.  She eyed her forced selection reluctantly from her prison against Eight’s chest, annoyed at each passing second that wasn’t being spent en route to the hotel.  She let out a bubbly-sounding huff from her beak: another pouting gesture for her friend to hear.

            “I don’t want you to miss your date, Aurora.  But I am doing this for your own good.”  Eight mentioned softly, with patience that seemed infinite.  “If you would rather stay like this, I am okay with returning to bed.  Last night was very pleasant.”

            Aurora knew that Eight wasn’t bluffing.  Therefore, with the same irritation still present in her eyes, she stretched one of her tentacles toward the collection of bras and began shifting them around in search of a favorite.  Her gaze scanned over each option, for varying lengths of time, as she browsed her reserved friend’s intimate lineup.  Eight watched her curiously while she curled her tentacles around a couple of her options and inspected them.

            After a few short moments of deliberating, Aurora had narrowed the collection down to two choices, one in each motor tentacle.  She glanced briefly between the two, sparing much suspense, before tossing the right bra on the bedspread and holding the left one up by her mantle for Eight to see.  Like most of Eight’s others, it was monochrome, but it stood out to Aurora for its bold, plum-purple hue and lace trim.  A small part of Eight had predicted that her friend would choose that bra.  It was the one that she herself had planned to put on that day.

            “A good choice.”  She stated.  “Would you like to try it on?”

            Aurora managed to nod her mantle just slightly against Eight’s strong hold, which she felt.  Her captor responded by turning her body on the bed once again, bringing both of them to face the balcony door.  She then scooted to the edge of the mattress to let her legs, and Aurora’s tentacles, dangle off the side.  Finally, after preparing herself in case she tried to bolt, she released her arms and let her friend drop to the floor.

            Aurora returned to her kid form as soon as she was out of Eight’s grip.  To the latter’s relief, though, she did not try to run.  She simply set her bag on the comforter, turned herself to the side, and immediately began to change into the bra, all with the same aggrieved look on her face.

            “Thank you.”  Eight said quietly.

            Aurora scoffed at the same volume.  “Whatever.”

            Eight shrugged off her friend’s moody response.  Her guard remained up after granting Aurora her freedom, and she intended to keep it that way until she got her wish.  She remained ever vigilant, sitting before the disgruntled octo with straightened posture, as she watched the tank top come off and get thrown on the comforter next to her.  Not even the sight of Aurora’s full rack, appearing to her uncovered for the first time in the sun’s revealing glow, could deflect her from her mission.  She had devoted herself to ensuring that no one at Albacore Hotel would get to share the same sight.

            Though, at the same time, she did find it easy to get lost in the view of Aurora’s sunlit bust.  Her bare curves were shockingly elegant, doing wonders to complement the aggressive work she had put into her face and her hair.  When Aurora faced her, she had the chance to look up and admire the booming effect her own eyeliner had on her eyes.  And when Aurora turned to the side, she could glance back down and observe the perky, teardrop shapes that defined her physique and granted her the bewitching allure that made her quest to the hotel so dangerous in the first place.  Midas could indeed respond to her if she played her cards right, Eight figured, but of course…looks were only part of the story.

            Aurora paid no attention to Eight’s staring as she hastily fit the garment around herself and attempted to latch it behind her, encountering more resistance from the straps than she had expected.  Eight’s bra still fit around her circumference quite well, but as soon as she had finished putting it on, she noticed a slight issue.  The pads pressed a little too snugly against her breasts, forcing them upwards and against each other rather uncomfortably.

            “Meh, Eight…”  She droned, taking several awkward seconds to adjust the straps.  “…your size might be a bit small…”

            Eight shrugged.  “I’m sorry.  That is the only size I have.  You could also wear your own bra, if these ones are uncomfortable.”

            Aurora immediately shook her head, even before Eight was finished speaking.  “No, no…no.  I’m not wearing that thing around Midas.  Not behind this new top, that is.”  She reached for the navy tank top and held it up briefly before slinging it back over her body.  Looking down at her figure, she noticed how the bra not only pushed her boobs up closer to her shoulders, but also brought a much-needed secondary color to her ensemble.  She had to admit…it didn’t look terrible.  If only it didn’t feel so uncomfortable…

            Eight finally dropped her guard when Aurora completed her look with the tank top.  Though her friend may have caused several messes throughout the apartment with her whiny, stubborn behavior, Eight found the privilege of a few seconds in the presence of Aurora’s final dating form to be well worth the drama.  Midas was one lucky squid, she could only think to herself.

            “You look good, Aurora.”

            Aurora didn’t even return Eight’s gaze.  Bearing her same vexed expression, she retrieved her bag from atop the comforter and stepped over to the balcony door.  “I looked fine before, too, you know.  Now I’m also late.”

            Eight opened her mouth to respond to that, but Aurora cut her off by swinging open the door and barging out, shutting it quickly behind her.  Eight gave a weak sigh, knowing she had pissed Aurora off with everything she had done that morning.  An entire sleepover of strife she had experienced with her infatuated companion, and it all ended just like that…without so much as a dismissive “goodbye,” nor the courteous use of her front door.  The thoughtful octo sat motionless on the bed as she heard Aurora rocket off the balcony toward the supposed arms of her love interest, leaving her alone to ponder how she felt about the whole thing.  She was still covered in a film of Aurora’s ink from earlier in the ordeal, but she ignored her usual urge to go wipe herself off and clean up her foyer.

            Instead, she just…sat.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Aurora’s first glimpse of the actively transforming battle tower came when she landed on the pad in Inkopolis Square, roughly halfway between Eight’s apartment and her destination.  The city’s upper districts, one of which housed Albacore Hotel, were naturally quite far from the districts that housed Aurora and her friends, so she did not have the strength to propel herself all the way there in one jump.  The impatient octo spent no more than half a minute admiring the dazzling changes to the structure and its surroundings while she caught her breath.  She figured, after all, that she would have the chance to take in all of the square’s spectacular sights on the night of the Splatfest.  Right now, she had somewhere she desperately needed to be.

            The second she had recovered enough stamina to perform another jump, she did so.  The location of her desired landing pad was already known to her, thanks to her and the girls’ occasional visits to the prestigious hotspot.  Her final jump took her to a mid-sized plaza along a prominent street near the X-district, with walkways crossing between rows of trimmed hedges.  The plaza served to separate the public landing pad from the roadway, as well as to shepherd in passing street-goers.  Albacore Hotel stood dashingly over the plaza’s inner edge, such that its walkways led straight up to the revolving door.  It was a short structure compared to the buildings around it, but its stubbiness was made up for by its imposing width, and it was obviously a highly coveted battle-tower venue.

            Aurora was quick to notice the demographic shift.  Inklings of all spectra flurried around the plaza, mostly in pairs, going about their pre-Splatfest business with their fellow inkling dates.  There were some rare friend groups, some singletons, some squid forms…but mostly just couples holding hands.  Only two things were consistent everywhere in the plaza: almost no weapons, and almost no octolings.

            Her nerves began to take hold again as she stepped off the landing pad, but not because of all the inklings around her.  Eight’s warnings didn’t stick very well with her, as she had yet to experience any discrimination from her past visits to Albacore Hotel.  Rather, she was becoming increasingly nervous at the prospect of Midas standing somewhere behind that revolving door.  He was here, on the premises, ready to devote some of his time exclusively to her.  He was going to fall in love with her.  She was finally coming upon her chance to make him hers.

            Taking shaky breaths, Aurora forced her legs to carry her toward the door.  She rapidly adjusted her hair some more while she closed the gap, her eyes fixed on her growing reflection in the approaching glass.  She also adjusted the undersized pads of Eight’s bra a few more times before taking off her glasses, opening her bag, and exchanging them for the new shades she had been saving.  Once she felt like she looked presentable, she counted to three in her head and rested her trembling hands on the door handle.  Her knees quivered beneath her as she pushed her way through the revolving door and prepared her mind for their encounter.

            The lobby of the hotel looked exactly as she had remembered it, at least from what she was able to make out.  Without her Full-Moon glasses on her face, she couldn’t resolve the details of the lavish space from her spot by the entrance.  She did, however, notice that the hotel’s interior seemed to be decorated thoroughly for the Splatfest, with colorful banners, streamers, and cutouts lining the walls and ceiling.  Coupled with the ravenous crowd of inklings moving continuously over the lobby’s tile finish, the overwhelming atmosphere of it all struck the timid octo like a tsunami when she cleared the spinning doorway.  Most places in Inkopolis seemed to have that effect on her.

            Aurora immediately began trekking forward when she entered the space, hoping to avoid angering someone by blocking their way in.  Luckily, she had gotten pretty good at walking in her new heels, since they had a way of making her presence in the lobby much more prominent.  The expensive shoes made an attractive “clip-clopping” noise with each step she took across the tile flooring, which nearby inklings did not fail to notice.  Aurora tried to keep her gaze locked ahead of her, but she could definitely see the heads that were turning in her peripheral vision.  She knew the attention had to be good, and she reveled briefly in the confidence that it gave her.  As one of the only octolings fending for herself in an inkling-dominated complex, she needed all the clout she could get.

            Her eyes darted around the lobby in front of her as she walked, hoping to spot her date in the chaotic fray.  She sometimes hated being nearsighted, and in the current moment, the impairment made it especially difficult to locate her inkling in a sea of multicolored tentacles.  Midas consistently donned a shade of navy blue for his hair in all of her past encounters with him, so that was the color that defined her search.  It certainly narrowed down the possibilities, but in the great, blurry mass of hues that saturated her vision, it still left more to be desired.  For a brief moment, Aurora feared that Midas had grown tired of accommodating her tardiness and abandoned her, leaving her to aimlessly wander the lobby of Albacore Hotel for the rest of the day.

            That was…until she finally spotted him.  His hair was the first thing to catch her attention, as it was still the same color she had been expecting.  She noticed his figure from about ten feet away, which offered her enough clarity to distinguish his big headphones, the droopy tentacle in front of his eye, and his tantalizing Kensa Front Zip vest.  He seemed to be leaning against the back wall of the lobby, near the hallway that branched into the array of elevators.  As usual, his face was buried in his phone.

            Aurora became extremely giddy at the sight of her prize.  Her eyes lit up behind her shades, and her lips stretched into a wide grin that showed off her pointy teeth.  She turned in his direction and bounded towards him eagerly, as quickly as her high heels would allow.  Her attempts to keep a calm and professional composure, likewise, broke down completely.

            “Heeeey, Midas!”  She cooed in a flirty tone, loudly enough to get his attention.

            Midas’s head shot up when he heard his name.  His focus immediately transitioned from his phone to his approaching date, initially so he could evaluate her new ensemble.  A few nearby inklings looked her way as well, having overheard her excited call, and the fact seemed to make him slightly uneasy.

            “Shhh, not so loud…”  He urged, pulling down his headphones and letting them rest around his neck.  He brushed his hair tentacle away from his eye, a familiar action that captured Aurora’s hearts and fired her up for their upcoming time together.  “…we don’t need the entire hotel staring at us today.”

            Aurora ignored his dismissive comment.  She introduced herself by assuming a feminine stance, raising one of her heels and allowing her bag to dangle from her outstretched wrist.  “Sooo, what do you think?  Fresh enough for the freshest squid in the city?”

            Midas smirked awkwardly at her patronizing compliment.  He checked her out fully, letting his gaze scan over every inch of her figure.  His eyes did, in fact, linger on her chest for a moment, and she was quick to notice it.  Her smile grew as she observed his expressions.

            “Uhh, wow…I suppose so.  Looks to me like you really gave it your all.”

            “Anything for you, of course.”  She replied confidently, shifting her stance a few times to give him more of a view.  Her hearts were already racing out of her chest, but she did well to conceal her nerves.

            “Those heels…daaamn.”  He interjected, pausing his evaluation to glare at her feet.  “Where did you get those?  You’re the first octo I’ve seen to sport a pair of shoes like that.”

            “You like them?”  She giggled.  “I got them at The Reef yesterday.  I hadn’t spent much on the Splatfest yet, so I wanted to stretch out my credit card a little bit, y’know?”

            Midas’s jaw dropped.  “You have a credit card, too?  Seriously?”

            “Uh, yeah, you didn’t think I did?  I’m a city-dweller now, big boy!”  Aurora asserted, doubling down on her flirtatious fib.  She flicked her wrist across one of her hair curls in a way that mimicked some of the high-strung inkling girls she had seen in the past.

            “Alright, octo, I see you.  I see you.”  He affirmed with a nod of his head.  From the looks of it, he seemed to be buying into the first impression she was giving.  “I may have underestimated you before…not gonna lie.”

            Aurora’s spirits were soaring so far.  She beamed brightly at her love interest’s approving words, feeling a great deal of confidence in herself for blending in and adhering to the fresh-inkling standard.  She felt a blush reach her cheeks, which she didn’t bother to conceal.

            “So…what do you got for me, then?”  She inquired, trying hard to achieve a seductive tone.  “Martinis from the rooftop bar?  Snag a couple of pool chairs?  Or…y’know…we could always get a room…”

            Midas’s eyes widened.  “Let’s…not…get ahead of ourselves.  I’m down for a round or two at the rooftop bar.”

            “Sounds lovely.”  Aurora raised her shades to her forehead and fluttered her eyelids, giving her date his first view of her makeup job.  “Anything you want.  Lead the way!”

            Midas slid his phone into his vest pocket and stood up from the wall.  Once he was standing upright, Aurora realized that her high heels gave her a sizable height advantage over her partner, a factor that would help or hinder their interaction depending on his preferences.  As he turned around and began making his way down the hall towards the elevators, she hoisted her bag up to her shoulder and followed him loyally, garnering even more confidence from their difference in stature.  The way the “clip-clopping” of her heels echoed off the raised ceiling of the hallway did wonders for her self-image, as well.

            An elevator containing a friend-group of inklings arrived at the lobby just as the couple reached it, so Midas walked right into the vacated unit and pressed the button for the rooftop.  Aurora stepped inside directly after him, followed by a small handful of inklings that were already waiting nearby.  Almost immediately, she could see that she was the only octoling in the elevator, a fact made even less subtle by the additional height her heels granted her.  Aurora stood as close to Midas as she could get away with, surveying the tops of everyone’s heads as the doors closed in front of them.  She and Midas were standing in the back of the elevator, so despite how conspicuous her presence was, the only face to turn back in her direction was his.  When she glanced over at him discreetly through her shades, she caught him glaring at her cleavage a second time…a discovery that caused her hearts to skip a few more beats.

            The prurient octo managed to stave off the desire to start gushing to her crush until they at least had drinks in their hands.  They rode the elevator in silence behind the rest of the chatter until it deposited them inside a classy restaurant that was built upon the hotel’s broad rooftop.  The restaurant itself was also impressive in scale, with two of its sides lined entirely with glass to allow for clear viewing of the splatting arena amidst the surrounding pool.  Access to the restaurant was limited to guests with rooms, but the bar on top of the place was open to anyone.  As such, Midas led Aurora from the elevator to the familiar, straight staircase that rested against the nearest wall.  A few of the inklings from the elevator headed that way as well, while others stopped to get tables inside the restaurant.

            Aurora felt the warmth of the late-morning sun return to her skin at the top of the staircase.  Reaching the summit of the hotel’s penthouse restaurant, the couple were now standing on the apex point of the entire building.  The splatting arena, which happened to be hosting a gruesome X-rank tower control match, was sprawled out before the bar-goers on the expansive, flat swimming pool that comprised the hotel’s roof.  Aurora didn’t need to squint from the sun, thanks to her shades, but she regrettably couldn’t see the raging battle in any detail.  She heard the trademark sounds of the chaos very well from the guest area, including the catastrophic howl of an expanding Booyah Bomb, but the action was simply too far away from her eyes.

            Sure enough, the rooftop bar was anything but vacant.  Within a fenced perimeter that kept guests from falling into the pool below, several small, tiki-style tables were occupied by inklings having drinks, shaded by the tropical palm leaves of the overarching bar.  The bar itself was similarly packed, hosting an inebriated squid in nearly every one of its seats.  Midas walked around to the far side of the bar, which happened to have a single free stool on the very end.

            Shortly after emerging onto the bar’s sunlit deck, Aurora felt her confidence fracture precariously as she watched a handful of inkling eyes focus directly on her.  It started with one or two guests that were already facing her from their tables, but it rapidly spread to include skeptical squids that would turn around in their seats to glare at her.  The phenomenon was in stark contrast to her previous visit to the hotel, when she was in the company of all four of the girls.  Now that she appeared to be the only octoling around the bar, her presence seemed to stir up a response from the other guests that left a pit in her stomach.  As she followed Midas to the far end of the bar, she glanced around at everyone with a meek expression.

            The first thing Midas did when he reached the open stool was plop himself down in it, paying no mind to his increasingly anxious date.  Aurora walked up beside him and rested her hands gently on the bar before shooting him an awkward look.

            He leaned towards her.  “Sorry, octo.  If I give you this seat, everyone will think you’re my date.”

            Aurora frowned.  “But…I am your date…”

            “Technically, yeah, but these kids don’t need to know that.”  He reached into one of his vest pockets and extracted a vape pen.  “Just try to keep a low profile.  I gotta admit, your gear is pretty on-point…but it kinda puts me in a tough position.”

            “A tough position?  How?”  She asked worriedly.  “I…I didn’t mean to…”

            Just then, one of the jellyfish bartenders scooted over to the couple to take Midas’s order.  The mute, googly-eyed figure cut Aurora off mid-sentence by extending one of his arms and presenting the two of them with a menu.  Midas shook his head and pushed the menu away with his hand, signaling that the item was not needed.

            “I’m a regular here, thanks.  I’ll take a Negroni, hold the orange peel.  The octo here wants a martini.  Two tabs, please.”

            Aurora grinned when she heard her crush remember her drink suggestion from earlier, but her hearts immediately sank when she heard him spit that last part.  Somehow, she had completely failed to expect that her cute little lie from earlier would come to bite her in the ass.  She obviously did not have a credit card.  She did not have any money on her at all, in fact.  Driven by the twinge of panic that rippled through her in that moment, she improvised, assuming a more assertive tone.

            “Hey, now, big boy…”

            “Slow down, there.”  He ordered.

            She ignored him.  “…you picked the venue, and you also asked me to look fresh, which I did for you.  I did not bring my credit card, because octoling boys always pay for their dates.”

            He scoffed, failing to hold back a chuckle.  “I’m not an octoling boy, last I checked.”

            “But you are on a date with an octoling girl, and that’s just how we do it, so…”

            A couple of the inklings sitting near Midas glanced in their direction.  Noticing this, Midas clapped his hands together quietly and turned to face Aurora.  He kept a relatively calm composure, speaking beneath the bar ambience.  “I am…begging you…to chill out a bit.  Lower your voice, okay?”

            Aurora stared right back at Midas, sharing an intense gaze with him.  She could easily tell that he was dead serious.  She felt a flutter in her chest being stared down by him like that.  In that moment, she pictured herself standing before that ledge on Snapper Canal, with the rainmaker on her shoulder, facing him from the receiving end of his crafty Squiffer.  Cod, that feeling was like hot lightning to her.  The look in his eye when he took that shot…it was there.  And she was feeling it again.

            This time, though, she was determined to use that internal fire to her advantage.  She crossed her arms on the bar’s surface and leaned forward, letting her compressed cleavage hang forward in her date’s direction.  Taking Bella’s advice to the max, she tilted her shades downwards and gave him a lidded smirk.

            “Think of it this way…since you seem to be so worried about your freshness around me.  Paying for your date will look good on you, especially when she’s just a lowly octoling who isn’t able to pay anyway.”  She reached one of her hands forward and stroked her finger down his vape arm, feeling the tingle his flesh sent down her back.  “And then…I dunno…everything that happens after that can be just between us.”

            A hearty, amused cackle suddenly erupted from the inkling boy sitting next to Midas.  He slapped his hand on the bar, causing some of his drink to spill over.  “Damn, dude, your octo is wild!  You’re makin’ me wish I had gone for a hustler this Splatfest!”

            “Say that again?”  Midas piped up, turning to face the stranger.  “You think I hired her?”

            The boy looked back at him.  “Well yeah, I’m assuming you’re not dating her!  You just said you were a regular here!”

            Aurora wasn’t sure how to feel about the stranger’s words.  A part of her felt suddenly embarrassed that she had just shared a vivid angle of her bust to him, but she remained committed to her stance as a means of venting the building feelings she had for Midas.  As long as they knew whom the gestures were meant for…she struggled to dwell on who else would see them.  She did, however, return her shades to her eyes.

            Midas was surprised to hear the suggestion of Aurora being a hustler.  For a brief moment, he considered playing along and referring to her as his purchase, on the basis that octoling hookers were often much cheaper than their inkling counterparts.  As far as his freshness was concerned, though…that scenario likely would’ve looked way worse on him.  He figured his best bet was to simply cut the act and set the record straight.

            He took a hit of his pen, which intrigued Aurora when she saw it.  He puffed it in the boy’s direction.  “My guy, if I had the money to spend on an escort for the Splatfest, I would not be spending it on an octoling.  My pals are just dimwits with big, clunky weapons.  Datin’ this one was a bet that we lost, nothing more.”

            “Why’d you bring her here, then?  We’re in a pretty big city, you know.”  The stranger scoffed.  He glanced over at her again.  “Eh, she’s got nice tits, at least.”

            That was the line that got Aurora to stand back upright and fold her arms in front of her.  Her date had been going so well since she had met Midas in the lobby just earlier, but the rooftop was a completely different story.  She was trapped between feeling hot and bothered by her smoking Squiffer…and being made to feel ashamed with every minute that passed.  At the very least, if Midas would just agree to cover her drinks, her afternoon would be off to a much better start.

            “What, was I supposed to just settle for something?  Go to Kelp Dome to watch plants grow?  Or listen to some boring-as-shit students talk about ‘color theory’ at the Art Academy?”  Midas turned back in Aurora’s direction, giving her another chance to gaze at him.  “At least we can kick back and drown ourselves here.”

            Aurora managed a small grin, which came when she looked back into her date’s eyes.  She knew that Midas was referring to their bar drinks, which were due to be delivered to them in the next few moments.  Aurora also felt an unwelcome rumble in her stomach, reminding her that she had not eaten a single morsel since her dinner with Eight the prior evening.  She could only assume that she had no chance of being fed on Midas’s tab, so she tried not to let it bother her.  If anything, it was going to help her get buzzed faster.

            “I agree with you.”  She said dutifully to Midas and the stranger.  “I love Albacore Hotel.  It’s one of my favorite places.”

            Midas didn’t give a reaction to her supporting comment.  Instead, he brought the vape pen to his mouth for another hit and pulled his phone back out of his other vest pocket.  The boy next to him, on the other hand, shot her a dirty look while reaching for his drink glass.

            “Albacore Hotel isn’t for you…”  He muttered as he took a sip.

            Aurora chose to ignore the guy after that, as did Midas.  It sounded like he had managed to annoy both of them a little bit, so she used that as an opportunity to get their date back on track.  She noticed that Midas had taken out his phone to scroll aimlessly through his SplatNet feed.  Seeing that, she instinctively reached into her bag and whipped out her phone to open her own SplatNet feed, remembering that the app allowed her to browse the accounts of other users in the area.  She held the phone uncomfortably close to her eyes and scanned the profile pictures in the list, once again squinting through a colorful sea of inkling styles in search of her crush.

            Luckily for her, she did not need to scroll that far.  After only a few seconds, Aurora spotted Midas’s likeness in the pixels on her phone screen.  The real Midas glanced over at her strangely, marveling at the strenuous way in which she was seemingly choosing to hold her phone.  Nonetheless, she focused inquisitively on her task, tapping his icon and opening his profile.  The first thing she saw from there was his handle, which she immediately committed to memory.  Midas, in SplatNet, was evidently known as “GoldSquiff34.”  His weapon of choice was, of course, the Classic Squiffer, and he apparently liked to splat on Goby Arena.  Aurora was especially interested in his top-ranked battle mode, which happened to be tower control.  Perhaps that wasn’t a coincidence.

            Just as she had started to wonder whether Midas was searching for her profile as well, the jellyfish bartender returned with their drinks.  Dropping the thought entirely, Aurora excitedly reached her hand out to receive the fancy martini glass directly from him, while Midas simply sat there and waited for the jellyfish to slide his drink across the bar.  Before the jellyfish could turn away to resume handling the other guests, however, Midas looked up from his phone and got the creature’s attention.

            “Hey, hey…scratch the thing I said earlier.”  He requested.  “Put everything on my tab.”

            The jellyfish nodded in understanding.  Aurora felt a rush of relief and delight overtake her, which manifested itself in a heightened attraction to her generous inkling host.  She held her newly acquired martini in both hands and turned to beam at Midas with an appreciative gleam in her eyes.

            “Thank you.  You really are the freshest squid in the city!”  She swooned.

            “Yeah, yeah, don’t get yourself too worked up.  They were gonna come after me for the second tab anyway.”  He replied blandly.

            “So, that pen that you’re holding…”  She mentioned, once again seeing past his dismissive attitude.  “…is there seaweed in that?  I just learned about those things last night, actually.”

            “Seaweed is for octos.”  He answered quickly.  “I don’t need seaweed to feel good.”

            Aurora was surprised by his sudden response.  She was extra curious now.  “…So…what’s…”

            “It’s juice.  Golden-egg extract.”  Midas put the vape to his mouth for another hit after cutting her off.  Aurora watched him with fervorous interest, just as she had done with Eight’s seaweed pen the night before.  “Shit’s expensive and addictive.  Last thing you octos need to be touching.”

            “Is it…good?”

            He shrugged.  “At first, it was.  It’s really nothing at all now.”  Upon saying that, he turned the juicer off and returned it to his pocket.  His free hand was then able to pick up his cocktail, of which he swirled around and took a sip.

            “I see…”  She hummed, trailing off for a moment.  “…so, um…have you ever tried seaweed?”

            Midas met her gaze with a raised eyebrow.  “You sure ask a lot of questions.”

            Aurora glanced away sheepishly and took a sizable gulp from her martini.  “I’m sorry…I just don’t get to talk to many inklings.”

            “Yeah, I kind of figured that.”  His attention returned to his SplatNet feed, prompting a short period of awkward silence between them.  Aurora glanced back in his direction just in time for him to give an unexpected, belated response.  Still staring blankly at his phone screen, he answered with a disinterested tone.  “I did try that shit…once.  I didn’t feel anything from it.”

            Aurora’s interest in him grew.  From a response like that, she felt more empowered to continue the topic she had brought up.  “My first time was like that, too.  You start to feel it a lot more after two or three sessions.  It’s also not really addictive at all…only one of my friends has gotten really hooked on it.”

            “Okay…why are you telling me this?  Are you thinking that a drug from the slum districts is gonna get me off the juice?”  He blurted, clearly showing little engagement in the direction Aurora was trying to guide their conversation.  He only looked up at her occasionally, and whenever he did, it certainly wasn’t for an endearing reason.  “Or are you hoping that me sharing your dirty habits is gonna open some kind of door between us?”

            Aurora didn’t answer him right away.  Midas continued to alternate his attention between her and his phone while she retracted slightly into herself, holding her martini in her hands like a small child that had just gotten backed into a corner.  She took another huge gulp from her drink and reached up with one hand to remove her shades, allowing him to see her makeup-enhanced eyes in more detail.

            “…I guess it’s the second thing you said.  I just think you’re really…really fresh.”  She placed her shades in her bag as she spoke, in order to continue their conversation more intimately.  Then, she reached for one of her hair curls and began stroking it compulsively.  “If you come to the Splatfest with me…we could try it together.  I think you’d really like it.”

            Midas simply scoffed.  “Nah…you know Atlas will flip his shit if he finds me smoking reefer with a bunch of octos at the Splatfest.  I’m not desperate enough for a date to stoop to that level.”

            Aurora cocked her head to the side.  “Atlas…?  Who’s Atlas?”

            “One of my pals, the guy with the Splatling Deco.”  Midas answered before pausing to take another sip of his drink.  “Some of your friends really pissed him off in the square the other day.”

            “Oh, the Splatling guy?”  She gasped.  “The guy who kept calling us…y’know…”

            “Yeeeah…”  Midas nodded.  “The guy’s kind of a mess, but he has a lot of connections and usually helps us get into some nice clubs.  I can get plenty of bimbos for the Splatfest just by following him around, but if he sees me with you…or smells your seaweed on me…I’m gonna be stuck with you.”

            The degraded octo looked down at herself sadly, swirling around what remained of her drink with her two hands.  She had to admit, that response did hurt her a bit.  Of course, Midas’s jab came at the end of a long string of similar rude, disparaging comments, but Aurora had done well to deflect those comments and remain focused on earning her date’s affection.  Being cast aside like that, though, with the implication that a group of bimbos would be more desirable than being “stuck with her” at the Splatfest, well…that didn’t sit well with her.

            “Who cares what Atlas thinks of us?”  She suddenly replied, still staring downwards as she prepared her drink for her final gulp.  “Trust me, Midas…I’m all you need for the Splatfest.  I can do more for you than half a dozen bimbos would.”

            Midas was intrigued by Aurora’s first use of his actual name since her greeting in the lobby.  However, it wasn’t enough to keep him from emitting a dry, demeaning chuckle at her bold promise.  “That is a helluva claim, there, little octo.  What exactly can you do that puts you above a squad full of inkling chicks?”

            Aurora glared back up at him, taking his question as a challenge.  A familiar fire, one that underscored her defiance toward the inkling-dominant status quo, began to well up in her gut in response to the challenge.  She took a moment to down the rest of her drink in one giant gulp, then she forcefully set the empty glass on the bar before taking a series of slow, seductive steps toward him in her high heels.  Midas kept his attention on her face while she did this, showing no changes in his cocky expression.  As the first doses of alcohol from her potent martini began to spread throughout her system, Aurora stepped around the corner of the bar and positioned herself right next to Midas in his seat, imposing heavily on his personal space.  Midas leaned backward in response, unsure of what to expect from his concupiscent date.

            A myriad of powerful forces were coming to life in Aurora’s mind, straddling her judgement and playing with her desperate body like a marionette.  Among those were her blind, obsessive adherence to Bella’s advice on boys, her mildly intensifying intoxication, and, of course…her burning, uncontrollable desire to mate with the inkling sitting right in front of her.  Her next few actions were a reflection of those forces, and her shame in committing them was stifled by her stubborn refusal to bow to the societal pressures that governed Albacore Hotel.

            Using the towering stature that her heels granted her, Aurora descended onto Midas and proceeded to make her attraction known to him.  She leaned forward in front of the paralyzed squid with her lidded eyes gazing straight into his, with such proximity as to give him an exclusive, detailed view of her constrained bosom behind Eight’s bra.  She stroked her hair curl feverishly as she watched Midas appear to become petrified, but her rush of confidence continued to hold strong when she noticed that his eyes were locked fully onto her breasts.  Just like Bella at the skatepark, it was finally her turn to make some stupefied putty out of her love interest.

            Taking her empowering stride a step further, she reached towards him with one hand and gently took hold of his wrist, mimicking Bella’s hypnotizing ferocity without having to think about it.  Midas’s wrist felt tense, but he didn’t try to resist her when she began to pull on it.  Rather than placing her crush’s hand on one of her boobs, like Bella had done, Aurora used a method of her own to butter up her victim.  Without breaking eye-contact, she guided the silenced squid’s hand to his drink glass, dipped his pointer and middle fingers into his cocktail, and brought them up to her mouth.  Midas clenched his teeth as his octoling date wrapped her lips around his two fingers and bobbed her head forward, suckling in tandem to pull them all the way to the back of her throat.  He reeled from the feeling of her inky tongue sliding all over his knuckles, though the shivers it sent coursing through his body were difficult to quantify.

            Meanwhile, Aurora closed her eyes and moaned softly, holding her crush’s hand still so she could visualize herself performing a different act.  Once she had cleaned all of the cocktail off his fingers, she bobbed her head backwards and forwards a couple times before finally releasing his hand.  Midas immediately regained control of his arm and began wiping his fingers on his shorts.  His teeth were still clenched.  His face, overall, was just as tense as the rest of his body.

            “What puts me above a squad of inkling chicks?”  She whispered deviously.  She leaned into him closer.  “…I don’t require protection.”

            Midas became clammy under Aurora’s spell.  For having never attempted a flirting gesture of such a caliber before, Aurora was proud of herself for maintaining her confidence while she basked in the intensity of Midas’s reaction.  Perhaps she had her drink and her empty stomach to thank.  She just hoped that his reaction was actually…positive.

            “Holy shit, octo…”  He quivered.  “…I thought you were supposed to be on Team Personality.”

            Aurora smiled at him.  “I could ask you the same thing, big boy.  Bimbos only come with looks, so why do you prefer them?  With me, you won’t have to choose.”

            “I only joined Team P to avoid fighting turf wars with the guys…”  He uttered weakly.  His gaze was firmly tethered to Aurora’s boobs, showing no signs of pulling away.

            At that moment, Aurora suddenly felt a sharp, forceful slap on her ass, directly between her cheeks.  The sound of it rang across the bar, followed by a high-pitched yelp from her, which alerted several of the inklings sitting further down.  She also stumbled forward in her heels from the strength the slap had packed, causing her to lose her balance and fall right into Midas.  Midas was the next to give a cry as he was tackled out of his seat, toppling backwards and falling to the floor.  Aurora landed right on top of him.

            An unfamiliar voice, originating from the guest that had slapped her, boomed down at her while she tried to regain her bearings.  “Enough is enough, little bottom-feeder.  I’ve been trying to have a decent date with my woomy over here, but your puffy little clam shell has been a rather unsightly distraction for us.”

            Much of the bar chatter that had filled the air around the rooftop stopped the moment Midas and Aurora hit the ground, and when the squid responsible bellowed down at her like that, everyone in the vicinity could hear him.  Initially, Aurora was too shocked to fully realize what had happened.  While the stranger berated her for her clothing, she and Midas remained piled on the floor behind the bar, shaking off the stars in their vision.  She figured, knowing that she had just been assaulted in front of tons of other guests, that someone was going to come in and intervene on her behalf.

            Unfortunately, that never happened.  In fact, after getting called out to the entire rooftop by the guy, Aurora noticed a few rounds of laughter bubbling up from the surrounding tables.  Reactions were mixed, with some squids rolling their eyes or turning up their noses in disgust.  A few guests even flicked balled-up straw wrappers at her.  The bartender noticed the assault as well, but he did nothing to contribute to the situation.  Aurora seemed to be under everyone’s scrutiny.

            Her face boiled purple.  The slap she had just taken was not light nor playful, and the tingly effects of it were still reverberating through her loins.  In her embarrassment, she struggled to pull her head up and face the condemning crowd.  Their faces, the ones that were still looking at her…all of them were stamped with contempt.  Aurora’s helplessness in the situation truly manifested when she failed to find a single face of sympathy in the blur.  She especially couldn’t bring herself to turn around and look at her attacker, who unfortunately had more to say after giving the other bar-goers their chance to belittle her.

            “Seriously, you kids need to get a damn room.  At a different hotel, preferably.”  He paused again as more scattered laughter sounded across the rooftop.  “See to it that no one else up here has to look at your slutty octoling junk, m’kay?”

            Aurora had never faced such ridicule before.  Even Atlas, who had certainly tried his tentacle at making her feel worthless during their last few encounters, hadn’t enjoyed the hive-mind of an entire rooftop bar to contribute to his victim’s humiliation.  Without anyone to offer her support, Aurora normally would have begun to cry under such circumstances.  However, something more pressing captured her attention in that moment, and it was significant enough to rip her right out of her rock-bottom state.

            For one thing, the flustered octo was still collapsed on top of Midas after their gnarly fall, and it did not take her long to become aware of it.  His stirring underneath her snapped Aurora out of her mortified spiral and brought the novel feeling of the dazed inkling’s body back to the center of her mind.  She felt his chest heave upwards against hers as he recovered from having the wind knocked out of him.  That, alone, sent a rush through her that got her hearts beating again.  Glancing down at him, she felt the sensation intensify when she saw his struggling face.

            There was something else, though…something a bit more exhilarating.  It was something Aurora had never felt in her life, and yet, she was quickly able to identify the feeling against her thigh.  Yes, in his shorts…she could feel it.  She could feel his buried desire for her.  She could feel, for herself, how effective her displays had been on him.  As her face ran hot from the intimate contact, Aurora knew…she still had a chance.

            The feeling only lasted for a second, as Midas panicked into his squid form as soon as he had worked off his dizziness.  Aurora scrambled to keep herself from face-planting on the floor, while Midas swished his tentacles to free himself from beneath her and flop his inky body back onto the barstool.  Once there, he refused to return to his kid form.  He let his motor tentacles dangle off the side of the stool, and his connected eyes stared away from his trembling date.

            Little did he know, however…that his brief bodily slip-up had already set Aurora on a path of no return.  All of the lascivious octo’s thoughts melted down in the wake of the sensation she had just gotten from him.  Her trembling seemed to strengthen as she picked herself up off the ground, and her blush, likewise, continued to deepen uncontrollably.  The feeling of him, all of him, stuck in her mind like a suction cup after the incident, snuffing out her fragile self-control and leading to a calamitous snowball effect.  She whimpered as she felt the overwhelming beating of her hearts begin to condense itself inside her own shorts, causing a steady leak that she knew would become obvious to everyone if she ignored it for too long.  Aurora realized that she needed to relieve herself immediately.

            “I…I’ll be right back…”  She uttered hastily.

            Leaving Midas alone at the bar to weather the angry guests, Aurora pulled her bag back up to her shoulder and waddled toward the stairs, staring at the ground in front of her to avoid eye-contact with everyone around her.  She fanned her face furiously as she went, trying desperately to quell the rising heat that had begun to grip her entire body.  An onset of throbbing, both in her face and in her shorts, carried the heat through her from the sheer intensity of her heartbeat.  The unraveling octo, steeped in a swirling cyclone of new fantasies about Midas, was forced to focus on each step she took as she continued to nurse a hidden, growing ink stain.  She prayed that she could find a bathroom inside the penthouse restaurant before the stain could show through her shorts and embarrass her any further.

            The trip down the stairs was agonizing.  Her steps were slow and shaky in her heels, and every inkling that passed her gave her a skeptical glare that gnawed at her fragile psyche.  Eventually, she managed to locate a pair of bathroom doors just a few paces from the elevator at the base of the staircase.  The door depicting the girls’ room became her target as she reached the bottom and scuttled past the elevator as quickly as she could, ignoring the stares she got from squids entering the restaurant.  She didn’t care if her manner of walking looked strange to them, as long as they weren’t able to tell that she was essentially a fracturing dam.

            Aurora barreled into the girls’ room with heedless urgency and stumbled her way past the row of stalls, hoping to find one that offered the privacy she needed.  Unfortunately, the bathroom was not empty, but the only stall that currently seemed to be occupied was the one closest to the bathroom’s entrance.  There was also an inkling girl freshening herself up in front of one of the mirrors, who treated the octoling interloper to another judging glance the moment she threw the door open.  Aurora turned away from the negative attention and raced into the farthest stall, closing the flimsy door behind her and latching it.  The incessant beating in her chest heightened even further upon closing herself in the confined space.

            Now, her relief could finally commence.  Aurora hung her bag on the hook that was bolted to the inner wall of the stall and quickly sat herself down on the toilet, her mind still clouded with the vivid sensation she had just experienced by the bar.  The heat ever present in her body, she removed her tank top, pulled her shorts and underwear down to her ankles, and placed her right hand between her ink-stained thighs, rubbing her fingers in the same slow, circular motion that had worked for her before.  She narrowly prevented herself from releasing a guttural moan when she did this, instead emitting a sharp, prolonged sigh that echoed off the bathroom’s tiled walls.  Reacting instinctively to the pleasurable feeling it produced, which temporarily staved off the suffocating heat, Aurora leaned back against the lid of the toilet and spread her legs further apart.  Her breathing picked up and became more labored, followed by her salacious hand movements.

            The indulgent octo didn’t care that the noises emanating from her ad hoc activity were both loud and distinct within the bathroom.  Her gasping breaths just barely managed to conceal the grotesque sounds of her self-massaging, but in the gaps between those breaths, the reality of her exhibitionism was effectively broadcast throughout the room.  Likewise, her underwear was stretched between her ankles with a massive ink stain from her recent arousal, the reflectiveness of which was highly visible to any visitors that were to glance downward through the gap in the stall door.  Initially, there were no reactions to Aurora’s self-love within the bathroom, but that changed the moment Aurora plunged a finger inside herself and responded to it with a squeaky whine.

            The girl in the other stall spoke up suddenly, using a tone that conveyed her distaste for the sounds she was hearing.  “Hey, you good in there, squiddy?  You better not be doing what I think you’re doing.”

            Aurora didn’t answer her.  Her brain, currently, was not capable of answering any inquiries.  The only things she was able to focus on were her crush, the feeling of said crush’s excitement against her loins, and the fantasy of their actions having escalated after being pushed on top of each other by that guest.  In fact, that same fantasy had been playing in her mind ever since she had left for the bathroom, and now that she was actively providing herself with the sensations to accompany her thoughts, her daydream grew to become markedly lucid.

            “Ouch…I’m so sorry about that, Midas.  I’m just so clumsy.”  Aurora stammered, having tripped on her heel and fallen right into him.  The push had happened with enough force to knock him onto the ground.

            “Happens to everyone.”  Midas replied casually, not seeming at all fazed by the impact.  He was still underneath her after her little accident, and he looked up at her eyes with growing admiration.  “Damn, though…you’re so sexy.  That thing you just did with my fingers…that was hot.”

            Aurora grinned confidently.  “Just for you, big boy.  I knew you would like it.”  She swayed her rear gently while on top of him, grinding the front of her pelvis side-to-side against his.  In doing so, she was pleased to discover his concealed excitement inside his shorts.  “Mmm…actually, it feels like you loved it…”

            Midas grunted from the enticing feeling of Aurora’s teasing.  “Haah…you gotta take it down a notch, girl.  You’re about to make me act out.”

            “I’ll take my chances.”  She whispered alluringly.  With that, the frisky octo leaned down to Midas’s face and planted her lips on his, eliciting a surprised look from him.  At the same time, she converted her hip-swaying into a sensual up-and-down motion, effectively dry humping him to wring out the last drop of his restraint.

            And wring it out, she did.  After everything Aurora had done to butter him up, Midas finally gave in at the feeling of his date’s aggressive mating display.  His eyes rolled back in his head as he reached up to firmly grip Aurora’s hips, pulling her body closer to his while she moaned into their persisting kiss.  He was quick to start clawing at her shorts, grasping the waistband and tugging them down to her knees with relative ease.  She shuddered when she felt her sensitive areas become exposed to the open air, but it was his subsequent prodding of those areas with the tip of his finger that really sent her over the edge.  Midas was, indeed, acting out now, and Aurora could not get enough of it.  In just a few moments, his shorts were the next to start coming off, revealing his turgid readiness to her…

            By that point, the fantasy was too powerful to stop.  Aurora’s grip on reality had already fallen into shambles, as evidenced by her complete failure to acknowledge the inkling that had addressed her from the nearby stall.  Her self-pleasuring ballooned in ferocity as her fantasy continued, in tandem with the enamored cries she kept projecting into the room.  The other bathroom-goer gave a disgusted scoff at the disturbing sounds, clearly irked at Aurora’s shamelessness.

            “Ew, can you cut it out, please?  Don’t you have a room to go do that shit in?”  She demanded.

            Aurora, of course, didn’t hear her.  Under the crushing pressure of her supercharged hormones, the panting octo wanted nothing more than to be in Midas’s feral grip.  She craved his fitness, his freshness, his buzz-off style of masculinity…and she wanted to be his plaything.  Much of the pleasure she was getting from her frivolous episode in the bathroom stall was derived from Midas’s little show of weakness, which she had proceeded to amplify in her ensuing fantasy.  Yes, she wanted to make him act out.  In her crazed, lustful stupor…all she wanted was to push Midas to act out his desires on her.

            It was this craving, coupled with her overbearing arousal and her lack of impulse control, that spurred Aurora to do what she did next.  Pausing her raunchy activity for a moment, she leaned forward on the toilet and reached her dry hand into her bag, sifting it around until she located her phone.  Then, she powered it on and navigated back to the SplatNet app, where Midas’s profile was still open after her prying from earlier.  She tapped the chat-bubble icon in the top corner of the screen to open a new direct-messaging prompt with Midas.  The prompt obviously contained no messages, but Aurora decided that she was going to change that.

            If she was going to have a chance at making her fantasy a reality, especially for the Splatfest, Aurora knew that she would have to push Midas to his absolute edge.  In order to do that, she decided that she would just have to show the unsuspecting squid how aroused she was.  Setting her phone on her thigh to free up her dry hand, she reached for the bottom seam of Eight’s bra and yanked it up to her neck, allowing her breasts to pop out of their constraints and fall into their natural position.  She then picked her phone back up and assumed a more revealing pose, splaying her legs apart to leave no area unchecked.  Finally, she tapped the camera icon on her phone, held it down between her legs at arm’s length, and gave a lidded smile for a full-body selfie.  The picture included…everything.  And, thanks to the fluorescent lights, the detail was dreadfully exquisite.

            Aurora leaned back against the toilet and held the phone up to her eyes, proud of what she had created.  She knew that Midas couldn’t say no to it.  Still panting from her activities, and blinded by her ambitions, she pressed the “Send” button.  With a small confirmation sound, the image appeared in the chat beneath a tiny loading spinner.

            She sat there with her breath held for a moment, waiting for the image to upload.  Each millisecond that passed was a chance for the impetuous octo to rescind what she had done.  Alas, she instead stared stupidly at the screen, with her right hand over her junk, until the status of the image changed to “Delivered.”  Upon seeing the change, her massaging resumed at a gentler pace.

            Within only seconds, though, the status of the image changed to “Viewed.”  Aurora forcefully blew out the breath she had been holding and resumed her previous pace right away, spurred mostly by the sudden flood of adrenaline.  Ink rushed to her face in copious amounts, making her head feel warm and light.  She was starting to get pretty close.

            An ellipsis appeared on the screen, indicating that her crush was typing something.  Her nerves escalated to a breaking point as she anticipated his reaction.  In her excitement, her loud interjections from before were replaced by short, shallow breaths, showcasing her imminent pursuit to ink the toilet bowl.  The sounds of the vigorous work she was doing with her hand became the dominant presence in the bathroom, prompting an immediate scowl from the other occupant.  Their response was followed by the echo of the other toilet flushing, and then by their stall door being swung open.  Aurora, however, was too absorbed in her near-climax to notice it.

            As she rode the building waves closer and closer to her explosive finish, her phone buzzed with Midas’s reply.  She raised her phone back up to her eyes and peered at the chat, hoping to see an expressive booty-call that would seal her union with her inkling crush for the Splatfest tomorrow night.  Instead, she was dismayed to see just a single word.

            “Oof.”

            At first, Aurora didn’t know what to think of it.  Right after she read the text, though, the status of her image changed again, from “Viewed”…to “Shared.”  That, alone, made her freeze in her tracks, her self-love coming to an abrupt halt in the process.  Midas’s profile picture also vanished into a black circle at roughly the same instant, indicating that he had blocked her on SplatNet.  Therefore, she was no longer able to send direct-messages to him.

            Her hearts stopped completely.  Every alarm in Aurora’s head started sounding at once as she realized the catastrophic ramifications of her actions.  For a few seconds, she sat there on the toilet with her mouth agape, having essentially shut down from her initial shock.  Then, once the true panic began to set in, she jumped out of her masturbatory pose on the toilet and scrambled to reassemble her outfit so she could go confront Midas at the bar.  She urgently needed to resolve what she had stumbled herself into.  Without knowing exactly how many profiles to which the sleazy squid had shared her nude pic, she could only speculate the amount of damage her arousal had caused for herself.

            The consternated octo underwent a rapid recovery from her libidinous state, pulling her stained shorts back up to her waist after patting herself dry with a large stretch of toilet paper.  The stain now felt cold and uncomfortable against her inner thighs, but she was woefully unable to address that problem.  She wrestled Eight’s bra back over her chest and threw her tank top onto her shoulders, all before grabbing her bag off the hook and shoving her way out of the stall.  At the same speed she had scurried into the bathroom, she power-walked right back out, passing the irritated inkling from earlier in front of one of the mirrors.  The snarky squid caught her going by in the mirror and narrowed her gaze in a rather detestable way.

            “You’re a fucking octoling?  Cod, I should’ve known!”  She exclaimed.  Her voice gained volume as Aurora ignored her, whipped the bathroom door open, and escaped.  “Take your nasty behavior back to the slums!”

            The girl’s words fell on entirely deaf ears.  Moving with the speed of a traveler that was about to miss her flight, Aurora had already hurried her way past the elevators by the time the girl’s last remark had been issued.  With each moment that passed, ever since Midas’s disapproving response had appeared on her phone screen, Aurora felt like her world was suddenly beginning to crumble.  For all she knew, her private anatomy was now being spread around the internet like a filthy virus, and Midas’s only gift back to her for violating the sanctity of intimate imagery was to outright block her.  Why would he do such a thing?

            Aurora’s mind grappled with the distress of this as she raced up the stairs to the rooftop bar, stumbling several times and holding onto the handrail for support.  She continued to ignore any glances that she earned during her panicked rush.  A mere ten minutes ago, all that had mattered to her was the opportunity to feel every inch of her inkling date…even if it put herself in the way of public ridicule.  Now, the top thing on her mind was simply to fix what she had caused.  If she was lucky, Midas would still give her the love that she craved after finding her naked body to be adequately attractive…but that hope had become secondary to assuring that hundreds of squids weren’t gawking at her nude pic in the same way.

            Upon summiting the stairs, the fraught octo immediately narrowed her sights on the bar.  It was then that she made a horrible, gut-wrenching discovery.  Midas was no longer sitting there.  Through the distant blur in her vision, his seat on the far edge of the bar did not appear to be occupied.  Aurora froze another time, her head panning across the full span of the rooftop, but she could not see a blip of his hair color anywhere in the fray.  It looked as if he had ditched her.

            A gaping pit opened in her stomach.  This time, she felt like she was on the brink of passing out.  Forcing her legs to carry her forward, she staggered towards the bar while earning hostile glares from most of the inklings she passed.  They looked especially displeased with her return, but as usual, Aurora didn’t pay attention to them.  She focused on the spot where Midas had been sitting as she approached…and shuddered when she found a receipt rolled up next to their two empty glasses.

            “Wh…Where did he go?”  She blurted helplessly.  “Where is Midas?”

            A few of the bar-goers sitting nearby glanced over at her, including the boy that had called her a hustler earlier.  They could clearly see her distress.  Behind the tall, confident appearance her outfit gave her, her shaky body language and strained, soulful eyes made her look about as pathetic as she felt.  And she knew that the dark-purple patch on her shorts wasn’t doing her any favors either.  Unfortunately, the boys at the bar did not seem interested in turning her melting psyche around for her.

            “Your date’s gone, missy.  Dude finally got sick of you and dipped as soon as you gave him the chance.”  The boy closest to her stated frankly.

            Aurora’s head started to spin.  “No…no…no no no no no…”

            “For real, I’ve never seen a guy chug down a cocktail so quickly.  Big squid slammed that thing like a shot just to get away from you!”  The boy next to him chimed in.  “Begs the question of why he brought you here in the first place.”

            “The kid said it was a bet that he and his friends lost.  Not a bet I would’ve taken to begin with, if I’m being honest.”  The first boy informed him.

            “Wow, a bet?  In that case…I guess I’m just surprised he didn’t dump your octoling ass sooner.  If it were me, I would’ve paid the tab as soon as the drinks showed up and walked away with mine in my hand.”

            “Exactly, or just take the damn pit-dweller to a movie theater so I have something else to look at the whole time.”  The first boy turned his uncaring gaze back to Aurora, who looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.  “You need to go back home, if you even have one, and change out of that whorish shit.  Face the facts; your ‘date’ was never going to give you any dick.  Learn how things work.”

            Aurora was about to make a weak attempt to defend herself, but the situation rapidly got worse before she could open her mouth.  Just then, the date of the guy that had slapped her earlier stood up from her seat and threw in some heckling of her own.

            “Hey, pit-dweller, why are you still here?  Weren’t you taught that octolings don’t get to fuck inklings?”

            “Yeah, your date’s gone, so why aren’t you?  Get lost!”  The slapper added, supporting his girlfriend.

            The commotion on Aurora’s side of the bar spread like wildfire after the first voices piped up.  In no time at all, several more inklings across the rooftop joined in on the harassment, shouting obscenities at the lonely octo until she hid her face in her hands and turned the other way.

            “Go home, octo-trash!”

            “Squids only!  Go the fuck home!”

            “Back to the slums!  Back to the slums!”

            “Holy shit, did she piss herself?”

            “Bad pit-dweller, stay in your lane!”

            “Get lost, stop tainting our hotel!”

            Previously, Aurora had thought that her time on the floor after being slapped by the inkling behind her was her rock-bottom moment.  Compared to what was happening to her right now, though, that moment felt inconsequential.  Each and every line she heard from the crowd reverberated in her head like demeaning tinnitus, and they were all coming at her so quickly…

            For the final time, Aurora froze.  Overwhelmed in her mortification, and exhausted from all the excitement, she stood trembling with her face buried in her hands.  Insults continued to fly her way, having lost their restraint, while the bartenders carried on with their job like nothing was amiss.  It was a thing of actual nightmares.  She knew she had to get out of there…but she couldn’t get her body to move.  It was all happening too quickly.

            Her breakdown persisted for an awful several seconds, until she felt the hand of the guest that had slapped her grab firmly onto her shoulder.  One last flood of adrenaline rushed through the tired octo, and she did what was necessary to save herself.  Aurora jerked her bag down to her wrist and caught it in her hand, then she swung her body around and clocked the inkling in the side of the face with it.  The strike caused him to flinch to the side and lose his grip on her, as well as summon a startled cry from her deriding audience.

            Finally, before the situation could escalate any further, she dropped into her octo form and jettisoned herself off the rooftop, using the last of the ink her malnourished body could muster.  As she arced across the sky en route to Inkopolis Square, she felt that, truly…she was at her lowest point.  Nothing she could do, nor that could be done to her, would be able to sink her fortunes any more.  Her frenzied, tortured thoughts on the matter raged on in her head as she landed in the bustling city center and stormed her way over to the metro station.

            Aurora dodged her way through the pre-Splatfest crowds in complete silence, her head once again locked on the ground in front of her.  She looked as emotionless as Eight the entire way there.  Just another face in the mix, she navigated through the station and boarded one of the train cars without showing a hint of evidence of what she had just experienced.  Only once the doors closed, and the train began to move…did the dazed octo, at last, finish processing everything that had happened at Albacore Hotel.  As she turned her head out the window and stared at her reflection against the blackness, Aurora wept quietly to herself.

            Eight was right all along.  Midas was just trying to get rid of her.  It took a major toll on her spirit to realize how little she had left for herself in her pursuit of the boy with the Squiffer…only for it all to come up naught.  Her friends were still mad at her, she had fought against Eight and left her on poor terms, her nude pic was somewhere at large on SplatNet, and now she was certain to show up single to the Splatfest.  Not to mention…her Wah-Wah was still at home with the girls.

            Aurora understood that she had been warned.  She also understood that she had not listened.  Currently, in the wake of the tragedy that had befallen her that afternoon, she was being made to understand…exactly why that mattered.

Chapter Text

            Ula glared absently into the stream of cephalopods traversing the street around her as she leaned against the display window of a headwear outlet.  She had just exited the outlet a few moments before, having settled on the finishing touch to her new ensemble with the help of Bella’s encouraging remarks.  Shortly after paying for her friend’s choice, Bella had once again earned the attention of an outspoken octo boy—the cashier, as it so happened—causing their stride to be put on hold while she put on her usual show for the potential mate.  Ula was quick to excuse herself to the street outside after the flirting picked up, spurred by both the embarrassment of the ensuing commotion…and the growing envy she had for her friend’s overwhelming visual appeal.  Every time she was forced to witness its effects, her distaste for it would fester.

            Immediately following her degrading encounter with the juice-vaping octo boys in the department store, Ula’s shopping experience at Arowana Mall had actually taken a rather pleasant turn.  Bella had done a lot to lift her spirits in the wake of the humbling putdown, offering her frequent compliments and agreeing to pay for anything she wanted in the stores that they visited.  Ula had, of course, taken full advantage of that.  Her confidence in selecting her own wears increased with each piece that she purchased; in making the selections that she had, she had managed to prove to both of them that her taste in clothing had not gotten rusty since their exodus to the big city.  However, Bella’s suitors were incessant during their casual shopping spree…and each boy that approached her had a way of undermining that fragile confidence.

            Despite those unwelcome distractions, Ula managed to create a new look that left nothing to be desired.  By the time they had finished their shopping spree at the headwear outlet, the cynical octo had replaced every single piece of her previous ensemble.  For starters, her legs were now adorned with the stretchy, torn leggings that Bella had pointed out to her in the department store, revealing some of her thigh skin to the public for the very first time.  The Navy Emperrials she had worn on her feet, chosen for their vague resemblance to the uniform she used to wear in Octo Valley, were replaced with a more inkling-esque pair of Gray Sea-Slug Hi-Tops.  On her body, she sported a Black V-Neck Tee: complete with the fingerless gloves, and just small enough in size to show a sliver of her waist.  Bella had tried to get her into a crop top to complement the special bra they had gotten for her bust, but she was unwilling to budge on the amount of skin such a garment would show.

            Her look was topped off with a Skalop Sneaky Beanie from the headwear outlet, albeit with the face mask left in her shopping bag with her old clothes.  Bella, who wore her Paisley Bandana under her chin while out on the town, had strongly encouraged her to leave her facial coverings aside when searching for partners.  Ula had resisted at first, insisting on at least wearing her “dark-ass shades” with the new beanie, but her friend’s undeniable experience in the matter had a way of convincing her to relent.  Therefore, as she stood against the building with her entire face revealed to the world, she deliberately tried to avoid eye contact with all the passersby.  She felt out of place around so many inklings…and she worried that her ambient grumpiness—which Bella colloquially called her “resting bitch face”—would offend one of them if she stared for too long.

            Ula gave a long huff as she waited impatiently for her friend to finish toying with the cashier.  At the tail end of her sigh, a voice from right next to her caused her to tense up.

            “H—Hello.”

            It was a male voice.  A somewhat wimpy one, at that.  Ula didn’t acknowledge it, assuming it to be addressed to someone else: someone standing behind her, perhaps.  She continued staring forward.

            “Um…hello!  Miss…octoling?”  The guy repeated, louder this time.

            She turned to look at him.  The source of the voice was staring right at her from a few feet away…confirming that he was, in fact, talking to her.  To her surprise…he was an inkling.  He stood just a few centimeters shorter than her, with a smooth, unflattering bowl haircut.  His glasses seemed to magnify his eyes, making him look like a little lost jellyfish to her.  Ula gave him a once-over and turned up her nose slightly.

            “What?”

            The boy grinned awkwardly, becoming shy under her gaze.  He fiddled with his fingers.  “Hi, uhh…what are you up to?”

            Ula raised an eyebrow.  “Why do you care?  I’m minding my own business.”

            “That’s cool!  That’s cool.  Are you…waiting for someone?”  He asked timidly.

            “Yeah, actually.  I’m waiting for my friend.”

            “Your…friend?”

            “Yes, so don’t get any ideas.”  She surveyed him a second time, with an even more judgmental glare.  “Not that I couldn’t deal with you myself.”

            “H’ooh, my…”  The boy seemed to shudder when she said that.  His lips curled up a bit.  “What team did you choose?”

            Ula didn’t answer him at first.  She gave the inkling a confused glare, wondering just what the hell his motives were.  “Dude…”

            “Is it Looks?  You chose Looks, right?”

            “I…I guess?  What do you want from me?”

            “I’m on Looks, too.”  He blurted, holding his hands behind his back.  “D’you…um…do you have a date yet?”

            “Wh…huh?”  She stammered, her expression becoming even more perplexed.  She glanced awkwardly back and forth, hoping no one else was noticing their interaction.  Though she felt like she knew what his punchline was going to be, she struggled to let herself believe it.  “You’re not…asking…”

            “I saw you from down the street a bit.  Y—You’re really pretty.”  He quickly broke eye contact with her.  “I was surprised to see you standing by yourself…”

            Ula did not know how to respond.  She stayed perfectly still, eyeing the submissive-looking boy with an abundance of skepticism.  Outside of her friend group, she had never gotten a compliment from another octoling—let alone an inkling.  Her instinct told her not to trust the squid’s advances, but at the same time…he didn’t exactly seem like much of a threat.

            “…You’re asking me to the Splatfest.”  She finally uttered.  “You…are asking me…to the Splatfest?”

            The boy nodded.  “Mhm.  If you want.”

            “But………you’re an inkling.”

            “Um…yeah.  I hope that’s not an issue.”  He shrugged, trying to play it cool.  “I really like octolings.  I’ve always wanted to be with one.”

            “…Really?”  She turned towards him slightly.  “And you chose…me?”

            Just then, their interaction was cut off when Bella came parading through the shop doors, her stride rather tall after having turned down another suitor.  Glancing up and down the street, she quickly caught eye of Ula standing against the front face of the shop and strolled daintily in her direction.  It also didn’t take her long to notice the visitor her friend seemed to have.

            The haughty octo inserted herself into their exchange, causing both of them to look at her.  “Whew, that one was tough to peel off!  It’s like that guy forgot he had a job to do.”

            Ula rolled her eyes.  “Fantastic.”

            Bella then turned her gaze to the inkling boy, giving him the same dismissive once-over that Ula initially had.  “Who’s this squid?”

            The boy froze in place for a moment.  Upon making eye contact with Bella, his demeanor seemed to change.  His jaw went slack, and a newfound twinkle in his eye presented itself to the girls through his glasses.  Ula could hear him gasp from where she was standing, and—combined with the conspicuous twinkle—it caused a sinking feeling in her chest.

            “Wow, wow, wow!  Are you her friend?”  He queried eagerly, swallowing his nerves.  “D—Do you girls hang out?”

            Bella smirked.  “What’s it to you, squid?”

            “You’re even…m—more pretty!  You’re almost like Marina!  A—Are you on Team Looks too?”

            Ula scowled, crossing her arms bitterly and turning the other way.  She instinctively checked out of the conversation with that comment, wishing there was somewhere else to which she could pettily excuse herself again.  Alas…she was already standing out on the street.

            “Ha, ‘like Marina’?  That’s a new one.”  Bella gave a scoff that exemplified her growing cockiness.  “Yes, both of us are on Team Looks.”

            “I’m also on Team Looks!  Can I join you girls?  Pleeeease?”  He implored her, clasping his hands together.

            Bella struggled to keep from laughing in the guy’s face.  She gave him another once-over and placed her hand on her cheek.  “You joined Looks, huh?  That was…bold of you!”

            “Well…yeah.  The theme is ‘which one do I want,’ not ‘which one do I have’.  You and your friend…you girls are the prettiest octolings I’ve ever met.”  He gushed.

            “How do you know the two of us aren’t already dating?  You haven’t even asked us our names yet.”  She quipped.

            The boy’s eyes widened.  “Wait, a—are you girls dating?  That would be perfect…”

            “We’re not dating.”  Ula piped up from the sidelines.  “We’re just friends.  Trying to have a good time.”

            “That’s okay, I won’t get in the way!  I’ll do whatever you octolings tell me to do.”  He pledged in a hushed voice, flexing his eyebrows suggestively.

            The action was all it took to finally dissolve Bella’s composure.  As the provocative pledge rolled off the inkling boy’s tongue, she burst into a fit of amused giggling, putting the hand that was previously on her cheek in front of her mouth.  The boy initially swooned at the display, taking great romantic interest in the way she laughed.  He sighed dreamily.  Ula, on the other hand, continued to glare in the other direction.

            “Ahh…thank you for that.  You’re a fun one, little squid.”  Bella pretended to wipe a tear from her eye.  “Unfortunately, squids aren’t exactly our type.  M’afraid you’ll have to keep searching.”

            “I’m an octo at heart, I swear!”  He quickly protested.  “Please, just keep an open mind!  I’ll do anything for us!”

            “Mmm…nah.  I guess I would make an exception for you if you were hot, but…well…you’re not.”  She nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders.  “Like you said…it’s about what we want, not what we have!”

            “What about seaweed?  You girls like seaweed?”  He attempted, eyeing his love interests with an entreating expression.  “I smoke that shit every day.  I could hook you up.”

            Ula shot him a glance.  Her expression changed, as did Bella’s.  Before the pouting octo could respond to the guy’s offer, though, her complacent friend answered him with a condescending smirk.

            “Geez, dude, you should’ve opened with that!  You really need to work on your game.”

            He ignored her putdown.  “So, what d’ya say?”

            “We already got a plug.  Appreciate your confidence, squid, but I think you’re shooting a bit out of your league here.  We’re octolings with standards.”

            “Mm.  That’s harsh.”  The boy’s arms slumped at his sides as he seemed to finally give up.  He turned from the girls to face the street.  “I tried, I guess.”

            The girls watched him dejectedly take his leave.  Shortly after he walked away, Ula stood up from the display glass and directed her huffy glare at her friend.

            “What the fuck, Bella?”

            Bella blinked back at her in surprise.  “Huh?  What?”

            “Why are you so damn picky?  You keep pushing away all the action!”  She complained, throwing her arms out at her sides.

            “Uhhh…what are you talking about?”

            “That guy was mine.  He approached me first.  No one’s gonna be left if you keep telling everyone to take a hike!”

            “Ula, that guy was an inkling.  A nerdy inkling.  The least attractive cephalopod on these streets, probably.  Was I not doing you a favor, getting him off your back like that?”

            Ula retracted a bit, not answering her friend right away.  “I dunno, maybe I wanted to turn someone down for once.  It would definitely be more fun than watching you do it for the hundredth time.”

            “Um…I’m sorry…?  I thought the guy was annoying you.”  Bella shrugged, failing to recognize Ula’s envy.  “You can turn down the next one if you want.  The beggars are getting kinda tiring anyway.”

            “There’s not gonna be a ‘next one’.  I wanna go home.”  Ula pouted.

            Bella stood upright, eyeing her friend curiously.  “Wait…you’re done?  Already?  You just got into that fresh new outfit!”

            “Yeah…whatever.”

            “Don’t you like it?”

            Ula looked down at herself.  Uncrossing her arms briefly, she stared in silence at the fresh, punkish style she had crafted for herself that afternoon.  She had to admit…the shopping had been fun.  Her clothes oozed confidence; their sleek seams and torn accents told the exact story she wanted to tell.

            “Ehh, the gear is nice…I’ll give you that.  Thank you, Bella.”

            “Pleasure’s mine.”

            “I just don’t see the point in playing this stupid dating game.  It’s making me kinda feel like shit.”  She let out a sigh, crossing her arms again and glancing the other way.

            “That’s what the new outfit is for, though!  It’s so you can advertise yourself to all the hunky octos out there that are waiting to scoop you up.  You don’t wanna show up to the Splatfest single, do you?”

            “I don’t know…”

            “No, you don’t.  Trust me.  You said you wanted an octo who could throw you around a little bit, and I can help you get that.  Just give us some time.”

            “Give us time for what, Bella?  Time to go around sticking my neck out for everyone while you get all the attention?  That’s not fun for me.”

            Bella put her hands in front of her.  “Hey, I can’t control how my looks affect others.”

            “Exactly.  That’s why I’m done.  I say we rocket outta here.”

            “Ulaaa, you gotta shoot your shot!  It’s the whole reason we got the clothes, remember?  The Splatfest is tomorrow.”

            “Nope.  I don’t think it’s fair that I should have to ‘shoot my shot’ while you can just strut around town in your comfort clothes and pick up every drooling moron that has a pulse.  It’s obvious which of us is more attractive at this point.”  She glared dolefully at her friend for a moment before turning her gaze to the ground.  “I like this outfit, Bella, but…I’m not about that damn hustle.  I’m good.”

            “What are you gonna do if you’re the only one without a date tomorrow?  This could be your last chance!”  Bella urged.

            “I’m gonna cop some seaweed off of anyone who will give it to me.”  Ula answered confidently.  “Then I’m gonna kick back and chill to the music.  I don’t need a date for the Splatfest.”

            Bella gave a huff through her nose.  “Well, Ula…I kinda do.  And for every night that we spend marinating in our apartment, our dating pool gets smaller.  Let us keep prowling for a little bit longer, eh?”

            Ula sighed in exasperation.  “Ehhhh……”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            High above the frantic streets of the city—among which the energy of Splatfest Eve continued to gain steam—Eight’s apartment was filled with the quiet, serenading beats of the Squid Sisters’ latest album.  The musicians’ most revered track of the year, “Fresh Start,” emanated from a cordless speaker that Eight had placed on the countertop behind the couch.  The song was the only thing that could be heard throughout the apartment, though it played at a very gentle volume.  Not even the sounds of the city’s commotion below reached through the apartment’s windows.

            In the midst of this pristine tranquility, Eight worked in silence to clean up her home after her tussle with Aurora.  A glove on each hand, she worked on her knees to scrub off the dried ink her stubborn friend had left behind on the foyer.  She did not emote to the music in any way, except in the rhythmically timed strokes of her brush against the stained tiling.  Despite her typical aloof appearance, the octo’s thoughts were anything but dormant.

            Eight had no intention of revealing herself to the outside world that afternoon…not without Aurora, at least.  Sure, she may have left the coziness of her apartment to run a quick errand shortly after Aurora’s departure…but that little excursion had not given her much exposure to the desperate masses lurking outside her building’s walls.  She felt no desire to mingle, shop, nor even wander the nearby parks on her Splatfest Eve.  The way she figured, the extra chores her friend had created for her were actually a blessing in disguise.

            In the midst of her productive trance, there was a soft knock on the door behind her.  Eight turned her head quickly, her ears perking up at the gentle, yet piercing, sound.  She was skeptical at first—not anticipating Aurora’s return for at least another hour or two, and doubting that any of the girls would’ve dropped whatever they were doing to come see her.  Upon standing up and glaring through the peephole in her door, Eight swiftly confirmed for herself who her visitor was.  It was, in fact, Aurora…much to her surprise.

            Seeing her there, Eight immediately tossed her brush in the bucket and opened the door for her friend.  She expected to learn most of how Aurora’s date had gone in the first few seconds of their reunion.  In that assumption…she was certainly correct.

            Aurora stood small before Eight, her arms and legs tucked against her body.  Her head was down a bit, but not enough to prevent Eight from seeing her face.  Eight saw bands of runny eyeliner streaming down her cheeks.  Her expression was dead: a tired, defeated demeanor, devoid of tears.  She made eye contact with Eight the moment the door opened—and said nothing.  The friends stared blankly at each other, in silence, for those first few seconds…telling Eight everything she needed to know.

            The stunned octo wanted to say something, but she couldn’t find the words.  Aurora’s appearance was a lot for her to absorb in that moment.  Before she could collect herself enough to address her disheveled friend, Aurora did the honors and invited herself into the apartment, marching rigidly past Eight through the foyer.  Eight stepped out of her way and closed the door behind her, watching as she trudged up to her couch and plopped down on it lifelessly.  She dumped her bag on the floor and stared straight ahead at the TV.

            After studying Aurora very closely for a minute, Eight began to cautiously approach her.  She walked around the side of the couch without saying anything, prolonging their shared silence to the unassuming melody of the Squid Sisters’ voices in the background.  It wasn’t until she made it to the couch and sat down next to Aurora that she finally chose to break the silence.

            She started with a deep breath.  “How was your date, Aurora?”

            Aurora didn’t respond.  Her lip quivered a few times.  Eight continued to study her prudently, hoping to understand the things she could not infer.  She didn’t need a response from her right away…or even at all.  She just wanted to help her absorb the fallout from whatever had happened at Albacore Hotel.  The longer her silence continued to persist, the worse the prognosis seemed to be.

            Eight gave her about thirty seconds, then she tried again.  “…Aurora?”

            Aurora simply shook her head.  Her lip quivered some more as she stared ahead at the TV, prompting Eight to lean forward slightly.  She remained like that for another moment or two, until she pinched her eyes shut and tilted her head down at the floor in front of her.  Eight watched an eyeliner-stained tear fall from each of her eyes, one at a time, and land in her lap.

            “It was awful…”  She whispered weakly.

            Eight’s expression became sunken.  She slid herself closer to Aurora on the couch.  “…I’m sorry.”

            The saddened octo put her hand around her friend’s waist, hoping to comfort her through her grieving.  Aurora’s breathing stopped for a moment as the gentle brush of Eight’s touch rang true against the cold pain that had been inflicted on her earlier.  When her breaths returned, they were strained and sporadic.  More tears began to form by her eyes and run down her cheeks.  Before long, her quiet, gloomy demeanor had descended into sobbing.

            “Oh, Eight…it was awful!”

            Eight reacted vigilantly when Aurora suddenly threw herself into her grasp, closing her arms around her and preventing herself from toppling onto her side.  The broken octo began crying uncontrollably…a sound that cut a lot deeper than Eight was used to.  Her wailing cries completely drowned out the background music, shattering the serene ambience that had come to dominate the apartment.  Eight felt like she was suspended in time as her friend’s breakdown unfolded.

            Between each cry, Aurora sucked in shaky breaths, each of which were felt by her silenced host.  She covered her face with her hands, not wanting her soiled makeup to be seen by Eight.  Alas, there was little point in trying to conceal any part of herself from her as it was…considering how she must’ve already looked in such a state.  Whether she liked it or not, her friend was seeing her at her lowest point.  She felt ugly—in every aspect of the word—and she was stuck showing all of it to Eight in her emotional episode.

            Eight tried her best to contain the maelstrom.  Even though she had foreseen a negative outcome for her impulsive companion…it pained her to see her so broken up.  She could only wonder, with a bit of discomfort, just how badly Aurora’s date had gone.

            “It’s okay now.  It is okay.”  She tried to assure her.  “You are safe here.”

            “They were so mean to me, Eight!  All of them!”  Aurora wailed back at her, briefly uncovering her face so she could project her voice.  “There were so many of them!”

            Eight was holding her from behind, so she could not see her face.  “So many…inklings?  At the hotel?”

            Aurora nodded.  She began sniffling between her words.  “He took me to…the rooftop bar.  I was…the only octoling there!”

            “…Oh.”

            “They called me names…told me to go back to the slums…”  She tensed up for a moment, which Eight was able to feel.  “…one of them even slapped me!”

            “Oh…I see.”  Eight uttered, her eyes widening.  She tightened her grip on her grieving companion.  “What did Midas do about it?”

            At this point, Aurora resumed sobbing with the same ferocity as before.  She squeezed her friend’s arms that were around her waist, attempting to return her hug despite facing the TV.  Her cries rang throughout the apartment…haunting Eight as she solemnly listened to them.

            Finally, Aurora mustered the breath to answer.  “He did nothing!  He wasn’t even there at the end!  He ditched me!”

            Eight let out a long sigh.  It seemed that everything she had predicted had, indeed, come to pass.  In doing what he had done, luring Aurora to Albacore Hotel before ditching her right when the going got rough, Midas must’ve been trying to shake her off his back.  Eight had read him like an open book…yet Aurora’s stubbornness had prevented her from heeding the warning she had so graciously given to her.

            That didn’t matter, though.  Eight didn’t care that her friend had ignored her.  All that mattered now was her pain…and oh, how abundant it was.  The solitary octo couldn’t stand to witness it.  She wanted nothing more than to pull her out of her misery—whatever the cost may be.

            “Did you at least enjoy your time with him?  Was he nice to you?”  She asked, hoping to squeeze some positivity out of it all.

            “Um…I guess.”  Aurora sniffled again.  “He said my gear looked really fresh…”

            “He’s right.  You have very fresh taste, Aurora.”

            “Not fresh enough to make him like me, though.”  She slumped further in Eight’s grasp.  “He was so distant.  He cared more about his own freshness than he did about me.”

            For a moment, Eight kept quiet.  She pondered ways to verbalize her thoughts in a manner digestible to her battered companion.  “That is not surprising.  Remember, Aurora…you did force Midas to go on that date with you.”

            “I knoooooow, but…I thought I could make him like me!  I tried soooo hard to make him like me…”  She whimpered.  Her weakened crying continued as she lamented her mortifying experience.

            The room fell to silence again—save for the ambience of the Squid Sisters’ “Now Or Never” in the background—as Eight struggled to conjure a response.  She was never good at articulating herself on the spot, especially when her goal was to lift her companion out of the pits of despair.  Verbally, she felt about as useless as a sea anemone.  Her response to Aurora, therefore, was to shift her arms into a familiar X-shape over her chest and squeeze her wholesomely.  Aurora went limp and willingly absorbed her embrace.

            After a few moments, Eight loosened her grip again.  She sat forward and looked at her friend through the reflection in the TV.

            “You haven’t eaten in a while.  Are you hungry?”

            Aurora nodded slowly.  “…Mhm…”

            “Okay.  I will make something.”

            Eight promptly detached herself from the weeping octo and stood up, preparing to step around to the kitchen.  Food was always an effective mode of healing, she figured.  Before starting on her way, she glanced down at Aurora on the couch, hoping to at least see a marginal boost in her temperament.  Instead, she finally took notice of the other conspicuous flaw in Aurora’s appearance—visible only upon looking down.

            She stopped in her tracks.  Saying nothing, she glared at Aurora’s shorts with an unreadable expression.  One more time, silence…a much louder silence than the ones before it.  Aurora eventually turned and looked up at her, wondering why she had stopped moving.  It was then that she noticed Eight’s fixated gaze, glanced down at herself, and received her humbling reminder.

            “Th—That’s…from…crying a bunch.”  She quickly lied.  “On the way back here.”

            It took a while for Eight to respond to her.  “…You had an…accident?”

            “…Maaaaybe…”  She kept her gaze down to avoid making eye contact with her friend.

            Immediately, Eight seemed to relax a bit.  “I see.  Did you bring…a change?”

            Aurora said nothing.  She crossed one leg over the other, feeling suddenly conscious of the stain she had recklessly given herself that day.  This time, it only took about five seconds for Eight to know the answer to her own question.

            “There is underwear in the bottom drawer.”  She said plainly.  “You can change in the bedroom.”

            With that, the intriguingly motherly octo turned around and ventured into the kitchen to make food for her friend.  Aurora kept her pose on the couch for a few more moments, until she was sure that Eight had effectively left her side.  Just as Eight was extracting a bowl from one of the kitchen cupboards, she slipped away from the couch and down the hall toward the bedroom.

            Her immediate target was the wardrobe, to which she made a beeline after entering the room.  After realizing that Eight had seen her stain, Aurora became focused on getting rid of it in order to finally end her humiliation.  At first, she failed to take notice of the state the bedroom was in upon her return.  She knelt in front of the wardrobe and pulled open the bottom drawer without a second thought, picking out the first comfortable-looking pair of Eight’s intimates that she could find.  She didn’t care what color they were, nor how cute they looked.

            Having returned to her silent, despondent demeanor, Aurora stood back up and yanked her own ink-stained garments down to her ankles.  She didn’t even bother to separate her underwear from her shorts, keeping the fabrics wadded together as she turned toward the bed to toss them with the PJs.  It was then…that she made a surprising discovery.

            Even though Aurora had only been absent for under two hours, Eight had managed to completely reset her bedroom during that time—on top of the work she had done to clean both herself and the foyer.  The bed was made perfectly neatly, the comforter’s iconic imagery being easily discernible from how evenly it was spread.  The PJs Aurora had borrowed the night before and thrown on the bed were no longer there, having been folded and returned to the wardrobe.  The room looked as if Eight had never had any guests over to begin with.  That was not all, however.

            Aurora’s jaw dropped when she spotted the pillow on her side of Eight’s bed.  Or, rather, the object sitting on top of it.  Within seconds of panning her gaze to the bed before her, Aurora caught sight of…her Wah-Wah.  Yes, the  unmistakable beady eyes of her lifelong companion were staring right back at her from atop the pillow, accompanied by her favorite stitched smile.  Her hearts fluttered at the initial sight of him; she simply couldn’t believe that she was seeing him in that moment.

            Still lacking undergarments, Aurora dawdled up to the bed in a mesmerized state.  Her pupils dilated as she approached her childhood plushie, locking firmly onto it like a torpedo on a charger.  She reached out with both her arms, stepped up against the foot of the bed, and let herself fall onto the bedspread to close the gap.  When she felt his soft fabric against the palms of her hands, a rush of dopamine immediately flooded her system.  The weary octo tightened her grip on the plush and rolled onto her back, bringing it to her chest and squeezing it ardently.

            For a while, the world melted away.  Everything that had been plaguing Aurora’s mind since her disastrous date seemed to vaporize at once.  She laid there, half naked and hypnotized, for several minutes as she tried to let her emotional battery recharge.  The scars left on her psyche by the racist denizens of Albacore Hotel ran deep, indeed.  But, as she hugged the stuffing out of her favorite toy, the healing power of her nostalgia and desire for closeness managed to run even deeper.  Her tears had already dried up, and yet…she felt like she could cry all over again.

            Slowly, during those several, peaceful minutes…Aurora came to wonder how it was possible that she was reunited with her Wah-Wah.  After all…he couldn’t have gotten on Eight’s bed by himself.  Someone obviously must’ve delivered him to her.  Given her current standing among her friends, she figured she could easily rule out Bella and Ula as potential culprits.  Either Ophelia had dropped him off at Eight’s apartment on her way to work, or…

            “It is ready, Aurora.”  Eight’s voice called from down the hall.  Aurora’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound.

            “Oh…okay!”  She called back.  “Just a second!”

            Remembering suddenly that her legs were still bare, the distrait octo quickly sprung from the bed and retrieved the garments she had previously selected from Eight's wardrobe.  She left her own stained clothes on the newly made bedspread.  In roughly the same stride as her hasty exit from the room, she brought the dry underwear and shorts to her ankles and pulled them up to her waist.  Surprisingly, they fit rather well.

            Aurora power-walked down the hall to the living room, feeling somewhat rejuvenated from her brief communion with Wah-Wah.  She found Eight sitting patiently on the couch with her hands folded in front of her.  On the table before her was a ceramic bowl and spoon, the bowl emanating a steady swirl of steam that glistened in the sun.  The toasty, comforting scent of the bowl’s contents reached her as she entered the room, inviting her back to Eight’s presence with additional vigor.  She could still hear music coming from the speaker in the kitchen…meaning Eight had declined to turn it off.

            The first thing Aurora did upon her return was glance down into the bowl to see what her friend had made for her.  It was oatmeal: steamed in the microwave, with raspberries and blueberries scattered throughout.  Eight certainly liked her fruits, it seemed.  Both the sight and fragrance of the meal were heavenly to Aurora, who spent less than a second taking it in before sitting down on the couch and reaching for the bowl.

            Eight quickly beat her to it, though, leaning forward and nudging the bowl out of reach before she could take hold of it.  Aurora looked over at her friend, confused by her action.

            “Not yet.  It is very hot.”  She asserted.

            “Oh.”  Aurora murmured.  She sat back a bit, feeling slightly awkward.

            The room was not silent for long.  Now that Eight had had a chance to process everything from the kitchen, she addressed Aurora with an itch that needed to be scratched.  For her sake, mostly, but also for Aurora’s.

            “Aurora.”  She waited for her to look at her.  “How was your date?”

            “…How was my date?  Um, I…I already told you how it went.”

            “Yes, but…I would like to know more.  What did you and Midas talk about?  Did he dress nicely for you?”  She kept her upright pose as she tossed the questions to her friend.  Aurora blinked rapidly as she was startled by Eight’s sudden forwardness.

            “Whoa, um…you want me to…fill you in?”

            “Yes, please.  I am just…curious.”  Another pause lingered between them.  “…You do not have to—”

            “No, no…”  Aurora took a deep breath.  “…it’s fine.  The date wasn’t…terrible at first.  He complimented my outfit, then we went to the bar and talked about seaweed a bit.”

            Eight raised an eyebrow.  “Does Midas smoke seaweed?”

            Aurora shook her head.  “No.  He smokes…golden egg extract.”

            “Juice.”

            “Yeah…juice.”  She made a face.  “Anyway…he also mentioned his friend at one point.  The Splatling guy.  The guy’s name is Atlas…apparently.”

            “I see.”  Eight said blandly.  She waited quietly for her friend to continue.

            “So, yeeeeah…um…not really much beyond that.  Oh, and he didn’t dress special for me at all.  He wore the same stuff from both of our battles.  He also didn’t save a seat for me at the bar.”

            “He made you stand at the bar?”  Eight echoed back.  She watched Aurora give an ashamed nod.  “…I see.”

            It took several seconds for Aurora to utter anything else.  Eight noticed her subtle efforts to hold back her tears, which were much more successful after her uplifting time in the bedroom.

            “I really tried to make him like me, Eight.  I thought…if I tried hard enough…he would.”

            “What things did you try?”  Eight asked suddenly, leaning forward the slightest bit.

            “T—To make him like me?”

            “Yes.”

            Her gaze faltered.  “Uhh…I guess I…kinda flirted with him.  A lot.  I tried to do it the way Bella does it.  Y’know…”

            “I know.”  She glanced discreetly at Aurora’s chest, feeling glad that her bra was at least still on when she had walked through the door.  “You and Midas are on Team Personality, though.  Didn’t you try anything else?”

            “Ummmm……”  Aurora put a finger up to her chin.  She pondered for a moment, feeling pressured by Eight’s question.  “…not reeeeally…”

            “Did you ask him any questions?  To get to know him?”

            “Uh…I…guess not…”

            “So…you tried to seduce him until he got up and left the bar?  Is that what happened?”  She pressed.

            Aurora knew what she had actually done.  She knew what her blind obsession had caused her to do…the filthiness of it…and the dire consequences it had bore for her.  She could never let Eight know about it, though.  For fear of losing her respect—or worse, her friendship—she had to keep Eight from ever knowing the truth.  So, of course, she lied again.

            “………Mhm……”

            “I see.”  The questioning octo sat back for a moment, seemingly trying to rationalize Aurora’s response.  Despite knowing her friend to be sparse when it came to pragmatic thinking, she struggled to understand why she had chosen to court her Team-Personality date using a Team-Looks playbook.  For that matter, she was also curious to know why Midas was on Team Personality to begin with…and how Aurora was able to predict it before his vote was even cast.  Perhaps Aurora knew something that she didn’t.

            While Eight’s mind was working, Aurora stared intently at the bowl of oatmeal on the table.  The appealing smell of the stuff had started to work a spell on her, drawing her focus and tugging on her neglected appetite like the ocean tide.  Eventually, in spite of her host’s gentle warning, she leaned forward and snatched the bowl into her hands.  The food was, indeed, very hot, and Aurora could feel it on her hands and thighs as she hastily set it on her lap.  She didn’t care, though; it had been too long since her last morsel.  A slightly burned tongue felt like a minor price to pay to sate her starvation a little sooner.  Eight thought nothing of it, watching with a straight expression as her hungry guest powered through the uncomfortable heat.

            Though she certainly wished to know more about what had happened at Albacore Hotel, Eight could not bring herself to pry any further than she already had.  It was bad enough that Aurora had had to face the scrutiny of so many inklings by herself…the last thing she wanted was for her to have to live it all over again.  Now that she was back in the safety of her watch, her goal was to help her heal…among other things…and forget about the experience that had damaged her dignity.  As she quietly observed her friend’s sloppy eating, watching her suck in breaths from the oatmeal’s blistering steam, she prepared herself to segue their conversation.

            “I’m sorry that happened to you, Aurora.”  She uttered.

            Aurora didn’t respond verbally.  In the midst of her next spoonful, she shrugged and kept her head down.  The burning heat of the oatmeal caused her to make a contorted expression, which corrected itself in time for her to swallow and lower her spoon for another bite.

            Eight allowed their silence to persist for a few short seconds before pivoting their topic.  Following a morning of deep, pensive reflection, the introverted octo had something she yearned to get off her chest.  She took a breath and calmly folded her hands on her lap.

            “What did you think of my poetry?”

            Aurora immediately stopped eating.  Holding her next spoonful of oatmeal a few inches from her mouth, she tilted her head up slightly and met Eight’s gaze.  She stared at her, somewhat unnervingly…shocked that she was being asked such a question.

            “Wh…What?”

            “What did you think of my poetry?”  Eight repeated.

            “Uhhhh……”  She droned stupidly, lowering the spoon back into the bowl.  “…how did you…know that I…?”

            “I checked on the desk while I was cleaning the room.  The pages were not in the order I had left them.”

            “Y—You remember the order of your poems?”  Aurora stuttered in amazement.  “Are you serious?”

            Eight nodded.  “I remember a lot of things.  What did you think of them?  Did you like them?”

            Aurora had to think for a moment before giving her response.  She did not expect to be interrogated with such a query at that particular moment.  Eight’s poetry had a lot to unpack, and Aurora hadn’t gotten the chance to ponder the works by her side like she had wanted.  Not to mention…she felt terribly awkward that she had been caught snooping, uninvited, through her friend’s writing.

            “I did like them.  They were…good.  V—Very good.”  She stammered, once again avoiding eye contact.

            “Veemo.  I am happy to hear that.”

            Aurora began toying with her spoon, idly pushing the handle around the rim of the bowl.  “It’s so fresh that you can write in Inklish.  I especially liked the rhyming in them.  Y’know…the patterns you used.”

            “Thank you.  It is fun to think of rhymes.  I like how they sound.”  Eight replied, ignoring the mention of her use of Inklish.  She focused attentively on her friend, though she was aware of her floundering reciprocation.

            “Listen, I…I’m sorry I looked at your poems.  I know I should’ve asked first.”

            “It is okay.  I was thinking about sharing them with you anyway.”

            “Oh, you were?”  Aurora’s expression perked up.  “That would be so nice.  I’d love to know where you got your inspiration.”

            “Of course.  I can do that anytime you want.”

            Aurora, still staring bashfully at her bowl of oatmeal, grinned at the kind, unexpected offer.  It was as if her tactful companion was already aware of her curiosities—and shared the desire to spend their alone-time satisfying them.

            “Thanks, Eight.  Maybe we can do that sometime after the Splatfest tomorrow.  If you want, um…I can come back here with you instead of going home with the girls.”

            “I would love that.”  Eight answered promptly.  “Or, if you’d like…I can also show them to you beforehand.  Now that your courtship of Midas has concluded.”

            Aurora lifted her gaze back to Eight and raised an eyebrow, surprised by the boldness of her proposal.  She was initially saddened by the reminder that her chances with her crush were now shot, but at this point…she felt like she had run out of tears to cry.  Going forward, her focus had shifted to Eight—her wing-girl—and working together to build a fun Splatfest for themselves in spite of the disastrous putdown she had incurred at Albacore Hotel.  She pondered whether spending the hours holed up in Eight’s room would contribute to that focus.

            “Hmm…I suppose I wouldn’t mind that.  But…wouldn’t you rather go hit up a venue or something?  You still don’t have a date for the Splatfest, and…well…now I don’t, either.”

            Eight shook her head.  “I am not interested in seeking a date.”

            “Oh…you’re not?”  She sat silently for a moment.  “I thought you wanted one, though.  At least…you…told me that you wanted one.”

            To that, Eight had no response.  The two girls stared blankly at each other for several seconds while the quiet music continued to fill the air around them.  Immediately, the atmosphere of the room seemed to change.  Aurora glanced awkwardly to the side as their silence persisted, realizing that her friend was probably not going to elaborate.

            “There is a poem in particular.  I wrote it the other day.”  Eight finally said, dodging yet another deep topic.  “May I show it to you?”

            “Ummm…”  Aurora began to notice the persistence in Eight’s forwardness.  It was very uncharacteristic of her.  “…suuuuure.  Is it the one that was sitting on top of your stack of paper?  The one without the doodles?”

            Eight took another pause.  Her eyebrows sunk ever slightly.

            “Oh.  So you read that one, too.”

            “Yyyyes……”  She bit her lip, realizing that she might’ve done something wrong.

            “I see.”

            “Ugh…I’m sorryyyy.  I knew I should’ve left your desk alone.”

            “No, no…it is okay.”  The taciturn poet assured her.  “What did you think of it?”

            Aurora put a finger to her chin.  “It…waaaas…very thought-provoking.  The stuff about ‘reckless zeal’ and ‘breaking the status quo’.  It almost felt like…like…”

            “Like what?”

            “…It felt like you were…writing about me.”  She uttered.  She reached up and began toying with one of her hair curls.

            This time, Eight nodded almost immediately.  “Yes.  I was writing about you.”

            “Mmm…”

            The confirmation caused Aurora to become shy.  Her toying grew a bit more intense as she turned her gaze back downwards, weathering her weird feelings by studying the grains of oatmeal in her bowl.  Eight had certainly been quick to dispense the truth about her hidden poem, which was interesting, for sure…considering how secretive she seemed to be acting at the same time.  By now, however…Aurora could tell that the ball was sitting in her court.  Clearly, she was expected to say something…to comment on the reveal—but she did not know what to say.

            Eventually, she attempted to deflect the limelight by reaching for her spoon and taking another bite.  Eight waited patiently while she did so, her hands still folded in her lap.  Aurora could tell that her friend was still watching her, with seemingly fervorous intent…making her wonder what it was that made her so captivated.  She tried not to acknowledge the attention, assuming that Eight was going to reveal her motives to her in due time.  Once Eight decided to scooch closer to her on the couch, though—closing the already small gap between them—the attention became too conspicuous to ignore.  She glanced up at her enthusiastic observer, hoping to finally be told why she was being scrutinized so much.

            It took forever, but eventually, Eight did attempt to continue the conversation.  She still didn’t explain herself, though; instead choosing to prod Aurora further.

            “Did you like it?”

            “Yeah, I mean…it was a good poem.  They all were.”

            “How did it make you feel?”

            Aurora let out a gentle sigh.  “To be honest, Eight…I don’t really know.  I’m not quite sure what the message was.”  Seeing Eight’s persistent, fascinated glare, all the more emphasized at their new proximity from each other, she was reminded of the two words in her poem that really stood out to her.  “But…um…do you really think I have…‘cute appeal’?”

            Eight waited a few seconds before answering her.  “…I do.”

            “You think I’m cute?”

            “Yes.  I do.”

            “Aww, well…”  An awkward grin appeared on her face.  “…thank you, Eight.  I think you’re…pretty cute, too.”

            “No.  I am not cute.  I do not know how to be cute.”  Eight asserted in her usual, monotone manner.  “But that is okay.  I don’t need to be cute…because I am on Team Personality.  And so are you.”

            Aurora’s grin didn’t last long, especially after hearing Eight put herself down like that.  She didn’t want her expressionless friend, who already lacked any prospect of a date, to suffer from diffidence at the Splatfest.  One of them suffering was enough.

            “I think you’re cute, Eight.  I do.  I know it doesn’t make sense, but…the way you struggle to express yourself is cute to me.”  She countered, briefly stepping out of her shell.  “And like you said…who cares about cuteness, anyway?  You also have an amazing personality.  The best out of all of us, I would say.”

            Eight finally broke eye contact with Aurora for a moment.  She lowered her head and stared at her lap as she contemplated her friend’s words.  Aurora took another bite of her oatmeal while she waited for her response.

            “Do you think I’m desirable enough?”  She finally murmured, still looking down.

            “For a date?  Of course!”

            “Because you believe in love for love’s sake, right?  Regardless of the status quo?”

            “Absolutely, Eight.  The status quo is just a load of carp.  You are the only thing holding you back.”  Aurora stated warmly, her grin returning to her face.

            “Hmm.  Okay, then.”

            Without further delay, Eight suddenly acted on the impulse that she had been burying for way too long.  Upon receiving Aurora’s blessing, she reached towards her and placed her hand by her cheek, letting her fingers slide beneath the hair curl that covered her ear.  Then, as Aurora was expressing her confusion, she closed her eyes, leaned all the way in…and kissed her firmly on the lips.  She performed the gesture with the fullest confidence she could muster, pushing her face passionately against her friend’s to force their lips to interlock.  When the initial shock of the gesture caused Aurora’s head to lean back, she reacted by taking hold of her other cheek and pulling her inwards, sucking gently on her bottom lip to secure their union.

            Aurora, understandably, was flabbergasted by this.  Her eyes shot open when the initial contact was made, her pupils shrinking in tandem with the breakdown of her composure.  When Eight prevented her from escaping by pulling their faces together, she gave a hearty grunt into Eight’s mouth and shuffled anxiously on the couch.  Her visceral reaction caused her bowl of oatmeal to fall on the floor, which did nothing to prevent Eight from finishing what she had started.  Aurora remained attached to her friend for just under ten seconds…during which a storm of confused and unsettled emotions raged in her head.

            Eventually, Eight broke the kiss—as confidently and decisively as she had initiated it.  She released her grip on Aurora and leaned back into her initial, upright position, only letting her eyes open after she had completed her gesture and returned her hands to her lap.  In doing so, she was met with the sight of a fearful Aurora: her hearts beating, her chest heaving, and her hands gripping the couch cushion with force that could choke a sea urchin.  Her eyes were glued vehemently to her friend in those waking moments, exemplifying the extent to which she had roused her.  Eight had just finished putting all of her cards on the table, and already…she was seeing the effects of that decision.

            “Wha…hhh…I…hh…”  Aurora panted.  “…Eight…what was that?!”

            “Will you be my Splatfest date?”  Eight responded, ignoring her frantic question.  Even after her sudden, bold display…her expression remained blank.

            “Your date?  I…wh…what?  You want…m—me?!”

            “I do, very much.  I like being with you, Aurora.  I like protecting you.”

            A blush quickly rose in Aurora’s cheeks, which then bloomed out of control.  She felt the temperature in the room begin to rise as she processed what was happening—and the implications that it carried for the future of her and Eight’s relationship.  Realizing that her blush might’ve been easy for Eight to see, she turned her head and proceeded to vigorously stroke one of her hair curls.

            “But Eight, we……we can’t.  Unless…you just wanted to go…as f—friends?”

            Eight shook her head.  “No.  I would love to have you as my date.  If you’ll have me.”

            Aurora, completely and utterly blindsided by Eight’s proposal, struggled to navigate the situation.  She still hadn’t regained her composure after her apparent admirer’s kiss…finding any way to rationalize the behavior that didn’t involve Eight having a crush on her.  There was simply no way she could accept that reality…given the way she currently understood the octo with the golden toothpick.  Something had to be messing with her head.

            “A—Are you just saying that because you’re…nervous?  Too nervous to talk to boys?”  She stammered.

            Again, Eight shook her head.  “I am not interested in dating a boy.  I think girls are cuter than boys.”

            “What?!  Since when?”  Aurora glanced back at her, giving her a glimpse of the disturbed look in her eyes.  “Why haven’t you told any of us before?”

            “I think…I have always been this way.  At least…from what I can remember.”  She asserted.  She ignored Aurora’s other question.

            Aurora waited to hear the answer to that question, but once it became clear that she wouldn’t be receiving it, she continued.  “So…you’re…a girl that likes girls?  I’m supposed to just…believe that?”

            “Yes.  I guess.”

            “What about the rest of our friends?  Do you think they’re cute, too?”

            Eight shrugged.  “A little.”

            “Are you just waiting to have your chance with all of us?  Is that why you became our friend?”  Aurora pressed, sounding increasingly agitated as her interrogation wore on.

            “No.  I am only interested in you, Aurora.”  The pressured octo answered confidently.  “I became your friend so I could get to know you better.”

            Aurora felt her head start to spin.  One of the hands she was using to stroke her hair shifted to her forehead, where it stayed to help her process her growing dizziness.  Nothing Eight was saying made sense to her.  Her confession sounded ludicrous.  Though it may have been backed up by her sudden, passionate kiss earlier…even that was ludicrous to her.  It felt like her entire world was crumbling around her.

            “How would our friends even…react to that?  How would they react if they found out you’ve been trying to date me all this time?”

            “…I don’t know.”

            “Uh huh.  And what about the rest of the city?  What would happen to us if we showed up to the Splatfest as a couple?  A two-girl couple?”

            Eight’s upright stance became slumped.  “I thought that didn’t matter to you.  I thought the status quo didn’t matter.”

            “I’m sorry, Eight.  That’s just…weird to me.  It’s too weird.”

            “I see.”  Eight murmured.  “If I was a boy…would it be easier?  Or would it still be weird?”

            “I…I don’t know.  I don’t know what to say to that.”  Aurora uttered plainly, trying hard to avoid eye contact with her friend.

            “You do not have to say anything.”  Eight replied, her temperament growing somewhat lethargic.  “I am sorry I kissed you.”

            “Mhm.  I…um…I think I need some time alone.”

            “Okay.”

            With that, Aurora briskly stood up, grabbed her bag, and excused herself from Eight’s presence, disappearing down the hall to the bedroom.  Eight sat perfectly still on the couch, staring straight ahead like nothing had happened.  She ignored the bowl of spilled oatmeal by her feet, the moisture from which was just beginning to seep into the carpet.  In the wake of Aurora’s latest outburst, all she could do was sit there…dejectedly soaking up the déjà vu.  It wasn’t just déjà vu that she felt, however.  There was more—much more—to how she felt in that moment.

            Eight realized that it would take a very, very long time to understand how she felt.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            Upon returning to the room, Aurora closed the door behind her and threw her bag on the bed.  Then, she flopped onto the bed herself, reaching for her Wah-Wah and pulling him close to her chest.  A frustrated flurry of thoughts continued to roil inside of her as she closed herself into a fetal position on her side.  Her eyes remained wide, staring unnervingly at her friend’s writing desk, while she struggled to digest everything that had just happened between them.

            This is how she spent the entirety of the afternoon.  The hours ticked by like minutes for her in this state, evidenced by the creeping of the sun across the bedroom wall through Eight’s window.  Eventually, the sunlight weakened and became orange…before dying out and giving way to the dim, artificial light of the city.  Darkness washed over the perturbed octo in the final moments of dusk; even so, she lacked the desire to get up and turn on the light.  Despite never moving from her position in all this time, Aurora did not grow tired.  She was too busy thinking.

            Eight, of course, respected her privacy.  Aurora’s rejected host never showed her face through the bedroom door since her exeunt, a courtesy she had come to expect from her after all their time together.  The two octos spent the afternoon alone—truly alone—seeking nothing but their respective thoughts to fill their collective emptiness.

            Over time, Aurora came to understand why Eight had done everything that she had done.  Why she had joined her Splatfest team.  Why she had defended her against her friends, accepting her into her apartment after her deserved exile.  Why she had bought her all those clothes, in spite of the risk…and protected her autonomy in the face of the ensuing fallout.  Why she had offered her seaweed on her balcony.  Why she had spent the entire night holding her in her arms.  And, finally…why she had written a poem about her.

            Apparently, it was all out of love.  Romantic love…the kind shared by a couple getting hitched for the Splatfest.  But…no, that couldn’t have been right.  Eight was her friend.  They had known each other for months, ever since she and the girls had made the journey up from Octo Valley.  Her relationship with her wasn’t even as strong as it was with the others, at least until recently.  She certainly never knew her as a romantic partner.  And she was a girl!

            Aurora let out another sigh—one of the many she had dispensed over the course of the evening—as the thoughts repeated themselves one more time.  It started to feel like they would never end.  She found herself second-guessing everything from the last couple days…particularly in regards to the Splatfest.  What was even the point of trying to find a date for that one stupid night?  To feel fresh in a crowd?  To get laid?  What was all of that worth?

            Just then, before the incessant thoughts could cycle through her head yet again, Aurora heard vibration from within her bag.  Still laying on her side, the troubled octo reached across the bed and pulled the bag towards her, eager for a distraction to free her from her spiral.  She plunged her hand inside and rummaged through the bag’s contents in the dark, searching for the assumed source of the vibration: her phone.  Whatever the notification was, Aurora hoped it wouldn’t cause her to have to leave her spot on the bed.

            Finding the item after several seconds of searching, she extracted it from the bag and brought it to her face.  She tapped the screen, and the phone illuminated her eyes, causing her to squint.  There was, indeed, a notification for her to look at.  It was a text.  A text on SplatNet, in fact.

            And it was from Midas.

            Like a patient being shocked to life by a defibrillator, Aurora sat up instantly.  Casting Wah-Wah aside, she held the phone inches from her eyes and scanned every pixel of the notification to make sure she was reading it correctly.  Yes, it really was from him; apparently he had unblocked her on the app in order to send her a direct message.  She couldn’t believe it was true.  Her hearts went into overdrive as soon as she confirmed it for herself.

            She wasted no time.  As hastily as could be, Aurora unlocked her phone and rushed to the SplatNet app to check on her feed.  There, she found the message, fresh as ever…only forty seconds old.  She tapped the message and opened her direct-messaging prompt with Midas.  Immediately, her eyes were assaulted by her lewd selfie from earlier, which she promptly deleted from the feed after a brief moment of disgust.

            She then read the message.  It consisted of only two words.

            “You up?”

            A hugely elated grin spread on her face.  With the newfound energy that suddenly flooded her system, she rapidly typed out her response.

            “Hey!  :D  Yes I am!”

            Seconds went by as Midas composed his own response.  Aurora’s mind was set ablaze with excited speculation.  She was practically trembling by the time the message reached her screen.

            “I think we got off on the wrong tentacle earlier.”  The message read, with strangely perfect grammar.  Another message quickly followed it.  “Want to go to the Splatfest with me?”

            Reading that message was akin to launching a burst of fireworks.  Aurora’s psyche exploded in a fit of jubilance, manifesting first as a loud gasp, then as an ecstatic shriek.  The silence of Eight’s apartment was cut down the middle by the shriek.  Her reaction didn’t stop there, though, evolving subsequently into a boundless, childlike display that completely overtook her usual composure.  She sprung up from the bed and danced around the room, giggling psychotically and pumping her fists in the air.

            It took over half a minute for the manic octo to calm down.  When she finally did, she paused in the middle of the room and held her phone back up.  Typing at the speed of sound, she gave her crush her answer.

            “YES!  Of course!”

            “Cool.  Wear the same thing you wore to the hotel, and we’ll get along just fine.”  He instructed her.  “Meet me outside The Shoal when Off the Hook takes the stage.”

            “Anything for you, big boy.”  She replied, adding a winking-kiss emoji to butter him up.  “See you there!”

            Midas acknowledged her with a simple thumbs-up emoji, which also marked the end of their conversation.  Aurora didn’t require anything more from him.  She didn’t even seem to care that Midas had distributed her private selfie earlier…the whereabouts of which remained an obscure mystery to her.  All it took were those few messages, spread over a couple-minute span, to completely turn her day around.  She had officially secured her inkling crush for the Splatfest, and as such, her world had achieved absolute perfection.

            Aurora showed this in her ongoing giddiness, which reached a new peak after Midas’s confirmation.  Her excitement began to boil over as she closed the SplatNet app, causing her to emit a high-pitched squeal and go scurrying out of the room.  Blinded by her raw, unfettered glee, she pranced down the hall and into the living room.

            “Eight!  Eight!”  She hollered on approach.

            “…What?”  Came Eight’s startled reply.

            Aurora entered the room and was greeted with the scene she had helped to create that afternoon.  Eight, having avoided her own bedroom since Aurora’s return to the apartment, laid bundled under a blanket on the couch.  She looked as if she had just been roused from slumber: her hair disheveled, her eyes reddened, and her expression groggy.  On the table before her sat an assortment of dirty dishes, implying that the secluded octo had made herself dinner and then neglected to clean up afterwards.  Most intriguing was the carpet in front of the couch, which still sported a noticeable stain from the oatmeal Aurora had spilled earlier.  The bowl was gone, and so was the oatmeal, but the stain remained.

            “Guess who just texted me?”  She said cheekily.

            Eight gave her a lethargic glare.  “I don’t know.  Who?”

            “It’s Midaaaaas!”  She sang, shaking her phone in front of Eight.  “He just texted me to ask me to the Splatfest!”

            “………”  Eight opened her mouth for a moment, but no words came out.  She glanced at the phone, then up at Aurora.  “……Oh.”

            “He wants me to meet him at The Shoal tomorrow.  Do you remember what time Off the Hook is supposed to perform?”

            There were several seconds of unresolved silence before Eight uttered weakly to her.  “Aurora…please…”

            “‘Please’ what, Eight?  ‘Please’ what?  You’re not gonna rain on my parade again, are you?”  She folded her arms, her expression turning foul.

            “…Please…don’t…”

            “Nope.  It’s too late for that.  I already told Midas I’d meet him there.”

            Eight’s blank stare shifted to the ceiling above her.  Her head sunk further into her pillow.  She almost looked ill, overtaken by an unidentifiable malaise, as Aurora stood cynically over her.  The friends’ contrasting temperaments added a strange element to the silence that enveloped them.

            Still staring upwards, Eight tried to speak again.  “Midas…ditched you, Aurora.  At the hotel…he ditched you.”

            “Yeah, so?  He values his freshness.  He probably just felt pressured by all the racist inklings around us.”

            “No.  Albacore Hotel was his idea.  He was trying to get rid of you.”

            Aurora scoffed and rolled her eyes.  “Just stop it, Eight.  If Midas wanted to get rid of me, why did he just ask me to be his Splatfest date?  That makes no sense.”

            “I don’t know why.  It is weird to me, too.”  Eight admitted.  She turned back to Aurora, giving her a desperate expression that stood out to her like a sore thumb.  “I do not trust him, Aurora.  Please.”

            “It’ll be fine, Eight…geez.  Sounds to me like you’ve gotten jealous.”

            “What…?  Jealous?”

            “Yes.  You did just try to make me your date earlier, in case you forgot.  And now Midas is in your way.”

            The accusation hit Eight like a lightning bolt.  At the moment it had rolled off Aurora’s tongue, the defeated octo felt her final pillar crumble.  She no longer had the willpower to continue.  Aurora’s spirit simply could not be tamed.  She had insisted on her path to self-destruction, even after her devastating experience at Albacore Hotel, and there was nothing Eight could do to stop her.  The crushing weight of this realization, coupled with the loneliness of her recent rejection, caused her to completely shut down.  Her gaze returned to the ceiling, where it stayed for the rest of the night.

            Aurora waited impatiently for her to say something—to defend herself against her claim—but she never did.  She began tapping her foot when Eight’s lifeless eyes refused to acknowledge her.

            “Eight?  Am I right?”

            Eight said nothing.

            “So…it’s true, then?  You’re just trying to get between me and Midas so you can have me for yourself?”

            Eight said nothing.

            “…Eight?”

            Still, Eight said nothing.

            “Fine.  Whatever.  See you tomorrow, I guess.”

            The obstinate octo turned around and plodded back down the hall after failing to hold onto her friend’s attention.  On her way out, she paused briefly and glanced behind her to steal one more look at Eight.  Sure enough, Eight did not return the favor.  She merely stared at the ceiling, seemingly indefinitely, until Aurora gave a quiet sigh and proceeded on her way.

            Though Aurora could tell that Eight had lost the motivation to continue their conversation, she was too absorbed in her own success with Midas to assign any blame to herself.  She still felt overwhelmed in her confusion toward Eight’s advancements, and it was easier for her to cope with those feelings by simply shutting Eight down.  Eight was always there for her, anyway, no matter what.  She had no reason to believe otherwise.

            Eight, on the other hand, no longer felt any sort of security toward her companion.  She had given her everything…gone for broke, even…and she still came up short.  And now, having done so, she had used up the last of her power to lure Aurora away from her dangerous temptations.  It was as if Aurora didn’t recognize her as her friend anymore, and that fact saddened her immensely.

            There was a side to Aurora that Eight had come to cherish—a side she had fallen in love with—that she had not gotten to see since the Splatfest announcement.  She could still vividly recall the day they had met; her dainty looks had drawn her in, and her quirky personality had kept her there.  The Splatfest was supposed to be her chance to finally start a more personal relationship with her, nudging their friendly informalities aside to pursue a union that would complete her life in Inkopolis.  Alas…Midas had poisoned her.  And only now, days later, could Eight see that she had been poisoned beyond saving.

            Eight still wanted to help Aurora.  She wanted to pull her away from Midas and his sleazy friends and hold her tightly in her protective embrace…not just for this Splatfest, but for every Splatfest afterwards.  She had seen enough of the world’s evils, and she wanted nothing more than to prevent Aurora from ever experiencing them herself.  She wished she could wave a magic wand to make it all happen.

            Because, at this point, she didn’t know what else to do.

Chapter Text

            As the sun’s amber rays gradually faded from the skies over the Spawning Grounds, so, too, did Ophelia’s prospects of receiving a decent paycheck for the day.  The tiny island that she, Eli, and the inkling couple were trying to service was absolutely teeming with salmonids: big and small, and of many brutish varieties.  From the surrounding shores, the hostile creatures aggressively closed in on the egg basket from all directions, corralling the workers into an ever smaller space and choking their ability to retreat and recuperate from the aggressors' frying pans.  The workers’ golden-egg collection slowed significantly alongside their loss of territory, amounting to an agonizing trickle of progress in the later hours of the afternoon.  Now, in the final moments of dusk, Mr. Grizz’s unforgiving quota loomed treacherously over their heads…and time certainly was not on their side.

            “Chop chop, little squids!”  The Grizz spat through their earpieces.  “Your ride is leaving in five minutes.  Pick up the pace!”

            Ophelia took tired, gasping breaths as she mounted the ramp behind the egg basket and pumped her trigger finger, spamming blaster shots into the crowd of salmonids before her.  Each shot decimated a handful of chum and smallfry on the nearby bridge, while simultaneously dealing splash damage to the large cohocks that permeated the mob.  The resilience of the cohocks allowed them to soldier through her defensive onslaught, resulting in a further loss of territory as she was forced to submerge in the ink and retreat up the ramp to the lookout ledge.  From there, she tried desperately to protect the route to the egg basket while a pair of towering Steelheads crept forward to fill the gap she had left behind.

            Atlas, who had spent the majority of the shift providing cover-fire from atop the same ledge, turned around when he heard the thundering hum of the approaching Steelheads.  He responded as quickly as he was able, clenching his teeth and spinning up the Hydra’s heavy barrel in anticipation of the monsters’ impending attacks.  The pair of beastly fish stopped at the base of the ramp just as his weapon was reaching ample charge, and the one closer to him promptly bit down on its greasy mouthpiece to inflate the bomb on top of its head.  Atlas opened fire at the bomb in that same instant, triggering a massive explosion that eviscerated the snarling creature and showered life-saving turf upon the junction.  The second Steelhead then proceeded to repeat its brethren’s mistake while his weapon was still firing, scoring him a second, identical kill that cleared several smaller salmonids and spread even more ink around the egg basket.  In the carcasses’ wake sat six sparkling, golden eggs, a mere tentacle’s length away from the basket itself.

            Ophelia heard the explosions and felt their ink splatter against her as they occurred.  Responding instinctually to her coworker’s accomplishment, she resubmerged and scurried down to the pile of eggs, alongside him, to help run them into the basket.  Before she could grab one of them, however, Atlas shoved her out of the way and stole the one she was reaching for.

            “Hey!”  She interjected.

            “Get lost, octo.  These are my kills.  These eggs are going on my record.”  He stated coldly.  “Why don’t you stop being useless and work on keeping this damn lane clear?”

            “I’m trying!  I’m stuck with a long-range blaster!”  She protested.

            “Blasters take no skill, dipshit!  That sounds like a ‘you’ problem!”  He rasped, greedily ferrying his prize to the basket to shrink his team’s deficit.

            Ophelia rolled her eyes.  There were several things she wanted to say in response to the inkling’s rude remarks, but she couldn’t bring herself to stoke any further conflict between them.  The time remaining on their shift was too scarce to be wasted bickering.  Instead, she retreated back up the ramp and resumed popping shots into the crowds to reclaim as much territory as she could.

            In the distance, near one of the corridors that emptied into the western shoreline, the exhausted octo took notice of her other two coworkers.  She first spotted the inkling girl emerging from around the corner with a golden egg strapped to her back, dodge-rolling in every direction to avoid succumbing to the hordes of salmonids that were rapidly boxing her in.  Ophelia could see that the girl’s valiant struggle was not enough to free her from her position, and within seconds, she bore witness to her taking a cohock’s frying pan to the back of the head.  She flinched as she watched the girl’s remains scatter on the ground amidst the sea of sea creatures, including the life preserver that stored both her essence and her golden egg.

            Eli appeared by the corridor closely behind her, also carrying a golden egg on his back.  His Brella canopy had once again gotten shredded by the unrelenting mob, and his weapon’s wimpy shots were doing nothing to clear a path ahead of him.  Having used both of his allotted special weapons much earlier in the afternoon, and chugging through the last of the ink in his tank, the crusading octo knew that he was acting on borrowed time.  His gaze shifted up to the ledge on which Ophelia was standing, and the two of them shared a pregnant glance.  Then, he submerged in the last puddle of ink available to him and jumped as far as he could through the horde.  He hoped to close enough distance between himself and the egg basket to make it easier for Ophelia to revive him…but the salmonids were too quick to let that happen.  A well-hidden Maws shot up from the greasy turf beneath him, swallowing him whole and spitting out his life preserver.

            Again, Ophelia flinched at the sight.  At this point, her team’s chances of meeting the Grizz’s egg quota were rapidly disappearing; even with enough kills, she and Atlas lacked the tentacles needed to deliver the golden eggs to the basket.  If they were going to succeed in their mission, they needed to revive their coworkers.

            “Hey, Mr. Squid!”  She called to him, hoping not to offend him with the name that she chose.  “We gotta help out our friends over here!”

            Atlas came rushing over as soon as Ophelia gave the call, much to her relief.  Without giving her a response, he set his sights on the distant life preservers and charged up his Hydra barrel for another heroic ink volley.  The Hydra Splatling outclassed every other weapon in their arsenal in terms of range, allowing him to target his coworkers’ points of death without having to leave his battlement.  Ophelia watched with repose as he released the trigger and opened fire at the inkling girl’s life preserver, reviving her instantly and buying her the space that she needed to run her golden egg back to the basket.

            Atlas then turned his weapon away from the corridor while it was still firing, aiming the rest of his ink shots into a Scrapper that had started to make its way up from the southern shore.  Ophelia’s repose turned to confusion as she watched him essentially waste the rest of his charge.  Eli’s life preserver was floating right next to the inkling girl’s, well within the Hydra’s range…and Atlas had pretty much gone out of his way to avoid shooting it.  Ophelia was about to ask him what he was doing, but she caught herself once she put two and two together.

            The exasperated octo gave a loud sigh as she attempted to take matters into her own hands.  The range of her blaster, long as it was, was not sufficient to reach her coworker from her spot on the ledge.  To compensate, she reeled her arm back and chucked a splat bomb deep into the crowd, hoping to catch some of Eli’s life preserver in the resulting explosion.  The object’s trajectory was almost perfect, landing just shy of the spot where the Maws had consumed him.  Before it could detonate, however, one of the cohocks in the crowd slapped it away with its frying pan, causing it to splat a nearby cluster of chum instead of getting Eli back on his feet.

            Ophelia’s jaw went slack at the sight.  She didn’t emote any further, though.  Rather than stay on the ledge, waiting for their shift to end with an insufficient egg supply, she dove off the side and made a desperate push into the crowd to revive her fellow octoling.  She only needed to get close enough for one of her blaster shots to reach his bobbing life preserver.  Unfortunately, the density of the horde in front of her made it impossible to target things beyond her immediate vicinity.  She frantically spammed her trigger finger at the salmonids blocking her path, barely managing to delay the persistent creatures from overrunning her where she currently stood.  It only took a few seconds—by which her ink tank had nearly emptied—for her to realize that she had made a big mistake.

            Without relent, the slithering sea-dwellers continued to pour into the lane between Ophelia and her fallen companion, overwhelming her clunky weapon and her meager ink supply.  Before long, her trigger-pulls stopped producing shots, and once that happened…she knew that her time was up.  Her vision was quickly saturated with flailing fins and ferocious frying pans, the latter of which began to whack at her until she, too, became a life preserver floating in the ink.  The last thought to cross her mind before her inevitable defeat was the notion that her and Eli’s shift was now over—no way were the inklings going to revive them, unless by accident.

            Not that it mattered, of course.  Even if Atlas and his girlfriend wanted to revive their octoling coworkers, they were in no position to do so.  The impending rush of salmonids continued to steal territory from the duo after finishing off Ophelia, even getting as far as the egg basket itself before they could stave off their advance.  Though they were able to stabilize their territory at the base of the ramp, raging against the dying of the light…collecting golden eggs had become virtually impossible.

            Mr. Grizz, through his state-of-the-art surveillance, was able to see this.  And he was not in the mood to entertain it.

            “Alright, squids, I think I’ve seen enough.  You’re clearly in over your heads.  Time to stand down and return to the boat, assuming you wanna make it home tonight.”

            “And be paid like shit after grinding all afternoon?”  Atlas argued back, his weapon still firing into the crowd in front of him.  “Just give us a fucking second!”

            “I am ordering you to stand down!  If I don’t see you on that boat in the next ten seconds, you’re not getting a paycheck at all!”  The Grizz hollered through their earpieces.  His tone was unlike anything the group had heard before.

            Atlas grumbled under his breath.  Upon draining the charge on the Hydra Splatling, he retracted out of his primed stance and begrudgingly morphed into his squid form for the super-jump.  His girlfriend followed suit right behind him, without saying a word.  Ophelia’s and Eli’s life preservers were left completely in the dust on the hazardous island, which was to be expected, but that did not stop them from returning to the boat alongside their snobbish coworkers.  Grizzco life preservers were equipped with the ability to super-jump when summoned, an ability that often had to be leveraged when egg-running teams failed to meet the Grizz’s expectations.  This occasion was no different.

            As soon as the pair of life preservers made contact with the boat, Ophelia and Eli were revived by a spurt of ink from an automated hose near the cabin.  The two octos shared another glance with their newly reformed faces, then they stretched their limbs and sauntered over to the back of the boat to return their weapons to the cooler.  The inklings were quick to retreat to the bow after returning their weapons, so the octos elected to remain near the cooler in order to keep their distance.  It was there that they were finally able to convene after their stressful shift.

            “Well…that could’ve gone better.”  Eli commented.

            “Yeeeeah…”  Ophelia scratched the back of her head.  “Though, I guess my hopes for that shift weren’t too high to begin with.”

            “Fair enough.  I didn’t have good vibes going into that one, either.”

            “I’m sorry for not covering you as well as I could’ve.  It’s so hard to find good leverage in that place.”  She uttered sheepishly.

            “Uhh…you’re apologizing to me?  What for?”  He chuckled.  “You had a Rapid Blaster, sis.  Compared to the Hydra Splatling that you should’ve gotten, that’s basically nothing.”

            His laugh caused Ophelia’s spirits to lift slightly.  She grinned.  “Eh, well…still.  There’s always more that I could’ve done.”

            “If anything, those squid kids over there are the reason we failed.  The dude that stole your Hydra did a much worse job covering us than you did, and he was using the best back-line weapon in the whole lineup.”

            Both of them turned to glance at the inklings.  They stared for a moment, in silence, as they watched their pouty coworkers throw a fit about the outcome of their shift.  Their backs were to the rest of the boat, luckily, so they were not able to see Ophelia and Eli staring at them.  Atlas, in particular, seemed to be quite animated about their loss…way more so than his girlfriend.  He pounded his fists on the rim of the boat several times, lamenting noisily enough for Ophelia to overhear some of his complaints.  Something about “pissing off his friends” and “going dry for the Splatfest.”  She stopped listening as soon as she heard him mention “X-rank brothel access.”

            Before she and Eli could continue their post-shift banter, Mr. Grizz returned to their earpieces to go over their results.  The boat engine roared to life at roughly the same time, sending the crew on their journey back to the now-darkened shores of Inkopolis.  Ophelia was pleased to see the Spawning Grounds, and all of its slimy inhabitants, shift to the stern of the vessel and begin fading into the distance.  She hoped not to have to return to that island anytime soon.

            “Good, it appears that everyone made it safely back to the boat.  Unfortunately, that’s all the good news I have to share.”  He announced, using a tone that spoke for itself.  “The quota for this run was 227 golden eggs.  Apparently, you squids didn’t even manage to break 200.  I had assumed that this migration would be low-hanging fruit for workers of your caliber, so honestly…this is quite a shame.”

            Eli leaned towards Ophelia and spoke in a quiet voice.  “Doesn’t he know that half of us are octolings?  Has the Grizz ever referred to you as an ‘octo’ before?”

            “Nah.  I don’t think he can tell the difference.”  Ophelia whispered back.

            “I’ll pay you the going rate for the eggs you did collect, and since I’m generous, I’ll even throw in a reel of tickets for the Splatfest tomorrow.  As for bonuses, though?  You can forget about bonuses.  I’m running a tight ship here.”  Mr. Grizz added.

            “Drink tickets don’t get us laid, old man!”  Atlas fired back, yelling into his mic on the other end of the boat.  His girlfriend promptly slapped him across the cheek, causing the octos by the stern to flinch and stifle their smirks.

            “Am I supposed to care about that, mollusk?  I pay you for results; I shouldn’t have to remind you of that.  Do not come back if you cannot deliver.”  The boss punctuated.  He finally cut Atlas’s line after that statement.

            The belligerent squid’s woes weren’t over yet, though.  Once the Grizz had finished berating him for his outburst, his girlfriend was next in line to do the same.  The octos turned their gaze away to avoid being noticed while they fervently eavesdropped.

            “What’s all this shit about needing money for hookers, huh?  Am I not enough for you?”  The inkling girl exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips.

            “Babe, I swear, it has nothing to do with you!  My pals are gonna bail on me if I don’t give them some hot woomies to celebrate the Splatfest with.”  He defended.

            “Who cares?”  She rolled her eyes.  “Those guys didn’t look very fresh to me.”

            “I told you, babe, it’s for the multipliers.  You need a full squad to register for the multiplier raffle.  I’ve always wanted to fight in a multiplier battle.”

            “Um…okaaaay.  And what if you actually get chosen?  Are you just gonna dump me to go fight?”

            “Of course not, we need you!  Midas went Team P, so he can’t join us.”  Atlas crossed his arms and gave a huff, evidently annoyed by the reminder of his friend’s betrayal.  “Kid hasn’t been answering his texts.  I tell you…if he ends up flopping around with that stupid pit-dweller…he’s dead to me.”

            Ophelia made a sour face and shook her head.  She was growing tired of hearing that vulgar name.  She was growing tired of all the name-calling, for that matter.  The Splatfest celebration was set to kick off in under twenty-four hours; yet, lately, everyone around her seemed to be exuding a less-than-festive attitude.  She tried not to let all the recent bigotry, fighting, and drama get to her head.

            “Damn, that guy’s a real charmer…”  Eli muttered.

            “I’ve seen my share of him.”  She said frankly in return.  “At least we’re about to be done with him.  I’m just anxious to see how much this paycheck is gonna be.”

            “Ugh, tell me about it.  During the off-season, meeting the egg quota feels like the only way to keep a roof over my head.”

            She turned to him.  “Do you have any roommates?”

            “Nah, I live on my own.  I sometimes have to make up the difference by stocking shelves at the corner store near my place.”  He glanced away from her for a moment and shrugged.  “What about you?  Do you share the bills with anyone?”

            “I live with three of my friends.”  She stated, leaning back against the rim of the boat.

            “Whoa, talk about a full house!  How do you guys sleep at night?”

            “Eh, we’re pretty comfortable around each other.  We were friends for years before coming to Inkopolis.  Rent is usually a non-issue, but sometimes we struggle to save for things outside the necessities, y’know?”

            He chuckled, joining her in the same nonchalant pose.  “I know better than anyone, sis.  Is that what you’re out here for, then?  Stocking up on necessities?”

            Ophelia rubbed her arm, breaking eye contact as she searched for a way to word her response.  “Well…yes and no.  I just…want my friends to have a good Splatfest.”

            “Heh…you’re not here for the same reason as the Hydra-thief over there, are you?”

            “Noooo, no, no.  My friends are out trying to get dates right now.  The proper way, of course.”  She smirked, feeling slightly embarrassed by the mixup.  “I just need some extra dough for groceries.  You know…to make a good night even better.”

            Eli’s grin widened tremendously.  “Ahhh, I gotcha.  You’re here for some ‘groceries.’”  He raised his fingers to perform air-quotes with the phrase.  He then mimicked the motion of lighting a joint near his mouth and taking a puff.

            Ophelia tried to keep her reaction stifled, but she simply couldn’t.  Her surprise from Eli’s clever guess caused her to laugh out loud, projecting her guffaws directly towards her acquaintance.  Eli, knowing he had hit the mark, crossed his arms in front of him and nodded his head.

            “Wow, you’re…pretty perceptive!”  She stammered, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck.

            “Hey, we’re both octos, right?  Figured I had a good chance of guessing you on that one.”

            “Yeah…you totally caught me.  I just wanna refill our stash before the big night tomorrow.  One of my friends stayed home yesterday and smoked our entire supply while the rest of us were out battling…so we’re running completely dry.”

            “Hmm…damn.  That blows.”  He brought a hand to his chin and adopted a pensive expression.  “And from what I’ve seen, dealers like to raise their prices when a Splatfest is drawing near.”

            “…Yep.”  She gave a long, disappointed sigh, pausing for a moment to watch the city skyline approach them on the horizon.  “I was really hoping for those bonuses this time around.  I told my friends I’d restock if we pulled a good haul today…so it’s gonna suck to come home without at least a half-ounce to prop up the Splatfest.”

            “A half?  How much do you think you’ll need for that?”  He asked her.

            She shrugged.  “I dunno…40k?  50?”

            “Heh…‘Lia, I think you’re in luck.”  He chuckled, confidently using her shortened name for the first time.  “You’re actually talking to a dealer.”

            Ophelia’s face contorted to express her disbelief.  “What?  Noooo.  Don’t be squiddin’ me like that.”

            “Nope, I’m serious.  That stuff earlier about me stocking shelves to make ends meet?  That was squiddin’ you.”

            “Really?  Ohhh my cod…how sly!  You played me like a Squid Beatz machine!”  She marveled, failing still to keep her reaction low-key.  Eli found amusement in the way her eyes sparkled.

            “Just protecting myself, you know how it goes.  It’s how you stay in the business for this long.”  He said casually.

            “So…you make part of your living that way?  How do you sustain it?”

            “I grow the stuff, actually.  In my apartment.  Started as a hobby back in the Valley, and I just…couldn’t give it up.  Especially when the customers started rolling in.”

            “Doesn’t the smell drive you crazy after a while?  How do you hide that from your landlord?”  She began to lean towards Eli as she spoke, having grown deeply interested in his big secret.

            “Nah, the smell ain’t so bad.  Kinda reminds me of home, in a way.”  He explained with a small grin.  “As for my landlord?  He’s one of my customers.”

            Once more, Ophelia broke out in a hearty giggle.  Eli laughed with her this time, thoroughly enjoying the rollercoaster of reactions his curveballs were inciting from her.  Now at the peak of their conversation, the two octos lost all sense of their surroundings.  Their attentions were focused blithely on each other, while the inklings by the bow waited impatiently for the dinghy to enter the range of the nearest jump pad.

            “Man, I can’t believe that.  You’re insane!”  She ardently exclaimed.  “Makin’ me wonder what other tricks you have up your sleeve.”

            “Here’s one for you.”  His expression turned devious.  “If you allow me to take you to the Splatfest, as my date…I’ll spot you a half for just twenty thousand.”

            Ophelia’s jaw dropped.  She stared at Eli for several seconds with a look of pure confoundment.  Eli glared back at her confidently, feeling proud of the hand he had just played.

            “Wooooow…you absolute menace.”  She uttered.  “Going right for the throat…with an offer like that.”

            “Got your attention, though, didn’t it?”  His upright mannerism remained.

            “Perhaps.  You’re almost there.”  She continued to be reserved in her body language, showing him no physical signs of his progress so far.  “I think you missed a step.”

            “Missed a step, huh?”  He raised an eyebrow.

            “Mhm.  Here’s my counter-offer—you sell me a half for twenty thousand coins…and I take you home tonight for a smoke session with my friends.  I can decide from there whether I think you’re Splatfest material.”

            Eli clapped his hands together and rubbed them with poorly concealed excitement.  “Oooh, who’s the menace now?  Playing hard-to-get…I love it!”

            “Hardly.”  She giggled cheekily.  “I just wanna get to know you first.  ‘Trying before I buy,’ if you will.”

            “Alright, ‘Lia, alright.  You play a smart game.”  He conceded.  “Am I also supplying for tonight?  Since you’re all out?”

            “Sure, if you could.  I’m supplying the bong and the company.”  She pointed out.

            “And the snacks, if that becomes a factor.”  He mentioned with a wink.

            She rolled her eyes lightheartedly.  “Fiiiine, fair enough.  I’ll have to stop for some before I head home, though.  Are you a ‘sweet’ or ‘salty’ kind of guy?”

            “Sweet-tooth, all the way.  I’m a huge sucker for cookie bites.”

            “Ooh, yeah, cookie bites are the best.  I’ll go ahead and make a note of that…”

            Ophelia reached into the pocket of her slop suit and took out her phone, just as the dinghy was entering the range of the jump pad by the dock.  The inklings were quick to take their leave as soon as this happened; the sound of their hasty super-jump rang through the octos’ ears as she pulled up her notes to add the cookie bites to her shopping list.  Then, before joining Eli in making her own departure, she opened her SplatNet app and navigated to the proximity-chat feature to locate Eli’s profile.  She glossed past his bio—saving all of it for a future snooping session—and opened a new messaging prompt with him.  Finally, she texted him her address.

            Eli reacted to the vibration in his pocket upon receiving the text.  When he extracted his phone and glanced down at the message, he smiled wide.

            “Eyy, nice!”

            “Don’t be acting like you’ve won just yet, mister.”  She scolded him, sliding her phone back in her pocket.  “I still gotta see if you’re truly a good hang.”

            “No worries.  I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.”  He winked again.  His confidence was rather impressive to her, she had to admit.

            “Anyway, now that you know where to find me, could you hold off for an hour or so before swinging by?  My friends and I just need some time to prepare.”  She requested, knowing that Bella and Ula were about to get a big surprise.

            “Yeah, of course.  I was actually about to ask the same thing, ‘cause I still gotta go home and measure out your share.”  He chuckled.  “I also wanna rinse off this yucky salmonid smell…”

            “Tell me about it.  So, with that…now you have the place, the time, and my SplatNet profile.  We good here?”

            “Yep, I think so!”

            “Wanna get off this carpy boat?”

            “You know it.  Ladies first.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

            It was well after dusk by the time the pair of octos made it back to Grizzco’s consulting outlet.  There, they could finally enjoy the big highlight of every egg-running shift: changing out of their slop suits and receiving their paychecks.  Conversing mildly as they went, the acquaintances strolled beneath the city lights at a leisurely pace and soaked in the fabulous changes that were gripping Inkopolis Square.  The popular hub had nearly completed its transformation into an exhilarating concert venue, lacking only the famous idols to populate its stage.  Ophelia and Eli talked excitedly about the upcoming festivities until they reached the fork in their path, at which point they said their temporary farewells and parted ways.

            The second Ophelia was separated from Eli, her pace quickened dramatically.  She waited initially to be out of her prospective date’s line of sight, then her relaxing stroll became a brisk walk.  She had things to do…and only an hour to do them.

            Firstly, while on her way to the metro station to be transported back to her district, she whipped out her phone and prepared a text for Bella.  She figured her friends deserved to know that there would be company arriving imminently at their apartment—especially with the small amount of notice they were getting.  Now that the plan was set in motion, she hoped that the girls weren’t already planning to bring home a boy from Arowana Mall.

            “Hi!”  She texted.  “Got a guest coming over tonite.  B ready 2 chill!”

            Ophelia didn’t wait for her friend to reply.  Immediately after pressing “Send,” she pocketed her phone and power-walked down the stairs into the station, boarding the first car to appear on the tracks.  The convenience store in the bottom-feeders’ district was about a block out of her way from the apartment, so she knew that a breakneck pace was going to be needed to finish her errand on time.  As such, she tapped her foot anxiously during the seemingly sluggish metro ride.

            The time it took the focused octo to traverse the slummy streets, clear out her shopping list, and return to her apartment was…not as bad as it could’ve been.  Having already acquired a vague familiarity of the convenience store’s layout, Ophelia was able to knock out all the items on her list—including the cookie bites—in just a few minutes.  Her walk home from the store took a little longer than she would’ve liked, thanks to the bags she had to carry, but she still managed to arrive at the apartment with roughly half of her time to spare.

            Hindered by the extra weight, Ophelia scaled the building via the stairs.  When she reached their floor and turned towards the front door of their unit, she froze in her tracks at the sight of Ula.  Her grim-tempered companion sat slumped against the exterior of the door, apparently having spent a non-trivial amount of time there.  Ula’s drooped head raised slightly when she heard the footsteps, then completely when she saw who it was.  She frowned.

            “There you are.”

            “Shiiiit…”  Ophelia groaned.  “…I’m sorry…”

            “You’re lucky it’s not cold outside.  My shriveled carcass would’ve been on your hands.”  Ula crossed her arms.

            “Yeeeeah, yeah, I get it.  Work ran a little late.  I’m sorry, Ula.”  She gestured her friend away from the door so she could begin struggling with the terrible lock.

            “Work never runs late.  You told us you’d be back on time.”

            “Well, something came up.  Aren’t you supposed to be with Bella, anyway?  Where is she?”

            “Pfft…she’s still at the mall.  I got tired of being her third wheel, so I dipped.”  Ula leaned against the wall dejectedly as she watched Ophelia jam the key into the lock.

            “Aww…no luck finding a date?  Did you approach anybody?”  She glanced over at the discouraged octo.  “That new outfit looks super fresh.”

            Ula ignored her compliment.  “I didn’t have a chance to approach anyone.  Boys kept approaching us.  Approaching Bella, that is…”

            “And she didn’t fall for a single one?  Did she at least try to push some of the action towards you?”  She attempted to turn the key, but the doorknob refused to budge.

            “Ehh…not really.  She did try to involve me with these two octo dudes that approached us in a clothing store…but those guys were cocksuckers.  Most of the guys that talked to us were only interested in her.”  She pouted.

            “Hey, at least you gave it a shot, Ula.  That was pretty brave of you.  I’m sorry it didn’t pan out.”  Ophelia jerked on the doorknob several times, letting out a grunt when the lock still failed to give.  “Damn, this thing is being more stubborn than usual…”

            Ula didn’t seem to care that the door was taking a while to open.  She was simply relieved to be back under Ophelia’s wing after an evening of sulking by herself in the public walkspace.  Rather, Ophelia was the one to adopt an impatient demeanor as she struggled to gain access to their apartment.  The stress from her last-minute plans had already put cracks in her usually stable temperament.  Each failed attempt to turn the dilapidated lock only served to deepen those cracks.

            “So, ‘Lia…it sounds to me like today was pretty shitty for both of us.  Please tell me you have some good news to share.”  Ula clasped her hands together, blissfully unable to pick up on her friend’s subtle anxiety.

            “What?  Good news?”

            “Yeah, like…did you score a good paycheck?  Enough to get us some…y’knoooow…”

            Ophelia jostled the key around in the lock, growing visibly frustrated with the broken mechanism.  “No, Ula, I didn’t.  There were inklings in my crew that sabotaged most of my shift.”

            “Awwww…”  Her hands dropped to her sides.

            “I did manage to score some company, though.  Chatted up my octoling coworker a bit, and he agreed to come over here tonight to hang out.  In fact, he actually—”

            Ula cut her off, her saddened expression suddenly turning skeptical.  “Wait…wait, wait, wait…hold up.  You’re bringing someone here?  Tonight?”

            “Yes, so try to be on your best behavior.  He wants to take me to the Splatfest tomorrow.  For tonight, he actually offered to—”

            “So, now I gotta be your third wheel, too?  C’moooon, ‘Lia.”  Ula lamented noisily, cutting her off a second time.  She crossed her arms again and huffed like a child.  “Ugh…I just wanted to get high tonight…”

            “Relax, Ula.  Geez.  If you would just let me finish…”  Ophelia twisted the key as hard as she could, accidentally trapping the object inside the lock.  “Dammit, this stupid thing!  Anyway, the guy offered to bring seaweed for a smoke session tonight.  So don’t worry, you’ll get your fix.”

            “Oh!  Well, shit…why didn’t you just say that?”

            Ula’s mood seemed to perk up instantly, like a zapfish being removed from its terminal.  A sheepish grin appeared on her face as her vexations from the day were suddenly whisked away, leaving her awkwardly cognizant of the moody demeanor she had just presented.  In making this transition, the seaweed-addicted octo came to inherit the same impatience that was affecting Ophelia.  She wanted to get the show on the road.

            Ophelia gave an irritated sigh as she tried with all her might, and failed, to turn the key inside the lock.  Just as she was losing hope that she would ever get the door to open, Ula stepped forward and nudged her aside with her hip.  She casually wrapped both of her hands around the key; then, as Ophelia watched, she gave the thing a muscly jerk to the side.  A loud, back-tingling “clunk” erupted from the lock, causing Ophelia to flinch.  Like magic, however, the key finally turned…and the door gracefully creaked open.

            “Wow…you made that look easy.”  Ophelia muttered.

            “Years of experience.  Now come on, whip that phone out and tell your new date that we’re not getting any younger!”

            The duo walked through the door and promptly removed their shoes, as they always did when entering their humble home.  Ophelia made a weird face as Ula dropped their dented apartment key in her hand, wondering what the hell she meant by “years of experience.”  Choosing ultimately to disregard the comment, she closed the door behind her and gave Ula her briefing.

            “The guy’s already on his way.  I need to take a shower.  Could you take these bags to the kitchen and clean the bong real quick?”

            “Another shower?  You already had one before work!”

            “Well…yeah…”  Ophelia awkwardly set the bags on the end of the coffee table.  “Look…I’m sorry, I just…need to wash the grease off.  From work.”

            “Whatever.”  Ula rolled her eyes.  “Why do I have to clean the bong, though?”

            “We smoked through canal water in that thing, girl.  I just wanna give this guy some hospitality.”

            “Mmm…fiiiine.”

            Ula snatched all the stuff from the coffee table and trudged into the kitchen, leaving Ophelia to hurry into the bedroom for her quick rinse.  Despite her usual hair color running somewhat close to that of the salmonids’ nasty sludge, she chose to stick with it anyway, opting against masking herself with the dark purple hue from Grizzco.  She wanted to be seen as only herself for this occasion…and she hoped that Eli would do the same.  After all, she had no intention of being used as a meaningless fling for her very first Splatfest.

            Keeping her shower limited to only a few minutes, Ophelia mulled over how she planned to introduce Eli to her friends.  She rehearsed various lines in her head while she cleaned herself off, then she repeated them out loud after cutting the showerhead and throwing the recycled towel onto herself.  As she was doing this, her phone vibrated on the bathroom counter, prompting her to pick the thing up and check her notifications.  It was Bella, finally responding to her text from earlier.

            “What KIND of guest?”

            Ophelia grinned at the reply…before setting her phone back down and ignoring it.  Bella deserved to remain curious for a bit.  She figured that, if she kept her friend in suspense, it would make their introductions more organic.

            The rushing octo took almost no time to dry off, fix her hair, and change into lounging clothes for their chill session.  She took an extra moment to tidy up the clutter in the bedroom, wanting their place to look as presentable as possible for their incoming visitor.  The sleeping bag, left unzipped to air out after soaking in the sink the other morning, remained in the middle of the bedroom floorspace, blocking most of the path between the living room and the bathroom.  Ophelia decided to shove the thing against the bed to resolve this issue.

            In doing so, thoughts of Aurora came to her mind.  She was reminded just briefly, while standing over the mangled sleeping bag, of the recent events that had led to her timid companion’s absence.  She remembered the rematch with the inkling boys, the bombshell reveal of why they had fought it, and the fallout that ensued when Bella realized that she had been used.  She remembered, vividly, the crestfallen look on Aurora’s face when she was forced to pass down her banishment.  The memories caused a bit of guilt to well up within her.  After all, Aurora deserved to have a good Splatfest…just as much as the rest of them.

            Ophelia wished that Aurora could partake in their upcoming session, but she was at least glad that Eli was helping her afford a refill of her stash to take to the Splatfest.  If anything, Aurora would have a chance to join them for a smoke under the party lights if she so chose…assuming she hadn’t already found alternate plans for herself.  She couldn’t even begin to speculate on what—or who—would be there to greet her and the girls when they reunited with Aurora and Eight tomorrow evening.

            On that note, Ophelia figured it would be productive for her to consolidate Aurora’s things before her guest arrived soon.  For the sake of reducing the clutter, of course, as well as the effort needed to gather their stuff on their way out the door tomorrow.  Therefore, her next order of business was to locate Aurora’s t-shirt and Wah-Wah and place them together by the sleeping bag.  She stepped out of the bedroom on her way to do this, passing Ula on the couch to inspect the corners near the foyer.  She glanced first at the corner to the right of the door, then at the one to the left, but neither of them seemed to contain Aurora’s stuff.

            She raised an eyebrow.  Her gaze proceeded to pan across the room, scanning every nook of the living space while Ula reached for the remote to turn on the TV.  None of Aurora’s belongings could be found—a discovery that notably raised her concern.  Having already confirmed that her friend’s items were not in the bedroom, the confused octo wandered into the kitchen and scanned that area as well.  Still, she had no luck.  Ophelia distinctly remembered last seeing Aurora’s Wah-Wah on the countertop next to the sink…but, just like her t-shirt, it seemed to be missing.

            “Hey…Ula?”  She called from the kitchen.

            “What?”

            “Have you seen Aurora’s stuff anywhere?  Her t-shirt, perhaps?”

            “…No?  Was I supposed to be keeping track of it?”

            Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door.  The girls’ exchange was cut short by the knock as their heads both turned in surprise.  Ophelia, in particular, felt her heartrate jump upon hearing the sound.  Surely, that couldn’t have been him already.

            “Oh boy…that’s early…”  She whispered.

            “Alriiiight, the plug is here!”  Ula cheered, clapping her hands together.  “Time to toke up!”

            Ophelia drummed her fingers along the back of the couch as she cautiously approached the foyer.  “How do you know it’s not Bella at the door, hmm?”

            “Bella never knocks, ‘Lia.  C’mon.”  Ula sat forward on the couch and turned the TV back off, pulling the bong closer to herself on the coffee table.  “Now, hurry up and let that boy in here!”

            Secretly, Ophelia kind of hoped that it was Bella at the door.  She wasn’t expecting to see Eli for at least another fifteen minutes.  She took a deep breath upon reaching for the door, running the lines in her head one more time in case it really was him.  Then, she turned the knob and pulled it open for the big reveal.

            When she did so, the face greeting her was, in fact, Eli’s.  Eli was standing at their doorstep with his hands stuffed in the pockets of a green Firefin zip-up hoodie.  He wore long sweatpants not much unlike the pairs she and Ula liked to wear around the apartment, and some simple blue slip-ons to cover his feet.  He flashed her a friendly grin when she opened the door, giving her a chance to observe his amiable appearance without all the Grizzco drab around it.  To her amazement, his choice of hair color for the occasion was almost identical to hers, different only in being a few shades darker.  She wasn’t able to place him as a seaweed dealer upon meeting him on the dinghy…but now, seeing the way he chose to present himself outside work hours, she couldn’t imagine him any other way.

            Or perhaps he was merely dressing for the occasion, she pondered.

            “Heeey, good to see you!  Seems you had no trouble finding our place.”  She greeted him with a mutual smile.

            “Yep!  Sorry if I got here a bit early.  Turns out we don’t live that far from each other.”

            “All good, all good.  It’s not too early, really.”  She glanced to the side for a moment before returning her gaze to him.  “Nice hair color, there.”

            He chuckled.  “Likewise.  Is that your usual color, or is that just for tonight?”

            “Heh…I was gonna ask you the same thing.  This is my usual color.  Not the most vibrant shade, I know.”

            “Nothing wrong with that.  Already get to see enough ‘vibrant shades’ in a given day.”  He pretended to shrug, exhibiting just the right amount of playfulness for her to notice.

            “Pfft, yeah, I feel that.  Now then…how ‘bout you make yourself at home?  You won’t find any vibrant shades in here, trust me.”  She offered, masterfully improvising to the same tone as his.  She stepped out of the way and held the front door open for him.

            “Thank yoooou.”  He chirped as he strolled past her.  “Shoes off in here?”

            “You know it.  Kudos for asking!”

            Ophelia closed the door behind Eli and walked around to the coffee table while he removed his shoes at the foyer.  Ula glared at him curiously from the couch, scanning his figure in earnest to gather her first impressions.  Though she already accepted the guy by default for being a dealer, the cynical octo wanted to see if Ophelia’s taste in boys was anything like hers or Bella’s.  Initially, while he was bent forward, it was difficult for her to make that judgment.

            Once he finished his task and stood back upright, Ula was able to see him much more clearly.  Her gaze followed him as he made his way to the coffee table and began scoping out the living space.  Just as Ophelia was about to formally introduce him to her, the two made eye contact.

            “Ula, this is Eli.”  The hostess declared.

            Eli took that as his cue.  Holding onto the eye contact, he reached across the table for a fist bump.  “What’s up?”

            Ula persisted as well, sitting up lazily to reciprocate his greeting.  By the time her knuckles tapped with his, she had made up her mind—Ophelia’s taste was decent.  Eli didn’t look too bad.  Though he wasn’t quite her type, she wouldn’t have minded getting approached by him at the mall.  A solid six-out-of-ten, at worst.

            “So, you’re a dealer, huh?”

            “Perhaps.  I suppose word gets around?”

            “Sure does.  What’d you bring for us?”  Her attention quickly shifted to Eli’s hoodie pockets, where it remained glued.

            “Slow down, there, Ula.”  Ophelia crossed her arms.  “Don’t you think our guest would like a tour of the house first?”

            “What?  No!  He already got to see it all as soon as he walked in the door!”  She protested.

            Eli couldn’t help but laugh.  “It’s alright, I don’t need a tour.  Your pad looks a lot like mine.  Sure smells like it, too!”

            “Yeah, we like to have fun.”  Ophelia admitted, conspicuously eyeing Ula on the couch.  “We don’t usually smoke here at home, but when we do…we totally hotbox it.”

            “Well, clearly you girls are doing something right.  Nothing beats the smell of bong resin lingering in your walls.”  He stated, nodding his head in approval.  “You said you share this place with…how many friends?  Three?”

            “Yep.  You’ve met Ula here; there’s also Bella and Aurora.”

            “Ah, how nice.  They not home right now?”

            “Bella should be home soon.  Aurora won’t be here tonight.”

            “Hmm, well…her loss.”  He smirked.

            Ula made an exaggerated gesture with her hands.  “Are we done small-talking?  Not sure why you guys are choosing to be sober for this.”

            “Ula.  Patience.”  Her friend sternly reminded her.

            “No worries, it’s all good.  This girl just had a long day, didn’t she?”  Eli said in his relaxed tone, clearly unfazed by Ula’s rudeness.

            “Hell, yeah.  I’m just tryin’ to cut to the chase here.”  Ula replied to him.

            “Fair enough.  I won’t keep y’all waiting, then.”

            Eli stepped around the coffee table on his way to the couch, prompting Ophelia to do the same.  He stood next to the armrest for a moment, allowing his prospective date to choose where she wanted to sit.  Shortly after Ophelia scooted past him and plopped herself down in the middle of the couch next to Ula, he sat down next to her on the edge of the cushion and extracted his cargo from his hoodie pockets.  The girls, especially Ula, watched with intense enthrallment as he laid the two baggies down on the coffee table in front of him.

            First, he held up the larger baggie and presented it to Ophelia.  “This is the half-ounce you wanted for tomorrow.  They call this stuff ‘Blueberry Muffin.’  It’s supposed to be good for listening to music and vibing with your buddies, so I figured…y’know…perfect for the Splatfest.”

            “Freeeesh.  Super fresh.  This’ll really hit the spot!”  Ophelia reacted with delight.

            “No doubt.  Just make sure to get me that 20k before I leave here later.”

            “Of course.”

            Eli then moved on to the smaller baggie.  It only contained a few grams—enough to serve a group of octos for a single session.  He brought the bag closer to his face and carefully peeled it open.

            “This stuff here is for tonight.  ‘Northern Lights,’ it’s called.  It’s the shit I give clients who just wanna stick to their couch and slam a whole bag of squid rings.”

            “Veeeeeemo.”  Ula sighed dreamily.  “I’m one of those clients.”

            Eli shot her a devious grin.  “I am too, sis.  That’s why I picked it out.  We should be in for a fun time tonight.”

            Ophelia leaned forward and took hold of the bong on the table, sliding it towards Eli along with the lighter that was sitting next to it.  “Wanna do the honors, then, mister?  Show us amateurs how a pro does it?”

            “Heh…don’t mind if I do!”  He beamed, swiping the bong and removing the bowl from its protrusion.  “Though, I should tell you girls…I’m actually more of a ‘joint’ guy myself.  I don’t hit many bongs.”

            “We just got this bong recently, if you can believe that.  We used to pass joints around during our sessions.”  Ophelia informed him.

            “Oh, well…the more you know.  I guess we’re not that much different.”  He mused, narrowing his gaze on the tiny bag of Northern Lights as he began packing the bowl.

            “The bong is waaaay better, though.”  Ula chimed in.  “You get more bang for your buck, and it doesn’t leave those stupid little nuggets behind!”

            She and Ophelia observed enthusiastically from the sidelines while Eli prepared the bong for their session.  He only took a short minute to do so, thanks to his general experience working with drug paraphernalia.  It also helped that Ula had already taken care of the water for him, allowing him to skip right to the good part after placing the filled bowl back in the bong.  When the deed was done, he brought the bong up to his face, held the lighter against the bowl, and gave the girls one final look for confirmation.

            “Are we ready for take-off?”

            “Yes, yes, hurry up!”  Ula urged him.

            He did not need to be told twice.  Answering promptly to the impatient octo’s clear demand, Eli placed the tube to his mouth and flicked the lighter, causing the seaweed in the bowl to begin smoldering.  At the same time, he began slowly breathing in, drawing a steady stream of smoke through the bowl and into the apparatus.  The trademark, bubbling sound of the water churning inside the bong became dominant within the living space, captivating the seaweed-starved octos as they watched their guest pull the christening toke into his lungs.  Ula’s searing anticipation, in particular, caused her to start biting her lip again.

            Eli’s hit ended when he yanked the bowl back out of the bong and sucked up the rest of the smoke, his eyes widening in tandem.  The girls’ attention remained on him while he held his breath, as they were curious to see how well he would handle the exhale.  He aimed his head toward the TV and, after only a couple seconds, expulsed his share of smoke in a dense, billowing plume.  A moment passed in the wake of his hit, during which Ophelia held out her hands to receive the bong and the lighter from him…before he suddenly lost the battle to withhold the coughing urge in his chest.  Ophelia, raising the bong to her face to take her turn, smirked when she heard his deep, manly coughs.

            “Ack…hhk…damn…!”  He wheezed, balling his fist in front of his mouth.  “I thought I had gotten the balance right.  Guess not.”

            “Yeah, the big one hits you like a fuckin’ Ultra Stamp.”  Ula pointed out, following the bong with her gaze as it traded hands.  “You’d know that if you were more of a ‘bong’ guy.”

            “Hey, now, a fella can have his preferences.”

            By the time Eli recovered from his toke and turned to look at Ophelia, she had already begun her own.  The same bubbling-water sound had returned to the room before he was even finished speaking, signaling the haste with which the hostess had followed in his footsteps.  She didn’t actually need to use the lighter in her hand, as the contents of the bowl were already burning, and she didn’t want to waste them by trying to mess with it.  As she inhaled gently through the tube, keeping the bowl in place for an intriguingly long time, Eli stared at her with growing fascination.  His jaw went slack as he watched a significant chunk of the seaweed mass get incinerated by her hit, filling the apparatus with smoke until it was entirely opaque.

            Eventually, Ophelia capped off her hit in nearly the same manner as he had.  Unlike him, however, she had become an expert in the ways of the bong.  After removing the bowl and vacuuming the cloud of smoke into her lungs, she held her breath for several seconds longer than he had managed.  Then, adding insult to injury, she exhaled her spent plume in a flawless manner—blowing a calm breeze of smoke in the direction of the TV without a single cough to interrupt it.  The display completely blew Eli’s mind, which he communicated to her by quietly applauding while Ula sneakily swiped the paraphernalia from her.

            “Wow, ‘Lia, that was…”  He paused and gave an awkward chuckle.  “…you’re really something else.”

            She shrugged.  “Just comes with practice.  And…a few years off my life, I suppose.”

            “Seriously, though—I didn’t realize you were such a veteran.  I’ve only known one other octo that could hit a bong the way you just did…and that was before leaving the Valley.”

            “Hmm…dunno what to say.  Stuff’s just as good up here as it was down there.”

            “Heh—must be.”

            Paying it no mind, the flirtatious duo spoke over a third, more-aggressive instance of the bubbling-water sound.  Almost immediately after snagging the tools from Ophelia, Ula had hungrily placed the bong to her mouth and reignited the mostly charred remains of the bowl.  Her subsequent, ravenous extraction of smoke rivaled her friend’s hit in terms of volume, but lacked sorely in discipline.  Small pieces of seaweed ash were sucked through the bowl’s diaphragm by her ferocious toke, and the smoke produced by its dirtied remnants carried a yellowish hue inside the chamber.  Ula was struck with the urge to cough before she had even capped off her hit, forcing her to pull her face away and inhale what she had already taken.

            At that point, though, it was already too late.  The bubbling sound in the room was suddenly replaced with noisy, raspy coughing as Ula’s lungs gave out.  She held the bong on her lap while she doubled over, pinching her eyes shut from the sheer intensity of it.  Each cough propelled a thick gust of smoke into the air around her, contributing in greater part to the dank fog that was barely becoming visible in the room.  Not wanting to waste what she had pulled from the bowl, however, she quickly leaned back into the bong and sucked the remaining cloud out of it before having fully recovered.

            Eli, who was already feeling considerably high from his toke, gave an amused scoff.  “I like the enthusiasm.”

            Ula showed him the finger.  She struggled to answer him through her rigorous coughs.  “…Sh—Shut up…”

            “I’m guessing you were the friend who emptied the entire stash the other day?”  He teased.

            Ophelia nodded, grinning cheekily at Ula as her high started to set in too.  “Bingo.”

            “I said shut up.  Both of you.”  Ula forcefully set the finished bong on the table and slumped back against the couch, coughing several more times before easing into a long, mellowing sigh.  “Mmm…that shit hits niiiice…”

            Eli broke out laughing.  “That was ‘nice,’ huh?  I love it.”

            “Hey, what did I say?”  Ula glared at him and made a pinching gesture with her hand to silence him.  “Everyone knows it’s a wasted hit if you can still breathe afterwards.”

            “Nah, Ula.  Half of us disagreed with you the last time you said that.”  Ophelia mentioned.

            “Well, half of y’all need to be educated.”  She muttered.

            The return of the bong and the lighter to the coffee table marked the end of the octos’ round, before Bella could even make it home for her share.  The bowl, which had been packed for five, was completely spent—caked all over in dry, whitish char.  Among the trio sinking further into the couch, a tenuous, wispy haze dangled near the ceiling, carrying with it the distinct odor of combusted seaweed.  No one said a word for those first couple minutes as the overwhelming couch-lock quickly took hold of them.  It was the type of full-body high that, as they all agreed, just needed to be experienced in silence for a few moments.

            Eventually, Ophelia began to wonder whether she would need to turn the TV back on to kickstart some conversation.  She herself, along with Bella, were usually the conversation-starters in their friend group when goodies were being passed around…and, this time, she was feeling too baked to conjure a thought in her brain.  Though she certainly felt like Eli deserved some commendation for his potent creation, she realized that her record high was impeding her chance to learn more about her Splatfest suitor.  This lone thought began to dominate her psyche as she glanced lazily in his direction with her sunken, pinkening eyes…trying to assess his level of impairment in comparison to hers.

            She found him staring rather intently at the wall next to the foyer, with eyes that were at least as discolored as hers.  His expression seemed concentrated—almost fixated—on the thing he was staring at.  Noticing this, Ophelia became curious herself.  She opened her mouth to ask him what was up, but before she could speak, he cut her off with his answer.

            “Is that a Hydra Splatling sitting right there?”

            She followed his gaze toward the front wall, where her and the girls’ weapons were haphazardly propped.  “Yeah, that’s mine.  Didn’t you see it on your way in here?”

            “Huh, I guess not.”  He glanced at her, his expression turning into a fascinated grin.  “So…you actually main Hydra?  That was your main in the Grizz’s cooler today?”

            “Yessir.”

            “…Daaaamn.  We should’ve confronted that selfish squid kid and forced him to give it to you.”

            She chuckled and shook her head.  “Nah…I’m not confrontational.  Especially toward inklings.”

            “‘Lia’s right.”  Ula blabbed.  “She really ain’t confrontational.”

            “Eh…fair.  Sure missed out on some killer bonuses today, though.”

            Ophelia turned her head in his direction.  “So what about you, mister?  What’s your main?”

            He playfully raised an eyebrow.  “Don’t you remember?  I told you on the boat.  Before our shift.”

            “Ah…shit.  On the boat?”  She paused for a moment and stared blankly past him.  “Uhh…apparently I don’t.”

            “Here, we’ll do mine last.  Whose is the thing sitting next to your Hydra?  Is that…a blaster?”

            “It’s a Grim Range Blaster.”  Ula informed him.

            “Ooh, interesting.  Don’t get to see many of those!”

            “Damn straight.”

            Ophelia turned to her.  “You should tell him how you got it.”

            “Why?”

            She shrugged.  “Just ‘cause.”

            “Okay…”  Ula briefly made a face.  “Some dude in an alleyway was selling one dirt-cheap…like 5k or something.  I approached him with nothing but my carpy old Octo Shot from the Valley.  He still took it.”

            “No waaaaay…”  Eli giggled stupidly.

            “The guy said the Grim would never be ‘meta’ or some shit…I dunno.  I just liked the color.”

            “It’s the Tenta Missiles.  She likes the Tenta Missiles.”  Ophelia mentioned.

            “Hey, bitch…I like the color, too.”

            He nodded approvingly.  “Yoooo, Tenta Missiles.  I share that vibe, girl.  Love my Tenta Missiles.”

            “Thank you.”  Ula crossed her arms with a slight flair.  “See, ‘Lia?  Now you and Bella can stop pecking me about it.”

            Ophelia had to chuckle at that.  “We’re not ‘pecking’ you, Ula.  It’s cute, so we like to poke fun.  Same reason Bella teases Aurora about her Wah-Wah.”

            “About her what?”  Eli stifled a scoff and raised an eyebrow.  “Her…‘Wah-Wah’?”

            “Yeah.  It’s a stuffed whale she carries around the place.  She can’t spend a night without it.”  She explained briefly.

            “Huh.  Is Aurora…a child?  Someone you’re looking after?”  He queried.

            “Nah…we all sorta look after each other equally.  Aurora’s a big kid like us.”

            “She’s a grown-ass octoling.  Too old to be rockin’ toys like that.”  Ula muttered.

            Ophelia glared at her.  “What’s that I hear, Ula?  Is that…pecking?”

            “Nah.”  She grumbled back.  “I use Tenta Missiles.  She sleeps with dolls.  Big difference.”

            Eli smirked, but mostly ignored their exchange.  “Where are your friends, anyway?  You said Aurora isn’t going to be here tonight?”

            “Aurora’s crashing with a different friend tonight.”  Ophelia was quick to answer him.  “Which reminds me…that selfish squid who took my Hydra on the boat?”

            “Yeah…”  He leaned in.

            “Aurora is dating one of his friends.”

            The words left her mouth as plainly as ever, yet the impact they had on the seaweed dealer was palpable.  His jaw opened sharply as he leaned back against the force of the sudden news.

            “For real?!  Naaaaaw…”  His hand lifted slightly.  “So…that thing that he said about ‘flopping around with a pit-dweller’…”

            “Yep.  That ‘pit-dweller’ was Aurora.”  She confirmed, nodding her head with her gaze fixed on his.

            “Wow…what are the odds of that…”  He uttered in astonishment, preceding a much more animated observation.  “Wait, so…your friend is dating an inkling?”

            She shrugged.  “I guess.  She really fought for the guy, too.  Dragged us all into it.”

            “Dragged us in like the scheming little mollusk she is…”  Ula mumbled under her breath.

            Eli continued to gain interest in his host’s tellings as they unfolded.  He lifted one leg onto the couch cushion and turned his body fully in her direction so he could listen to the details she was surely waiting to give.

            “Why would this girl want to date an inkling?  Does she have some kind of power complex?”

            “I think she has a humiliation fetish.”  Ula blurted, stealing the response from Ophelia.  Eli quickly burst out laughing from her conspicuous jab.

            Ophelia slugged Ula in the shoulder, giving her a disapproving glare before turning her attention back to her suitor.  “No, no, none of that.  Aurora’s innocent; she’s not a freak like Bella.  She just…kinda…loses control when she gets her mind set on something.  It seems like she just caught some feels for the guy, that’s all.”

            “I dunno…catching feels for an inkling does make you a bit of a freak in most books.”  He stated matter-of-factly, eyeing her with an expression to match.  “Judging by what that kid on the boat was saying, though…it sounds like the girl got her wish?”

            “We don’t know.  None of us have heard from her since her first date with him.  At this point, I’m not even sure whether we’re gonna see Aurora at the Splatfest.”

            Eli could not have expected Ophelia to carry the baggage that she had.  He had initially expected to spend the evening eating cookie bites and bullshitting about the Splatfest, but now, he found himself even more invested in her and her wacky friend group.  Already, he was beginning to ask himself whether he was truly interesting enough to fit in with them.

            “Damn…that is wild.  First time I’ve heard of an octo even admitting feels for a squid…let alone acting on them.  And you said she’s the innocent one?”

            “Yep.  As long as all of her needs are met, she’s basically just a hatchling in a big kid’s body.”

            He paused for a moment to ponder with a blank expression.  Then, pointing back at the weapon stash in the corner, he suddenly ended their tangent.  “I take it those aren’t Aurora’s dualies, then?”

            The pivot caused her to giggle.  “Right, those are Bella’s.  How do you figure?”

            “Besides the fact that she’s not here?”  He chuckled back, scratching the side of his face.  “I just wouldn’t expect a ‘hatchling in a big kid’s body’ to bring dualies to an ink battle.  Especially ones like those.”

            “Yeah, I’d say that’s…accurate.”

            “So, what weapon does she use?  I bet it’s…like…a Sploosh or something.”

            “Hey, quit asking so many questions, mister!”  Ophelia finally protested, patting his leg with a playful amount of force.  “I need a chance to ask you some stuff.”

            He leaned back and smirked.  “Sure, sure…my bad.  Lay it on me.”

            Ophelia took a breath to speak, but the breath caught in her throat when the front door suddenly swung open.  She and Eli jumped slightly before turning to assess the foyer.  Ula did not react at all, staring straight ahead with an empty expression.

            The culprit was, of course, Bella, who stormed into the apartment with a huffy flair in her step.  Almost immediately, she reacted to the smell of the place, turning up her nose and fanning the air by her face with both hands.  Her thunderous arrival commanded the attention of the room, as was typical for the most flamboyant octo of the group.  The first sound out of her mouth told the story of how she seemed to be feeling that evening.

            “Ack—gk…bleeeech!  Again?!”

            “You just missed it.”  Ophelia blabbed, relaxing at the sight of her friend.  “There were a few minutes in there where the whole world kinda paused.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me you girls were getting high again, ‘Lia?  Making me miss out like that?”  She demanded.  “I haven’t gotten any since the canal!”

            “I thought you and Ula were home already.  Only Ula was here when I got back.”

            “Yeah, but you still could’ve waited ‘till I got back, too.”

            “I’m sorry, Bella.”

            “Eh, whatever…as long as I can still cop a share.  Now, who is this ‘guest’ of yours?”

            Wasting no time, Bella yanked off her boots and stepped towards the coffee table to survey the couch.  In doing so, she observed the deeply reddened eyes of Ula, Ophelia, and…Ophelia’s prospective date.  Her gaze focused on the mysterious boy occupying her living space.

            “Bella…meet Eli.”  Ophelia said cordially.  “He’s the cultivator of the fine specimen you are currently smelling.”

            Eli leaned forward and held out his fist, offering the same bump he gave to Ula.  “Yo, what’s up?”

            Bella didn’t react right away.  For several moments, she simply stood there, letting their guest’s invitation dangle awkwardly.  Her eyes darted up and down his figure, as if she were analyzing his worthiness to be in her presence.  All the octos on the couch stared at her while she did this, wondering what thoughts were going through her mind.  They each had their own hypothesis…but none of them could’ve expected the response she ended up giving.

            For starters, she did decide to return Eli’s fist bump.  The manner in which she did so, however, was anything but typical.  Her expression seemed to lose its judgmental quality—beginning with the drooping of her eyelids and a subtle bite of her lip.  A distinct shift in her body language became apparent, primarily in the way her hips seemed to sway when she stepped around the coffee table to return his gesture.  Eli didn’t notice anything strange about her behavior…until she touched her fist to his with a feathery lightness and stared fervently into his pupils.

            “Damn, ‘Lia…”  She breathed softly.  “…your taste in dealers is immaculate.”

            Ophelia and Ula both raised an eyebrow.  Eli leaned back a bit, chuckling uneasily as he glanced between Bella and his host.  “Uh…come again?”

            “You’re a dealer, aren’t you?  ‘Lia says you grew the shit sitting on the armrest there?”  She pointed at the bag of Blueberry Muffin on the armrest.  “Or was she just pulling my tentacle?”

            “Nope…she’s right.  Just making my living.”  He confirmed.

            “Mhm.  So what brings you here, then?  You could be out making a lot more dough on Splatfest Eve night.”

            “‘Lia invited me.  Do you…want me to…leave?”

            She giggled and shot him a raunchy expression.  “Heh…not by yourself, sweetheart.  You’re the first piece of action I’ve seen all day.”

            “…Ah…”

            Ula piped up from the other end of the couch.  “Ugh…you can’t be serious, Bella!  After spending hours searching at the mall today!”

            Bella ignored her entirely.  She kept her focus on Eli, remaining somewhat greedy in her use of his personal space.  “Cod, it’s so hot that you run your own supply chain.  Where’s your territory at?  We may just have to start swinging by there…”

            Eli was feeling too baked to react.  He instinctively sunk deeper into the couch.  “S—Sure, y’know…more customers are always welcome.”

            “Yeah…I’ll be your ‘customer’…”

            “Bella?  What are you doing?”  Ophelia piped up next.

            “What does it look like I’m doing?”  Bella glared at her friend.  “I’m going for it.”

            “Well…can you not?  Eli and I already kinda hit it off earlier.”

            “Oh…did you?  Did you hook up for the Splatfest, too?”

            “Erm…not yet.”

            “Then you can’t call dibs, ‘Lia.”  She turned up her nose at her before resuming her flirtatious pressure.  “Eli here is an absolute stud.  Probably the last single one in the city.”

            “…Who said I was single?”  He murmured.

            “Pfft, I know that you are, big boy.  You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

            Ophelia sat up from the back of the couch, fighting the sedating effects of the potent Northern Lights.  Her friend’s sudden, provocative behavior toward Eli was leaving a bad taste in her mouth.

            “Bella, Eli is my guest.  We’re here to chill out and have a good time.  Did you really not find any dates at the mall today?”

            “No.”

            “Because you couldn’t find any?  Or…because you wouldn’t find any?”

            “They were all fuckin’ ugly, ‘Lia!”  Bella pouted, stamping her socked foot on the carpet.  “All the good ones are already taken.  You somehow found the only octo left in the city that could qualify as my other half.”

            “Well, I know that’s not true.”  She rolled her eyes.

            “What’s so special about this guy, anyway?”  Ula crabbed from the sidelines.  “Seriously, Bella, he’s like…barely above average.”

            “Ladies…I’m sitting right here.”  Eli scratched the back of his head.

            Bella looked down at him.  “And that’s exactly where you belong, hot stuff.  Get comfortable, ‘cause Mama hasn’t had her fun yet.”  She cooed—before turning back to Ula.  “Girl…maybe you just have bad taste.  You’re finally in the presence of a true ten-out-of-ten, and it’s like you don’t even notice.  Come to think of it, you were acting really weird over that inkling geek at the mall earlier…”

            Ula pounded her fist on the armrest.  “I wasn’t!  Quit being such a bitch!”

            Ophelia quickly stole back the lead.  “I’m gonna have to put my foot down on this, Bella.  I’m sorry your search today came up short…but it’s rude to hit on your friend’s guest.  I wouldn’t do that to someone you bring home.”

            “No one said you can’t hit on him, too!  That’s kinda how it goes when you haven’t locked him in yet, right?  You gotta up your game!”

            “Forget it, I’m not competing with you.  How about you join in on some of this?  I think the bowl’s empty, but you can have some from the bag sitting next to Eli.”

            Bella squinted at her suspiciously.  She found it odd that Ophelia felt strongly enough about Eli to call her out for flirting, but not strongly enough to compete with her for his interest.  Perhaps the passive octo had something else up her sleeve…or, she was just overthinking it.

            “Suuure…don’t mind if I do.”  She acknowledged.  “I was going to demand some of it anyway, since y’all decided to hit it without me.”

            “Oh, but before you do, could you fetch us the cookie bites from the kitchen?  My cravings are kinda hitting.”

            Eli nodded his head, coming alive after having meekly observed the girls’ tactless squabbles.  “Yesss, now you’re speakin’ my language.  Being objectified really works up an appetite.”

            “Haa, the kid’s funny, too!”  Bella began to walk past the couch, reaching her hand out to caress his arm on her way by.  “Fine…I’ll get your cookie bites.  As long as I can have my share.”

            Ophelia shooed her towards the kitchen while leaning over the coffee table to pick the bong back up.  She then got Eli’s attention and pointed out the unsmoked half-ounce on the armrest.

            “Here, lemme pack some of that for Bella.”

            “Nah, I can do it.  Just sit back.”  Eli countered, snatching the bong from her grasp and turning himself to retrieve the baggie.

            Ophelia sat still and watched him for a moment.  Eli was technically her guest, and the seaweed in that bag was technically hers upon purchase, yet he was extending her the courtesy of taking the packing chore off her hands.  She figured, if he was offering her a chance to relax…then she might as well take it.  Without a word, she leaned back against the couch.

            Meanwhile, Bella only spent a few seconds in the kitchen.  Before Eli could even finish extracting the right portion from the stash, she pranced back into the living room with the group’s snacks and delivered them to Ophelia with a light toss.  Ophelia flinched when the bag of cookie bites landed in her lap; rather than chide Bella for it, though, she eagerly ripped the bag open and started digging in.  Likewise, Ula reached her hand into the bag and started doing the same.

            Eli, still focused on his task, grinned as he heard the rustling of the bag right next to him.  “Ey, make sure there’s still some of that for me!”

            Ophelia opened her mouth to acknowledge him, but Bella beat her to the punch.  Still standing directly over him beside the armrest, the ominously flirty octo extended her arm and began gently stroking his hair.  He paused what he was doing and glanced up at her.

            “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll make sure there’s some food left for us.  You’re being soooo generous hooking me up with some of your goodies…you deserve to share in some of our spoils.”

            Eli looked over at Ophelia, then back up at Bella.  He could see the death glare his former coworker was giving her in that moment…but it seemed like Bella was deliberately ignoring it.  Just like that, he felt the pressure in the room start to rise.

            “Uhh…great.”  His expression growing a tad concerned, he finished packing Bella’s serving into the bowl and lifted the bong upwards for her to grab.  “So, Bella—are you…feeling alright?”

            “You know what, Eli, I’m glad you asked.  I’ve been feeling a bit…bothered since I got home this evening.”  She walked around to the front of the couch, causing all of its inhabitants to follow her with their gaze.  “I think all the pot smoke has made it kinda warm in here.”

            Bella chose not to receive the bong just yet, leaving Eli hanging with it held out in front of him.  Instead, right in the spot she now stood, she grabbed the bottom seam of her OctoKing jersey and pulled it over her head, revealing both her bra and her bare abdomen to Eli and the others.  Eli’s jaw went slack as he watched the feisty bachelorette’s cleavage come into view…wondering if the potent smoke from his own creation was causing him to hallucinate.  He lowered the bong on the armrest as he practically froze in place, his eyes subconsciously locked on Bella’s voluptuous bust.  Bella tossed her jersey on the loveseat and gave him an inviting smirk.

            In contrast, the girls on the couch reacted noisily to the audacity of their friend’s actions.  Ula groaned and turned her head the other way.  Ophelia, after blurting her own interjection, picked a cookie bite out of the bag and flung it at Bella, hitting her just above her left boob.  Bella did not seem the least bit fazed by the gesture, however.  If anything, it only seemed to increase her confidence.  She giggled and assumed a provocative pose for her love interest.

            “Put your shirt back on, girl!  Honestly!”  Ophelia implored her, sounding surprisingly agitated for her stature.  Her tone commanded at least some of Bella’s attention.

            “Why haven’t you taken yours off yet?”  Bella sniped back at her.  “You shouldn’t be getting this steamed when you haven’t even made any moves!”

            “I just wanna get to know the guy a bit.  Throwing my clothes around shouldn’t have to be the first step to this!”

            “Well, why the hell not?  You joined Team Looks like the rest of us!”

            “Oh…yeah…”  Her resolve seemed to falter slightly.  “…I did.  So?”

            Eli peeled his gaze away from Bella and shot his prospective date an intrigued glance.  “Wait, you’re on Team Looks?”

            Ophelia looked back at him.  “I…suppose.  Did I not tell you?”

            “Hmm…I guess not.  I’m on Team Personality.”

            “Oh.”

            Bella stopped in her tracks.  At that moment, the light switch that controlled her provocative rhetoric seemed to flick off.  She retracted her bosom and stood upright, eyeing the octos on the couch like they had just spit in each other’s mouths.

            “No…no.  There’s no way you’re on Team Personality.  There’s no way…you…are on Team Personality.”

            “Eh, well…turns out I am.  Sorry ‘bout that.”  He repeated nonchalantly.  He turned back to Ophelia.  “I’m actually kinda surprised you’re not, sis.  From how we spoke on the boat, I totally figured you’d be on the same team as me.”

            Ophelia shrugged and glanced the other way.  “Yeah.  I guess it just…sounded like a good idea at the time.  Couldn’t hang the girls out to dry, y’know?”

            Eli grinned and gave a small nod.  Bella, however, was not buying the exchange happening in front of her.  Her confidence seemed to falter and give way to anxiety when she realized what the situation meant for her.  Her new favorite seaweed dealer was most likely off the market—off her market, that was—and she was running out of time to find her Splatfest hookup.  The celebration was less than a day away.

            She put her hands on her bare hips and gave her friend a judgemental glare.  “You guys met on your workboat earlier, and got along soooo well…but you didn’t even ask each other what teams you were on?”

            “It didn’t seem like an important detail, okay?”  Ophelia defended, rolling her eyes.  “We don’t need to be on the same team to hang out during the Splatfest.”

            “You do if you’re planning to hook up!  You can’t even battle together if you’re on different teams.”

            “Is that so?  Then maybe you should lay off, too, Bella!  You’re not on his team either!”

            “I don’t care.”  Bella asserted with a deepened tone as she locked her fiery gaze back onto Eli.  “You, kid, are too damn fresh for me to pass up.  We don’t even have to leave this apartment tomorrow.  No one ever has to know about us.”

            Eli swallowed a lump in his throat.  “Uhh…tempting offer, buuuut…I kinda just wanna vibe to some music tomorrow.  I figured ‘Lia would be down for that, too.”

            Ophelia was quick to nod her head in affirmation.  “Yes, Eli, I am down for that.  I’m not afraid to wear mismatching colors at the Splatfest tomorrow.  You definitely seem like the octo to do it with.”

            The uneasy suitress gave that declaration out of an abundance of caution, knowing how competitive her friend was becoming, and wary of the lengths to which she was willing to go.  Eli interpreted the declaration as her accepting his Splatfest proposal, which gave him a satisfied rush.  Before he could express his appreciation, though, Bella tried harder to snag control of the situation.  She turned her alluring body language right back on and took slow, hip-swaying steps toward the couch.

            Eli looked up at her again, this time sinking into the cushions in anticipation of her next action.  Bella leaned forward and gently lifted the bong from his grasp, staring up and down his figure with a hungry look in her eyes.  The discovery that he was on Team Personality was having an amplifying effect on her libido; she was desperate to reel him in as her last potential score for the Splatfest, and his preference for personality made him a difficult target—a devastating combination.  In their suffocating proximity, Eli could feel her temperature rising as she worked to control her breathing.

            “Is music all you want, big boy?  You sure you’re not looking for some new experiences this Splatfest?  I got some new experiences for you right here…”

            With an elegant, gyrating motion, Bella worked her chest further into Eli’s personal space, supporting herself by pressing the bong in her hand against the armrest like a walking stick.  Then, using her free hand, she reached for the pad of her bra and pulled down on it with two fingers, exposing her left breast to him.  Eli had tried to keep his eyes from wandering when Bella’s jersey first came off, but now that her pointed, orange nipple was sharing the light of the room a mere foot from his face, he simply could not look anywhere else.  His own breathing stopped as his dumbfounded gaze became stuck on the spectacle.

            Ophelia gave a sharp gasp at the unfolding of Bella’s little stunt.  She immediately moved to put a stop to it, lurching forward on the couch to firmly nudge her friend in the hip.  Bella stumbled slightly, causing her to fire back at Ophelia with a death glare of her own.  She usually relented whenever her laid-back companion needed to get assertive—however, this time…she wasn’t feeling particularly obedient.

            “Enough of that, Bella!  Have some decency!”  Ophelia finally exclaimed.

            “Or what?  You shouldn’t have brought such a rare hottie into our apartment!”  She barked back.

            “I think you need to go take a shower.  Get all that carp out of your system.”

            “Ooh, so you can try to sneakily steal him while I’m out of the picture?  Nice try.”  Bella grinned deviously down at Eli.  “Unless you wanna shower with me…”

            The persistent octo began reaching for the other pad of her bra, but Ophelia caught her before she could do anything with it.  To show her she meant business, she nudged her a second time—this time with more force.

            “He was never yours to begin with!  You can’t act so entitled just because a lot of guys seem to think you’re eye-candy!”

            Ula, after sitting in disinterested silence for most of the squabble, suddenly became engaged.  Ophelia’s statement against Bella’s recent behavior acted as a rallying cry for her, compelling her to speak out in support of the sentiment she shared.

            “There, that’s the shit right there.  I knew it wasn’t just me.”

            Bella was surprised to see the growing scale of the resistance she faced.  At this point, Eli was the only one in the room not voicing explicit dissent for her actions…but, to her, he was merely a super attractive plaything.  His thoughts on her behavior did not matter to her, as long as his body and all of its parts were acting as she wanted them to.  Rather, the disapproving opinions of, now, both her close friends had strengthened effects on her that seemed to change the whole dynamic.

            “Why are you taking her side, Ula?  I just took you shopping for new clothes earlier!”

            “Yeah, and then you sidelined me, chased away the kid that complimented me, and told me I had bad taste!”  She ranted.  “Fuck you for that, by the way.”

            Bella’s expression changed.  “Whoa, whoa, hey…”

            “‘Lia’s right, you’re entitled as shit.  You act like your looks give you automatic rights to everyone you come across.”

            “No, I don’t!  Guys keep approaching me on the streets, not the other way around.  If anything, it’s gotten kinda annoying.”

            Ula leaned forward in her seat, clearly getting a bit irked at her friend.  “If it was so annoying, maybe you should’ve actually taken the bite!  You wouldn’t still be single right now!”

            “If I had taken one of them, I wouldn’t have a chance at Eli.  He’s way hotter than all of those guys combined.”

            “Eli’s not yours, bitch.  Ophelia found him first.”

            “Bella, just…go take a shower.”  Ophelia repeated sternly, making a shooing gesture with her hand to break up the quarrel.  “Our ‘vibe’ needs a chance to recover from all of this.”

            Bella retreated from Eli’s personal space and gave a significant pout at the two girls, her boob still slightly exposed behind her now-crooked bra.  Following a moment of silence and tension, the outnumbered octo swiped the bong back from the armrest and rotated it so that the bowl was facing outwards.

            “Fiiiine, I’ll take a damn shower.  But first…I’m copping my share of this shit.”

            Retrieving the lighter from the coffee table, Bella raised the tube of the bong to her mouth and lit the stash.  The denizens of the couch watched, with varying degrees of interest, as she stood in the middle of the room and inhaled the bowl that Eli had packed.  She did so with a similar level of control as Ophelia, albeit with slightly more gusto to signify her current mood.  The contents of the bowl burned surprisingly quickly, making a crackling sound that almost surpassed the accompanying water-bubbling.  By the time she removed the bowl, her urge to cough had become apparent in her face.

            Eli pinched his eyes shut right at the cap of Bella’s hit—as he was the one caught in her line of fire.  Initially, it was not obvious whether she had intended to do it to him.  When she simply couldn’t contain the urge anymore, she rapidly began to exhale in his direction, thinking she could pull off a smooth hit like Ophelia.  Unfortunately, she lost the battle before she could finish emptying her lungs, pelting the guest thoroughly with the resulting plumes.

            “Fuck—ghk…hrmm…”  She sputtered.  “…that shit is strong…”

            Eli said nothing.  Though he usually indulged in the privilege of bragging when his product received such comments, this time…he said nothing.  At this point, he was starting to feel rather shaken up by the events playing out in front of him.

            Bella forcefully set the bong down after several seconds of coughing.  Then, without another word, she marched past the couch and into the bedroom.  The octos in the living room sat in silence while she threw off her clothes and grumbled pettily to herself.  Once they heard the sounds of the bathroom door closing and the showerhead turning on, they cautiously resumed their conversation.

            Ophelia gave a disappointed sigh.  Extending her arm in his direction, she gave Eli the remaining third of the cookie bites in the bag.  “I’m so sorry about all of that.  Even for Bella…that was over-the-top.”

            “All good.”  He responded, taking the bag from her.  “I’ll admit it…your friend is really hot.”

            Both the girls rolled their eyes.  “So we’ve heard…”

            “She’s not the vibe I’m looking for, though.  Not for my first Splatfest.  Too much drama.”

            “Exactly.  Whew…I’m glad you have that take.  Drama does tend to follow Bella wherever she goes.”

            Eli kicked back again and popped several bites into his mouth at once, allowing himself to get comfortable after Bella had lustfully boxed him in.  He still wasn’t as relaxed as he was before she had barged through the door, but even so, the intoxicating flavor of the sugary snack helped him to forget about the awkward altercation and refocus on the present.

            “So, anyway…what’s the stuff you wanted to ask me earlier?”  He blurted.

            “Oh…what?  What stuff?”

            “I dunno, you had said that I was asking too many questions.  And that you wanted to ask some.”

            “Ohh.”  She chuckled as she tried to clear the recent standoff with Bella from her mind.  “Wow, you have a much better memory than me.  Hmmm……what was it…”

            Eli picked up the bong while she was thinking and inspected the bowl.  His eyebrows raised in mild surprise.  “Ey, there’s still some green left in here.”

            Ula turned towards him and sat up, responding to those words like a nudibranch to a whistle.  “It’s mine.  I call it.  Gimme.”

            “Heh—if you say so.”

            The two octos, each sitting on either side of Ophelia, reached over her to exchange the paraphernalia.  Ula displayed a rush of enthusiasm in leaning over her friend, with outstretched arms, to receive the bong and the lighter from their guest.  Eli obliged by scooting closer to her on the couch and handing the items off.  Ophelia tapped her chin while this was going on, paying absolutely no mind to it.  By the time Ula was raising the bong to her mouth and igniting the stash for her second hit, she finally remembered how she wanted to continue their conversation.

            “There we go, I remember now!”  She declared, speaking over the renewed sound of bubbling water from the bong.  “I wanted to ask if you had any close friends that you hang out with.  Seeing as how you must live by yourself with all those plants growing.”

            He grinned and nodded his head.  “I gotcha.  I have a couple, I suppose.  Not sure if I’d call them ‘close’ friends, though…I sorta keep them at tentacle’s length.”

            “I see.  Is that…by choice?”  She followed up, hoping she wasn’t being too invasive.

            “A little bit, I would say.  They are fun to hang out with, and they always tell me that my product is the best in the city.”  He paused with a smirk, an action that Ophelia mimicked as she listened to his answer.  “They’re just a bit too high-energy for me.  They always have to be doing something…finding battles to fight or big parties to go to.  I’m down for a little bit of action, but not that much.”

            “I totally feel that.  I mean…you know me at this point.  Hard to get me up on the front lines these days!”

            “Yeeeep.  They also know tons of other octos, most of which have been by my place at least once to sample what I’m growing.  It can get exhausting sometimes.”

            “Were you expecting to meet any of them at the Splatfest?”  She queried, ignoring the violent coughing fit that erupted next to her from Ula’s overzealous rematch with the bong.

            “Nope, no plans with them at all.”  He confirmed without hesitation.  “Last I heard from them, they wanted to form a team to try for the multiplier raffle.  I’m down to fight a battle or two tomorrow night, but I’m not touching the multipliers with a ten-foot brush.”

            Ophelia made a curious face as he said that.  “You mention the ‘multipliers’…what are those, exactly?  I heard the Splatling guy mention those on the boat earlier…”

            Eli’s eyes widened.  “You haven’t heard of the multipliers?  No one ever told you girls about the multiplier raffle?”

            “I…guess not.  Some kind of special Splatfest thing?”

            “They’re more than just a ‘special Splatfest thing’.  The Splatfest multipliers are the biggest ink-shooting showdowns of the entire year.  Even those who don’t turn out for the festival end up watching at least one of them.”

            “If you’re new to the city like us, Mr. Know-It-All…”  Ula cut in, setting the bong back on the table with a firm clang.  “…how did you come to learn about them?”

            “Like I said, sis, octos come by my place a lot.  I tend to hear about stuff.  Basically, the winning Splatfest team is determined by a combination of popularity and turf-war victories throughout the night.  To spice things up, there are three such turf wars that are worth ten victories instead of one.  Those three turf wars are the multipliers.”

            “Whoa…holy shit.  I’m surprised we haven’t heard of those before.”  Ophelia responded with a gasp.

            “Yeah…apparently they’re a big deal.  The battles are usually televised, so I’ve been told.  Off the Hook even departs from the stage in the square to go perform at each venue while they’re happening.”

            “No waaaay!  Imagine having the girls themselves hyping up your turf war…”

            “Tell me about it.  The whole city seems to narrow in on each of those battles…considering how important the results are in the final tally.  I dunno about you, but I can’t handle that kind of pressure.”

            Just then, the couch-goers heard the sound of the showerhead cutting off.  The shower had only been running for a couple minutes—a fact that put Ophelia slightly on edge.  The length of Bella’s shower hardly seemed adequate to make a difference in her behavior.  Ophelia’s trust in Bella had gotten somewhat rocked by her little escapade earlier…and now she couldn’t shake the feeling that her friend somehow wasn’t finished yet.  She hoped she was just overthinking.

            “Fair enough.  That sounds like too much for me, too.”

            “Ditto.”  Ula murmured.

            Eli popped a couple more bites into his mouth before continuing.  “So, yeah…nothing tying me up this Splatfest.  Just hoping to meet someone new and have a good time.  I’d even fight a battle if you wanted to go line up for one.”

            “You know what, that actually brings me to my next question.”  Ophelia smirked.  “You never told us what your main weapon is!”

            “Ahh, yes, good catch.  Your memory ain’t as bad as you think.”  He teased.  “Think you could guess what my main weapon is?”

            “Oh, uhhh……gee…”

            “I’m a skirmisher, by the way.”  He reminded her.

            “Right…”  She put a hand up to her face as she racked her brain.  “…what was it……had you mentioned the Sloshing Machine?”

            “I did.  That’s not my main, though.”

            “Damn…that’s all I remember from that discussion.”  She chuckled doofishly.

            “It’s Squelchers, baby!  Dualie Squelchers.”  He stated glamorously, forming his hands into finger guns.  “They’re a work of art, I tell you.”

            A noisy, lamenting groan suddenly erupted from the bathroom, prompting a pause from the group.  “Uuugh…he uses dualies, too?”

            They remained still for a moment.  Eli tried to pretend he didn’t hear it, but the twinge in his expression suggested otherwise.  Ophelia held her breath for a few seconds before slowly letting it out.

            “Huh.  You don’t seem very agile to me.”  Ula blabbed to him.

            “I don’t have to dodge around too much with those.  They shoot pretty far.  And they got Tenta Missiles!”

            She nodded her head.  “Alright.  Alright.”

            “What led you to the Squelchers?”  Ophelia asked, keeping her train of thought moving.  “Do they have their own backstory?”

            “Ehh, I’d say their backstory is the same as most others.  They felt right to hold, and Sheldon did a good job of selling me on the kit.”  He explained.  “I did use the Sloshing Machine before that, for what it’s worth.”

            She chuckled.  “Hmm.  So…what about you, then?  Do you have a backstory?”

            He raised an eyebrow, keeping his playful smirk while displaying his interest.  “Uh…that’s a bold question.”

            “Well, answer it however you like.”

            Eli rubbed his chin as he contemplated how much information he was willing to disclose.  Would he talk about his time in the city?  His journey up to it?  Or maybe about his younger days in the pits?

            Ultimately, it did not matter—for, by the time he had found an adequate way to respond to her, Bella had emerged from the bathroom with further disruption on her mind.  She appeared suddenly through the bedroom doorway, with a hot-and-bothered look on her face, wearing the girls’ damp shower towel around her body.  Her returning presence immediately captured Ophelia’s wary gaze.  She noticed very quickly that Bella had changed her hair color from orange to lime green.

            Eli, however, didn’t notice her right away…which made her next action all the more shocking to him.  Without giving an utterance of warning, Bella rounded the armrest and climbed on top of their guest on the couch, straddling him at the waist with an upright position.  Eli’s mouth opened to react, but all that came out was an incomprehensible stutter.  His hands gripped the couch cushion with life-saving force as she sat her naked butt down on his lap and opened the front of her towel—revealing her full offering to him while expertly concealing it from her friends sitting nearby.

            “C’mon, kid…take me to the Splatfest.  Take all of this.”  She whined, gyrating her hips slightly.  “Even a Personality boy like you has to appreciate the sight of a true veemo.”

            Ophelia barely let her finish her sentence.  Just as those words were rolling off her friend’s tongue, she morphed into her octo form and lunged up at her from the couch, wrapping her appendages around her head.  Bella gave a muffled cry and threw her hands up, having been blinded by her molluscoid grasp.  The sudden commotion caused her towel to fall to the floor…which prompted Ula to pinch her eyes shut and bury her face.  Eli continued to sit perfectly still, directly underneath the spectacle, as he was overtaken by shock.

            The tussle was quick to move to the floor when Bella eventually lost her balance.  Following a brief struggle to pry Ophelia off her face, she toppled backward and blipped into her own octo form before making impact.  The two angry octopuses wrestled on the carpet for a few seconds, their tentacles weaving around in a furious effort to subdue each other.  For most of it, there was no clear winner…until Bella began to emerge with the advantage.  She freed herself from Ophelia’s lock in little time and had just started to establish a dominant grip on her attacker by the time Eli finally piped up.

            He first caught the girls’ attention by slapping his hands on his thighs.  “You know what, ladies…I think I’m good for the night.  I’m gonna bolt.”

            His statement caused Ophelia, the octopus with the slightly darker shade of green, to stop fighting.  She paused and looked up at him with a newly defused expression in her eyes.  The gap in her resistance allowed Bella to overtake her rather easily, which she did by tightening her hold on the sides of her mantle and shoving her forcefully away from herself.  Once they were detached, both the girls morphed back into their kid forms.  Ophelia and Ula made a concentrated effort to avoid catching a glimpse of Bella’s bare body in the middle of the room.  Eli was not having as much success.

            “You’re…you’re leaving?  Already?”  Ophelia asked sheepishly.

            “Yeah…I might be biting off a little more than I can chew here.”  He admitted with a dry chuckle.  His eyes were glued, immutably but uncomfortably, to Bella’s free-flowing features.

            Ophelia was plainly aware of the fact.  “Wh—What about the Splatfest?  Don’t you still wanna go with me?”

            “Naw, fuck that!  He wants to go with me!”  Bella cut in, leaning forward and pressing her breasts together with her hands.  Right up to the bitter end, she wasn’t going to give up on him.

            Eli stood up from the couch and inched along its front face away from Bella, taking him over to where Ula was sitting.  Ula refused to move for him, even slightly…causing him to stumble over her and recover his balance on his way to the front door.  Both the girls standing in his wake tried to take steps toward him, but the closer they got, the faster he backed away.

            “We’ll keep in touch, ‘Lia.”  He assured her as he backed up to the foyer and began hastily putting his shoes on.  “We’re still cool and everything.  I just…don’t want all the drama.”

            “Drama?  B…But…”

            “There’s no drama!”  Bella interrupted again, becoming visibly anxious.  “I’m already yours!  Just tell me where to go, and I’ll follow!  I’ve got it all right here!”

            “I’m good, sis.  Thanks.”

            “You won’t get this from ‘Lia, you know.  Or anyone, for that matter.  I’m giving you the best splat zone you could ever hope to ink.”  She argued, running her hands up and down her exposed curves.

            “I said I’m good.”

            Ula put her hand on her forehead.  “Please stop talking, Bella.”

            Eli was not looking to extend their interaction any longer than necessary.  Before Bella could attempt to make any undesired moves on him, he hurried to make his exit through the front door.  He put his hand on the knob and opened it with a swift jerk, looking back at the girls one more time before giving his obligatory closing statement.

            “Well, ladies…this has been fun.  Ophelia…thank you for the invitation.”

            “Wait, don’t you want your 20k?  For the seaweed?”  She uttered back.

            He shook his head.  “Keep it.  Consider it a gift for the good company.”

            “Aww…”

            “Alright…goodnight, y’all.  Happy Splatfest!”

            With that, Eli closed the door behind him, marking his official exeunt.  The apartment was now left to just the three friends, each of whom remained silent while they processed the events of the evening.  The silence did not remain for long, however…given the heavy baggage that now existed between them.

            Bella was the first one to break the silence.  Standing near the coffee table in plain sight of the others, still fully naked, the hotheaded octo struggled to cope with the fact that she had just been rejected.  She had someone to blame for that, of course—without a moment of hesitation.

            “What the hell was that, ‘Lia?  Are you out of your mind?”

            Ophelia glared back at her with rapidly growing anger…almost more than she had ever felt before.  “Excuuuse me?  What the hell was what?”

            “Don’t play dumb!  What was that insane fuckin’ tackle you did?  I’ve never seen you go berserk like that!”

            “You’re pinning this on me?!  I told you several times to stop hitting on my date, Bella!  That was really insensitive of you!”

            “Bullshit, Eli’s not your date!  You literally admitted he wasn’t your date when I asked you!  You said you hadn’t even asked him out yet!”

            “I hadn’t asked him out to the Splatfest yet, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t already taken!  He had already asked me out when we were still on the boat!”

            “He did, huh?  Well why didn’t you snatch him up then?  Why’d you bring him back here instead?”  She questioned, shifting her stance and putting her hands on her hips.

            Ophelia rolled her eyes.  “I told you already; I wanted to get to know him first.  Cod forbid a girl try to play a little hard-to-get!  I’d expect you, out of anyone, to understand that.”

            “Uuugh…playing hard-to-get is stupid, ‘Lia.  I don’t play hard-to-get—I reject kids that aren’t worth my time.  Playing hard-to-get is how you end up like this!  With nothing!”

            “Our date was going fine until you showed up!  What was that shit you pulled at the skatepark yesterday, hmm?  You’d have a pretty fresh date for the Splatfest right now if you hadn’t played that ‘stupid’ game yourself!”

            “I wasn’t playing hard-to-get at the skatepark!  My attraction to that kid actually depended on him winning that battle.  Having a date doesn’t matter if it’s not someone who meets my standards!”

            Ula finally sat up from the cushion, fighting the powerful couch-lock from her double hit in order to do so.  The tangible disgust on her face seemed targeted…like she wanted to shoot daggers of it into her friend's eyes through a shared, livid gaze.  However, due to her friend’s nakedness, she opted not to—instead glaring straight ahead of her with her arms slumped at her sides.

            “Shut the fuck up, Bella.  You’ve ruined this chill session with your entitled BS.”

            “Ula…I don’t even wanna hear it from you.  This isn’t even your business.”

            “This is absolutely my business, bitch!  You betrayed both of us today, which isn’t what friends are supposed to do!  You care more about getting laid than backing up your damn squad!”

            Ophelia, whose job it normally was to reign in Ula’s toxic outbursts, agreed with her in earnest.  She pointed her finger at her and nodded her head, acknowledging that the point she had made was valid.  Bella watched her friends’ strengthening solidarity with dismay.

            “Ula’s right, Bella.  You have not been considerate towards us lately.  This is exactly what you were hounding Aurora for yesterday.”

            “No!  That was different!”  Bella pouted.

            “How was it different?  She was just trying to score a date, too.”  Ophelia reminded her.  “You gave her hell for it at the skatepark, and now she’s not here with us.  On Splatfest Eve.”

            “……”

            There was something unique about this particular scuffle—a dynamic that hadn’t been experienced by the group of friends before.  Ophelia was persistently standing her ground against Bella…and she was winning.  Bella’s superior wit and tenuous tact usually allowed her to control the narrative in any argument; so, when she appeared to have no immediate comeback to Ophelia’s point, Ula felt a rush of validation.  She was quick to capitalize on it, while she still could, by getting up from the couch and marching toward the bedroom during the silence.

            “I dunno about you, but I think Bella could use the same punishment.  I’m getting her outta my sight for the night.”

            Ophelia held her stance for a few more moments while her grumpy companion dipped through the bedroom door behind her.  She continued to face Bella, each of them holding the other in place with their unfriendly glares.  Beyond the wariness that her rival was going to say something else to keep the argument going, she had already made up her mind about its conclusion…and so had begun to rise above it all.

            “Sounds like a good idea.  I think I’ll do the same.”

            Bella raised an eyebrow.  “So…what, then?  You’re just gonna close me out here?  Without my clothes?”

            Ula retrieved Bella’s shorts and undergarments from the bedroom floor and flung them into the living room, not caring where they landed.  Bella watched her wearables come flying through the doorway with a blank expression.  Before any more words could be exchanged, Ophelia took that opportunity to follow Ula into the bedroom, turning her back on her nude companion and closing the door behind her.  Bella, left in the dust, remained standing by the coffee table for several minutes…simply to digest it all.

            Once they were isolated in the bedroom, Ophelia and Ula were overcome with the urge to put an end to the night.  The social climate of their living space had already completely deteriorated, so there was no point in trying to prolong their high against the alluring pull of sleep.  Ula began changing out of her new outfit beside the dresser, discarding its components by her feet, while Ophelia flopped onto the bed and rubbed her eyes.  The sense of unity they shared in the aftermath of their confrontation with Bella went mostly unspoken—after all, there wasn’t anything that needed to be said.

            The only exception to this came when Ula had finished her bedtime prep, returning from the bathroom and finding the first set of disheveled clothes to throw on her body.  As she flipped open the sleeping bag on the floor and slid herself into it, she made a contorted face.

            “Mm…this shit smells kinda funny…”

            Ophelia sighed.  “Sorry about that.  Aurora got to it the other night.  Tried our best to wash it.”

            “Meh.  Whatever.”  She laid in silence for a few more seconds before saying her last thing.  “…‘Lia?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Is it cool if I…uh…shower tomorrow morning?  Since you girls took a bunch today?”

            “…Sure.”

            “Thanks.”

            Ula rolled right over, saying nothing else after that.  Ophelia turned silent as well.  She figured her disgruntled friend would at least have a closing statement of some kind after everything they just went through…though it was true that she, herself, lacked one as well.  She laid very still on the bed with the thoughts stuck solely in her mind, listening to the faint grumbling of Bella on the other side of the door.  She wondered how things were going to feel between them in the morning.

            The situation Ophelia and her friends were now in was not one she had anticipated back at Snapper Canal.  It only took the news of a Splatfest—and a couple days’ time—to start dissolving her friend group like ink in water.  She kept wondering things in those last few minutes before drifting off to sleep…like how Aurora and Eight were doing.  How their Splatfest was going to work.  Whether she was going to see Eli again.

            The way she saw things now, Ophelia hoped that the festivities tomorrow would be nothing short of the best that the city had to offer.  Unless things started changing for the better, it seemed like the only thing that could salvage her Splatfest.

To be Continued…