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Chapter Text

Jan 5 2025; Midnight

Two cephalings walked through the streets of Splatsville, their path illuminated by the streetlights and the occasional stars that were able to show themselves through the crowded, hectic architecture. The 20-year old inkling woman and the 22-year old octoling man had their fingers laced together. In their other hands, each of them held a pamphlet.

“Are you sure we can trust these guys, Randolph?”

The octoling squeezed his partner’s hand. “You worry too much, Lavinia.”

“I think I have a right to worry when my boyfriend asks me to join a cult with him!”

“It’s not a- oh!”

Two individuals had appeared in front of the young couple, as if from nowhere. They were clad in cloaks so black they almost seemed to camouflage themselves in the night. Their faces were concealed by their hoods, leaving it impossible to distinguish whether they were inklings or octolings. Each stood half a head taller than the two non-cloaked cephalings.

“Randolph Whateley.” It was impossible which one had spoken, for their mouths could not be seen in the night and the shadow of their hoods.

“Lavinia Carter.” The second voice was slightly higher than the other, with a different lilt.

“ We were hoping you two would make it. ”

Randolph smiled a nervous smile. “Hi, we were thinking that there’d be an indoor meeting place?”

“Of course. However, there are certain precautions we must take in these uncertain times. We’ve been sent to provide you with safe escort to the meeting place.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Lavinia nodded apprehensively. “Y-yes, thank you.”

“ Then please, follow us. ” The two figures turned around, and started moving away silently. They looked almost as though they might have been floating.

Randolph and Lavinia shared a glance, and began to follow the two cloaked cephalings through the night.

Far above them, another three figures took pursuit from the rooftops.

The abandoned warehouse was an unassuming building from the exterior. Its walls were partially covered in chipped, beige paint over the concrete and rebar. One of the cloaked figures raised their hand. “This is the place. Do as we say and as we do.”

Even accounting for the near-silent ambience of the night, the knocks sounded louder than they should have. The sounds of cars driving by, the chirps of crickets and buzzing of cicadas, the whirring of helicopters, all were drowned out by the three echoing knocks.

The door opened partially, tethered by a chain that was merely a few inches long. The only way a cephaling might have infiltrated the gap was by slipping through in swim form, and even then, they would have been immediately discovered by the guard.

“That which is not dead…” The speaker was concealed in the darkness behind the door.

“May eternal lie.”

The voice responded from within the sliver of shadows. “And with strange aeons…”

The other cloaked individual answered, “Even death may die.”

The shape of the silhouette of an arm moved nigh-imperceptibly between the door and the wall, to unlock the chain. Metal clattered against wood, and the door creaked further open.

“Please, do come in.”

One of the cloaked ones bowed at chest height. “Thank you. We have brought the two prospective new members.”

“Very good.” Despite being obscured in darkness, Randolph and Lavinia could tell that the guard was smiling at them. “The seminar begins in only a few minutes, so I suggest you stay close to your escorts.” There was the sound of rustling fabrics, and two black garments were held out. “Your cloaks.”

“Oh, thank you.” Randolph replied.

The couple took the cloaks, and put them on. Their entire bodies, including their faces, were covered. Lavinia examined her arms. “Wow, this is surprisingly comfortable.”

“I know, right? Come on.” Randolph held Lavinia’s hand as they followed their escorts.

The further they walked into the warehouse, the brighter the fluorescent lights grew. Their buzzing started as a quiet sound, barely noticeable, and soon became an omnipresent ambience.

Dozens of the group’s members milled about the building. All of the shelves had either been moved to the walls, or dismantled entirely. Every single member was clad in the same black cloaks as Randolph, Lavinia, and their escorts. With the garments extending past even the tallest members’ feet, and the material concealing the sounds of their footsteps, it was impossible to tell for certain whether they were walking, or floating half an inch above the floor.

Everyone looked the exact same. Their faces, their species, everything was concealed beneath the identical cloaks. There weren’t any tassels, jewelry, or so much as a name tag.

The congregation gathered before a stage; a small oil-black sea of identical, faceless individuals. The stage was at least twenty feet long, and attached to the interior wall of the building itself. The only thing on it was a microphone front and center.

The door on the side of the stage opened, and somebody walked through. They wore the exact same black cloak as everyone else, albeit with the addition of seven red tassels on the edges of their sleeves. Three golden tassels hung from the back of their hood and traveled down their back like hairs. The swishing of their tassels on the fabric of their cloak punctuated their every step, until they turned to the microphone.

“Thank you all for coming to this meeting of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver.” The voice was male-presenting. It sounded as though the concept of age had been given physical form; as though he were gargling a concoction of dust and ancient bones. “Some of you may have noticed, we have two new members tonight, who first registered a mere three nights ago.” He pulled out a piece of paper, held it in yellow-gloved hands, and read aloud, “Randolph Whateley and his girlfriend, Lavinia Carter.”

In response, there was a polite smattering of applause. Randolph and Lavinia joined in, as though the sight of so many performing a single action compelled them to do the same.

“Now for the initiation ceremony.” The leader reached into the folds of his cloak, and extracted a statuette. It was six inches long, hewn of stone that bore no cracks or imperfections. The shape was horizontal, depicting a female human whose legs had been replaced with the tail of a fish, and her hair with long strands of seaweed. Tiny, almost imperceptible things like bones, jewelry, and other accessories were ‘entangled’ in the stone seaweed-hair.

“This is a syren statue from the lost continent of Lemuria. When the rest of human civilization was inventing the concepts of philosophy and democracy, the Lemurians were inventing devices that we can scarcely dream of today. They combined sorcery with genetic engineering and created sea monsters to patrol the waters around their great nation. They controlled these monsters through statues like this. The last of its kind. You see, a cataclysm wiped out the Lemurians. Some say a tidal wave sent from the sea god himself capsized their entire country as penance for their hubris. Now, Lemuria is nothing more than dust scattered throughout the ocean floors.”

The leader held out the statuette. “Would one of our new recruits come on stage and take this last surviving relic of a long-dead nation, and with it, their place in our family?”

Lavinia was transfixed by the little statue. She felt as though something in its tiny, gray stone eyes were calling out to her, almost like some primitive version of the Calamari Inkantation. “Randolph, I-I have to-” She couldn’t so much as finish her sentence, before the compulsion became overwhelming. She felt as though it would physically hurt her not to be closer to the statuette.

Randolph started to follow his girlfriend. The leader held up his hand. “Only one is needed.”

Two of the veteran members held Randolph back by his arms. “No! No, I need to see it!” He screamed and struggled. Another pair of established members helped hold him back.

Randolph’s eyes went wide open and bloodshot. He sobbed and yelled, “No! Let me go! I need that statue!” He felt his chest tighten around his hearts.

Lavinia continued speed-walking up the stage. She was vaguely aware, in the back of her mind, of something that might have been screaming. Someone that she might have known was screaming their lungs out. All that mattered to her was the statuette.

When Lavinia approached the leader, she barely registered how much he towered over her. “I need that statue.”

The man’s expression couldn’t be seen under his hood. “Who am I to keep a lady from what she needs?” He gently deposited the statuette into Lavinia’s outstretched palms.

Lavinia felt a sense of elation, the same way a woman might react to an oasis after a week of traversing the desert. “Thank you, oh, thank you sir!” She caressed the statuette, feeling every inch of the smooth, unblemished stone. Her fingers laced between the unmovable strands of the hair, the accessories within.

The statuette exploded into a ball of dark red energy, emitting scarlet beams like an unholy facsimile of a miniature sun.

Lavinia staggered back, screaming in pain. Her back ripped open, and a pair of black leathery wings tore out of her. They flapped without her commanding it, until she was hovering ten feet over the stage. Her legs extended and entwined with one another, into a single limb that widened and continued to elongate itself.

The members holding Randolph dropped him. “Lavinia!” All thoughts of the statuette were destroyed along with the artifact itself. He glared at the leader, with as much hatred as he could muster. “What are you doing to her?!”

Lavinia’s torso grew to match her ten-foot wingspan and her similar-length tail. All the while, dark green scales covered her skin and clothes. Her eyes became solid black pools with blood red dots in the center. Her teeth elongated and transformed into dozens of tiny serrated triangles.

The leader turned his unseen gaze to Randolph. “Fear not, young man. If you can survive listening to the Syren’s song, your beloved will return to her proper form, and you will both be declared fellow Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver.”

Near the ceiling, one of the windows shattered. Three humanoid figures hung suspended in the air, surrounded by jagged shards of glass, for half a second.

Jan 4 2025; 11:11 PM

The artificial sky of Alterna depicted a nocturnal day. Beneath the faux clouds and holographic sunlight, the manhole entrance rattled as Lauren, Katherine, and Marcus entered the underground domain.

Lauren blinked the sleep out of her eyes. “Okay, Marina. Sheldon. What’re these new belt upgrades you want to show us?”

“Oh! Guys, you’re here!” Marina waved the trio over. She was standing over a long bench next to Sheldon, in the middle of Alterna. Fifty feet behind them was the pile of boxes where the Squid Sisters and Lauren had once set up camp. “Is Hachi running late?”

While the young agents jogged up to the bench, Lauren shook her head. “No, they’re just not coming. They actually cussed us out for waking them up so late.”

Marcus pressed his palm on the surface of the table and leaned in its direction. “Yeah, and then they went back to sleep. Like, on command. I’m actually kinda jealous.”

Marina sighed, “To be honest, I didn’t expect them to be so reluctant to join us. But anyway-”

“The new Squidbeak belts are finally ready!” Sheldon excitedly yelled.

Marina glared down at the horseshoe crab.

“Ah. Heh. Sorry, Ms. Ida.”

Katherine examined the four devices laying on the bench. Each one was color-coded to match its owner’s ink color. Yellow, green, her own purple, and the newcomer’s orange. They had inactive screens in the center, surrounded by a multitude of buttons.

The four corner buttons each depicted a number. The left and right sides bore five buttons each that depicted a special weapon commonly used in ink sports. The other nine specials were depicted on the lowermost buttons. On top were another three buttons that depicted the mechas used by the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Lauren’s had an eagle, falcon, and hawk. Marcus’s had a leopard, lion, and panther. Katherine’s depicted a dolphin, goblin shark, and swordfish. On the topmost side of the belts were a green call button, a red hangup button, and a cluster of four buttons in the center that depicted a sword, gun, a suit of armor, and a battery.

Marcus picked up the green belt, examining it, turning it in his hands. “These look great, but, ah, where’s the elephant?”

“Since the elephant and man-o-war robos fell into the Ginnungagap last year, Marina and I decided to change them.”

“We kept the eagle the same, though.” Marina admitted.

Lauren nodded sagely, yellow belt in her hands. “Yeah, I guess this is the best combination already.”

Katherine lightly tapped the dolphin button. “So, what’s with the changes?”

Marina smiled, and explained, “First off, we realized Lauren’s sky robos were kinda interchangeable.”

Jan 5 2025

“Let’s do this, guys!” Lauren pressed a sequence of buttons on her belt buckle.

Eagle! Gun! Falcon! Armor! Hawk! Gun!

Lauren flew upwards, trailing icy mists below her, before shooting at the Syren Bolts. Flaming bolts of plasma shot out from the hawk gun, and electrified plasma from the eagle.

The Syren darted away from the plasma. The leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver rasped, “The New Squidbeak Splatoon!”

Marcus pointed one of his dual swords at the crowd of cultists. “The very same.”

Jan 4 2025

“So the falcon is ice, the hawk is fire, and the eagle is lightning, right?” Lauren asked, watching as her robos flew around her. Each one was roughly the size of her palm.

“Exactly.” Marina confirmed.

“Okay, but why a leopard?” Marcus scritched the green and darker-green-spotted robot’s chin in his hand. It purred and leaned into him. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s cute, but why a leopard specifically?”

“We figured since the two surviving land robos were the lion and panther, we might as well complete the feline trio.” Marina answered. She picked up the green belt, and gestured at the top-center button with the battery shape. “Now, if you press the button for one of your robos that’s already out, and then the battery button…”

Jan 5 2025

The leopard robo pounced on one of the cultists, clawing their face while they yelled and tried to swat it away.

Leopard! Battery!

The leopard flew back towards Marcus mid-swipe, reshaping into a battery. Marcus held out his arm to grab it. With his other hand, he held up his panther sword and with his thumb, flicked open a small compartment in the hilt.

Jan 4 2025

Sheldon had the dolphin sword laid on the table. “Since Marina was here to help me with the new models, we decided to combine the original schematics with the virtual Memverse belt Marina created for Dramatic Days In Orderland.”

“What, that video game you made that almost took over the world?” Katherine squinted at the other octoling. “How does that work?”

Marina shrugged. “What can I say? The code for the Memverse was extremely complex, and the original belts were derived from octarian tech. Sheldon and I combined notes and spent nearly a full year creating these things. Anyway, the new battery forms have purposes beyond easy storage.” She flicked open the sword hilt on the table. “For example…”

Jan 5 2025

Marcus set the leopard battery in the panther sword, and closed it with his newly-free hand. The blade glowed pure green, imbued with the latent power of the battery. “Leopard, on!” He drove the sword point-first into the floor, igniting a shockwave that cracked the floor and sent multiple cultists falling.

The lead cultist raised his sleeve-and-tassels-covered arm. “Come hither, my spawn of the stars, to avail us in battle!”

Holes appeared in the air, and from them came forth the star spawn. Several dozen strong, they were green and terrible things, with green scaly constitutions, batlike wings, and a veritable forest of tentacles sprouting from their horrific undead visages.

“Game faces, team!” Lauren commanded. She soared through the air, spinning and launching a volley of feathers. Each one struck a star spawn before exploding into a cloud of ice. The star spawn were rendered unto statues of ice and fell, some shattering in the process.

Jan 4 2025

“And check this out.” Marina gleefully attached the dolphin gun to her brella. “You can still attach them to each other, and to your hero DX weapons, just like the original models.”

Jan 5 2025

Dolphin! Sword! Swordfish! Gun!

Katherine spun in a circle, arm outstretched, forcing the nearest cultist to jump away from the saw-blade on the forearm of her goblin shark armor. She flicked out her arms to catch her newly-transformed weapons, and attached the gun to her sword hilt. “Let’s see how you like this!” She lifted up the sword, aiming it at the Syren, and slapped the gun to make it spin. With the sword absorbing the gun’s energy, Katherine’s next swing launched out a sword beam.

The Syren’s eyes were expressionless as she flicked her tail to slice the sword beam out of the air. “Do you truly think you can stop me?”

As soon as the Syren spoke, all conflict within the building stopped. Her voice was as smooth as the richest honey, as mesmerizing as the most beautiful song that neither human nor cephaling could conceive.

Randolph barely tried to choke back his sob. “Lavinia, please, if you can speak, then you must remember me! There must be some way to get you back to normal!”

“Why must I return to your limited perception of normality?” The Syren asked, in her ethereal tone that subtly warbled, in a quantum state between speech and song. “This new form has awoken me to such limitless possibilities. Things you can’t perceive are just within my grasp. New sounds and colors out of space! And you would have me forsake it all for you?”

Panther! Sword!

Marcus pointed his blade at the Syren, and his gaze at Randolph. “She’s not your girlfriend anymore. I’m sorry, but we have to put her down for everyone’s sake. Including yours.”

Jan 4 2025

“This is awesome. But what’s with the screens?” Katherine tapped the center of her belt. “Some kind of communicators?”

“Exactly.” Marina confirmed with a smile. “The corner buttons are for dialing everyone else. I’m planning to give every other member of the New Squidbeak Splatoon one of these tablets.” She dragged the screen out of the belt itself, opening its side and revealing a hollow, empty compartment behind the screen. “You guys already have your own combinations. Here, let me demonstrate.”

Marina reached over to the green belt. “First, you press the call button, and then the number combination of whoever you want to call. Just like a regular phone.” She pressed five buttons on Marcus’s device.

A series of beeps came out of Katherine’s screen. “Oh.” She pressed the call button on her own belt, turning on both Marcus’s screen and her own.

“Hey, sis!” Marcus’s voice came out of both his mouth and Katherine’s device.

“Wow.” Katherine smiled at her screen. “Talk about a glow up from the old communicators. Hey, let me try something.” She held out her hand.

Marcus handed his screen over to Katherine.

“Thanks, bro.” Katherine held up her screen to her mouth, and Marcus’s screen to her own ear. She cleared her throat. “Bingle bongle dingle dangle yikkity-doo yikkity-da ping pong lippy tappy too tah.”

The teenage octoling laughed at her own voice going directly into her own ear. “Marina, these are great!”

Marina chuckled. “Glad you found a creative use for my cutting-edge tech, Kate.”

Lauren picked up the screen from her yellow belt. “Only thing I’m worried about is, how are we going to sneak around if we have to, without these things beeping and giving away our positions? Is there a do not disturb button or a mute function?”

“Oh, yeah.” Marina tapped the side of Lauren’s belt buckle. “There’s a dial to control the volume of the whole belt right here. And here…” She reached into the screen compartment and pulled out a small device. “One earbud. These things aren’t toys, so you only need one earbud each.”

“What if one of us loses an earbud?” Marcus asked.

“Skill issue.” Katherine snarked.

Marina rolled her eyes. “They’re earbuds. I’ll make a new one. Anyway, I’ve already given myself, Pearlie, the Squid Sisters, and Deep Cut their new com-screens. We didn’t quite have the resources to make more than four belts, though.”

“Although we are working on some exciting new tech for Hachi’s belt!” Sheldon interjected.

“Oh, nice.” Lauren noted, “Some more new mechs.” Her com-screen started beeping in her hand. “Very funny, you two.”

“Lauren, that’s not us.” Marcus held up his dark, inactive com-screen. Katherine showed hers as well.

“What?” Lauren glanced at her screen. A horizontal yellow bar ran across it in the middle. The name ‘Shiver H.’ flashed within the stripe in bold black letters. “Oh, shoot!” She lunged for her belt and fumbled with the device. “Where’s the-? Oh, here it is.” She pressed the green call button.

The screen on Lauren’s new tablet communicator changed to display Shiver from her neck up, Frye and Big Man standing over her shoulder. “Oh, now that’s what I call video quality!”

“Frye, stay focused. We have to tell them about- oh wow, this is like, beyond HD.”

“Ay!”

“I know, but look at this screen!”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “You have something to tell me, Shiver?”

“Ah, quite right. Captain, we have reason to believe the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver are having a meeting tonight in an abandoned warehouse.”

“Really? Which abandoned warehouse? And how did you find out?”

“We’re not sure about the exact location, just that it’s somewhere in Splatsville. We do have a lead for you to follow, though.”

Frye continued, “We found one of their flyers with the phone number torn out, so we figured someone was planning to use it. A bit of searching later, and we found it in a garbage can.”

“You guys were scavenging through trash?” Lauren deadpanned.

“Ay!”

“Oh, of course. Journalistic integrity.”

“Do you want us to tell you the address we found the phone number or not, captain?”

“Yes, please, Shiver. Tell me.”

Chapter Text

“No!” Randolph ran out in front of the Syren. “I won’t let you hurt her! You’ll have to kill me first!”

“No, we won’t have to. And I promise, we’re not gonna kill your girlfriend either if we can help it.”

“I know of you well, New Squidbeak Splatoon.” The Syren glared down and spoke in her ethereal, venomous tones. “You who almost razed this city with your machines of war, who hold such power which was never meant to be wielded by mortals. By the artifact of Lemuria, I have been granted true power. The power to wield the machines you are so unworthy of.”

With her ultimatum spoken, the Syren began singing. It was a song lost to times long past, a melody that hadn’t graced the earth since long before the days of mankind’s end. The song was at once beautiful and haunting, simultaneously exhilarating and despairing.

The song penetrated the minds of Lauren, Marcus, and Katherine. They fell to their knees.

Lauren pressed her hand to her forehead, pressing a mark into her temple.

Marcus ground his teeth together, trying to distract himself with the sound.

Katherine grabbed her elbow and squeezed it painfully tight.

“We’ve been mind-controlled once.” Lauren took her com-screen out of her belt buckle with her free hand. “Hell, I’ve been mind-controlled a few times.” She laid the tablet on the ground. “And I think I speak for all of us when I say…” She pressed the call button, followed by Pearl’s combination. All the while, she continued, “I’d rather break my eardrums than go through that again!”

“Ayo, did someone say something about busting up some eardrums?” Lauren’s communicator showed Pearl in a dark room, with a silk blanket covering everything below her neck.

Another woman audibly groaned. “Pearlie…” Marina lifted her upper body off the bed, letting the covers flow off herself like water. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Lauren blushed at the sight of Marina. “Sorry, sorry! I swear I didn’t know!”

“Lauren!” Marina screamed, frantically covering herself with the blanket.

Pearl’s eyes shot open as Marina inadvertently swiped the blanket off of her. “Hey!”

“Oh… oh squit.” Lauren averted her eyes as Pearl and Marina fumbled with the blanket. “Just let me know when you’re done.”

It took a few seconds before the couple was sitting up against their headboard. Marina was holding the edge of the blanket up to their necks, while Pearl held her com-screen up with both hands. “Okay, we’re good now.”

“Sorry you had to see that, Lauren.” Marina apologized.

“No no, it’s fine. It’s just that you’re my friends. And technically also my subordinates, I guess.”

“Eh, in name only.” Pearl gave a characteristically exaggerated shrug, nearly causing the blanket to fall off of her again. “Whoops! Sorry. Now why’d you call me in the first place?”

“Ah. Right.” Lauren looked up at the Syren, flapping her wings in the air.

The Syren paused her song, allowing the trio a moment of reprieve. “What are you lesser creatures babbling about?”

The agents stood up. “Yeah, Lauren.” Marcus glanced over to his roommate. “What was all that yelling?”

The captain held up her com-screen. “I’m calling Pearlina.”

Marina tilted her head to the side. “Pearlina?”

“I like it!” Pearl shot up to kiss Marina on the cheek.

“Pearl, can your voice destroy things from the other side of a screen?” Lauren pointed the device up at the Syren.

“Yeah! With this kind of video quality, I bet I can!”

“Pearlie, that’s not actually…” Marina cleared her throat. “Y’know what, I think I’ll just get dressed and teleport back to Alterna.”

“Hey wait a second!” Katherine jogged over to Lauren. On her way, she offhandedly conked a cultist on the head with the flat of her sword. “Marina, you were just at Alterna like an hour ago! What are you doing…” She gesticulated at the screen. “...just, like, in general?”

“It’s not what it looks like.” Marina maneuvered herself out of view from the screen. “I was tired, and Sheldon wouldn’t stop bugging me until I went home and took a nap.”

“And you’re both naked because…?”

“I don’t judge how you sleep, Katherine!” Marina’s voice was barely audible over the opening of a drawer.

Katherine and Lauren glanced at each other. Katherine glanced back down at the screen. “Fair enough.”

Pearl stood up. In one hand, she held the blanket wrapped around herself. In the other, she held up her com-screen. “Let me get to our music room, and then I’ll help you take that thing down!”

“Sounds good to me.” Lauren set the com-screen back in her belt buckle.

Eagle! Armor! Hawk! Gun! Eagle! Gun!

Lauren twirled the guns in her hands while spreading her wings. She launched three feathers on each side of herself. Each one trailed artificial lightning behind it for a few seconds until they embedded themselves in a star spawn and exploded, killing the eldritch monsters with bursts of electricity.

At the same time, Lauren glided over the ground, firing bolts of freezing and flaming plasma, all while spinning and weaving around the star spawn.

Leopard! Robo! Panther! Sword! Lion! Sword!

The tiny leopard jumped to claw at a cultist’s leg, while Marcus combined his swords by their hilts. “Alright bud, now come on back!”

Leopard! Gun!

Marcus held out his free hand. The leopard flew back to him mid-claw swipe as if from a magnet, rapidly contorting and reshaping in midair. In less than five seconds, he was holding the leopard gun in one hand, and the lion-panther double sword in the other.

A dozen star spawn hovered above Marcus, flapping their terrible hell-bat wings. Their tentacles writhed on their faces like an infestation of snakes. What might have been called their voices sounded vaguely like people gurgling their last breaths as they drowned.

Marcus attached his leopard gun to the combined hilt between his swords. “Time to cut you guys down to size!” With a slap to the hilt, he spun the gun and charged the swords with the energy within. Each blade glowed solid green. Marcus thrust out his arm and swung the double sword, launching a sword beam from the lion blade. With a swing to the opposite direction, he tossed another beam of green light from the panther sword.

The star spawn dove at Marcus. While half of the group was killed by the sword beams, the other half continued undeterred, their long, hooked claws outstretched.

Marcus jumped onto a star spawn’s back. He sliced through another one… “Five!” … thrust the double-sword back to slice a star spawn behind himself with the other sword… “Four!” …and finally detached the gun to fire into the head of the monster he was riding, while backflipping off of it. “Three!”

The extraterrestrial trio dove at Marcus while he fell. “Nice try!” He tossed the leopard gun into the forehead of one monster. His free hand pressed two of the buttons on his belt buckle.

Leopard! Armor!

The star spawn clawed at Marcus, just as the leopard armor formed around him. Sparks harmlessly bounced off the green metal. With the metal claws on his free hand, Marcus swiped at the face of his closest assailant. A screech of pain emanated from the beast as its tentacles fell off, granting the unfortunate young inkling a clear view of its hellish mouth. It was a black and pink tunnel lined with spinning rows of teeth, like a hybrid of a squid and a lamprey. The interior of the star spawn’s throat pulsated like a beating heart, bones and teeth and tendons visible within the dark of its walls.

Something about the sight of the beast’s maw wormed its way into Marcus’s psyche. He screamed in horror, firing into its stomach to force it into releasing him. Marcus landed on the ground, bending his legs, with enough force to crack the floor beneath him. He looked up at the two remaining star spawn circling around him, as if examining any way they might kill him.

Lion! Gun! Panther! Gun!

The blades in Marcus’s hand separated and transformed into guns. He twirled them in both hands, raised them, and killed the star spawn with two simultaneous blasts.

“Okay, I’m ready!” Pearl’s voice emerged from Lauren’s com-screen. “Just point me at that monster and let ’er have it!”

“Go for it!” Lauren extracted the screen from her belt buckle, and held it up at the Syren.

Pearl unleashed a scream that permeated through the screen, and struck the Syren.

The Syren screeched in pain as if it were being assailed by a physical force. Randolph yelled, “Stop! Please! You’re hurting her!”

Lauren turned her gaze to the man. “We’re trying to restore her! If you really want to keep yourself and your girlfriend safe, you’ll forget about these nutjobs and avoid them completely!”

The Syren plummeted to the floor, causing it to shake from the impact. Pearl stopped screaming, panting from the effort. “Woo… gonna need something for my throat after that one.”

“Thanks, Pearl. Talk to you later.”

“You too, Lauren.”

Lauren nodded, hanging up the call and sliding the screen back into its holder. “It’s time for the finisher, team!”

Eagle! Gun! Falcon! Gun!

Leopard! Gun! 

Goblin Shark! Gun! Dolphin! Gun!

The trio gathered together, and attached their nine guns together. The end result was an enormous cannon that required all three of them to hold it up, with Lauren standing at the back, and the Myers siblings holding it from the sides. They attached Lauren’s hero shot DX to the top, Katherine’s dualies to one side with one above the other, and Marcus’s splatling to the opposite side. All twelve components clicked together.

“Fire!” Lauren commanded.

All three agents pressed separate triggers. The plasma from the hero DX weapons pooled together into the central barrel. A sphere of energy appeared at the muzzle, rapidly expanding as it absorbed the power of the weapons, heating the air around it. The speakers within the weapons emitted an artificial voice.

LET’S BANG-BANG ULTRA SHOOTING!

The plasma orb shot out from the hybrid weapon, glowing with swirling greens, yellows, and purples, melting the ground beneath it until it finally rocketed into the Syren.

“Enough of this.” The leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver walked through the door he’d come from.

Randolph screamed in horror as the monster that used to be Lavinia exploded into an inferno. “You! Squidbeak! I knew you couldn’t be trusted!”

The agents dropped their collective superweapon. Lauren held up her hand with an empty palm. “Dude, I know what this looks like, but you need to look closer.”

“Why should I?!” Randolph sobbed, from a mix of crippling sorrow and apoplectic rage. “You’re murderers! You tried to destroy the city, and when the makoids gave you competition, you convinced everyone they placed you under mind control so you could use them as scapegoats!”

“Oh, man, don’t tell me you’ve been going on those message boards.” Katherine rolled her eyes.

The smoke cleared. In the center of the viscera and organs and pieces of the Syren’s flesh was Lavinia, crouching and coughing.

“Dude, look!” Marcus pointed at Lavinia.

“No! I’m not taking my eyes off of you rotten little sneaks! Nobody should have access to the kind of power you wield, let alone a bunch of teenagers!”

“But I’m twenty years old.” Lauren muttered under her breath.

The cultists had backed away, nursing their own and each others’ wounds, having elected to watch the rest of the confrontation from the sidelines. Lavinia stood up, brushing gelatinous pink and red meat off of her leggings. “Randolph! Randolph, I’m okay!”

“Whu… what?” Carter turned around. His breath caught in his throat. “Lavinia? No, but…” His eyes darted around, as if searching for an explanation. “They murdered you, Vinnie!”

“No, they didn’t.” Lavinia started trudging her way through the carcass of what had once been her own body. “Those three saved my life!”

“Lavinia, wait!” Randolph walked through the corpse. His every footstep brought with it a visceral, stomach-churning squelch. When he was close enough, he gently gripped Lavinia’s shoulders. “What… I’m sorry, how did they… how are you…?”

Lavinia finally allowed her legs to give out, falling forward against her boyfriend. “It hurt so much. It was like… I don’t know, like I was in a void, but I can barely remember it. Like a bad dream.”

Randolph hugged Lavinia. “Come here, Vinnie.” He picked her up, holding her above the organs and blood. “I’m so sorry. I never should’ve come here, let alone convinced you to come with me.”

Lavinia rested her head against Randolph’s shoulder, releasing an exhausted sigh. “It’s okay. Thanks for helping me out.”

“Of course. It’s the least I can do at this point.” Randolph looked up at the younger cephalings. His eyes watered. “You three, I’m so sorry. I’ll go on those message boards, and tell them how much you’ve helped me. That’s the only way I can think of to truly repay you.”

Lauren shook her head. “I appreciate the thought, but honestly, it’d probably be best if you just deleted all those accounts and forgot about them completely.”

“Yeah, without any concrete proof, they’ll probably just dismiss you as being brainwashed or a plant or something.” Marcus added.

“Y… I see. You’re probably right. But still, thank you.”

Lavinia smiled at the three. “Yeah, thanks.”

Katherine returned the smile. “You’re welcome.”

In a dark room, the Servants of the Dreaming Cadavers’ leader took his cloak off. His face was obscured by the shadows, with only a single candle to light the room. Its wax was slowly melting into the tiny plate on which it stood, mounted upon a small one-legged table. By the light of that single candle, the cult leader took a staff that rested upright against the wall. It was made of oaken-mahogany wood, twisting on the top quarter and terminating in a stone ornament that resembled an unspeakably eldritch monster. The cultist slowly waved the staff in deliberate, elaborate motions, channeling its dark magicks into his own will.

“By the depths of the roiling sea and the storms of the sky! By the land in which all that is dead must lie! By the past from which all things came, and the future in which all will end! May the dark waves crash, and may the cursed winds blow! By the magicks of the sunken city, fallen from the stars aglow, make my monster grow!”

Lauren, Marcus, and Katherine were evacuating Lavinia and Randolph when a cloud of dark smoke emerged from the roof of the warehouse. It slowly ascended in a spiral as they watched, until it terminated with a single point in the center. As the swirl of darkness was drawn into its own upper end, slowly coalescing into an expanding mass of roiling shadow, the streetlights blinked and shattered.

Lauren turned to look directly at the civilian couple. “You two, run.”

“Don’t have to tell us twice!” Randolph grabbed Lavinia by the hand, and started running with her.

“Thanks!” Lavinia yelled, waving back at the trio. “And good luck with whatever that is!”

“I think we’re going to need it.” Katherine muttered through her teeth.

Fifty feet above the warehouse, the shadow sphere reached completion. It rapidly expanded until the Syren emerged, multiple times its original size. Its screech shattered every window for an entire city block. Its wingspan exceeded a hundred feet, consisting of leathery, membranous masses casting a massive shadow and blotting out the full moon. With every errant swipe of its tail, a gale was wrought upon the surrounding air.

The black-cloaked, red-and-gold-tasseled leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver walked out the front door of the warehouse. He slammed his staff on the ground, with an unnaturally loud echo. “Those who would interfere in our proceedings have no place in this world, except beneath the ground. When the Syren sings her song, everyone in this city will bend to her will. And her will is as my will.” He raised his staff, and disappeared.

The Syren opened her mouth. A melodious tune, the likes of which any naturally-born creature would be wholly incapable of imagining or recreating, poured out of her tooth-filled maw and into the cold night air.

The trio fell to their knees. The song scratched at their minds, infecting them with flashes of thoughts of madness. It told their subconscious minds to lash out at the world, that entropy rendered all laws of society meaningless, commanded them to surrender to their most primitive, animalistic tendencies.

The song permeated the air itself. The sound infiltrated open windows, the cracks beneath doors, the minds of jogging night owls. All of their civility was subsumed by the barbarism of the Syren’s song.

Vehicles crashed as their drivers gave in to madness. Relatives fought each other, biting and scratching, as familial love gave way to blind hatred. A hobo kissed a rat. After the song reached him, he divorced the rat, much to its confusion.

“Why aren’t we being affected?!” Marcus asked through his pain.

“I feel pretty affected.” Katherine groaned, “But yeah, I get what you mean. It’s not controlling us.”

“The armor must be protecting us!” Lauren realized. “Marcus, Katherine, you two retreat to Alterna. Tell Sheldon and Marina what’s going on, and try to figure out a way to minimize casualties.” She stood up, suppressing yelps of pain. “That thing’s a flying monster, so I’m gonna fight it with the SkyMech.”

“Okay.” Marcus nodded.

Katherine agreed, “Stay safe, Lorie.”

“I will.”

Marcus and Katherine used their wrist-mounted transporters, entering a specific code which disassembled their molecules and teleported them to Alterna.

Lauren pressed the buttons on her belt.

Eagle! Mecha! Falcon! Mecha! Hawk! Mecha!

Lauren teleported into the cockpit of her hawk mecha. She shook her head, clearing it of what little music had infiltrated during the split-second transition between her armor and the cockpit. “You’re not the first music monster whose concert I’ve had to crash, Syren!” She twirled and slammed a red button on the control panel. “Here’s my band!”

The three mechas rose above the city and arranged themselves into a V-formation in the night sky. The hawk was at the front. The eagle and falcon lowered their altitude. All three avian mechas broke into pieces that swirled into a tornado of metal. Within seconds, they reassembled and rearranged themselves into limbs, a torso, a head, and a pair of wings.

“Soaring past the clouds above! New Squidbeak SkyMech!” The mecha spread its wings, with enough force to cause a shockwave of wind all around itself. It swept one of its wings out, launching six bladed feathers.

The Syren flew forward. The motion caused its singing to become warbled, weakening its spell. It curled its wings inwards and spun to dodge the feathers, letting them collide and explode behind itself. The fireballs set its tail on fire, eliciting a roar of pain.

The music stopped. The Syren twisted in the air, slamming its flaming tail into the SkyMech’s chest. Lauren screamed out as the mecha jolted. She floated, completely detached from the floor, for all of a split second before the SkyMech crashed.

A crater was formed in the road by the impact. Buildings wavered on their foundations as the ground cracked beneath them.

Lauren groaned in pain. She was lying on the floor, arm bruised from being crushed between her body and the metal beneath her. She sat up and barely allowed herself a quick rub on the black and purple spot, just enough to stave off the throbbing ache, before standing up and resuming control.

Metallic creaking sounds echoed for half a square mile, as the SkyMech stood up in the center of the crater. The talons on its feet dug into the pulverized rubble. Lauren turned the head up, looking through the window at the Syren.

The monster was ascending through the night sky, resuming its song. Through the walls of the SkyMech’s head, Lauren could hear the warbling shrieks of car alarms, and the screams of civilians. She narrowed her gaze at the monster hundreds of feet above the city. “If I’m the only one who can stop you, then that’s what I’ll do!”

The SkyMech spread its wings again and took back to the air. Lauren fired a salvo of feathers, only for the Syren to weave its way through the explosions. Dozens of fireballs peppered the sky like red and orange fireworks. The Syren’s body curved and twisted as if its bones were liquid.

The SkyMech maneuvered backwards, dodging a swipe of the Syren’s tail, and grabbed the flipper-like appendage. “Do you really think I’m gonna fall for the same thing twice? Even I’m not that dumb!”

The Syren twisted its upper body around to face the SkyMech, and opened its mouth. Instead of a song, the beast roared at such a volume that it took on a physical force. Cones of pure sound assailed the SkyMech’s head, one after another, causing it to vibrate.

The interior of the cockpit violently shook, metal clattering against metal. Lauren’s arms flailed wildly. With the SkyMech’s grip loosed from the Syren’s tail, the monster clamped its jaws upon the mecha’s shoulders and pushed down. The metal gave way, perforated by the serrated daggers of keratin lining the Syren’s mouth. Wires sparked in the beast’s mouth.

As the Syren descended at terminal velocity, the SkyMech was dragged behind it. Lauren spun through the cockpit, slamming into the back wall hard enough to knock out a tooth and a small glob of yellow ink-blood. She yelped in pain while pressing a button on her belt.

Zipcaster!

Lauren was enveloped in a yellow glow, with something that resembled a scarf around her neck. She stretched her arm out to strike the side of the control panel, attracting herself and sticking to it like an adhesive novelty toy. “Wow, this is so much better than the old system! Now let’s do this!” She took back control to make the SkyMech punch the Syren in the face. A few dozen of the monster’s teeth rained down onto the city below.

The Syren roared in pain, swiping its head to the side to launch the SkyMech down to the ground. Despite Lauren’s best efforts, the mecha crashed onto the street once more.

The Syren perched itself on the SkyMech. Its talons dug into the robot’s shoulders and legs, perforating the metal. Its tail slammed into the pavement between the SkyMech’s legs, creating a gradually-deepening crater in the road. It opened its mouth and released another scream.

The SkyMech’s window cracked under the auditory assault. Lauren pulled at the controls, tried to make the SkyMech move, only to find it hopelessly pinned under the Syren’s weight. “Come on, come on… it’s just one monster!”

The cracks expanded, until the window that comprised the SkyMech’s eyes was covered in them. The pane exploded, sending thousands of tiny glass shards raining down onto Lauren.

Ink Armor!

The shards harmlessly glanced off of Lauren’s armored body. “Okay…” She huffed, breath visible in the cold night air that infiltrated the cockpit, “Maybe I’ve gotta think a little smaller!”

Falcon! Armor! Eagle! Sword! Hawk! Battery!

The Syren’s body jolted as its perch disappeared underfoot. Lauren rose into the air, spreading the wings of her armor and dual-wielding her weapons. Compared to the kaiju-sized Syren, she resembled little more than a flittering fly. “Let’s see how you like this!” She flicked open the eagle sword’s hilt with her thumb, clicked the hawk battery inside, and flicked it closed. “Cryo-bolt slash!”

As Lauren sliced her blade through the air, a diagonal trail of sparkling blue and white frost, wreathed in yellow lightning, was launched at the Syren. Despite striking the monster’s eye, it was blocked by a clear ocular membrane.

Lauren’s eyes went wide from terror. “I don’t stand a chance against this thing!”

The Syren flapped its wings to make itself airborne once more. The simple gesture sent out a gust of wind like a hurricane, buffeting Lauren and sending her plummeting onto the pavement below. She fell like a brick for a few hundred feet before her armored back struck the road. She bounced a few times from the momentum, each impact putting another dent in the falcon armor, until she finally skidded to a stop.

Lauren’s entire body was wracked with pain. In the places where her armor was dented, it caved inwards to crush her back and legs. She could barely muster the strength to look up, to watch as the Syren flew above the city and resumed its beautiful, terrible song.

Lauren realized she had no choice except to retreat. Reluctantly, she activated her transporter.

Lauren appeared in Alterna, where Marcus, Katherine, Pearl, and Marina were awaiting her. She deactivated her armor, and collapsed into Katherine’s arms.

“Lauren! Are you okay, sweetie?”

“No.” Lauren gasped for air, scrabbling to hold her girlfriend. “That thing was way too much for the SkyMech.”

“But that’s our only mecha that can fly!” Marcus yelled, kicking the artificial snow. “What are we supposed to do now?”

At that moment, a tear in the fabric of time and space appeared in Alterna.

Chapter Text

Ever since the other three had woken them up, Hachi had been unable to fall asleep. They’d curled up on the couch under a blanket, with the TV on as white noise. The living room was barely, comfortably illuminated by streetlights filtering in through the curtains as well as by the television. Hachi had decided to leave the TV on a late-night talk show, figuring that it would be quickest to put them to sleep.

“You see, Jimmy, this is why I’ve joined the Inkadian Reclamation Society.” The guest speaker droned. “The octarians have come into Inkopolis in massive numbers, and more and more inklings have allowed themselves to be brainwashed into supporting them. It’s getting to the point where people like me who want to speak out against this invasion are being censored by mainstream media.”

Hachi reached for the remote, only to find that it was out of their reach on the coffee table. “Mih. It’s not worth the effort.”

The guest speaker on the TV continued, “That’s why I’ve agreed to come onto your show, Jimmy. I also want to take this opportunity to remind your viewers that I have a six-hour nightly podcast and a bestselling book.” He opened a bag under his chair and set a large hardcover novel on his lap. “The title is ‘We Are All Under An Attack Of Hellishly Preposterous Proportions.”

“There you have it, folks.” Jimmy announced, “Please support Mr. Jones, his podcast, and his new book, WAAUAAOH P.P.”

Hachi felt the hair on their arm stand up. They sensed the song a few seconds before they heard it. It sounded like gold being spun into musical form by an unholy demon from the depths of the underworld. It pulled away the curtain of their conscious conscience and thought, freeing their base instincts to the forefront.

Hachi lunged to grab the remote. They took one look at the TV, then at the remote, and did the first thing that came to mind.

They tossed the remote at the TV.

Lauren, Marcus, Katherine, and Off The Hook assumed defensive stances. The portal shimmered and warped, signifying that something was coming through.

“Think they’ll be friendly?” Pearl asked.

“They’d better be.” Lauren answered, “Hostiles in the base are the last thing we need right now.”

“It’s always the last thing we need!” Marcus retorted.

Two figures emerged from the vortex. One of them was an inkling, the same age as Katherine, with bright orange tentacle-hair. The other stood elbow-to-head taller than her. Their entire body was covered in a black cloak, including a hood that cast a shadow over their face.

The inkling rubbed her head. “How’d we get to Alterna?” She blinked in surprise. “And who are you guys?!”

“They know about Alterna.” Lauren held out a hand in greeting. “Hi. Are you agent 3?”

The inkling scowled. “How do you know about that dillweed?”

Lauren retracted her hand. “Not agent 3 then. Duly noted.”

Katherine reached for the dualies on her hips. “If you hate agent 3, does that mean you hate the New Squidbeak Splatoon?”

The cloaked figure put a concealed arm in front of the foreign inkling. “Of course nottt.” Their voice was feminine, yet deeper than any inkling, and oddly steady.

The group recognized the true nature of the voice immediately. “A human?” Marcus asked, though it was more of a statement than a question.

The unwitting dimension-hoppers staggered back. The human’s arms moved up, slowly, reluctantly. They weighed their options, hesitation evident despite their face being unseen and their voice being silent.

With a quiet swishing noise, the tall figure took off the hood of their cloak. Black hair, based in fur rather than tentacles, spilled out to cascade down to her lower back. Her eyes were free of the cephalings’ distinctive marks. Her facial proportions were noticeably smaller than any cephalings’. “How did you know?”

Marcus stepped forward. “Let’s just say, you’re not the first human we’ve ever met.”

The human gasped. “What?”

The inkling narrowed her eyes skeptically. “How is that possible? Who are you guys?” She pointed at Pearl and Marina. “And what are those two doing in Alterna?”

Marina innocently waved. “Hello.”

“Yeah. Yeah, hello.” The new inkling waved tersely.

“Cannn someonnne pleassse annnswer ourrr questionnnsss?!” The human drawled as if struggling with the inkling language.

“Uh, yeah.” Marina stepped forward. “First off, what do you know about multiverse theory?”

“Oh God.” The human rolled her eyes.

“Oh good, so you know about it.” Pearl deadpanned. “I’m not sure what it’s like where you’re from, but we’re the New Squidbeak Splatoon here.” She reached up, straining her arm just to pat Lauren on the shoulder. “And trust me, our agent 3 is anything but a dillweed.”

“Thanks, Pearl. Just don’t break your arm off.”

The human looked down at her companion. “Dddo you think we cannn trussst themmm?”

“I’m not sure.” The inkling admitted, “But what choice do we have, really?”

Marcus walked for less than a yard through the artificial snow. “Maybe it’d help if we showed you two some trust first. Let me start.” He held out his hand. “Name’s Marcus. I’m agent 4.”

The new inkling took a deep breath. “In that case…” She was silent, as if forcing the words out took manual effort on her part. “Zuri. My name is Zuri.”

The human pointed at herself. “Sylpha.”

“Great!” Pearl started walking up to the pair. “Name’s-”

“Pearl; we know.” Zuri pointed at the shorter inkling’s girlfriend. “And that’s Marina. I’ve seen you two on TV where I’m from.”

“Oh. So that’s the same at least…”

The yellow-tentacled inkling raised her hand. “Hi, Lauren Laker. I’m the captain around here. Quick question.” She gestured at Sylpha. “Why are you so tall?!”

Sylpha shrugged. “I’m actuallyyy average height forrr a humannn. You guysss arrre short.”

Lauren crossed her arms, steepling her fingers on her upper arms. “Fair enough. Come to think of it, I guess the humans we met from the Foundation’s world were also taller than us. Except I was just a kid back then…”

“I’ve got a question.” Zuri interrupted Lauren’s wistful reminiscence, “It took me ages to teach Sylpha inklish. And as you’ve probably guessed, she still hasn’t got it down perfectly. No offense.”

“Nonnne takennn.”

Zuri nodded and continued, “So how come you guys are speaking completely perfect human? But also… like… perfect inklish? Just, like, what the hell?”

“Actually, that’s funny.” Katherine added, “Whenever we met humans from the Foundation universe, there wasn’t any language barrier. Oh, by the way, name’s Katherine. Agent 8.”

Zuri’s eyebrows went up a little. “There’s an agent 8?” She muttered.

“Oh!” Marina piped up, “I’ve actually started thinking of a working theory about that. By all logic there should be a language difference between cephalings and humans, but in our experience there wasn’t, even though we also had to deal with a dimensional barrier. So what if there’s some kind of higher power like the Serpent that Lauren told us about, that’s been acting as a kind of multidimensional translation field, but you guys didn’t have that because you were separated by time and not dimensions?”

“Wh… whaaa…?” Sylpha’s mouth gaped in confusion.

“Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey.” Pearl answered succinctly.

“Ah.” Sylpha nodded as if that explained anything, when in truth she was too confused to care anymore.

“Hey guys, I hate to break the mood, but we’ve still gotta deal with that Syren.” Lauren pointed out.

“Oh yeah…” Marina brought her hand up to her chin. “You said the SkyMech was outmatched?”

“Yeah! And the SkyMech’s our only flying formation, so I don’t see how any of the others would stand a chance! It could just fly out of reach!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Zuri asked.

“Ah. yeah, let me explain.” Lauren sat down on her box chair. “Lately, we’ve been dealing with a cult calling themselves the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver. We’re not exactly sure who or what their god is, but we know they believe he’s slumbering somewhere deep in the ocean.”

“And is he?” Zuri inquired skeptically.

“Honestly?” Lauren uncrossed her legs. “With everything we’ve seen, it’s entirely possible. Either way, the monsters they’ve been creating are definitely real, and we have to deal with those.”

Sylpha’s eyes shot wide open. “I’m sorry, did you just say they’ve been creating monsters?!”

“Yep.” Lauren stood up, pacing through the snow with her arms crossed behind her back. “They’re called Yosotholings. The cult makes them by basically infecting cephalings with cursed artifacts, transforming them into the monsters. We’ve only fought a few of them so far, but when we kill them it basically evicts all the dark magic from the victim.”

Marcus picked up where she left off. “That dark magic turns into a giant version of the monster, split off from the original victim. That’s our problem right now.”

Lauren explained the matter of the Syren, and how she’d defeated the SkyMech.

“Dude, your world is wack.” Zuri bluntly pointed out.

Katherine shrugged. “You get used to it. But since you guys are here, if there’s any way you could help…”

Zuri shook her head. “Sorry, but no can do. We’re not exactly fighters, let alone kaiju fighters. And we may be weapon engineers, but we’re turf war weapon engineers. Giant mechas are a little above our pay grade.”

Pearl shot up at attention. “Oh! Wait! Rina, we still have the blueprints for the mechs, right?”

“Hey, that’s right! I can just call Sheldon down here, and then we’ll show you the ropes.”

Sylpha crossed her arms skeptically. “You’ll showww usss the ropesss. Onnn buildinnng a giant combinabllle mech.”

“Yes.”

Sylpha facepalmed. “This is eggplant stupid.”

Marcus glanced over at Zuri. “What does that mean?”

“It means she still hasn’t got the hang of inklish.” Zuri turned to Marina. “Okay, Ms. Ida. I guess we can hear you out.”

On the edge of Splatsville was a skyscraper. All but the top floor w as completely uninhabited. The top floor itself was completely soundproofed, insulated from the Syren’s song.

There was a long, narrow table carved of mahogany wood, atop a blue carpet with orange edges. The sides were lined with chairs, each inhabited by an inkling. One end was empty. The other end was filled by another chair.

The inkling at the head of the table had a slicked-back tentaclestyle. Where the others mostly sported casual or business-casual wear, he wore a tailored purple buttoned-up suit and long work pants, tucked into brown leather loafers. “Thank you all for gathering here, for this meeting of the Inkadian Reclamation Society. In their hubris, the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver have afforded us a great opportunity. Our chief of science has finally completed the instrument of our central mission statement.” He held out his hand, flattening out his palm over the table. “Dr. Hisashi, the floor is yours.”

A woman at the side of the table nodded and stood up, the legs of her chair silently scuffing against the carpet. She wore a stark white lab coat with an open hem around her knees. “Thank you, Jason.” She walked closer to a corner of the room, behind Jason’s chair. “Everyone, this is the Genet-ink Enhancer.” From the chest pocket of her coat, she retrieved a small remote with a few buttons, and pressed one.

A small section of the back wall flipped open, revealing a cylindrical plexiglass capsule with a solid blue base. It was large enough for a cephaling to stand inside somewhat comfortably.

Dr. Hisashi paced in front of the device. “As its name suggests, this device enhances the genetic makeup of inklings. In layman’s terms, an inkling goes in and a monster comes out. Of course, only volunteering members will be going in. The process is extremely painful, and completely irreversible, but on the upside…” She grinned, baring her fangs. “The power it grants is beyond cephaling capabilities. This is a new advent of technological progress, one that will usher inkadia and the Splatlands into a new age where we are no longer subjugated by the octarians and their brainwashed supporters!”

Jason cleared his throat. “Reel it in, doc.”

“Ah. Yes. Sorry, Mr. Maeda.”

There was a small bout of suppressed laughter, accompanied by a smattering of applause from the table. One inkling raised her hand.

“Yes, Janet?” Dr. Hisashi addressed the woman, “Did you have a question?”

“Yes.” Janet flicked her pink hipster-styled tentacle-hair out of her eye. “Is the process safe? Like, no pain no gain, I get that part. But is there any chance I could go in there and just…” She mimicked an explosion with her fists. “Just become a mess of blood and guts on the glass? Could that happen?”

The table was filled with concerned, apprehensive murmurs. Dr. Hisashi’s voice cut through them all. “That’s a valid question, but I assure you all, the process is 100% safe. Or at least, 100% nonfatal.”

“And how exactly do you know that?” Another inkling asked, “Did you run any tests or experiments?”

“Not exactly. Given the nature of this device, it would’ve been nearly impossible to do so. That said, I ran precisely one thousand simulations, using a smaller version of this device on various small animals with roughly similar physiologies to inklings. Every single one of them came out alive.”

Janet crossed her arms. “Can we see some evidence?”

“Funny you should mention that.” Dr. Hisashi picked up another remote control to turn on the whiteboard. “Here’s some photos I took of the results.”

On the screen, Dr. Hisashi projected photos of various monsters next to household objects such as cups and bookshelves. They were tiny, yet varied in their horrific visages.

An inkling near the far end of the table squinted. “So if we volunteer to go into this machine, we’ll come out looking like those things?”

“I won’t sugarcoat it, so, yes.” Dr. Hisashi elaborated, “Once the volunteer is inside the capsule…” She walked over to the Genet-ink Enhancer, and pointed out a side attachment. It resembled a small blue wheel, with an inactive rectangular screen in the front. “They’ll be imbued with a genetic sample from a specific species, as selected by an automatic randomisation system. So, any volunteers?”

Janet stood up. “I volunteer myself. In the name of Inkadia, in the name of the Splatlands, I will help to drive the octarians back underground where they belong.” Her fists clenched at her sides. “It’s the least I can do, after they burned my grandparents’ entire village during the war.”

Dr. Hisashi smiled, pressing a button. The semicircular door of the Genet-ink Enhancer slid open with a loud, pneumatic hiss. Dr. Hisashi stepped aside and gestured to the Genet-ink Enhancer with a flourish. “In that case, be my guest.”

Janet walked towards the device. Her every footfall upon the carpet seemed to echo within the nervous silence.

“Excuse me?” Everyone else in the room turned in the direction of the voice. An inkling girl in her late teens was leaning against the side wall. There was no sign the only door in the room had been opened, as if she’d appeared from nowhere. “Who are you guys, and how did I get here?”

Dr. Hisashi and Jason glanced at each other, and then back to the teenager. “We’re the Inkadian Reclamation Society. And how did you get here, young lady?”

The inkling rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, I’m just gonna hand over my name to a bunch of grown adults sitting around a table like some kind of wanna-be evil cabal. That’s totally a thing I’m gonna do.”

“Cabal?” Jason smiled at the girl. “We’re not a cabal, and we’re also not evil. We just want to protect the surface from the ongoing octarian invasion.”

The teenager scowled, crossing her arms. “There’s no octarian invasion, you dillpiece.”

“Not one that the mainstream media will tell you about.” Dr. Hisashi was met with an eyeroll. Nonetheless, she continued, “For the past seven years now, both Inkadia and the Splatlands have been inundated with an influx of octarians, coming from what was supposed to be their territory and into what’s meant to be our own. Our economy and livelihoods have suffered under them.”

One man stood up, slamming his palm on the table and yelling, “They took our jobs!”

“This is stupid. You guys are stupid. I’m getting out of here before I catch your stupid.” The newcomer started walking towards the door.

“Wait!” Jason yelled, reaching his arm out from across the room. “Do you want that thing to kill you?!”

The teenager tilted her head in confusion. “The hell are you talking about?”

“There’s a giant Syren monster outside. Her song is spreading throughout the city, turning everyone who hears it into mindless, savage beasts.”

The newcomer crossed her arms again. “And let me guess. This ‘Syren monster’ was created by the octarians, right?”

“No, actually, it was apparently created by a cult using an artifact from the ancient human era. Or so our informants say.”

The newcomer opened the door. “Hey, what’s that music?”

“ Noooo! ”

Down in Alterna, Sheldon, Marina, Sylpha, and Zuri had started working on upgrading the twelve squidbeak robos. Doing so required them to dismantle the belts, owing to the fact they were remotely and intrinsically connected to the automatons. Thus, the numbered trio of agents were unable to do much else but pace around.

“This sucks.” Lauren kicked a small flurry of faux snow. “Marina, how long is this going to take?”

Marina looked up, her eyes covered by thick goggles to protect them from the blowtorch she was using. “Sorry, captain! I’ll try to hurry up and rush the delicate operation that could blow this entire island sky-high if we make so much as a single wrong move!”

Zuri’s head shot upright. “What was that?”

Lauren backed up. “Alright. Sorry.”

Marcus looked up at the artificial sky of Alterna. His gaze focused upon the dark, staticky hole that marred the projected blue heavens. “I just wish there was some way we could monitor the city. Kat, you got anything?”

“Lemme… nope.” Katherine turned her phone off almost as soon as she’d turned it on. “It looks like all the local news channels are down.” She sighed, “I hope Deep Cut are okay.”

“Personally, I’m more worried about whoever gets into a fight with those three.” Lauren assured her. “But, yeah, I wish there was some way we could see what’s going on.”

At that moment, Marcus’s phone started ringing. “Oh, it’s James!”

Lauren’s eyes widened. “I wish some bags of crabby cakes would fall down here.” She glanced around, glanced up at the hole in Alterna, and shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

“What’s going- honey, slow down! I know you’re scared, but I can’t understand you! There’s a- yeah, we know. We’re working on- there’s another one?! O-okay, I’ll let them know. Are you somewhere safe? Okay, stay there. We’ll take care of it. Love you too, hon.” He pocketed the cell phone.

Katherine started, “Please don’t tell me-”

“There’s another monster out there.”

Kat facepalmed. “Because of course there is. What do we know?”

“Not much. James said he couldn’t get a good look at it. Just that it’s normal-ish size, covered in brown fuzz, and it may or may not have been foaming at the mouth.”

“I don’t like the sound of that brown fur.” Lauren remarked, “Then again, I don’t really like any of this. Maybe we should go to wherever James is, if he’s out of the Syren’s song’s range.”

“Brown furrr…” Sylpha’s gaze drifted away, to the place where a massive rocket had once stood. “I don’ttt suppose you guysss know the name mrrr. Grizz?” She rubbed her shoulder, wincing in lingering pain.

“We have.” Marcus confirmed, “He tried to-”

“-Tried to wipe us all out and bring back the mammals with his weird fuzzy ooze, right? Yeah, us too.” Zuri interrupted.

Sylpha scowled. “He nearlyyy tore my armmm off, and he recoiled to everyonnne I wasss humannn.”

Lauren cocked her head to the side in confusion. “Recoiled?”

The lone human coughed into her fist. “Sorry, I meant revealeddd. My inklish slippps uppp whennn I’mmm upsettt.”

“Ah. Gotcha.” Lauren knelt down on the opposite side of the table, where the belts and robos lay askew in pieces. Metal casings, circuit boards, and multiple colors of wires had been laid out in a chaotic arrangement. “I’m sorry to hear about all that. How’ve you guys been handling it?”

Sylpha took a deep sigh. “It was harddd attt firsttt. Apparently, I was the firsttt defipini- deafen- depititiv-” She fumbled her inklish and gave up, “Firsttt realll proof humansss existeddd at all.”

Zuri nodded, and continued, “We were constantly hounded by the media, harassed, misinformation spread about Sylpha… it was hell. If the squid sisters hadn’t helped us move out of town, I don’t know what we would’ve done.”

“I can imagine what that’s like.” Lauren turned to look over at Katherine. “But it’s not my place to tell.”

“Yeah…” Katherine sighed, “It was a long time ago, but it still hurts to talk about.”

Marcus gently held his sister’s hand. He whispered into her ear, quiet enough that Zuri and Sylpha couldn’t hear him, “They can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I know.” Katherine hugged Marcus for a few seconds.

“Marina, we have to go up to the city.” Marcus decided.

“No. If you guys go up there, you’ll just get corrupted by the Syren. I understand that you’re worried about your boyfriend, but right now, the only thing you guys can do is wait for us to finish these upgrades.”

Marcus crossed his arms. “I know. I hate it, though.”

“Now that I can understand.”

Hachi burst through a window into Hotlantis. The Syren’s perpetual unholy music allowed them to ignore the shards of glass slicing across their arms, some of which stayed embedded in their skin.

Harmony was standing in the middle of the store, standing perfectly still, with blank eyes. When Hachi charged at her, she moved like lightning to block their strike.

It had been hours since the upgrading efforts had begun. At long last, Marina held up two of the belts. “They’re done!”

Zuri lifted the other two belts in the air. “Took us long enough!”

“Finally!” Lauren ran up to the table. “Hand 'em over, now! Please!”

“Okay, okay, here you go.” Marina leaned down, attaching the belt to Lauren’s waist. “Now, you guys and Hachi can combine any of the paleo robos with the UltraMech to form the DX Squidbeak UltraMech.”

“Awesome. And thanks.” Lauren turned to the others. “Marcus, Katherine, we’ve gotta go into the city and find Hachi.”

Lauren soared between the tallest buildings in Splatsville, protected by the hawk armor. The falcon and eagle flew alongside her.

Marcus and Katherine ran through the streets in another two parts of the city, wearing the leopard and dolphin armors respectively. While Marcus used the claws to scale buildings in an effort to gain better vantage points, Katherine utilized her armor’s sonar capabilities.

Two rabid inklings lunged at Katherine from the roof of a burning, hollowed-out claw. She effortlessly backhanded them out of the air, knocking them to the ground where they lay unconscious. “Sorry!” She aimed the dolphin’s snout, which enveloped her arm, towards the square and fired another sonar signal. “Find Hachi!”

The dolphin robo’s limited intelligence, roughly equivalent to that of a domesticated animal, obeyed Katherine’s order by filtering out everything except Hachi. Their silhouette appeared in her visor’s HUD, accompanied by their distance and the direction they were in. “Got em.” She activated her communicator.

Hachi and Harmony were rolling around on the pavement in Splatsville, biting and clawing at each other’s faces. Lauren soared overhead. “There they are!” She swooped down and snatched Hachi in her talons, leaving Harmony thoroughly confused and disoriented on the ground.

Lauren had to take great care not to hurt Hachi as she carried them in her talons, as they thrashed in the air. “Stop squirming, you idiot! Do you actually want to fall onto the pavement?!” She activated her communicator. “Guys, I got Hachi and I’m bringing them into Alterna right now. Hopefully, being away from this music will bring them back to their senses.” She hung up, and activated her transporter.

Lauren appeared in Future Utopia Island, tumbling through the snow and releasing Hachi. Marcus and Katherine appeared almost immediately afterwards. “Hachi!” Marcus ran up to the octoling, sliding across the ground and kneeling over them. “You alright, bud?”

Hachi was briefly paralyzed, as the effects of the Syren’s song wore off. After a minute, they shook their head. “Ow… oh, man, guys, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what even happened.” They sat up on the ground. “No seriously, I have no idea what happened. Someone wanna fill me in?”

“An evil cult created a giant monster that’s turning people crazy by singing, and these two ladies accidentally dropped in from another universe and helped us upgrade the mechs.” Lauren explained, helping Hachi to their feet. “Zuri, Sylpha, say hello to Hachi. The New Agent 8.”

“Hi.”

“Hellooo.”

“Woah!” Hachi pointed at Sylpha. “Is that a human?!”

“Oh! Yeah, she’s a human. Sorry, Sylpha. Hachi’s from another universe, so they're not as used to humans as we are.”

“No way, you guys have dealt with humans before?”

Lauren nodded. “It was a whole thing. And more importantly, we need your help to actually use the upgrades. It’s our only shot at stopping that Syren.”

Hachi looked down at the ground. They thought for a long moment. Eventually, Lauren reached out to gently put her hand on their shoulder. “You oka-”

Hachi swiped Lauren’s hand off. “I’m thinking. Listen, I don’t want any part in this, okay?”

Marina leaned over the desk in confusion. “What’s up with that? You seemed pretty eager to fight Overlorder, and everything else in the spire for that matter.”

“And I almost died! I actually did die, multiple times! Besides, it’s not like I had much choice.”

“Hate to break it to you, bud, but you kinda still don’t. You volunteered to be a member of Squidbeak, so that kinda means you’re in it for the long haul. Especially since your belt is genetically mapped to you like the rest of ours, so you’re literally the only one who can use your robos.”

“What?!” Hachi shoved past Lauren, marching towards Sheldon and Marina’s table with a venomous glare. “Why would you do that?!”

“Because if there wasn’t some genetic lock on the robos, they’d be at constant risk of theft! They could destroy the entire city in the wrong hands! Quite possibly the entire world.”

Hachi sputtered, “Fine. I get that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be bitter about not being allowed to leave, does it?”

“No, no, that’s fair.” Marina agreed. “Unfortunately, we need new recruits now more than ever, with three different factions going against us. So for right now, here’s a deal. You can stay on the sidelines if you want for the most part, but if we need you, we’ll call you. And right now, like it or not, I’m afraid we need you.”

Hachi took a few steps back, with a hardened gaze, their mouth tightened into a thin line. “Fine.” They turned to Lauren, Marcus, and Katherine. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Lauren, Katherine, Marcus, and Hachi appeared in the middle of Splatsville, surrounded by flaming car wrecks and crazed civilians. They alone were protected from the Syren’s corruptive music by the falcon, dolphin, leopard, and liopleur armors. “Is everyone ready?” Lauren asked.

“ Ready! ” The Myers siblings answered in unison.

“Ready…?” Hachi answered, more hesitantly, “I guess.”

“Good enough for me!” Lauren decided.

Eagle! Mecha!

Dolphin! Mecha!

Lion! Mecha!

Ornitho! Mecha!

The eagle, dolphin, and ornitho robos expanded into mech size in midair, hundreds of feet above the lion mecha. Lauren turned on her communicator in her cockpit. “Okay, guys! It’s now or never!”

Each of the mecha pilots struck the large red buttons on their control panels. Lauren, Marcus, and Katherine all yelled in unison, “ GATTAIS! Combine! ”

Chapter Text

Shiver, Frye, and Big Man had been driven feral by the Syren’s song. Big Man tossed the two cephalings into a car across the street. Before they struck the vehicle and set off its alarm, they each exchanged blows in midair. They jumped off the car just as it exploded.

In the middle of the street was a humanoid monster, roughly twice the size of a fully-grown cephaling. She was covered in coarse brown fur, with five long knife-like claws on each hand. She plunged her claws into the engine of a car that had stopped next to her, causing it to explode. She walked through the fire.

Deep Cut circled around the genetically engineered monstrosity. The bear-inkling monster growled, a deep, guttural sound. It charged at Big Man first. The manta ray sank into the ground and split himself into four iridescent shadows.

While the bear-inkling hybrid was distracted by Big Man’s technique, Shiver and Frye leapt at her. The inkling and octoling exchanged blows and kicks in midair. At their zenith, Shiver grabbed Frye by the shoulders and slammed their foreheads together. Snarling in pain, Frye snatched Shiver’s upper arms, nails digging into her skin, and kicked the octoling in her knees for the leverage to spin around and toss Shiver into the bear-monster.

Shiver and the bear-monster tumbled across the pavement, yowling and clawing at each other like rabid animals, corrupted by the Syren’s demonic music. While the four were embroiled in their battle, another inkling charged at them from the side.

The four mechs combined into a humanoid figure. The eagle’s eyes glowed yellow like lightning. The torso was bright green, with hands that terminated in the lion’s claws. The dolphin’s head was mounted on one of the purple legs, sonar ready to be used at a moment’s notice. Mounted upon the combined mecha’s back, allowing it to hover in the air, were the massive orange and membranous wings of the Ornitho robo.

“ Guardian of the earth! DX Squidbeak UltraMech 1st formation! ”

Lauren, Marcus, and Katherine all turned to Hachi. The four of them were sitting in front of a long, shared control panel in the cockpit. “Dude, you didn’t say the thing. We’re supposed to all say it together.” Lauren admonished.

“Yeah, it’s a new mech debut! It’s supposed to be a big moment and you’re just not gonna say anything?!” Katherine gesticulated wildly.

“I’m sorry! I’m new here!”

Marcus patted the octoling on the shoulder. “It’s okay, bud. Now you know for next time.”

“Let’s go, team!” Lauren commanded. The UltraMech rocketed further into the skies beyond Splatsville, targeting the Syren. Its eyes glowed brighter, and fired twin bolts of lightning upwards and into the monster’s chest.

The Syren roared in pain. With an errant swing of its tail, it created a shockwave of wind that the UltraMech spun to dodge, folding its wings in a corkscrew while continuing its ascension.

The UltraMech somersaulted in midair. “Sonar kick!” Katherine pressed a button in front of herself. The dolphin’s mouth opened with a shrill chittering sound, releasing a concussive blast of sonar energy that struck the Syren in tandem with the UltraMech kicking the monster in the face.

The Syren thrashed as the UltraMech’s claws slashed it, opening gashes that rained black ichor down on the roofs and streets below.

As soon as the Syren’s song was brought to its involuntary end, everyone was freed from its influence.

Shiver, Frye, Big Man, and the bear monster all shook their heads and examined their positions. The bear-inkling monster was lying on her back, with her legs aimed at the sky and holding a handstanding shiver, and Frye standing upright on her raised hands. Big Man’s enormous triangular fins served as a bridge between Frye’s hands and Shiver’s feet.

“Um…” Frye glanced down and around. “How did we get like this?”

Shiver shook her head, sighing, “No idea. All in favor of never speaking of this again, say aye.”

“Aye.”

“Ay!”

“Close enough.”

The bear-inkling roared and tossed Deep Cut off of herself. They tumbled on the pavement as she stood up. “My name is Kumaling! And if you dare protect the octarian menace, then I’ll gut you and claw you!”

“Yeah?” Shiver took her communicator out of her pocket and wrapped it around her wrist. “If you’re gonna cover yourself in blood as cold as mine, then don’t be surprised if you freeze yourself to death.” She whispered into the communicator, “Sheldon, we need a hero splatana DX and a hero stringer DX. What? No, this is Shiver. Deep Cut Shiver! That’s just hurtful. It’s fine. Thank you.”

By the time Shiver hung up, Kumaling was lunging at Deep Cut. Shiver and Frye’s weapons appeared in their hands. The blue-tentacled octoling leaned forward and slashed her out of the air with a wave of plasma. “The waves crash and the waters surge! Shiver Hohojiro!”

Frye launched three simultaneous bolts of plasma from her stringer. “The desert blazes and the volcanoes burst! Frye Onaga!”

“Ay!”

“Oh please, you call that a roll call?!”

All four turned to look up at the newcomer. A teenage inkling was sitting on the railing of a fire escape, holding it with both hands on either side of herself.

“Kid, what the hell are you doing up there?!” Kumaling called up.

“Yeah, get down before you end up killing yourself!” Shiver yelled.

“Oh yeah, you’d love it if that happened, wouldn’t you, octoslob?”

“Wha- dude, I’m agreeing with you!”

Kumaling pointed a sharp, accusatory claw at Shiver. “Screw you!”

“Screw me?! Screw you!”

“Screw all of you!” The new inkling kicked off the fire escape while letting go of the railing. The clattering of metal rang in her ears as she hung in the air, suspended for a brief moment of less than a second.

The inkling fell to the ground. Kumaling, Shiver, Frye, and Big Man all winced as she lay on the ground with her legs crossed and her arms bent behind her back.

“Ow.” The inkling stood up, clearing her throat and stumbling slightly. “Listen up! I’m the inkling who traveled into space and defeated a genetically enhanced bear dozens of times my size! The savior of earth, Agent 3!” She gestured at Deep Cut. “And that’s how you do a roll call. Ow, ow, ow, my hand! Oh… ohhh that stings.”

Frye glanced at Shiver. “Does Lauren seem different to you?”

Shiver facepalmed.

Kumaling addressed Agent 3. “Inkling! Will you join me in my anti-octarian crusade?”

“What? No, of course not. That’d be stupid.”

“I guess she’s on our side.” Shiver remarked.

“In that case…” Frye brought out her communicator.

Kumaling charged at Agent 3, claws and teeth bared. The inkling jumped over the swipe of her claws, jumping off a massive fuzzy arm, followed by a kick off the top of her head.

“Agent 3! Catch!” Frye tossed a hero shot DX at Agent 3. She caught it in midair, and turned around before landing.

“Thanks, but I’m a stringer main!”

Frye shrugged. “Sorry. I just thought you’d be a shooter girl.”

The DX Squidbeak UltraMech chased the Syren through the splatsville skyline, constantly dodging the gusts of wind launched by each swing of the monster’s tail. With each dodge, it countered by firing a lightning bolt or a sonar blast.

One bolt managed to strike the Syren’s wing, burning a hole into the night-black membrane. The monster stopped just long enough for the UltraMech to catch up and slash its back with the claws on its arm. The Syren hollered in pain, stopping in the air while the UltraMech flew past it and turned around, facing the monster a hundred feet away.

Marcus activated a mechanism that set the UltraMech’s claws aglow with a neon green light. “Six-claw slash!” The UltraMech swiped its arms out, launching the six green plasma blades into the Syren’s face.

“Lightning strike!”

“Sonar kick!”

The UltraMech’s combined strikes were followed by a kick, powerful enough to ignite a shockwave of air.

Big Man was swimming through the ground as if it were water. He’d split himself into four iridescent shadows, each one tossing torpedoes one after another to distract Kumaling.

Shiver and Fry stood next to Agent 3. Shiver flipped her splatana into a reverse grip. “Combo time, Frye?”

“Combo time, Shiver.” Frye attached the back of her tri-stringer to the pommel of the Splatana.

Agent 3 looked at them in confusion. “The hell are you doing?”

Shiver grinned. “Different types of hero DX weapons can be combined for more powerful strikes. Basically, we’re readying the finisher.”

“Well then.” Agent 3 held out her stringer, with one hand on the central bowstring. “I’m not one to be outdone!”

Shiver gradually stepped back, so that Frye could pull back on her stringer while keeping the two weapons attached.

Agent 3 shot first.

“Fire!” Shiver yelled. Frye released the taut bowstring. The plasma and energy from the splatana poured into the stringer, and enhanced the shot.

Six bolts of plasma soared through the air towards Kumaling, three behind and twice the size of the other three.

Big Man re-merged himself and swam through the ground, just as the first wave of plasma struck Kumaling. When the second wave struck, she was enveloped in an explosion.

Agent 3 rested her stringer on her shoulders. “Kill-stealers.”

“Oh, please.” Frye rolled her eyes.

Big Man emerged from the ground. “Ay!”

“He’s right. We should back up.” Shiver agreed.

“What? Why?”

Jason Maeda came to with a splitting headache. He was sitting on the floor a few feet away from the Genet-ink Enhancer, with his head leaning on the side of the table. “Wha-what happened?” He accessed one of the dozens of drone cameras he had scattered throughout Splatsville to monitor Kumaling. “Dammit!” He scrambled around. “Hisashi! Where’s the radiation beam generator?!”

Dr. Hisashi walked out of the bathroom, with a foamy layer of hand soap covering her tentacle-hair. “Look in the drawer!”

“Oh.” Jason walked over to the corner of the room, opened a drawer in a metal cabinet, and pulled out a remote control. It was a gray, rectangular slab of metal with several buttons on the face. “Thank you.” He noticed her tentacle-hair. “What…?”

Dr. Hisashi shook her head, spraying soap on the walls and floor. “Don’t ask. I don’t know.”

“Very well then. And now…” Jason started pressing a sequence of buttons on the remote. “Make my monster grow!”

“Your monster?!”

“What’s taking them so long?” Frye asked.

A cloaked drone lowered itself a few dozen feet above the ground, and fired a conical beam of green light over the crater where Kumaling had once stood.

“Oh, there it is.” Frye grabbed Agent 3’s arm. “Now run!”

The DX Squidbeak UltraMech’s kick drove the Syren to crash into the city, pavement erupting all around them as it pushed the Syren down the street. Dirt and pieces of shattered pavement trailed behind the two giants as a trench was carved into Splatsville.

The Syren screeched, in the last moment before it exploded underfoot. The UltraMech stumbled back, arms windmilling at its sides until its pilots managed to stabilize it.

“Glad that’s over.” Hachi remarked.

Lauren shook her head. “Not yet. We’ve still got the other monster to worry about.”

A few streets over, Kumaling rose into kaiju size next to the UltraMech. Her roar echoed throughout the block and then some.

The UltraMech turned to the ursine colossus. “There it is!” Lauren pointed out the window. “Hachi, detach the ornitho and form the PaleoMech. We’ll make this a 2-v-1.”

Kumaling roared and charged at the UltraMech.

“Okay, captain.” Hachi pressed a sequence on their belt.

Ornitho! Mecha! Therizin! Mecha! Liopleur! Mecha!

The ornitho mech’s wings detached themselves from the UltraMech’s back, and reshaped itself while the liopleur and therizin robos grew to mecha size.

The therizin robo screeched and leapt past Kumaling, while slashing her side with its enormous claws. The ornitho and liopleur flew past and over her shoulders, while Hachi pressed the red button in the ornitho mech’s cockpit.

The ornitho, therizin, and liopleur robos combined back-to-back with Kumaling.

“ Guardian of the cosmos! New Squidbeak UltraMech 13th formation! ”

The PaleoMech turned around and slashed Kumaling across her back with the therizin’s claws, sending her staggering forward into a punch from the UltraMech.

“Hold on.” Lauren turned on the communications function between the two mechas. Screens showing their interior cockpits appeared in the corners of the HUDs. “Hachi, did you say anything to introduce your mech?”

“What? N-no, why would I do that?”

“Come on, dude, you’ve gotta have an intro phrase for your mech! Like how we called the DX ‘guardian of the earth’, or the regular UltraMech ‘guardian of the cosmos’.”

“Shouldn’t those be reversed?”

Katherine shrugged. “Gotta admit, we really shot ourselves in the foot when we called the regular UltraMech the guardian of the cosmos.”

Lauren sighed at Hachi, “Look man, just- just say something cool, alright?”

Kumaling charged to grapple with the UltraMech, claws against claws.

“In that case…” Hachi readied themself at their control panel. “Protecting the future with powers from the ancient past! New Squidbeak PaleoMech!”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” Lauren cheered. The UltraMech pushed Kumaling away, leaving it open for the PaleoMech to launch a semicircular laser from its head and into the monster’s chest.

The two mechas stood side by side, hundreds of feet away from Kumaling. The hybrid kaiju brandished her claws, massive blades that glinted in the rising sunlight, and charged.

“Gotta give her points for tenacity!” Lauren admitted. The UltraMech sprinted forward, ducking under a swipe of Kumaling’s claws and rolling behind her. The monster continued forward until the PaleoMech impaled her on the therizin’s massive claws.

Kumaling roared and slashed the PaleoMech, undeterred by the grievous injury. The UltraMech charged forwards, leaping to deliver a roundhouse kick to Kumaling’s back.

Kumaling staggered back. Her fur was severely matted by three rivers of pink ink-blood, yet she continued fighting by jumping onto the roof of an apartment building. The structure bucked and creaked under her weight.

The UltraMech and PaleoMech leapt onto another two apartment buildings. The three giants engaged in battle over the street, meeting biological claws with mechanical claws.

“Hachi!” Lauren ordered, “Hold our hand and give us some leverage!”

Despite their confusion, Hachi deferred to Lauren’s command. “Sure thing, captain.”

The PaleoMech grabbed the UltraMech’s hand, granting the senior mecha the leverage it needed to jump and twist itself sideways, dropkicking Kumaling off the building from across the street.

The PaleoMech jumped down to elbow-slam Kumaling’s chest, eliciting a roar of agony. The kaiju grabbed the mech’s shoulder and forced it to the ground, pressing down so she could stand up over the mecha. The UltraMech launched a salvo of claw beams while jumping down to the street in front of Kumaling, delivering a roundhouse sonar kick immediately after it landed.

The PaleoMech stood up and leapt to the UltraMech’s side. Its fins, claws, and crest all glowed orange. The UltraMech’s lion claws shone green. “ Final strike! Claw-plus drill! ” They fired bladed lasers that twisted and melded together into an orange drill with a green spiralling stripe.

Kumaling roared as the energy drilled into her chest. It pierced the fur and flesh, driving itself into her and exploding outwards. The UltraMech turned its back to the fatal inferno. “Guess she just couldn’t bear it!” Lauren yelled over the crackling fire.

While the kaiju and mechas were fighting on the street, Deep Cut had brought Agent 3 down to Alterna. She scowled as soon as she entered the underground space. “Oh, great. It’s you.”

Sylpha returned the scowl. “Diddd you have to bringgg herrr downnn here?”

“Woah, no way!” Frye ran closer to the engineers’ desk. “Is that a human?!”

Sylpha put her cloak back on, covering her face with the hood. “Yesss. I thoughttt you guysss werrrre used to humansss.”

Frye shook her head. “Maybe the rest of Squidbeak and Inkadia, but we here in the Splatlands haven’t had any human contact.”

“You’re a lot taller than I expected.” Shiver observed.

Sylpha nodded awkwardly. “I gettt thattt a lottt.”

Lauren, Marcus, Katherine, and Hachi teleported into Alterna. “Whoo!” Lauren stretched her arms up, leaning back in celebration. “Now that’s how you do it!” She jogged over to the engineers’ desk. “Zuri, Sylpha, we really owe you two. That extra power-up was just what we needed.”

Zuri coughed into her fist. “Actually, this tech is decades ahead of our world. It was mostly these two.” She gestured to Marina and Sheldon.

“Yeah, but then it would’ve taken twice as long.” Marina pointed out, “And besides, it was a nice collaboration. Engineers of two different worlds, y’know?”

Agent 3 rolled her eyes and interjected, “Yeah, yeah. If this is some stupid alternate universe thing, can you at least get us back to our world? Unless you brought us here somehow to draft us into whatever war you’ve gotten yourselves into.”

“I’m sorry, who’s this?” Lauren pointed at the teenager.

Zuri sighed, facepalming. “That would be our world’s agent 3. The one who isn’t the captain.”

“Oh wow, you were right. I am a dillweed in your world.”

Agent 3 crossed her arms. “Look, can we go home or not?”

Marina nodded. “Yeah, of course. Marcus?”

“On it. Just gimme a sec.” He teleported out of Alterna.

“And he just dipped. Of course.” Agent 3 started walking away. “Now is the exit in the same place?”

“Wait!” Lauren jogged out in front of her counterpart. “I promise, Marcus will come back. He’s just getting the dimensional transporter.”

Agent 3 raised her eyebrow. “Really? You guys just happen to own a dimensional transporter?”

“We have giant mechs. Is that really such a stretch?”

Marcus teleported back into Alterna, holding a card in his hand. “Sorry I took so long. The Wanderer’s Library card fell in my underwear drawer.” He started carefully drawing runes of green ink in the snow with his splatling.

Zuri blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, did you just say your dimensional transporter is a library card?”

“Not just any library.” Katherine corrected, “The Wanderer’s Library. It’s the central hub of the entire multiverse, from which all information and dimensions throughout all existence can be accessed. Marcus got it from some friends he made in a group called the Serpent’s Hand.”

“And he almost let it get lost in his underwear drawer?”

Marcus stood up over the runes. “Magna bibliotheca ad centrum omnium, aperta tibi ad me.” A light blue circle opened in time-space. “Zuri, Sylpha, other Agent 3. After you.”

Agent 3 took a few apprehensive steps back. “And we’re just supposed to take your word for it?”

“Relax.” Shiver assured her, “We can vouch for these guys. And we got you away from Kumaling when she turned giant, didn’t we?”

“Well how do I know that wasn’t to lure me into some other trap? Or all three of us?”

Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, for the love of… look, I’ll go first, okay?” He jumped into the Way. After about 30 seconds, he jumped back out. “See? Perfectly safe. Now do you wanna go home or not? Because we had to dismantle our old dimensional transporter a couple years ago, so this is your only option.”

“Yes.”

“Yesss.”

Agent 3 rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

The two inklings shoved past each other into the Way. Sylpha turned around. “Forrr whattt ittt’s worth, I actually kind offf enjoyeddd workinggg with you two. Good luck with… justtt, everythinnng, I guess.” She turned again, and walked through the Way.

Marcus rolled his shoulders. “Just a sec. Someone’s gotta guide them back home.” He jumped in and closed the Way behind himself.

The Wanderer’s Library had shelves reaching higher and farther out in either direction than any mortal could perceive. Each inch of the ethereal, wooden bookshelves were covered in tomes from throughout the multiverse, ranging from booklets that could fit in one’s pocket to encyclopedias larger than Sylpha’s entire body, which would take a scholar years to peruse all their forbidden contents.

When Marcus jumped out of the Way, the first thing he noticed was a crack in the ground ten feet in front of the group. It was roughly ten feet wide and five feet across, with jagged edges. Beneath was pure dark blackness, the kind that wasn’t possible by any metaphysically normal means. “Watch your step.” He pointed at the literal black hole. “Down there, that’s the Ginnungagap. The void outside the multiverse. I don’t know exactly what happens if you fall down there, but I’ve never seen anything come back from it. For all we know, it could mean complete removal from existence.”

Agent 3 looked down at the void of voids. “So don’t fall into the hole outside of known reality. Got it. And here I wanted to cannonball into the black hole.”

Marcus ignored her sarcasm. “Well, don’t.” He pressed a single button on the edge of his belt buckle.

Zipcaster!

Marcus enveloped himself in his selected special, aiming his arm at the solid book-filled shelf. He took a deep breath, and turned to the others with a grin on his face. “Kids, don’t try this at home. Or anywhere else, for that matter.” He fired his zipcaster to stick himself onto the spine of a massive book. A few feet below him, the barcode alone was the size of his entire body. “Okay, I really hope this works!” With one hand and both legs, he kept himself perched on the book-spine. With his other hand, he fired the zipcaster rope at the top of Zuri’s head.

“Hey- whoa!” Zuri only had a split-second to look up at the glowing green tentacle on her head, before Marcus yanked her over the Ginnungagap, her legs and arms flailing. “Whoa whoa whao!” When she landed on the other side, she was shaking. “Dude, what the hell?! I could’ve died!”

“No you couldn’t!” Marcus called down, “Our belt specials are stronger than normal, and they last longer too! Here, watch!” He grabbed Agent 3’s face from above and away, and sent her flying across the Ginnungagap.

As soon as she was on solid ground, Agent 3 yanked Marcus’s arm off of herself. “You little jerk! You did that on purpose, didn’t you?!”

Marcus smiled. “Yeah, sure did.”

Zuri snickered, “That was pretty funny.”

Agent 3 scowled, bonking Zuri on the head. “Now that’s comedy.”

Marcus rolled his eyes, before turning them back to Sylpha. “Ready, Sylph?”

Sylpha looked down at the entrance into the Ginnungagap. Despite how small the hole was, it seemed like a yawning abyss, as if the nothing was calling to her. She tore her eyes back up at Marcus, nodding somewhat apprehensively. “Ready.”

“Alright.” Marcus fired his zipcaster arm at Sylpha, ensnaring the long black hair atop her head, and brought her over to the other side with Zuri and Agent 3. His zipcaster ran out just as he leapt over to them. “Okay, now we should be able to get to you ladies’ dimension.” He started walking through the hall. “Please stay behind your tour guide, namely me, and make sure you ask a Docent before borrowing a book. You can’t miss ’em.”

The group of four walked through the halls between the bookshelves. At one point, they spent ten minutes walking past the spine of a single book titled ‘ The Histories, Mysteries, And Miscellaneous Trivia Of Door Hinges Throughout The Multiverse ’

They all agreed it didn’t seem like much of a page-turner.

Scattered throughout the library were creatures that crawled upon the shelves and organized the books within, using their humanoid hands upon anywhere between 6-8 spider-like limbs. They were humanoid, with grasshopper-esque legs and orange compound eyes.

“Those guys are Pages.” Marcus explained, “Their whole job is to keep the Library organized.”

Zuri glanced around the incalculable, unfathomable bookshelves. “Hell of a job.”

A few times, the group came across Docents and members of the Serpent’s Hand from multiple different universes filling in holes to the Ginnungagap.

“Where exactly did these holes come from?” Agent 3 asked, while the group walked around a relatively small abyss surrounded by yellow tape.

“Basically about a year ago, an elder god called the Scarlet King invaded the Library and tried to destroy the entire multiverse by destroying the tree at the center of all existence. I’m not entirely sure how he died, but I guess they’re still doing repair work. Whoop.” He jumped over a small hole, yelling over at one of the repair crews, “You missed a spot!”

“Is that…” Zuri’s eyes went wide. “Is that why the sky was red for a while? We all just assumed it was air pollution.”

“Yeah. Apparently, a lot of universes experienced red skies while the Scarlet King was in the Wanderer’s Library. He was basically like the god of evil.”

“And you guys killed him?” Sylpha asked, somewhat skeptically.

Marcus laughed, “Oh hell no. We didn’t stand a chance. But he’s not a threat anymore.” He stopped in his tracks. “Anyway, this should be a good place to open a Way into your universe. Just stand back. And if there’s any place in particular you wanna go to, you’ll have to describe it to me.”

Zuri and Sylpha had to pull Agent 3 with them as they stepped backwards. Zuri described the interior of a spare house that her universe’s version of the Squid Sisters had lent her and Sylpha.

“Right.” Marcus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He concentrated on everything Zuri had said, visualising each detail one by one to create a picture in his mind’s eye. A spark expanded into a full-sized Way in front of him.

“Thattt’s amazinnng.” Sylpha gasped, “Are you like, whattt, some kinddd of wizarddd?”

Marcus panted from thaumaturgical exertion. “Not really. The Wanderer’s Library is basically permeated with magic, y’know, like there’s literally magic in the air, and I can use the Library card to sorta, I guess, channel it. Sorry, opening Ways to somewhere I’ve never been really takes it out of me.”

“Oh. I understanddd.” Sylpha lied.

The Way flickered and shrunk slightly. Marcus pointed at the vortex. “You might wanna go in there before it closes.”

Zuri nodded. “Bye!” She sprinted and leapt into the Way. Five seconds later, she emerged back in the Library. “It’s the right place.”

“Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.” Agent 3 muttered.

Marcus waved the three women off, as they walked through the Way. It closed on its own behind them.

Marcus sighed. He turned around, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and walked back through the library at the center of existence.

Chapter Text

Feb 1 2025; 5:30 AM

An octoling was walking through a hallway. Her tentacle-hair was midnight black, and adorned with five long strands of seaweed. Each one rose straight upwards like horns, undulating as if underwater.

Takonesama had a sense of pride in her from the seaweed strands. The vast majority of her fellow elites only had two strands under DJ Octavio. When Viktor and Malecia Kyanshu had taken over following his last disappearance, so-called triple-weeders had become slightly more common. She, however, had earned her third seaweed long before that, when she’d shot then-newcomer Agent 4 out of his final respawn and forced him into a lengthy retreat.

Her fourth strand had been earned during the Kyanshus’ tenure, when she’d given them advice on their plan to create artificial monsters. The Kyanshus themselves had first thought of the OctoBeasts, and had already decided to use the lesser octarians to create them, but each prototype emerged as little more than clusters of milky eyes, twig-like limbs, and semiliquid clumps of flesh.

Takonesama had been the one to suggest using Katherine’s genetic material as the final component for each OctoBeast, to make her suffer for abandoning the octarians and betraying her family for the New Squidbeak Splatoon. The original plan had been to keep Katherine in suspended animation, conscious yet in perpetual sensory deprivation, to continuously harvest her DNA until they created an OctoBeast that could best Squidbeak and exact their centennial vengeance against the inklings and all octolings who chose to live with them.

That part of the plan had fallen through when Katherine had been rescued. However, they’d still obtained enough of her genetic makeup to create multiple OctoBeasts. Each one was encouraged to see Viktor and Malecia as its parents, as well as its bosses. For all intents and purposes, Katherine was simultaneously the mother and sister of every OctoBeast that she helped to kill.

Takonesama could still remember the day she’d earned her fifth strand as if it were 2 years ago.

Apr 15 2023; 7:33 PM

Agent 4 went limp. He was completely unrecognizable, midway through a genetic transformation into a quasi-mammalian. His fangs were gradually elongating, half of his body was covered in brown fur, and claws had started emerging from his extremities.

Malecia set the needle down on the table. “There. That’s more like it.”

Viktor put a hand on Takonesama’s shoulder. “I’m very proud of you. It’s not every octoling who can single-handedly take on three agents and capture one of them.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kyanshu.” Takonesama beamed with pride. Her seaweed strands straightened almost imperceptibly. “I have to admit, this is much better than simply killing this inkling like I expected.”

Malecia smiled. “Isn’t it? We’re going to spread the modified fuzzy ooze throughout Splatsville, to make every inkling into even more of a monster than it already is. And then, we’ll spread it throughout more cities until their entire civilization is destroyed from the inside out!”

Viktor smiled. “You know what I think? I think it’s time we gave you a fifth seaweed strand.”

Takonesama’s eyes shot wide open. “Really? But- but that’s unprecedented! Sir, I’m flattered, but are you really sure about this? I already have more strands than any elite since the great turf war.”

Malecia gripped her husband’s elbow. “She’s right, honey. There’s never been an elite octoling with five seaweed strands before.”

Viktor turned to look Malecia in the eyes, hands in hands. “We’ve also never been this close to destroying the inklings once and for all! Compared to us, what did Octavio ever accomplish? Stealing the zapfish twice, brainwashing a single celebrity, that was nothing compared to the havoc we’ll be able to wreak with this! And I think Takonesama deserves at least some of the credit, given what she was up against.”

Malecia looked over at Takonesama. The younger woman was standing ramrod-straight. Her arms were at her sides, and her seaweed strands were undulating slower, as if their movements were more calculated than usual. “I suppose you have a point. Most octolings wouldn’t have even bothered to fight any of the agents when they’re fully armed with the technology they stole from us, let alone two of them and another without our tech. Okay then, Takonesama. You can have a fifth seaweed strand.”

Feb 1 2025; 5:35 AM

Takonesama had never been known for her photographic memory. Nonetheless, when she opened the door at the end of the hallway, everyone in the room went still and silent. The day Viktor and Malecia were killed by their own traitorous daughter and her inkling ‘brother’, her five-stranded head made her the new de facto leader of the octarians.

During the nine-month red skies crisis, it’d been made official.

The room was located deep beneath the Splatlandian deserts. Its dome-shaped ceiling was 200 feet above the floor. Halfway up, there was a walkway radiating all around the interior, bordered by a railing. Her hands gripped that railing as she looked down to address her subordinates. Hundreds of octolings and octarians, with varying numbers of tentacles and levels of sapience, looked up at her in rapt attention.

“My fellow octarians! All of you who have remained loyal throughout our recent ordeals, through changing leaderships, and times when our enemies seem to be growing stronger by the day! When you made me your new leader, I promised that I would be the one to end the inklings’ reign on the surface, and finally correct the mistakes of the great turf war, once and for all! Well, after all these months of waiting, our preparations are complete!” She took a small remote control out of her pocket and pressed a button.

From the top of the dome to a few feet over Takonesama’s head, the walls turned into multiple screens which showed the walkway from all angles. Directly across from her, a second octoling walked through another door.

Takonesama smiled at her second-in-command. “Matt Akokikan, care to do the honors?”

“Of course, Takonesama.” Matt took a second remote out, and pressed a button to change the screens.

Every screen showed a poorly-photoshopped image of two octoling women and an octoling man, with the Kyanshus and Takonesama’s faces on them, depicting Malecia and Viktor presenting Takonesama with a sixth seaweed strand. Over the top of the image was a banner reading, “Octos are winner!”

“Oh, squit, not that one!”

“Matt! I know I gave you the right image!” Takonesama yelled, her face red.

“I thought you did! Maybe you sent me two different files by accident?!”

“How would I even accomplish that?!”

“I don’t know! You told me your computer was acting up lately!”

“And you said you’d fix it! Now if you have the right image, then pull it up!”

“Here it is!”

The image changed to show a GIF from a news feed, depicting the New Squidbeak UltraMech and PaleoMech fighting Kumaling on top of buildings.

A few octolings were still quietly laughing. One abruptly fell to the floor, after a burst of concussive ink struck them in the side of their head.

When everyone looked up at Takonesama, she was lowering an advanced octoshot at her side. “Sorry about that! Anyway, please turn your attention back to the screens.”

The remaining octarians nervously turned to look up at the screens. At the bottom of each one was a headline.

“Ever since they attacked Splatsville with their mechas, public distrust of the New Squidbeak Splatoon has been rising exponentially. At this point, more than half the city doesn’t believe their claims that the makoids were mind-controlling them. And with each kaiju battle they engage in, they cause more collateral damage. The more collateral damage they cause, the less civilians will trust them. So we’re going to help speed up the process!” She changed each individual screen to show a different complex equation and chemical symbology.

“The original method of creating OctoBeasts was overly resource-heavy, and relied on genetic material that the Kyanshus were quickly running out of.” Matt explained, “That’s why Takonesama and I have been spending months developing a new method of creating OctoBeasts.”

“Allow us to introduce the Neo OctoBeasts. A single volunteer octoling, genetically combined with a lesser octarian…” She pulled out a small glass vial with a needle on the end, filled with a viscous black liquid. “...and ink from yours truly, plus elements of machinery. With this new system, we’ll be able to create more OctoBeasts while expending less resources!”

The room was filled with cheers. Takonesama smiled, holding the remote in one hand and the needle in her other. “Now then, any volunteers for the inaugural experiment?”

One octoling raised her hand.

Takonesama pointed down. “Yes, you there! What’s your name?”

“Febbie, ma’am! If I have a chance to become the first Neo OctoBeast, then I’ll take that chance!”

Takonesama raised her eyebrow. “Febbie? Well, at least I can respect her passion…” She cleared her throat. “Very well then, Febbie! Come on up here and we’ll guide you through the process.”

Febbie climbed up to the walkway via the stairs located in a hallway just outside the main room. Despite her best efforts to look stoic, she was shaking with anticipation. Matt and Takonesama met her in the middle of the ring. “Before we begin the process, there’s some things you need to know.” Takonesama counted on her fingers. “First, we’ve barely run any preliminary experiments on this. It’s practically untested. Second, the process is completely irreversible. Once you become a Neo OctoBeast, you’ll stay a Neo Octo-Beast until you die.”

Matt muttered under his breath, “Which, given the track record-”

Takonesama elbowed her partner in the side. “And third, we’re gonna be turning you into a genetic slurry with multiple other organisms before reconstituting you as a partially-cybernetic freak of nature. There’s a non-zero chance the process will be unbelievably painful.”

“I understand. And I’m willing to take that risk if it means taking back the surface on behalf of my fellow octarians.”

Takonesama’s grin was wide enough to show her fangs. “Now that’s what I like to hear.” She and Matt led Febbie down the walkway, until they reached a part of the wall with an indent. On either side of the indent, there was a small square panel.

Matt and Takonesama pressed their palms against the panels at the same time. Horizontal lines of blue light moved up and down, scanning them as an automated security measure. When they were finished, they beeped.

The indentation rose into the wall, revealing the interior of a small cylindrical chamber. It was large enough to house a multitude of octarians. In the side wall, there was a deep square hole. Takonesama patted Febbie on the back. “Last chance.”

Febbie shook her head. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

It only took a few moments to gather four octotroopers, five octocopters, and three octoballs into the chamber with Febbie. As barely-sentient lesser octarians, their consent in the project went without saying.

“Now for the final touch.” Matt placed an advanced octoshot, built for shooting plasma instead of ink, into the interior hole. “Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“Good.” Matt backed out of the device, standing next to Takonesama. They nodded at each other and pressed their palms to the scanners.

The door lowered shut. The two octolings walked backwards.

From the outside, all that could be heard was the sounds of metal banging against metal and guttural, agonized screams.

The entire process lasted five minutes.

Smoke poured out from the cracks at the edges of the door, before it opened. Through the fog, a large silhouette was visible.

The lone humanoid that remained in the chamber leapt out, shaking the walkway. Takonesama and Matt were forcibly backed up against the railing.

The inaugural Neo OctoBeast resembled a supernaturally muscular octoling. Twelve long red tentacles radiated out from her scalp, writhing and pulsating. Attached to each forearm was an oversized octoshot. “Yeah, baby! OctoShooter’s here to wipe out the inklings and have a blast doing it!” She whooped and hollered, firing up into the ceiling. The metal shook overhead.

“Stop that, you idiot!” Takonesama lunged forward to grab the monster’s arms and force them down. “Are you trying to bring the whole ceiling down?!”

“Oh… sorry. Got a little carried away there.”

Takonesama took a couple steps back. “Save that for the surface.” She pointed down the walkway. “There’s a door over there. Go down the hallway, then the third door on the left, and there’s the kettle to the Splatlands.”

“Right. Thanks.” OctoShooter turned in a quarter-circle, and started marching down the walkway. “And off I go!”

Matt tapped Takonesama on the shoulder. “He’s going the wrong way, isn’t he?”

“Oh squit, is he?”

Feb 1 2025; 12 PM

For the past three months, Hachi had been working a part-time job in the packaging department of a printing company. They were pushing a solid black cart through an aisle of shelves covered in boxes, with a rectangular bin, twelve pieces of cardboard, and several papers’ worth of orders on the top layer of their cart. At the end closest to them, there was a shallow dip in the cart containing a pile of rubber bands and a single pen.

“Okay…” Hachi stopped at the side of the aisle, where they looked down at their orders. “Quadruple F132.” They pushed the cart a few inches forward and knelt down. The box in the designated spot was closed with a strip of tape, necessitating them to reach up and grab their pen. Instead of a box cutter, they opted for it as a safer alternative.

Something about the quiet sound of the pen tip slicing across the tape brought Hachi a sense of satisfaction. While they were reaching into the box, they felt a multitude of small, soft objects fall into their tentacle-hair. “Huh?” They looked up, causing the rubber bands to fall into their shirt. Each one sent a subtly unpleasant tingling sensation down their back and arms. “What was that for?”

Standing over Hachi was an inkling, with a braid in his orange tentacle-hair tying it into a topknot-style, a black V-neck tee, and a pair of fingerless gloves made of black leather. “No reason. It’s just funny to mess with you.”

Hachi stood up. The rubber bands in their shirt fell to the floor. “You know I’ve gotta pick those all up now, right?”

Their coworker shrugged. “So? If someone like you wants a job, you have to work to earn it. Maybe work a little harder than some others.” He continued pushing his cart forward, whistling as he did so.

Hachi scowled. As much as they wanted to call out their coworker, or ask them what they meant, the words caught in their throat. They worried about disrupting the workflow, or attracting unwanted attention to themself. Instead, they sighed and knelt down to pick up the rubber bands. Just as they were standing up, the device on their wrist started beeping. The sudden noise caused Hachi to yelp and jump up. It took them a split-second to realize what it was. “Oh, great, what now?!” All of their frustration came out as a single, snapping yell.

A burly man walked up to Hachi from behind. He wore a business-casual suit and a soaked-style split in his bright red tentacle-hair. “Hikuma! What the blazin’ hell was that?”

“Sorry, sir. I just got a call and-”

“And decided to yell and disrupt the workflow because you’re an immature, spoiled little brat, is that it? I was generous enough to give you this job because the captain of the New Squidbeak Splatoon vouched for you, even though you’re grossly underqualified. And now you’re throwing a temper tantrum over a phone call.”

Hachi clenched their fists at their sides. “How am I underqualified? And this isn’t my phone, it’s my communicator! That means it’s something important!”

“Well, if it’s more important than your job, then let me help you out.” The supervisor reached into his pocket, and loudly slammed a pink slip onto Hachi’s cart. “You’re fired! And now that you’re no longer my employee, I can do this!” Grinning, he backhanded Hachi across the mouth.

A wet, visceral noise resounded from the impact. A few teeth and flecks of orange ink-blood shot out of their mouth. The supervisor pointed at the stain. “Clean that up.”

Hachi gasped in pain. They slowly raised their hand to their chin, before affixing their former supervisor with a hateful, venomous glare. “I’m sorry. Last I checked, I don’t work for you anymore.” They flipped him off before teleporting away.

The supervisor huffed. “Ungrateful little octoslob.” As he walked into the next aisle, he saw an inkling foaming at the mouth and tossing boxes, clearly having consumed a substance that was never meant to be consumed. “You there. 2 weeks paid sick leave.”

Hachi appeared in Alterna one molecule at a time, so unfathomably fast that for all intents and purposes, the process took an instant. “What do you want, captain?” They snarled, kicking up a small flurry of snow.

Lauren scowled on her box chair. “Well, good afternoon to you too, new agent 8. I was calling you to let you know there’s another monster heading here from the desert, but if you’re going to be like that, then you can sit this one out. Maybe go back to work.”

Hachi looked down. “I can’t. I got fired.”

“What?” Lauren jumped down onto her feet. “I told your boss you were an agent. He knows we have to go out and fight at random!”

“Maybe it has to do with something else?” Marcus suggested, “What exactly happened before Lauren called you?”

Hachi rolled their eyes. “One of my coworkers dropped some rubber bands into my shirt, and when he walked off, he made some snide remark, probably about me being an octoling. And then my communicator went off right when I was doing something, so I yelled, and then my boss came over, called me unqualified even though I’ve always met my quota and then some, and then he fired me and backhanded me across the mouth! And then he had the nerve to tell me to clean up the ink-stain after he fired me!”

“Dude, that’s terrible.” Katherine acknowledged, “I don’t even remember having to deal with that kind of prejudice in Inkopolis, and apparently Octolings have been part of Splatsville for way longer! What the hell is going on this year?”

Lauren sighed. “It’s because of the IRS. They’re the ones spreading misinformation, and then inklings whose lives aren’t ideal take it at face value because they want someone to blame who they can actually hurt, unlike the politicians who are actually at fault, and then they buy further into the propaganda and spread the stupidity further like a virus.”

“And right now, the best we can do is defeat one monster at a time as they’re sent out.” Hachi deadpanned.

“Until we find out who’s calling the shots, yeah. I’m afraid playing defense is the best we can do.”

“In that case, what are we waiting for? Let’s go out into the desert and stop this monster before it reaches Splatsville in the first place!”

Lauren gave a wide, fanged grin. “Now that’s the spirit. And for the record, we were waiting for you.”

“Wait, I thought you hated being an agent.” Marcus pointed out.

Hachi shrugged. “I do. But if I’m gonna get fired for it, then I might as well.”

“Okay. That’s… a little less of the spirit, but we can work with this.” Lauren decided. “Let’s move out, team!”

Feb 1 2025; 12:12 PM

The four agents walked through the desert. “Can you tell us what it was like working there?” Lauren asked, “Did you suspect they might’ve been anti-octoling?”

Hachi huffed into the hot, dry, stifling air of the arid Splatlands. “Not really. Sometimes, I caught my coworkers giving me weird looks or mumbling things, but I assumed I was just being paranoid. And sometimes, they’d mess with me by like, dropping rubber bands down my shirt like today, or doing something else like exchanging pens with me when I wasn’t looking, but they’d always be broken pens so my hands would get covered in writing ink, and I’d have to waste time washing them. Except I just thought those were supposed to be regular pranks. Y’know, messing with the new guy.”

Lauren glanced around in rumination. Her eyes passed over the cacti and sand dunes. “And your supervisor?”

Hachi rubbed their elbows. “He never made eye contact with me. He gave me credit for meeting quotas, but he always told me I should do better than I was, even though there were others who weren’t even meeting any quota, and he never gave them any grief. And, y’know, there was also…” They gestured at their mouth. A few teeth were still missing.

Lauren drifted over to hold Hachi’s hand. “I’m sorry. I should’ve done more research on that place, and the workplace culture. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt any more seriously.”

Hachi pulled their hand out of Lauren’s grip. “Thanks. But I don’t like being touched.”

“Right. Sorry.”

As the group walked, Marcus pointed at the crest of a sand dune hundreds of feet away. “Anyone think that might be our guy?”

Lauren squinted, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun with her palm. All she could make out was a small, oddly-colored figure. “Maybe. I’ll try and get an aerial view.”

Eagle! Armor!

Lauren shot into the sky.

“I should go help her.”

Ornitho! Armor!

Hachi flew after Lauren, leaving the siblings by themselves on the ground.

“So…” Katherine cleared her throat, “How’s everything with Jamie?”

“Hey, only I get to call him that.”

Kat giggled. “I know, I know. But seriously, how is everything?”

“Pretty good. I helped him shop for a new binder last week. And he invited me to spectate Hadal Zone’s next match.”

“Oh, that’s nice. It’s good that you’ve found someone after you broke up with Wendy.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Your one and only ex-girlfriend.” A smile covered nearly her entire face.

Marcus laughed. “Yeah. Because I never had a girlfriend before I moved to Inkopolis.”

Lauren watched the figure on the sand dune from dozens of feet in the air. Her eyes were protected from the sun and dust by the visor, allowing her an enhanced sense of vision. She easily noticed when Hachi appeared next to her in the ornitho armor. “I’ve got this, bud.”

“I know, but I…” Hachi took a deep breath. “Look, I feel bad about snapping at you, okay? That’s all.”

“Well, it’s good to have some help. Let’s swoop in and get a closer look.”

Hachi nodded. The two winged cephalings flew across the sky towards the sand dune. “Okay, that’s definitely our guy!”

A blast of plasma forced Lauren and Hachi to flip out of the way. OctoShooter fired at them with both arms, yelling, “I was hoping to make it to Splatsville, but I’m not complaining about some target exercise!”

Lauren and Hachi weaved between the plasma blasts, darting and flipping as explosions surrounded them.

“Let’s go!” Marcus yelled.

Leopard! Armor!

Dolphin! Armor!

The Myers siblings sprinted at OctoShooter.

Lauren found herself engulfed in flames. All she could see was red and orange. “Maybe I should fight fire with fire!”

Hawk! Gun!

Lauren dove out of the fireball, trailing flames on her wings, and shot a flaming ball of plasma at the monster below.

Octoshooter barely saw the fireball coming before she was blasted in the face, eliciting a grunt of pain. Her stream of plasma fire briefly stopped.

“Now’s our chance!” Katherine yelled.

“Way ahead of you!”

Lion! Gun! Panther! Gun!

Dolphin! Gun! Swordfish! Gun!

“You know, I just realized I barely ever see you use the swordfish as a gun!”

“Well yeah, it’s a swordfish! Kinda in the name!”

“New 8, after me!” Lauren called.

Therizin! Sword!

Hachi flipped their belt buckle open to retrieve the liopleur battery.

Octoshooter slammed her fists together and fired a combined burst of plasma at Lauren and Hachi.

“Spinning wing-shield!” Lauren wrapped her wings around herself and spun into the ball of plasma. It exploded against her.

Lauren’s scream of pain was drowned out by the explosion. Fire engulfed her armor, tossing her wings askew and forcing her out of the air. At the same time, hachi flicked open their sword’s hilt to set the battery inside, and slashed down at OctoShooter. The energy of the liopleur battery traveled up the therizin blade in a millisecond, causing it to glow as they sliced down.

OctoShooter staggered back. “You know what? Safety off!” Her namesake external organs glowed with white-hot energy. “This is what I’m doing!”

Lauren faceplanted in the sand, leaving a crater all around herself. “Ow.”

OctoShooter leaned forward, pressing her guns into the sand. “Launching blast!”

Hachi scrambled back, their horror evident even with the ornitho helmet covering their face. “Guys, we’ve gotta-!” They were interrupted when everything exploded, blinding them in fire.

Chapter Text

Inside an apartment twenty stories above the streets of Splatsville, an inkling couple was fighting.

“I can’t believe you were on that site! That group is nothing but a bunch of hateful-”

“I don’t agree with everything they’re saying! I just think they have some good points!”

“Some good points?! They all think the octolings should be exterminated or forced underground!”

There was a brief pause. “I said ‘some’!”

The sounds of yelling and plates being thrown against walls were interrupted by a window shattering in the next room over. Lauren flew clean through the living room before crashing into the table, splintering it in half.

There was a brief pause, where the only sound was Lauren quietly groaning. By the time she sat up, the couple had started arguing again.

“Great, now the captain of Squidbeak just crashed into our table!”

“How the hell is that my fault?!”

“Hey, uh, guys?”

“I hate you! I can’t believe I ever started dating you!”

Lauren stood up. “Look, I can…”

“Yeah, well maybe you should just move back in with your parents!”

The captain slowly backed up. “Sorry. I’ll, um, I’ll be going now.” She opened the door, and slammed it shut as she slumped against the wall in the hallway. “Well.” She breathed in and out heavily. The sounds of angered screaming were still audible. “I’m gonna pretend that didn’t just happen.”

Across the hallway, a vortex opened. Lauren stood up. “Oh great, what now?” She pointed her wings at the hole in the fabric of the universe, in a position where she could launch her feathers at a moment’s notice.

An inkling emerged from the portal. He looked a few years younger than Lauren, with his blue tentacle-hair tied into a topknot. He was wearing a casual outfit consisting of a T-shirt, a pair of jeans, and a pair of worn-down sneakers. The first thing he saw was something that looked like a metallic humanoid with an unreadable gaze, its sharp wings pointed straight at him.

The blue inkling’s eyes widened in terror. “Woah! Woah! What the-?!” The portal had already disappeared, so that when he backed up, he hit the wall. His breathing was labored, panicked.

Lauren relaxed her stance. “Hey, dude, relax.” She made a point of softening her voice.

Hawk! Battery! Eagle! Battery!

Lauren set the two batteries in her belt buckle. She reached out again, as a normal, unarmed and unarmored inkling. “See? I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The younger inkling’s breathing slowly, but noticeably, evened out. He blinked rapidly, as if trying to find some intersection between what he’d seen and his own perceptions of reality. He accepted Lauren’s outstretched hand as she helped him up. “Who are you?” He looked down at her belt buckle, with its inactive screen and the three powerful devices stored within. “What are you?”

Lauren winced. “Sorry about that. Long story short…” She backed up, spreading her arms faux-theatrically. “I’m Lauren Laker, agent 3, and the captain of the New Squidbeak Splatoon.”

Lion! Armor! Panther! Armor!

Marcus covered himself in three layers of protection before he landed, head-first, in a back alley garbage can. All he could do was groan as his ears rang with a deafening reverberation. The garbage can tipped over, spilling him out along with an assortment of garbage.

Nearby, a sea urchin was busying his hands with a deck of cards. “Hey, slick. Care for a game of tableturf?”

Marcus sat up. His head was adorned with a moldy banana peel, and his claws had stabbed their way into half-eaten pieces of fruit, expired meat, and educational pamphlets. “Eh… no thanks. I’m kinda busy.”

The hobo shrugged. “More for me, then.” He reached down with one of the cards, in a way that made Marcus all the more confident in his decision.

Lion! Battery! Panther! Battery!

“Eugh.” As soon as he was out of the alley, Marcus shuddered. “I’m not sure what that was, but I am definitely way too young to see it.”

He looked around the area. It was somewhere in northwest downtown Splatsville; generally a less well-off area. Across the street, there was a bright blue antique telephone box, which had been out of order for nearly 20 years.

A dimensional portal opened in front of the box. Marcus ran across the street, ignoring the cars honking at him as they screeched to a stop around him.

Leopard! Battery!

“Outta the road, Squidbeak!”

“Just cause you’ve destroyed this street twelve times doesn’t mean you own it!”

“I’m in no hurry! I just like yelling at teenagers!”

By the time Marcus had sprinted over to the vortex, a child was falling out of it. She looked 14, the same age Marcus had been when he’d first joined the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Her vibrant pink tentacle-hair was low-cut, with two bulbs flanking her head, while a pair of sunglasses concealed her eyes. “What the hell just happened?” She pointed at Marcus. “You, do you know what’s going on? Cause I’m drawing a blank.”

“Yeah. Listen, I know this is a lot to take in, but you’re not in your universe anymore.”

The teenager’s mouth went dry. “The hell…? You say that like you have experience with this stuff.”

The slightly older inkling shrugged. “Yeah. It’s, ah, it’s a long story. Listen, my name’s Marcus.” He held out his hand. “You?”

The pink-tentacled inkling briefly hesitated. “Name’s Rose.”

“Nice. What’s your last name, though?”

Rose gave Marcus a skeptical look. “Why do you want to know that?”

“I mean, I guess you don’t need to tell me, since I don’t actually know anyone else named Rose. For what it’s worth, my last name is Myers. And you… let me guess. Tyler? You look like someone who’d have a first name for a last name.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “What does that even mean? And no.”

“Okay. How about Ortiz?”

“Wh-b-why?”

Marcus shrugged. “I dunno. Something about the pink tentacles kinda makes me think your last name is Ortiz.”

Rose facepalmed. “Jacqueline! My last name is Jacqueline, okay?”

“Oh. That’s a nice last name.”

“Uh-huh. Thanks. Now, that whole thing about this being another dimension? Next you’re gonna tell me that you’re part of some organization that deals with time-space anoma- oh no.”

Marcus slowly clasped his palms together.

Rose blanched. “Oh no!”

“Yeah. I’m a member of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Namely, agent 4.” Marcus blinked. “And judging by that look on your face, I’m guessing those names mean something to you.”

Rose huffed, pinching the upper bridge of her nose. “Yeah. I’m the agent 4 of my universe.”

The Splatsville Reef had only recently opened for turf wars a few months prior. Much like its Inkopolis counterpart, it was an open space consisting of a paved ground, several shops, and a few vending machines.

From the sky, a purple metallic shape descended like a meteor and crashed into the ground. Smoke and ink-stained debris erupted all around her. The eight cephalings in the stage paused their turf war game.

The dust cleared around Katherine. She was lying in the midst of a small crater, protected by all three layers of her armor. The outermost layer was the dolphin.

“Kat!” James slid down the slope of the crater and knelt down over the felled octoling. “What happened?”

Katherine slowly moved her hand, weighed down by all of her armors at once, to press her belt one button at a time.

Dolphin! Battery! Swordfish! Battery! Goblin Shark! Battery!

James stood back as Katherine’s armor burst into pieces all around her, swirling until they were reduced to batteries in her belt buckle. After a moment, she reached up to take James’s hand. “Thanks.” She gasped as he helped her stand.

“You’re welcome. But seriously, what happened this time?”

“There was a monster in the Splatlands. It had these massive octo shots attached to its arms, and it turned the safety off. It blasted us all sky-high!” Katherine grabbed James by the shoulders. “I have to make sure the others are okay!”

“What the hell is going on here?!” One of the four octolings on the other team yelled.

Katherine wheeled around to face her. The octoling was no older than 16, with her tentacle-hair tied back into a ponytail style.

Katherine didn’t recognize any of them. “Sorry, it’s kind of a long story. Who are you?”

“That’s kind of a long story too.” The other octoling admitted, “My name is Sky Octrope.”

Hachi crashed into the sidewalk near 76 Trouter’s Lane, leaving a shallow trench in their wake. The only reason they weren’t outright killed by the impact was because they’d found enough sense to activate all three paleo armors at once.

Therizin! Battery! Liopleur! Battery! Ornitho! Battery!

Hachi stood up, panting, with their robos stored conveniently in their belt buckle. They took stock of their surroundings, including the antique store next to them. A dim purple glow was emerging from its windows. “Squit, what now?!” They reluctantly sprinted into the small building.

Inside the antique shop, the shelves were filled with knick-knacks from across history. A few were real. Most were fake. A young man was holding a faded stone disc, screaming in pain as it enveloped him with the violet light.

“Hold on!” Hachi sprinted towards the man, their shoes scuffing against the polished floor. All around them, patrons screamed.

A cold wind started blowing through the shop. The authentic wares levitated, as if by dark spirits. In a small tornado of black wind, the Servants of the Dreaming Cadavers’ leader appeared. He was entirely concealed by his own robes and hood. “Behold!” He gestured to the man holding the disc. “This stone holds evidence of beliefs from the human era. And now, this cephaling’s body will become a vessel to harness those beliefs, in the glorious name of our lord and destroyer! May phantoms’ blood be spilled in an unending stream, may the oceans turn to stone, and may heaven itself fall. Witness, and rejoice, upon the advent of the next yosotholing!”

The violet radiance enveloped the afflicted civilian. His body and musculature expanded outwards, until he was larger than any ordinary cephaling. The stone disc attached itself to his chest and expanded, making the decorations upon its surface plain to behold. It was arranged in a clock shape, except with symbols in place of numbers.

A water-bearing goblet stood at the top, in position of noon and midnight alike. Past that, in clockwise order, were a pair of fish entwined in an eternal dance, a ram with curved horns, a bull with long pointed horns, a mask split in half between a smiling visage and a screaming one, a crab with mighty pincers, a lion with a mane that radiated like the sun, a human maiden clad in sacred robes, a set of scales symbolizing the balance of the cosmos, a scorpion with its deadly tail at the ready, a centaur with wings upon his back armed with a bow and arrow, and a goat running on water. The clock only bore a single hand, pointing to the bull at 3 o’clock.

The former inkling’s head tore open as a pair of horns emerged from its sides, long and sharp like blades. The entire time, he screamed in agony.

With their game put on hold, team Hadal Zone, Katherine, and Sky Octrope’s team walked out of the turf war arena and into the outer area of the Reef. The nine cephalings took their seats around one of the larger tables.

“So.” Katherine tapped her fingernail against the table. “You guys are all siblings, and you’re also a team called Stellar Chain from another universe. Is that right?”

Sky nodded. “Yep. I’m NightFall.”

The eldest member of team Stellar Chain was 17, the same age as Hachi. Her purple hair hung low in a tentacurl style, and she wore a white shirt and matching pair of shorts. “Name’s Annie. I’m Aurora.”

The older boy on team Stellar Chain was 15 years old, the same as Katherine when she’d first escaped the Deepsea Metro. His purple hair was done in a poofy, dome-like afro style, slightly covered at the back by a hoodie with severely oversized pockets. “Call me Jacob.” He waved a hand at the end of a remarkably muscular arm that matched the rest of his physique. “Unless we’re playing turf war, in which case it’s Eclipse.”

The younger of the two boys was 14, younger than Katherine had been when she’d first arrived on the surface. A strand of purple tentacle-hair dangled over his forehead punk-style. For all intents and purposes, his outfit was low-key, with muted colors and comfortable fabrics. “I’m Victor.” His voice was softer than his older brother and sister. “My turf name is Moonquake.”

Riva smiled. “That’s incredible. You guys can change your names for turf war?”

“Uhhh, yeah.” Annie gave her a quizzical look, as though the white-haired inkling had expressed amazement at a coffee stirrer. “It’s really just, like, a log-in system.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have anything like that in our world. Only way we can change our names is with legal paperwork.” Riva elaborated.

Sky looked down, as though remembering something unpleasant. “Trust me, the four of us have experience with that, too.”

Onyo cleared her throat. “Maybe we should change the subject. So, you guys are from another dimension, huh?”

“Yeah.” Annie confirmed. “You’re taking it pretty well, too.”

The redhead shrugged. “Honestly, we’re pretty used to this sort of thing.”

Katherine’s communicator started beeping. “Oh, hold on, guys. I gotta take this.” She turned on the device.

“Is everyone on the line?” Hachi asked, “I’m still getting used to this thing.”

“Yeah, I’m on.” Lauren answered.

“Right here.” Marcus greeted.

“Same.” Katherine confirmed.

“Okay, good. Listen, I’m in Alterna right now. When I crashed, after that thing blasted us into the sky, I saw a guy get turned into a monster. And there was this guy, I think he might’ve been that cult leader you guys have been dealing with.”

“Great, so now we’ve got an OctoBeast and a Yosotholing to deal with.” Lauren grumbled. “First off, is everyone okay? No need for an infirmary?”

Katherine shrugged. “Just a little headache. Nothing serious, hon.”

“Same here.” Marcus added, “Aside from a splitting headache, I’m mostly fine.”

“I’m okay too.” Hachi answered.

“Good to hear. Now, follow-up question, has anyone else met someone from another dimension?”

Lauren, the young man she’d met in the apartment hallway, Marcus, Rose, Katherine, team Stellar Chain, and team Hadal Zone all teleported into the artificial snowfield of Future Utopia Island. Lauren and Marcus’s respective counterparts were holding their shoulders in order to accompany them, while Katherine had an entire cluster on her. Her eyes narrowed in exasperation. “Off.” She shook the other eight cephalings.

“Sorry.” Victor muttered.

Rose waved at the young man. “Hi, Simon. You got roped into this too?”

Simon gestured at Lauren. “Apparently… I guess.”

Lauren clasped her hands together. “Alright, let’s see what we’re working with here.” She stood atop her box chair and took stock of the others. “Okay, so there’s 13 of us. Simon, others, I just wanna check. Are all of you from the same dimension?”

Simon looked over at the rest of the cephalings. “Just Rose and, like, half of those guys.” He gestured to the largest cluster.

“Okay.” Lauren gestured to the group of nine. “Real quick, could everyone just, like, split up by home universe?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Sky answered. Team Stellar Chain split up from Katherine and team Hadal Zone.

“Thanks.” Lauren counted again. “Right, so there’s seven of us from this universe, and six of you from the other universe. Let’s not keep any secrets here. Are you guys members of the New Squidbeak Splatoon where you’re from?”

Sky crossed her arms over her chest. “No. They used to call me agent 8, but I dropped out ages ago.”

“Yeah, none of our team have any relationship with the New Squidbeak Splatoon whatsoever.” Annie hurriedly denied.

“Simon and I are with them.” Rose pointed out, “I’m agent 4 and he’s agent 3.”

Lauren nodded. “Got it. Now then…” She sighed, “Hachi, what kind of Yosotholing are we dealing with this time?”

“I’m honestly not sure. All I know is, it had this thing on its chest that kinda looked like a clock, but it had symbols on it, not numbers. And only one hand.”

“Maybe whichever symbol the hand points at gives it a different power.” Marcus speculated, “Quick, do you remember what it was pointing at?”

“Let me think… yeah, I’m pretty sure it was pointing at a thing with these big, curved horns.” They put their hands on their head, and fluttered them up to mimic the shape of the horns upon the symbol.

“Looks like it might be a….” Simon gestured his hand in a circle. “Whaddya call those things that lived in human times? The ones with the horns they kept in giant fences outside?”

“A bull?” Hachi asked.

“Yeah, a bull! That’s what I’m thinking of!”

“Okay.” Lauren pounded her fist on her palm. “Then let’s take this monster on.”

“Awesome.” Onyo gestured at Riva and Lumi. “But the three of us aren’t really agent material, so maybe we should just sit this one out.”

“Don’t sell yourselves short. I saw you all fighting the makoids when they invaded en masse.” Lauren reminded her.

“Yeah, but nearly half the city was involved in that fight. And we were just fighting the regular makoid soldiers because we knew to leave the heavy hitter to you guys.”

Lauren relented. “Okay. Even without you guys, there’s still, what? Ten of us? I could invite the Squid Sisters too and make it twelve.”

Marcus interlaced his fingers with James’s. “Stay safe, hon.”

“If you insist. But y’know, I was really planning on fighting that monster with my wrists tied together and concrete strapped to my shoes. But if you really want me to stay safe, I guess I could rethink my plans for today.” The entire time, he was grinning at his boyfriend.

Marcus laughed. “Thanks for reconsidering.” He kissed James on the cheek before turning to the others. “So, what’s the plan?”

Feb 1 2025; 12:48 PM

The group had split up to better locate the Yosotholing within the city. Katherine and Sky perched on a balcony near the roof of the battle lobby tower, where they could have a proper vantage point.

Kat tapped Sky on the shoulder. “You know we’re supposed to be looking down, right?”

Sky was torn out of her stupor. “Oh, sorry. Just… guess I just got a little distracted.”

Katherine smirked at her fellow octoling. “So, what, you just wanted to look at yourself?”

The inadvertent dimension-hopper replied with a look of confusion. “What are you… Oh, you mean because of my name.”

Katherine giggled. “Sorry, it sounded funnier in my head.”

Sky smiled. “I mean, I did name myself after the sky, so you’re not wrong.”

“Really, now?” Katherine leaned over the railing, angling her head so that she was looking down at the city and over at Sky simultaneously. “You’ve got me curious.”

“Okay, okay. I guess there’s no harm in telling you, since this isn’t my universe. When I first arrived at Inkopolis, I had such bad amnesia that I couldn’t even remember my name.”

Kat raised herself upright along with her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t suppose it involved the Deepsea Metro.”

“Yeah. Did they take away all your memories too?”

“Sort of. I managed to remember my name, at least. But even after I escaped, I still couldn’t remember much about my life in the domes.” Katherine sighed, resting her arms and head on the railing. “Including my parents. And sometimes, I wish it stayed that way.”

Sky leaned over as well. “I still don’t remember my parents. I’m guessing yours didn’t exactly set a high standard, though.”

Katherine shook her head. “The only memories I have of them from before the Metro involve them beating me, or screaming at me, or starving me, all because they thought I was weak. And as soon as I mastered form-switching, they sold me into the army. They let me become one of Octavio’s pawns just for a quick payday! And when I came back, not remembering anything about them, they assaulted me just for having an inkling as a girlfriend! They were nothing but hateful, irredeemable monsters!” She was shaking, her knuckles white from gripping the metal railing. Her teeth gnashed together.

Sky gingerly reached out. “Are you… um. Are you okay?”

Katherine slowly brought her hand up to her head. “Yeah. Sorry, I just had to vent.”

“Can’t exactly blame you.” Sky turned so she was facing the city. Her fingernails clacked rhythmically against the railing. “As long as we’re discussing our dysfunctional parents, though…”

Katherine leaned sideways. “I thought you didn’t remember your parents?”

“I… sort of lied. My dad, Akash Octrope, was basically a real-life supervillain. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you might think less of me for coming from somebody like that, but hearing about your parents…” She inhaled the cold February air. “I guess you can kinda relate to having a different morality from your parents, huh?”

Katherine exhaled a little. “I’ll say. And you’re not the same as your parents, okay?” She put a gentle, reassuring hand on Sky’s shoulder. “No matter how bad Akash and his wife might’ve been, I won’t think any less of you. Promise.”

Sky gave a warm smile. “Thanks. But, just to clear things up, Akash didn’t have a wife. He created my siblings and I by severing his own limbs and turning himself into a cyborg.”

Katherine blinked in mild surprise. “Wow. Y’know, I always think we’re the only version of Squidbeak who has to deal with all this sci-fi nonsense, but that… yeah, that actually sounds like our kind of sci-fi nonsense.” She cleared her throat. “Is it okay if I ask what he was like? In person, I mean. Beyond the supervillain thing.”

“It’s okay.” Sky turned her gaze back down to Splatsville. “From what I remember, Akash was pretty distant. It’s like, he didn’t beat us or anything like your parents did, but he treated us more like high-ranking soldiers and commanders than his actual kids.”

“Still not a healthy parent-child dynamic.” Katherine acknowledged. “No judging, but just out of curiosity, how come you kept his last name?”

Sky shrugged. “I didn’t exactly wanna go around with just one name. And by the time I figured out what it originally was, I’d already met Annie, Jacob, and Victor. Since I barely remembered anything about Akash, they formed more of my opinion about the Octrope name.”

“That makes sense. Y’know what’s funny? My dad’s name was Viktor, too.”

“Huh. Well, trust me. My Victor is nothing like yours.”

“Oh, I could tell. And I can understand why you’d keep your last name with that kind of context. I didn’t exactly have that.”

“What did you have, then?”

Katherine responded with a small smile. “When I first came up to the surface, Marcus agreed to let me live with him. Over time, we started thinking of each other more and more as siblings, and then we decided to make it official. When I went to his old place so I could sign the paperwork, I couldn’t decide what to put for my last name, so Marcus’s parents suggested that I go into the woods outside of town to think. Long story short, I ended up fighting a giant bull-monster called a…”

Sky tilted her head, while Katherine sputtered. “You okay?”

Katherine sputtered. “Sorry. It was called a Bhain-something-or-other. I managed to kill it, but I got injured and knocked out. The founders of the town, May Pike and Lacey Melani, found me and bandaged me before I woke up.” She breathed out, creating a small puff in the midday air. “The three of us talked for a while, and then I asked them for advice.”

Sky leaned in curiously. “What did they say?”

“Cutting to the chase, they told me not to let the past control me, but also not to ignore it.” Katherine smiled, warmly and softly. “I think Lacey’s exact words were ‘Don’t be afraid of who you were. Just be happy with who you are now, and accept that part of yourself.’ Words to live by, if you ask me.”

Sky returned the smile on Katherine’s face. “I can relate to that. My siblings and I used to be soldiers, little more than tools for conquest. Now we can live our own lives, free in the city we were once brainwashed to try and conquer. Those we tried to subjugate are now our friends.” She looked up wistfully at the sky, alien and yet so familiar to her namesake. “I wonder if the constellations here are the same as in my world.”

Katherine followed Sky’s gaze. For the time being, the only star that could be seen was Sol. “Now you’ve got me curious, too.” She smiled while turning her gaze back to her fellow octoling. “Tell you what, Sky. After we beat the OctoBeast and the Yosotholing, I’ll see if I can convince the others to let you stay the night in this universe for a little interdimensional stargazing.”

“Thanks. I’m looking forward to it already.”

The sound of an explosion echoed from miles away, tearing Katherine and Sky from their conversation. Half a mile away, an enormous fire rose above the apartments and skyscrapers. Black smoke ascended further still to choke the sky.

Katherine white-knuckle gripped the balcony railing. “I’ll call the others! We’re going now!”

Feb 1 2025; 12:48 PM

Marcus and Rose stood atop one of the apartment buildings near Crableg Capital. The sounds of a turf war match, of ink being sprayed and cephalings yelling in a variety of emotions, competed with the honking of car horns and the perpetual grinding of countless tires on pavement .

“Here’s that splashdown you wanted.” Marcus handed Rose a thin metal can, with a painted strip on the side depicting multicolored splatters and a question mark with eyes.

“Thanks.” Rose accepted the canned special. She turned it in her hands, until she saw the splashdown logo on the bottom.

“Can I ask why you wanted that?”

“Because if we’re gonna be tea ming up, I wanna show you something.” Rose walked up to a cubic metal structure in the center of the roof, where she unholstered her dapple dualies from her hips and fired a line of pink into the formerly-stainless vertical surface. “It’s a move I invented called Skydive.” She swam up to the grate atop the structure.

The sound of a can being pulled open reached Marcus’s ears. Rose’s tentacle-hair stood as though being lifted by an updraft, emitting a small inferno of pink light.

“Watch closely!” The junior agent 4 took a running leap off the edge of the grated structure. When she was at her zenith, a full twenty feet above the roof, she passed one dualie to her other hand. As soon as she started falling, she pressed down on both triggers with a single thumb.

Marcus had to cover his eyes from the resulting blast of ink. A pink tornado erupted and swirled around Rose, shaking the roof as if threatening to break the concrete underfoot. For a moment, time stood still, as the ink formed a dome with Rose at its epicenter.

Inevitably, the ink fell outwards in all directions like the blooming of its wielder’s namesake flower. Half of the roof was covered in vibrant pink liquid. The back of a billboard ten yards to Rose’s side, advertising the law firm Harkness, Janesmith, And Chesterton-Wright, short-circuited when ink seeped into its wiring.

Ink armor!

Marcus activated a glowing membrane of green ink, letting the opposing color harmlessly slough off of him. “That was awesome!” He clapped. “Is there a splatling version?”

Rose stood up, spotless despite the ink surrounding her, as if in the eye of a hurricane. “Uh, sorry. I’m afraid Skydive is a strictly dualie-exclusive maneuver.” As she spoke, she walked over to Marcus, until she was close enough to show him her dapples. “Basically, you just need to get a lot of air, and then combine a dodge-roll with a splashdown. The timing can be a little finicky, but I think the results speak for themselves.” She swept her arm out over the field of ink.

“Speak? I’d say the results scream for themselves. I bet you could cover our entire old base at Tentakeel Outpost with just one of those moves!”

Rose smiled, tapping one of her weapons on her shoulder. “Actually, I have covered the entire Tentakeel Outpost base with just one of those moves. Long story.”

A distant explosion rocked the building. “I guess we’ll have to settle for the abridged version!”

Feb 1 2025; 12:48 PM

Lauren and Simon stood atop one of the skyscrapers in the northeast quadrant of Splatsville. The architecture lived up to the city’s chaotic reputation, with bridges formed of wooden planks connecting the roofs together, buildings of erratically varying heights surrounding one another, and streets down below that sloped up and down, twisting into dead ends and intersections like an urban maze.

“So, tell me about yourself. Got any family?” Lauren asked.

Simon shrugged. “I guess there’s no harm in telling a fellow agent. I have a little sister back home named Morgan. She’s about the same age as Rose?”

Lauren smiled. “Really? I’ve got a little sister too.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. Her name’s Wendy, and get this. She’s about the same age as our agent 4, too. They even went out for a little while.”

“And that’s where the similarities end.” Simon mentioned, “I don’t think Morgan or Sky have ever gone out with anybody.”

“Eh, they’re still young. I think I was, like, sixteen or seventeen when I started dating Katie. And now we’re basically in our 20’s.”

Simon shook his head. “Time flies, huh?”

Lauren nodded. “As someone with robots that help me fly, I can confirm that.”

“Actually, could I see those robots?”

A grin appeared on Lauren’s face. “I don’t see why not.”

Hawk! Robo! Falcon! Robo! Eagle! Robo!

Lauren’s belt buckle snapped open. The yellow avian batteries unfolded into small mechanical raptors, each the size of her palm. “Go on, don’t be shy. They only bite if I tell them to.”

“Incredible.” Simon held out one arm. The eagle robo perched on his wrist, cold metal talons gently making contact with his skin. “Where did these things even come from?”

“Mine, Mark’s, and Kat’s are all stolen octarian tech.” Lauren explained, “We each have 3, plus Hachi has another 3 that Marina created.”

Simon scritched the eagle’s lower beak. “So you’ve got a dozen of these little guys?”

“Yep. I’m sky-” She paused. “Well, you know what I mean. Anyway, Marcus’s robos are land-based, Katherine’s are sea-themed, and Hachi’s are all paleo-style. As in, beasts that existed millions of years before the humans. They can turn into weapons, armor, batteries that can boost the weapons, and best of all, giant combinable robots.” She headpatted the falcon and hawk at the same time. “Plus they’re pretty cute.”

Simon looked over at Lauren. “You guys have giant animal-themed robots in your world, too?”

The yellow-tentacled inkling gasped, dashing forward and grabbing her blue counterpart by the shoulders. Their eyes were wide; hers with excitement and his with alarm. “Shut up! You guys have mechs too?! I thought we were the only version of the New Squidbeak Splatoon with that kind of tech! Do they combine? Do you use them to fight kaijus?”

“Uh…” Simon slowly grabbed Lauren’s elbows, pulling her hands off his shoulders. “...no. I think you’ve got the wrong idea about our world’s mechs. They’re not ours, and they can’t combine, either.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Or at least, not that I know of. Anyway, they were built by an octoling named Akash Octrope, who usurped Octavio while he was in our custody. His kids piloted the mechs when they invaded Inkopolis: an eagle, a black widow spider, and a piranha.”

One of Lauren’s eyebrows raised up on her forehead. “Sky, land, and sea.”

“Huh. Yeah, actually. Oh, and they also slapped a pair of hypnoshades on me and made me pilot another robot before the invasion. Annie told me after the fact that it was called ‘the Sapien’. In other words, a human. So that’s kinda like the Paleo robos.” He counted on his fingers, “Anyway, the others destroyed that one when they freed me, Marie destroyed the eagle during our final battle against Octrope, and a bunch of us destroyed the Widow before that. Now Sky and Annie just use the Piranha for stargazing.” He paused for a moment and sniffed the air. “Do you smell burning?”

Lauren walked closer to the edge of the roof, looking at the semi-distant sky in Simon’s blindspot. “I don’t just smell it. I can see it, too.” She pointed at the cloud of smoke marring the Splatsville skyline.

Feb 1 2025; 12:48 PM

While the other agents took high vantage points over the city, Hachi, Annie, Jacob, and Victor took to patrolling the streets instead. Hachi’s hands were buried deep in their pockets. Every time they thought of something to say, it caught in their throat.

Eventually, Jacob broke the painful silence. “Hey, do you do turf war?”

With a conversation started, Hachi’s voice started flowing out of their mouth. “No. I don’t do so well around others.” Immediately after they spoke, they wondered if their voice had been too loud, or if they were too quiet, or if their phrasing had been rude.

“I can tell.” Annie stated. Her tone was sincere, without a hint of mockery. She walked slightly faster, until she was next to Hachi. “Are you from another dimension, too?”

“Yeah. Except my world was in the middle of being destroyed by a giant robot when I got transported here by the same kind of anomaly that brought you guys here, so I can’t exactly go back anytime soon.”

“That’s terrible.” Victor sympathised, “I can’t even imagine going through something like that.”

Hachi sighed. “I try not to think about it.”

“You sound pretty miserable, cephaling! Don’t worry, though. I’ll be happy to put you out of it!”

The octolings turned to the side. Their entire bodies stiffened in terror, at the sight of the Yosotholing standing in the middle of a gas station. His clock hand was pointed at the crab, equivalent to 5 o’clock. His hands had been replaced with massive, crimson pincers. He loudly, tauntingly clacked each pair of pincers.

“Are you stupid?!” Hachi ran forward. “If you blow this place up, you’ll take yourself out, too!”

The yosotholing laughed. “You underestimate me, octoling! I’m Zodi-O-Clock, and I’m invincible! Let me prove it!” He snapped one pincer shut, and aimed it at one of the gas pumps like a spear.

“Stop him!” Annie ordered. She sprinted across the street, alongside her siblings and Hachi.

Zodi-O-Clock’s pincer twitched. He raised it further.

The four octolings sprinted over the curb, on the border of the gas station. “Let’s get him!”

Zodi-O-Clock plunged one pincer into the pump, spilling gasoline onto the pavement. He scraped his claws together, sending out a spark that ignited the pooling liquid.

“Let’s run away!” Hachi, Annie, Victor, and Jacob’s shoes scuffed the pavement as they frantically turned around. Hachi frantically pressed a single button on their belt, unable to see or remember which one they were selecting, in the millisecond before the gas station exploded.

Crab Tank!

A deafening blast rang out while a crab tank materialised around Hachi. They frantically pulled up on the handle in the middle of the controls, transforming it into a 10-foot humanoid.

The ground erupted. The crab tank stood over the octrope siblings, shielding them as the flames washed over it. The pavement melted. Hachi screamed in agony at the residual heat, as it warped the air and singed their tentacle-hair.

As soon as the wave of fire ended, the crab tank dematerialised, and Hachi fell to the ground.

Zodi-O-Clock’s laughter filled the entire field of red-hot hellfire. His silhouette was visible in the crackling flames, towering over those who opposed him.

Hachi slid their communicator tablet out of their belt buckle, and dialed Lauren first. “Captain!” They choked on the smoke billowing overhead. “We found one of the guys we’re looking for!”

Chapter Text

Lauren, Simon, Marcus, Rose, Katherine, and Sky teleported to the closest place they could to the battle. “There!” Katherine pointed at a massive fire several streets away, visible above the buildings. “Sky, I know you retired from-”

“Say no more. There are lives at stake here. I can understand that much.”

“Good. Now let’s go!”

The group started sprinting in the direction of the fire. While she was running, Lauren took her communication tablet out of her belt buckle and started dialing.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to dial and run, captain.” Marcus casually admonished her.

“That’s driving. And besides, being the captain affords me certain privi-woah!” Lauren tripped over a crack in the road.

Marcus held out a hand. The grin on his face was as obnoxious as he could muster. “And that’s why we don’t dial and run, sir.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky we’re best friends.” She accepted his hand and stood up.

Marie had been watching the interaction through her tablet, stifling a laugh the entire time. “You guys okay?”

“Yeah, but we were hoping you and Callie might be able to back us up. We’ve got another interdimensional Squidbeak, two monsters, and a fire here in Splatsville. You can’t miss it.”

Marie sighed. “So, to find you, we just have to follow the trail of destruction as usual. Good thing Callie and I are on break. Don’t wait on us, though.”

Lauren nodded. “Wouldn’t think of it.” She hung up, set her tablet back into her belt buckle, and started running again.

It only took the group of six a few minutes to reach the fire. Even from across the street, they could feel the residual heat and taste the smoke.

Simon coughed, “They’re probably trapped in that fire! We’ve gotta put it out before they get heat stroke!”

“Agreed.” Lauren decided, “Agent 4, agent 8, let’s start up a storm!” She glanced between the group. “Sorry, I meant my agent 4 and agent 8.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that.” Rose muttered.

Ink Storm!

Ink Storm!

Ink Storm!

The trio each tossed a canister into the flames, activating storm clouds of yellow, green, and purple ink. The fire sizzled as the tricolor ink storm gradually put it out, revealing four octolings coughing as smoke filled their lungs.

“Oh man, this is bringing back bad memories.” Katherine mentioned, as the group started running.

“You mean that incident with Pearl, Marina, and Cherufe? Same here.” Marcus agreed, pressing a single button on his belt buckle.

Tacticooler!

Hachi, Annie, Jacob, and Victor all looked around blearily, through eyes dulled by the filter of smoke, as the fire went out around them. Three colors of ink stung them like the teeth of a salmonid.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Hachi winced.

“At least the purple isn’t so bad.” Hector muttered through gritted teeth. Victor and Annie mumbled in agreement.

Several drops of purple ink dripped onto Hachi’s neck, eliciting a pained hiss. “Speak for yourselves.”

The first thing they saw upon sitting up was a tacticooler nearby. Marcus was leaning against the machine, with his hand on the glass side, one leg crossed over the other, and a wide grin on his face. “Step right up, octos and… other octos, I guess! Step right up and experience the wonders of this dispenser of delicacies, the tacticooler! Your one-stop shop for a re-energizing, rei-invigorating, revitalizing beverage in one humble little can!”

Katherine ran up to her brother. “Dude, what are you doing?”

“Same as always. I have no idea.”

Katherine facepalmed and took one of the drinks out of its pincer. “Here, catch!” She lobbed the can into the quartet.

Hachi was the first to snatch the can out of the air. “Thanks, other 8!” They tightened their grip on the can, dug their fingernail under the pull tab, and flipped it open. “Now to-” They were interrupted by a stream of carbonated green liquid spraying into their face.

Marcus glanced over to Katherine. “Maybe we should just hand them out instead.”

“Yeah. Good call.”

Marcus, Katherine, and Lauren passed the remaining three tacticooler drinks to Sky’s siblings. “Thanks.” Annie muttered, flipping the lid open and taking a swig. Her brothers muttered the same and took their own drinks.

By the time the teenagers had all recovered, the triple ink-storm had doused most of the fire. Callie and Marie sprinted over to the group. “Guys!” Marie yelled, “What are you all doing over here?! And where’s the monster?”

“And which one is it?” Callie asked, “Clock dude or shooter lady?”

Hachi looked around. “Oh, man, where’d he go?!” They sprinted out of the parking lot and looked back. The entire gas station had been reduced to a smoldering wreckage, with only a few crumbling walls and broken support beams left. “The yosotholing was the one who set this fire! He called himself Zodi-O-Clock.”

“What I’m wondering is, why didn’t you tell us he had those crab claws?” Annie demanded.

“Because he didn’t! At least not the last time I saw him. He had big horns instead.”

Marie rubbed her finger against her chin. “So does that mean we’ve got two Yosotholings to deal with?”

“I don’t think so. Other than that, he looked pretty much the same. Unless those two are twin brothers or something…” Hachi cried out in realization, “Oh, wait! There was one other difference. The hand on his clock was pointing at the crab. But when he first got transformed, it was pointing at the bull.”

“So that’s his secret!” Callie pounded her palm with her fist. “Whatever symbol he’s pointing his clock hand at must change his powers!”

Lauren interjected, “But you said he’s got a dozen symbols, right? So that means he’s got a dozen different power sets he can switch between, possibly at will for all we know.”

“Then it’s a good thing there’s a dozen of us.” Marcus pointed out, before another explosion went off, shaking the ground underfoot. “Oh come on! Now what?!”

“Sounds like it was that way!” Lauren pointed due southwest. “Come on, we don’t wanna miss the party!”

Feb 1 2025; 1:11 PM

The agents rounded the corner into another city block, where Zodi-O-Clock and OctoShooter were wrestling on the ground, punching each other in the face, constantly trying to gain the upper hand.

Lauren tapped her hero shot DX on her shoulder. “Sorry, are we interrupting something here?”

OctoShooter fired both of her weapons into Zodi-O-Clock’s face, throwing him off with a small explosion of plasma. Both of the monsters stood up, visibly disoriented from the point-blank blast.

“The New Squidbeak Splatoon? How did you survive? And who are these guys?!”

“What can I say?” Marcus shrugged. “I guess we’re just magnetic like that. And as for how we survived, we’ve got tech that makes us invincible.”

“You mean technology you stole from us octarians!”

Hachi muttered, “Mine weren’t stolen.”

“We don’t have time to debate what’s been stolen from who!” Zodi-O-Clock acknowledged. He reached down to grab his clock hand, turning it to the 6 O’clock lion. “Leo!”

The clock glowed, blinding the agents and OctoShooter alike. Zodi-O-Clock’s hands shed their claws, the carapace disappearing into the ether, while a golden mane grew out around the back of his neck. He roared in pain, causing the pavement in front of him to erupt from the sheer force of the sound. “Oh yeah! Now this is what I’m talking about!”

Cephaling and Neo OctoBeast alike had to cover their ears. With each syllable, the Yosotholing launched another burst of concussive sonic energy.

“So…” Simon glanced over at OctoShooter. “Are we teaming up, or is this gonna be a three-way?”

“Die, worthless inkling!” OctoShooter fired plasma at the cephalings with one arm, and Zodi-O-clock with the other, sending all of them sprawling on the ground. “Yeah, get a load of these guns!”

Zodi-O-Clock sat up on the broken pavement. “I guess that means it’s gonna be a three-way.”

“In that case…” Lauren stood up, raising her weapon into the air. “Agent 3! Captain Lauren Laker!”

The Myers siblings stood as well. “Agent 4! Marcus Myers!”

“Agent 8! Katherine Kyanshu-Myers!”

Hachi stood up, coughing into their fist. “What are you guys doing?”

“Pre-battle roll call. Duh.” Callie answered, as though it were blindingly obvious.

“But why?”

“It’s just how we do things now. Best not to question it.” Marie deadpanned succinctly.

“Huh. In that case…” The octoling stood up. “The new agent-”

A series of plasma blasts erupted in front of the group, interrupting Hachi.

“Now what?!” Octoshooter demanded.

Demented laughter echoed from the other side of the street. “Now, us!”

OctoShooter, Zodi-O-Clock, Callie, Marie, Lauren, Marcus, Katherine, Hachi, Simon, Rose, Annie, Victor, Jacob, and Sky all stood together in a cluster.

Four entities appeared on the other side of the street. They looked like shadows made physical, wisps of darkness trailing off of them in the chilled breeze. Each of them bore a lightning bolt on their forehead. Except for those differences, they resembled perfect copies of Lauren, Marcus, Katherine, and Hachi.

Lauren sprinted a few steps out, pointing at the living shadows. “Who are you?! And more importantly, what are you?!”

The shadow that resembled Lauren laughed. It was a grating, horrific sound, as if ashes were being scraped against sharp rocks. “Who do you think we are? We’re the New Squidbeak Splatoon!” Her face was split in half by a malicious grin. “Only with a few improvements.” She snapped her fingers, silently commanding the others to continue in her stead.

“We’re stronger than you! Parallel agent 4, Shadow Marcus!”

“Faster than you! Parallel agent 8, Shadow Katherine!”

“Smarter than you! Parallel new 8, Shadow Hachi!”

The dark copy of Lauren swept her arm out, bringing with it a trail of even colder air. “And best of all, we’re evil! Parallel agent 3, Shadow Lauren!”

“No way.” Simon breathed out, “An evil New Squidbeak Splatoon?”

“In the non-corporeal flesh.” Shadow Lauren explained, “Do you remember when Overlorder tried to bring its virtual reality into the real world, and merged the spire of order with deca tower? That building was at the center of a city teeming with life, and passion for battle! While Hachi was fighting Overlorder above the city, the amalgamated structure was absorbing the radio waves all over the city, amplified by the passion of every turf war game that’s ever been played in Inkopolis. Soon after the Memverse was forced back into the world of VR, we emerged. The Parallel Squidbeak Splatoon!”

“Then how come you’ve waited until now to start acting?!” Hachi demanded, “The commute between Inkopolis and Splatsville isn’t that long! Or did you just get distracted with all the sightseeing?”

Shadow Hachi laughed. “Oh, we’ve been plenty busy these past months.”

The darkness that made up Shadow Marcus’s entire body disappeared in seconds, peeling off like the skin of a fruit. His eyes lost their hellish red glow. In half a second, he’d turned into a flawless, indistinguishable copy of Marcus. “You didn’t think your reputation threw itself down the drain, did you? That whole fiasco with the makoids was a great start, but we were more than happy to help things along.” He resumed his original form.

Octoshooter aimed her guns at the Parallel Squidbeak Splatoon. “So now it’s a four-way brawl? Fine by me!” She fired twin bolts of plasma.

Each of the shadow cephalings opened their belt buckles, revealing a single battery in the center that leaned forward, held by a cylindrical mechanism. They pressed the buttons at the end of each battery.

EAGLE!

BLACK WIDOW!

PIRANHA!

SAPIEN!

The plasma exploded upon the Parallel Squidbeak Splatoon, just as they activated the batteries. Their shrill, psychotic laughter echoed as they jumped out from the burst of flames, trailing embers behind them.

Shadow Lauren’s wingspan was twice that of Lauren’s armors, consisting of jet-black metal blades. Her curved talons were sharp enough to stab through the concrete without conscious effort. A sharp beak emerged from her helmet, over where her mouth would have been.

Multi-jointed spidery legs emerged from Shadow Marcus’s shoulders. Another three pairs stabbed into the ground, stretching four feet from beneath his arms, lifting him off the road itself. Eight glowing red dots adorned his forehead.

Shadow Katherine had two sets of piranha jaws atop her wrists. Her hands terminated in five tiny, serrated claws each. On the outer sides of her knees was a pair of large triangular fin-blades.

Shadow Hachi’s armor granted them longer limbs, towering over all the other shadows and agents. Beneath the elbows, they held a set of pistons that allowed them to control the arms. Under the knees, a set of metal braces held their feet over platforms that granted them control of the legs.

“Screw this! I’m just killing all of you!” Zodi-O-Clock roared, forcing the cephalings and OctoShooter to scatter.

“Good idea!” OctoShooter started firing indiscriminately.

The twelve flesh-and-blood cephalings inadvertently gathered together. Callie shot up first, twirling and raising her arm. “Rolling forth to crush the darkness! Agent 1, Callie Cuttlefish!”

“Hey, what’re you doing?!” Lauren demanded.

“Pre-battle roll call, duh.”

“Yeah, I know that! But I’m supposed to go first, since I’m the captain.”

“Oh! Sorry about that. I was- y’know, I was doing it in numerical order. Because I’m agent 1.”

“Oh, yeah, I get that. It’s just, I’m the captain-”

“Can we please just get on with this already?!” Marie screamed, startling both of the inklings out of their argument.

“Right!” The yellow-tentacled girl yelped, “Agent 3, Lauren Laker!”

“Charging into the battle! Agent 2, Marie Cuttlefish!”

“Agent-!”

“Parallel agent 4! Shadow Marcus!”

“What the hell, man? You guys already did your roll call!”

“Yeah, but we just wanna mess with you. Parallel agent 8, Shadow Katherine!”

“Agent 8! Kat- oh, wait, Marcus, you still gotta go!”

“Thanks, sis! Agent 4, Marcus Myers!”

“No prob, bro! Agent 8, Katherine Kyanshu-Myers!”

“New agent 8!”

“Parallel new 8!”

“Hachi Hikuma!”

“Shadow Hachi!”

“Did we get everyone?” Lauren glanced around her New Squidbeak Splatoon.

“I think so.” Callie answered.

“In that case, it’s your turn, guys!” Marie pointed at the other New Squidbeak Splatoon.

“Wait, us? Okay. In that case, agent 3! Simon Parette!”

“Agent 4! Rose Jacqueline!”

“Ex-agent 8! NightFall, Sky Octrope!”

“Eldest of the Octropes. Aurora, Annie Octrope.”

“Artisan of combat.” Victor twirled the hero brush DX in his hands. “Eclipse, Victor Octrope.”

Jacob took a hero blaster DX from one of the massive pockets on his hoodie. “Ready to have a blast. Moonquake, Jacob Octrope.”

Lauren leapt into the front and center of the group. “The twelve of us are the New Squidbeak Splatoons and the Stellar Chain!” She snapped her fingers. “It’s now or never!”

The Octrope siblings rushed at OctoShooter. Sky swapped her dualies into dagger mode, holding them in reverse grips while jumping and spin-slashing the monster. Jacob and Annie both fired their weapons.

OctoShooter fired her guns at Jacob and Annie, forcing Victor to jump in front of them and deflect the shots with two swings of his brush. The resulting explosions echoed behind them.

Callie, Marie, Simon, and Rose moved to attack Zodi-O-Clock. Callie attempted the first strike, with a swing of her roller.

Zodi-O-Clock moved his hand to the 9 O’clock scorpion. “Scorpio!” His mane receded and his face twisted back to normal, while the tail of a scorpion burst through the skin in the center of his back. Blood spurted out to stain the ground behind him.

Callie barely managed to deflect the sharp, bulbous tail with her roller, diving backwards and out of the way.

“So that’s what’s going on!” Sky jumped in front of Callie to strike the tail with her dualies in dagger mode. “These powers are based on constellations!” She kept her distance from the monster himself. Her daggers moved like blurs of steel as she struck his rapid-moving tail whenever its point, dripping with venom, got close to her.

Simon sprinted up to Rose’s side and started shooting Zodi-O-Clock. “You mean the star-patterns we named ourselves after for turf wars?”

“Yeah!” Sky shifted one of her daggers back into its dualie form, spun it upside-down on her palm while moving her grip to the ink tank at the back, and caught the scorpion tail in the gap between the handle, the nozzle, and the tube connecting them both. “And it just so happens, I’m Scorpio!” She sliced the bulb off with her dagger, jumping back as the dark yellow venom gushed out and sizzled on the ground.

Zodi-O-Clock roared in pain. “In that case…” He turned the hand of his clock to the 4 O’Clock mask. “Gemini!”

Eagle! Armor! Falcon! Gun! Hawk! Sword!

Lauren ascended, twirling and folding her wings inward. A tornado of lightning surrounded her until she opened her wings, a dozen feet above the ground. She attached the falcon gun to the hawk sword and slapped the ranged weapon, causing it to spin and channel its power into the blade. “Cryoblaze slash!” She swept her sword out in front of her, launching a discus of fire wreathed in ice crystals at her parallel counterpart.

Shadow Lauren kicked off the ground hard enough to leave a small crater, spinning and folding her wing to use as a shield against Lauren’s strike. She unfolded her black metal wings and somersaulted her way out of the mist, aiming her talons at Lauren’s shoulders.

Lauren’s eyes widened in fear behind her visor, a split-second before her dark copy’s talons crushed her armor and stabbed into her shoulder. She screamed in pain. Her yellow ink-blood spilled out to cover her armor.

Parallel agent 3 slammed Lauren back-first into the pavement, leaving them both at the bottom and center of a newborn crater.

Lauren could hardly breathe. Her own armor was crushing her, her shoulders were burning in agony, and a cloud of dust and debris left her blind. She felt helpless.

Shadow Lauren laughed, slamming her taloned foot into Lauren’s torso again and again. “How does it feel to be taken down by your own shadow?” She grabbed Lauren by the metal covering her neck, and lifted her into view.

“St… str…” Lauren choked, “Strangely familiar.”

Lauren could feel Parallel agent 3’s anger through her dark visor, as palpable as the cold, viscous ink-blood covering her arms and torso. “Don’t compare me to the Insurgent!” She tossed Lauren into the wall of a nearby apartment building.

Dozens of windows shattered, in a radius around the point of Lauren’s impact. She fell into a heap on the ground, barely strong enough to press two buttons on her belt buckle.

Eagle! Battery!

The young captain stood up, neither protected nor weighed down by any armor. She held her sword in one hand, and in the other, her gun with a battery between her thumb and forefinger. The top half of her shirt was matted down by her own bleeding, adhering it to her skin. The mere act of standing caused her to pant from exertion.

“Offering your life to me already? And here I thought you’d be more stubborn.” Parallel agent 3 glided forth, aiming her armor’s beak at the inkling’s jugular.

Lauren focused her energy into her hand to press the falcon gun’s trigger, shooting an orb of plasma wreathed in ice and snow. The plasma exploded on Shadow Lauren’s helmet, knocking her back while covering her visor in frost, temporarily disorienting and blinding her. “An ice shot?!”

“If you didn’t like that…” Lauren flicked the eagle battery into the air, while pointing the falcon gun up. “Then you’re gonna hate this!” The battery fell into the gun barrel.

Shadow Lauren shook the frost off her visor. “Rest assured, I already do.”

Lauren attached her gun to the hilt of her sword, slapping it into a spin once more. The falcon and eagle’s energies pooled into the hawk blade, alongside its own pre-existing power. A low hum emanated in her hand. “Triple elemental slash!” She sliced the air, launching a sword beam that consisted of ice, fire, and lightning swirling together into an elemental medley.

Shadow Lauren folded her wings in front of herself as a shield. The elemental sword beam pushed against the wings as she trudged forward.

Lauren fell to her knees, with a grip on the pommel of her sword as it stabbed into the ground, sending out a tiny geyser of flame from its tip. She smiled when her sword beam exploded, electrocuting Shadow Lauren and launching her spinning away. From the combination of frost, lightning, and flames, a wave of humid static-filled mist washed over Lauren.

Zipcaster!

Marcus elongated his arm and shot through the air like a bullet, wind whipping at his face for all of half a second. He stopped just as suddenly, sticking to a window on a skyscraper.

Parallel agent 4 leapt into the air, stabbing the vertical strips of stone in the wall between the windows. “Running from your own shadow, Mark? And here I thought you Squidbeak agents were brave!” He climbed towards the corporeal inkling at an inhuman pace, his mechanical legs scuttling like those of a tarantula, puncturing the walls with each animalistic step.

With the enhanced zipcaster’s mobility, Marcus swung his way from one building to another. Shadow Marcus scuttled to the edge of the wall, performing the equivalent of a running leap.

Marcus heard the sound, and felt the impact, of his counterpart’s artificial legs plunging into the wall behind him. He flipped sideways to dodge a stab from Shadow Marcus’s leg aimed at his back, leaving himself with his back facing the wall and both zipcaster-coated hands sticking to the surface. “Last I checked, spiders only have 8 limbs! You must be some kind of overachiever.”

“It’s about efficiency, not accuracy, Marcus!” Parallel agent 4 stabbed the wall behind his own back, propelling himself forward to throw a punch at Marcus’s face.

Marcus released the wall with one hand, hanging off the wall and catching the punch.

Shadow Marcus gutturally laughed. “Impressive!”

The luminescent green ink coating Marcus’s entire body started to flicker. He gasped, “Oh no.”

Shadow Marcus yanked one of his legs out of the wall, twisted it in front of himself, and thrust it at Marcus like a spear.

With less than a second to act, Marcus acted on a reflex. He jumped off the wall entirely, just as the zipcaster wore off.

Lion! Gun! Leopard! Battery! Panther! Gun!

Marcus was in a freefall, dual-wielding his two plasma-based firearms. He fused them into a double-barreled weapon, freeing his other hand to take the leopard battery out of his belt buckle. “Leopard, on!” He dropped it into the panther gun, and fired the amalgamated weapon upwards. The recoil accelerated his freefall, sending him tumbling down while a massive burst of plasma rocketed towards Shadow Marcus.

Parallel agent 4 oriented himself facedown and vertical on the wall, plunging his spider-limbs into the wall and pushing his main body outwards. The combined plasma blast sailed harmlessly through the resulting gap between the wall and Shadow Marcus. He released himself from the wall, using the aftershocks of the explosion to propel downwards.

Lion! Sword! Leopard! Sword! Panther! Sword!

Marcus combined all three of his swords at the hilts, creating a three-pointed star of blades. The wind whipped his face as he fell, wrenching the moisture out of his eyes. Thus, his vision was reduced to a blur. He recognized Parallel agent 4’s incoming spear-legs by their color and vague shape, and deflected them with his combined sword.

Marcus and Shadow Marcus were falling together, locked in combat of bade against robotic leg. Marcus passed his triple-sword between hands, spinning it like the rotors of a helicopter and deflecting each of his shadow duplicate’s strikes. Shadow Marcus constantly changed his attack patterns, attacking from multiple angles all at once, never giving Marcus even a millisecond’s margin of error.

Eventually, Marcus managed to activate his belt once more.

Inkjet!

Lines of code spread out from the belt buckle and wrapped around Marcus’s back, solidifying into a jetpack with a long, cylindrical cannon attached. Propelled on jets of green ink, he backflipped out of his shadow counterpart’s reach and descended to the ground below.

When Marcus landed on the ground, Parallel agent 4 landed soon after, shaking the ground as two of his legs stabbed into the pavement. They straightened up, granting him an extra four feet of height. He spread his other six artificial legs out at his sides, looming over Marcus and casting a shadow over him, seeming to eclipse the light of the sun itself. “Guess what, Myers? Today’s opposite day! And that means this bug is going to crush you underfoot!”

Swordfish! Sword! Dolphin! Robo! Goblin Shark! Armor!

Katherine sent out her dolphin to swim through the air at Parallel agent 8, darting and stabbing her armor with its bottlenose snout. She sprinted after her duplicate, holding the swordfish blade in a reverse grip, opposite the arm bearing the goblin shark’s chainsaw.

Shadow Katherine swept her arm out at the dolphin robo. Her wrist-mounted piranha mouth clamped shut around its mechanical torso, digging into the metal with its tiny, razor-sharp teeth like needles.

As soon as she was close enough, Katherine pivoted her body into a spin, with both of her blades outstretched. Parallel agent 8 tossed the dolphin robo away and cartwheeled herself into a handstand, clashing against the swordfish blade and the goblin shark armor’s chainsaw with her own leg-fins. She followed up by twisting her entire body to kick Katherine in the helmet, forcing the octoling to stagger back.

“Not bad.” Katherine remarked. “Okay, change of plans.”

Dolphin! Battery!

The dolphin robo flew into Katherine’s outstretched free hand while transforming into a battery, which she loaded into the swordfish blade’s hilt. As she twirled the sword in her grip, she felt a small surge of power as it absorbed the dolphin battery’s power.

“My plan is to kill you! Nice and straightforward.” Shadow Katherine jumped at her counterpart, claws outstretched. Katherine blocked the piranha-tooth claws with the flat of her armor-bound chainsaw, before pulling her other arm back and attempting to counter with a thrust of her empowered sword. Parallel agent 8 pushed down on the chainsaw to propel herself into an overhead jump, twisting behind Katherine while flipping herself upside down, all to rake her claws across the back of the octoling’s helmet.

Sparks flew out from the fourfold scrapes of metal claws on a metal helmet. The shrill sound echoed within the helmet itself, assaulting Katherine’s ears in the enclosed space. “You little-!” She turned around, slicing with her chainsaw as soon as her opponent landed.

Shadow Katherine stopped the chainsaw by catching it in the jaws of her wrist-mounted piranha. Katherine swiped at her other hand with her sword, only to bend her arm and redirect the blade at the last second, slicing across Parallel agent 8’s knee.

Sparks flew out. Shadow Katherine yelped in pain, staggering back. “That’s it! Now I’m going to gut you like a fish!” She leapt forward, turning herself upside-down, and sliced across Kat’s armored neck with her leg-blades.

Katherine tumbled backwards. Her armor bent and warped around her, crushing her limbs with its dents. Even through the metal, she could feel a distinct burn in her neck.

Chapter Text

A second head sprouted from the side of Zodi-O-Clock’s cranium. The four inklings opposing him could only watch in horror and disgust. Both of the heads screamed in pain as an arm emerged from Zodi-O-Clock’s shoulder. A leg emerged from his waist. The edge of a midsection came out to bridge the two limbs together.

By the power of the gemini constellation, Zodi-O-Clock was replicated. “What’re you gonna do now, Squidbeak?” The clone taunted.

“That’s Squidbeaks, plural!” Callie brandished her roller. “Marie, we’ll take one!”

Rose nodded in Simon’s direction. “Then we’ll take the other one!” She twirled her dualies on her thumbs and fired them upside-down, while Simon rolled to the side of Zodi-O-Clock and shot him while on his knees.

Zodi-O-Clock roundhouse-kicked Simon in the face faster than the inkling could react, sending him sprawling on the ground with several teeth knocked loose. The clone snatched Callie’s roller mid-swing, and tossed her to the side while Marie struck him with plasma from her charger.

“Really wish I had a splashdown right about now.” Rose muttered. She sprinted towards Zodi-O-Clock’s duplicate while firing at him with her dualies. As soon as she was close enough, she jumped while swapping them into dagger form, slicing at his eyes. “Simon, you okay?”

Simon stood up, panting, face marred by a splotch of blue ink-blood. “I’ve gotten worse.” He switched the hero shot DX to ink mode, as the group had been instructed before leaving to patrol, and fired blue ink into his wound. An aspect of inherent cephaling biology in his native universe meant that when his ink-blood came in contact with like-colored combat ink, the wound closed upon itself. Thus, he was healed. “And now it’s time to give worse right back!” He sprinted into a running jump, flowing it into a roundhouse kick.

“Worse than me? Good luck with that!” Zodi-O-Clock snatched Simon’s leg out of the air, and slammed him down.

Rose barely lunged in time to catch Simon’s head before it struck the pavement. As was, they both screamed in pain. Simon’s back crashed into the sidewalk, and Rose’s palms were crushed between his cranium and the ground.

Lauren stumbled up to the group, spilling yellow ink-blood. She fired the falcon gun and hero shot DX, enhanced by the eagle and hawk batteries in their respective barrels, to knock the original Zodi-O-Clock back.

Simon strained to look up at his older counterpart. “Are you okay?!”

“I could ask the same of you two.” Lauren took the brief opening to help the other inklings to their feet.

“We’ll manage.” Sky assured her.

Lauren nodded, and jogged between the two Zodi-O-Clocks. “Cloned yourself, huh? Two can play at that game!” She skidded to a stop. “Or better yet, three!”

Triple Splashdown!

Lauren ascended into the air, with a ring of orange energy radiating out. Two solid yellow ink constructs emerged from the ground in front of Lauren and on either side of her. Each one was the same size as Lauren, and took the shape of a hand. The hands turned to splay their palms to the sky. When Lauren reached the height of her ascension, her forearms were wreathed in flowing swirls of yellow ink. The palms curled themselves into fists with twin yellow bursts, and turned downwards.

The Squid Sisters, Rose, and Simon held their arms up over their faces as the explosion of yellow ink washed over them. Zodi-O-Clock and his clone were tossed away, one into the abandoned street, and the other clean through the nearest wall.

When Lauren stood up, the ink-fists reshaped themselves into exact replicas of her. Each one was non-sentient, capable only of mimicking her exact movements, with copies of her guns attached to their hands as single entities. “How do you like this? Now I’m triple agent 3!” She pointed over her shoulder at Simon. “Plus that guy.”

Simon jogged up to Lauren to slap her non-bleeding shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Callie positioned herself in front of Simon and leaned forward. “Ah, the captain doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s just happy to show off her new toy.”

Marie walked up to them, accompanied by Rose. “Either way, we’re glad for the backup.”

The original Zodi-O-Clock stood up. His clone emerged from the wall, shaking off rubble and dust. “I don’t know what that was, but you’re going to regret it!”

“Assuming you live long enough.”

Lauren, and by extension her clones, glanced around at her group of seven. “Us agent 3s will take one. The rest take the other.”

The rest of the group spoke their confirmations, and split up.

The original Zodi-O-Clock roared and charged at the agent 3s.

“Here!” Lauren took the hawk battery out of her hero shot DX and tossed it to her counterpart. Her clones performed the same motion with their hands, but only managed to spray some yellow ink on the ground. “Just do what I did!”

“Right.” Simon loaded the cylindrical device into his weapon.

All four agent 3s held out their weapons and fired. Simon’s ball of plasma was laced with flames, while Lauren and her clones fired plasma mixed with ice and lightning.

The four orbs merged together at the halfway point. Plasma, frost, flames, and electricity swirled together as a single unit.

Zodi-O-Clock’s gemini clone dug his hands beneath a slab of the broken pavement and tossed it at Callie. She swung her roller, effortlessly shattering the paved stone. Rose jumped off her shoulders from behind, somersaulting through the air, and tossed her daggers. The knives spun through the air faster than Zodi-O-Clock’s double could react, and stabbed him in the eyes.

The Second Zodi-O-Clock screamed in agony, grasping at his maimed eyes.

As soon as Rose stood up, she yelped in shock. “Woah! Did… did I do that?!”

“Yeah.” Callie turned away. “I can’t even look.”

“This is no time to get squeamish!” Marie fired plasma from her charger, directly into the center of her target’s clock. With an explosive burst of light and energy, Zodi-O-Clock’s copy was tossed back. The daggers were ejected from his eyes, while his back skidded against the rough, burning pavement.

Marie twirled her charger in a full circle while passing it to her other hand. “Know what I think? I think it’s time for a combo blast.”

“Now that I can get behind.” Callie turned to address the other-dimensional agent 4. “Go grab your daggers!”

Wordlessly, Rose nodded and sprinted towards her weapons.

The second Zodi-O-Clock stood up. Rivers of black ichor dripped down his eye sockets like tiny stygian waterfalls. “I’m blind! You’ll pay for that, Squidbeak scum!” He caught the sound of Rose’s shoes scuffing against the pavement, as she leaned down to grab her daggers while turning around. The monster snarled. “There you are.” He lunged down and started chasing Rose, growling like a rabid beast. His every step dented the sidewalk.

Rose shifted one of her daggers into a dualie and spun around, firing plasma into Zodi-O-Clock’s bleeding eye sockets. While he tumbled back to the ground, screaming and clawing his own face, she rendezvoused with the Squid Sisters. “Okay, now what? I’m kinda new to this stuff.”

“Now, this.” Marie attached her charger to the top of Callie’s roller.

“Oh. This world’s just full of surprises.” Rose sprinted behind the two cousins, and attached her dualies to either side of the charger’s ink tank.

The plasma energy within the dualies and the roller pooled into the charger. Just as Zodi-O-Clock’s double stood up, a massive burst of plasma shot out from the hero charger DX. The recoil sent Callie, Marie, and Rose leaning back. The plasma struck the clone, and caused him to explode.

“And then there was one!” Callie exclaimed.

“But soon there’ll be none!” Marie added.

“Cause we won’t stop till evil’s done!” Rose finished.

Sky and Victor were melee-fighting OctoShooter, while Annie and Jacob provided ranged backup. Sky leapt off of Victor’s shoulders while he slammed his hero brush DX into her face, backflipping and slicing the back of her opponent’s head.

Before Sky could land back on her feet, OctoShooter slapped Victor away and spun around, snatching Rose by the leg and swinging her, before tossing the octoling into her siblings. “Just in case you can’t figure out how I got my name, let me show you!” She fired both of her arm-cannons at once.

Another burst of plasma descended at an angle and struck OctoShooter’s ammunition before it could strike the Octropes, triggering a massive premature explosion. The blast superheated the air, melting the pavement beneath into slag and sending out a shockwave that crashed into all five combatants. Their tentacle-hairs whipping in the wind, the octolings looked up.

Marcus was perched on the railing of a fire escape two stories above the sidewalk, holding up his hero splatling DX with half of its barrels filled with his batteries. “I managed to get away from my shadow, but I’m not sure how long it’ll last! But on the bright side, I think I’ve figured something out.”

“Whatever it is, you won’t get the chance to try it out!” OctoShooter fired at Marcus. He leapt off the railing just as it exploded, propelling him into the air from the force of the blast. He inverted himself to face upwards, so that when he fired another burst of plasma, it sent him plummeting. He flipped again and pressed a single button.

Triple Splashdown!

As soon as Marcus landed, he became the epicenter of a massive explosion of green ink. His glowing fist had struck OctoShooter upon landing, sending the monster flying away. When the ink cleared up, Marcus was flanked in front by two green-ink constructs of himself. “How do you like it? My own take on a Skydive, splatling edition.”

“Not bad.” Sky walked up to Marcus, shifting her dualies back into daggers. “Now how do we finish her off?”

Elsewhere, Lauren’s clones had dissipated from the passage of time. She and Simon had attached their hero shot DXs, enhanced with the eagle and hawk batteries in their respective barrels, to either side of the falcon gun.

The agent 3s shared a mutual nod. “ Triple-element blast! ”

Fire, plasma, ice, and lightning mixed together into a single multicolored orb the size of Zodi-O-Clock’s namesake chest ornament. He frantically turned his hand to the 2 O’clock ram. “ Aries! ”

A pair of horns sprouted out from the top and sides of Zodi-O-Clock’s head, curling behind him and looping around, to point upwards in front of him. The entire time, he screamed in pain as the base of the horns grew larger, displacing more flesh and spilling more black blood. A horizontal incision appeared on his back, through which a shimmering golden cape made of ancient fleece appeared.

The combined strike was milliseconds away. Zodi-O-Clock tore the golden fleece off his back and swung it in front of himself. The mystical material glimmered and flowed, yet still it maintained its shape as if somewhere between solid and liquid. The golden fleece deflected Lauren and Simon’s combined attack, letting it explode on a building’s wall.

The entire massive structure trembled, opening cracks in the ground with the aftershocks. The sounds of a low rumbling, of glass shattering and support beams tearing asunder, washed over the entire block as the building leaned inwards over the street.

Lauren panicked. “You two, get that building back up!”

Eagle! Mecha! Hawk! Mecha!

The lightning and fire batteries automatically launched out of the agent 3s’ weapons, growing to immense proportions and simultaneously reshaping into their mech forms. With the sound of creaking metal, the eagle and hawk grabbed the corners of the apartment building’s walls. In the shadow of the collapsing structure, Simon and Lauren continued fighting Zodi-O-Clock.

Ornitho! Gun! Therizin! Armor! Liopleur! Sword!

Hachi cartwheeled to dodge an explosive blast fired by their counterpart’s armored palm. While they were upside-down, they fired all six of their shoulder-spikes into Parallel new 8’s knees.

Shadow Hachi yelled in pain and frustration. “You just stabbed my feet!”

Hachi’s spikes regrew on their shoulders, while they held up their hands. “Sorry, sor- wait. Why am I apologizing to the enemy?!” He pressed his belt buckle four times. “Time for a swap!”

Ornitho! Armor! Therizin! Gun! Liopleur! Gun!

The therizin armor split itself into dozens of pieces, deflecting Shadow Hachi’s next palm blast, and shrank down while reassembling into a gun. At the same time, the liopleur sword reshaped itself into a second gun, while the ornitho gun rapidly expanded and transformed into a winged suit of armor.

Hachi levitated into the air with their wings spread out, twirling their guns. They fused the weapons together and fired a single massive bolt of plasma.

Parallel new 8 roundhouse-kicked the plasma bolt, igniting an explosion that sent them rolling to the ground.

Before Hachi could fire again, they heard the deafening sound of a building starting to collapse. Their ink-blood ran cold as they turned to the sound, and witnessed two of Lauren’s mechas barely holding up a falling building several hundred feet away. Gradually, the structure continued falling. “No!”

Shadow Hachi laughed. “Let me guess. You have to send out one of your mechs to save some civilians, but it’ll make you even more helpless against me. Is that it?”

“I…I…” Hachi almost felt their ears split as the sound of shrill, creaking metal radiated outwards from the falling structure. The eagle and hawk screeched, echoing throughout the city block.

“Go ahead, agent, keep it to yourself! I’m sure they’ve got it all under control!”

Hachi clenched their fists at their sides. “I can’t just take that risk.” They floated backwards to perch on a fire escape, where they selected two buttons on their belt buckle.

Ornitho! Mecha!

The ornitho armor disassembled itself and shot into the air. Each of the dozens of pieces rapidly expanded, as they reassembled into a full-sized mecha.

When Simon and Lauren charged at Zodi-O-Clock, he turned his hand to the 10 O’Clock centaur. “ Sagittarius! ” A bow burst out of the clock and into his hands, while a quiver sprouted from his back, all while he screamed in pain. He loaded an arrow and fired it at the agent 3s, with enough force that it streaked through the air as a laser.

Lauren and Simon dodged the arrow, letting it pass between them. Lauren tossed her hero shot DX to Simon, while pressing two buttons on her belt buckle. “Here, catch!”

Falcon! Armor!

Lauren’s thrown weapon spun for precisely two and a half rotations, before Simon caught it sideways by the handle. “Thanks!” He shot two of Zodi-O-Clock’s arrows out of the air, ducking and rolling through the resulting explosions.

Lauren turned upright in the air, firing half of the feathers on each wing, and backflipped into a full circle to resume flight.

Several of the falcon armor’s bladed feathers embedded themselves in the road to either side of Zodi-O-Clock, one second before they exploded. He was surrounded by a cloud of freezing-cold smoke for a split second, before the blast launched him into the air, trailing blue and white smoke.

Lauren regrew her spent wings and flipped to kick Zodi-O-Clock out of the air. “He’s coming to you, Simon!”

“Yeah, and I’m gunning for him!” Simon took aim with both hero shot DXs, and started blasting at Zodi-O-Clock before the monster struck the ground.

As soon as he landed, Zodi-O-Clock turned his hand to the 12 O’clock goblet of healing water. “A-aquarius!”

Mist levitated out from every pore on Zodi-O-Clock’s body, forming a cloud several dozen feet above him. From the cloud, a healing rain descended upon him.

Lauren’s attention was torn away by a deafening creaking sound, followed by the eagle and hawk mechas screeching.

Zodi-O-Clock stood up, without any sign of injury. “That’s more like it. And now…” He changed his hand slightly, to the pair of fish at 1 O’clock. “Pisces!”

“Language!”

“Lauren, that’s not-”

Simon was interrupted by Zodi-O-Clock bellowing in pain as gills sliced into his cheeks, as fins sprouted from his limbs, and as a thin milky film covered his eyes. He dove into the pavement as if it was water.

Lauren returned to the ground, where she stood back-to-back with her counterpart. “I was hoping two mechs would be enough, but I guess not.” Just as she was about to deploy the falcon mecha, she heard a screech from another direction. She looked up and witnessed the ornitho mecha flying overhead, casting its shadow over the street, and grabbing the building in its talons alongside the eagle and hawk. Inexorably, the three grand machines started to reverse the structure’s course.

“That works too. Now where did he…”

Zodi-O-Clock burst out of the ground, launching the pair of agent 3s into the air on either side of him. He started spinning. In a millisecond, Lauren started flying around the monster in the same direction he was spinning. She caught Simon in her talons and flew off with him while Zodi-O-Clock’s fins slashed and sparked against her armored knee.

The entire incident barely lasted a full second, leaving Simon’s head spinning. “What just happened?”

Lauren glanced down at Simon, carefully holding his shoulders in her talons. “I’ve got a lot of reaction time practice. Now try and stay balanced!” She flipped while tossing Simon up, unfurling and flattening herself out so that when he landed, he had one foot on each of her wings. A set of pressure-sensitive metal straps emerged from Lauren’s wings to keep him steady. “Quick question. Do you get airsick easily?”

“Uh… not too easy.” Simon nervously answered.

Beneath her helmet, Lauren grinned manically. “Good enough for me!” She pitched into a dive and flowed it into a spin, keeping her wings straight out at her sides.

Simon screamed as the straps kept him steadily attached to Lauren’s wings. She fired two feathers, timing them so that Zodi-O-Clock dodged the first straight into the path of the second. The blade struck him in the knee before exploding, covering his entire right leg in a block of ice.

Lauren straightened herself out upside-down. With Lauren above him, and therefore nothing between him and his target, Simon started firing his dual shots at Zodi-O-Clock while the monster was immobilized. “Making sure you’re not in the way of my hero shots? Nice thinking, Lauren?”

“Oh! Yeah! I… I just thought it’d look cool, but that too. And why are you holding your weapons sideways?”

“No comment.”

A few streets away, Marcus was flanked by two artificial clones of himself made entirely of green ink. Rose, the squid sisters, and the octropes were all nearby. “We need another big blast to finish her off.”

Lion! Battery! Leopard! Battery! Panther! Battery!

Marcus held up his fist, with the land batteries between his fingers. “They’re first come, first serve! Now catch!” With a flick of his wrist, he tossed all three of his batteries.

Annie, Jacob, and Victor snatched the batteries out of the air. “Wait.” Victor glanced between his hero brush DX and the leopard battery. “How do I even put this thing in here?”

“Oh. Here, it’s like this.” Callie took the blunt end of the brush, and showed Victor the opening in the hilt.

“Thanks.” Victor set the battery into the slot, and snapped the opening closed. Annie dropped the lion battery into the hero shot DX. Jacob slid the panther battery into the blaster.

Marcus stepped aside, gesturing for the Octrope siblings to stand at the front of the group. Annie glared at OctoShooter as she stood up. “Let’s do it.”

Victor held out his brush horizontally with both hands. Sky’s dualies and Annie’s shooter were both set on top near the ends, while Jacob attached his blaster to the middle of the brush’s handle from beneath.

Katherine ran up to the group. “Guys, are we doing the finisher?! Because I just managed to lose my Shadow.”

“Yeah!” Sky confirmed, “You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Katherine stood next to the former agent 8.

Swordfish! Battery! Goblin Shark! Battery! Dolphin! Gun!

Katherine loaded her batteries into her dualies, and attached them to the sides of her dolphin gun.

OctoShooter fired her dual blasts. Marie shot them out of the air with her charger, igniting two overlapping explosions over the street. “Now’s your chance!”

Marie, Callie, and Marcus stood behind the five octolings. The plasma from Sky’s dualies, Victor’s inkbrush, and Annie’s shooter pooled into Jacob’s blaster, enhanced by all three land batteries. “ Octrope final blast! ”

“Triple-barrel sea blast!” Katherine pressed the trigger on her dolphin gun. It absorbed the power from her dualies and the other two sea batteries in the space of a millisecond.

Two massive orbs of plasma roceted out, sending the octolings stumbling back from the recoil. The plasma bolts swirled together, merging into a single colored sphere of light and energy that struck OctoShooter.

Katherine, Sky, Annie, Victor, and Jacob turned around as OctoShooter exploded.

Elsewhere, Lauren and Simon touched down on the ground. Lauren released Simon and ran past Zodi-O-Clock, slicing his elbow with her wing to encase the monster’s arm in ice.

Zodi-O-Clock used his other arm, turning his clock hand to the 7 O’ clock maiden. “Virgo!” The ice on his limbs shattered, as a pair of sickles emerged from his palms. He screamed in agony. Black blood flowed out onto the pavement, turning his hands slick as he gripped the leather handles of the sickles. He launched himself at the two agent 3s.

Lauren stood in front of Simon and folded her wings in front of herself, blocking the sickle blades. She unfolded her wings, with enough force to launch Zodi-O-Clock several yards back.

Simon jumped behind Lauren and leapt off her shoulders, firing his hero shot DXs at Zodi-O-Clock before he landed on the ground. The monster deflected each shot with his sickles before skidding onto the pavement.

The explosion that killed OctoShooter echoed from several streets away.

Eagle! Sword! Hawk! Sword!

Lauren walked past Simon, dual-wielding her electric and fire blades. “Give me covering fire.” Without another word, she dashed at Zodi-O-Clock. Trailing flames and lightning behind her blades, she swung them at the monster.

Zodi-O-Clock blocked the swords with his sickles and pushed outwards, slicing again and sending out sparks against her armored midsection. Lauren jumped and hovered slightly over the ground while flying around Zodi-O-Clock, slicing at him and forcing him onto the defensive.

Simon ran behind Zodi-O-Clock and fired while he was distracted by Lauren, striking the monster with each shot. While Zodi-O-Clock was recoiling, Lauren attached her swords together by the hilt and lunged backwards, tossing the double-blade like a spinning helicopter rotor.

Dual trails of fire and lightning spiraled behind the double-sword until it struck Zodi-O-Clock while continuing to spin, slicing into him with both elements at once.

Lauren returned to the ground, just as the rest of the group rendezvoused with her and Simon. She glanced over at Hachi. “Lost your shadow?”

Hachi shook their head. “No. As soon as that explosion went off and killed OctoShooter, they just disappeared.”

“Well, that’s concerning.” Lauren turned to glare at Zodi-O-Clock. “But speaking of killing monsters, it’s time for the final strike! Six swords, six batteries, team!”

Eagle! Sword! Hawk! Battery! Falcon! Sword!

Lion! Battery! Leopard! Sword! Panther! Battery!

Swordfish! Sword! Goblin Shark! Battery! Dolphin! Sword!

Liopleur! Battery! Therizin! Sword! Ornitho! Battery!

Lauren loaded the hawk battery into the eagle sword.

Marcus tossed the lion battery over to Lauren, so that she could slide it into the falcon sword. He set the panther battery into the leopard sword.

Katherine inserted the goblin shark battery into the swordfish blade, before catching the liopleur battery that Hachi tossed, and plugging it into the dolphin sword.

Hachi opened the therizin sword’s hilt for the ornitho battery.

Lauren, Marcus, Katherine, and Hachi combined their swords at the pommels, forming a six-pointed star. “ Six-sword shuriken of death! ”

“-ken of death- dammit!”

Lauren narrowed her eyes at Hachi. “We’ve really gotta work on your timing.”

The four cephalings tossed the combined swords into the air. Propelled by the six batteries, they spun through the air, glowing with green, yellow, purple, and orange light. The blades sliced through Zodi-O-Clock, impaling the monster and reducing it to a fiery explosion.

Lauren clapped her palms together. “Time’s up!” She ran into the smoke, where an inkling was coughing profusely. “Sorry about all that.” She held out her hand.

The civilian panicked, scrabbling away from the captain. “Squidbeak?! You- you saved me? Why?”

Lauren shrugged. “It’s kind of our thing.”

The man’s expression was hard to parse, somewhere between skeptical and relieved. “You’re not trying to destroy the entire city?”

“Don’t believe everything you hear on the news, man.” Lauren sighed, helping the civilian up. “What’s your name?”

“Herbert. And… and thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” As Lauren and Herbert walked away from the site of the explosion, a spiral of dark smoke rose from the ground.

The leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver swept his arm over the small cauldron, disrupting the dark magic he was using to monitor Zodi-O-Clock’s battle. He grabbed his oaken-mahogany staff and slowly waved it in deliberate patterns. “By the depths of the roiling sea and the storms of the sky! By the land in which all that is dead must lie! By the past from which all things came, and the future in which all will end! May the dark waves crash, and may the cursed winds blow! By the magicks of the sunken city, fallen from the stars aglow, make my monster grow!”

Takonesama and Matt watched the screen. An octocopter hovered above the street while holding a camera, allowing them to watch OctoShooter’s battle with the New Squidbeak Splatoons and the Octrope siblings. “I still can’t believe it took her that long to find Splatsville.”

Takonesama nodded in agreement. “If she doesn’t pan out, let’s make sure the next one has a better sense of direction.” A moment later, she slammed her fists down on the desk. “No! We’re out of popcorn already?!”

“Doesn’t really matter.” Matt pointed at the monitor, scowling. “Look, she’s dead.”

Takonesama snorted irritably. “Not yet. Remember how the makinoids were inherently able to turn giant when they died? During the red skies crisis, I sent some of my scouts into Splatsville to see if they could gather any intel. Long story short, our scientists managed to reverse-engineer the mechanism that lets them do that. Instead of wasting chemicals, now we can sit back and watch, as the dormant gene automatically activates and makes our monster grow!”

The Parallel Squidbeak Splatoon was perched on the roof of a building, watching as OctoShooter and Zodi-O-Clock grew to tower over the Splatsville skyline several blocks away. All four of them had eschewed their armor.

Shadow Lauren gave a slightly slanted smile as she stood up. “There it is. Well, team? Think we should join in the fun?”

Shadow Katherine got to her feet. “What fun would it be if we didn’t?”

“That’s the spirit.”

The living shadows opened their belt buckles, and pressed the secondary buttons on the sides of their batteries.

EAGLE MECHA!

BLACK WIDOW MECHA!

PIRANHA MECHA!

SAPIEN MECHA!

Callie, Marie, Lauren, Simon, Marcus, Rose, Annie, Victor, Jacob, Sky, Katherine, and Hachi all retreated as the OctoBeast and the Yosotholing grew larger than the surrounding buildings, their roars echoing across the sky. Immediately, OctoShooter launched a massive explosion into Zodi-O-Clock.

“What just happened?!” Rose screamed, “How are we supposed to fight those things?!”

“Don’t worry.” Lauren assured her, “You guys have done plenty. Marcus, Katherine, Hachi, let’s go!”

A screech echoed from the sky. A jet-black eagle, with a beak curved like a scimitar and wings jagged like a serrated blade, flew overhead. An enormous black widow spider scuttled across the rooftops, puncturing them with each step of its long, multi-jointed legs that terminated in blades. A giant piranha mech swam through the air alongside the eagle, with dead eyes and sharp teeth that glinted in the sunlight. A humanoid robot marched through the street, slightly shorter than the buildings around it.

All at once, the Parallel Squidbeak Splatoon pressed down on the buttons on their control panels which depicted a combined robot. “ Parallel Squidbeak Ultramech! Combine! ”

The black widow, the piranha, and the eagle split apart, transforming into a suit of armor that covered the sapien’s chest, elbows, and knees. The teeth of the piranha surrounded the top of its head like a sharp, relatively short crown. The eight legs of the black widow attached together at their sides, combining into a pair of swords made of four legs each, which the sapien held in its hands. The wings of the shadow eagle mech mounted themselves on its back, enabling it to take to the sky.

“Okay, change of plans!” Lauren abruptly decided, “Hachi, you stay down here with the others and get Herbert here to safety! Myers siblings, let’s make this a 3-v-3!”

“Works for me. Honestly, I don’t even wanna get involved with the mechs.”

“Speak for yourself!” Marcus pressed the buttons on his belt buckle.

Katherine did the same. “Trust me, this part actually grows on you.”

Eagle! Mecha! Hawk! Mecha! Falcon! Mecha!

Lion! Mecha! Leopard! Mecha! Panther! Mecha!

Swordfish! Mecha! Goblin Shark! Mecha! Dolphin! Mecha!

Nine kaiju-scale mechanical beasts appeared as if from nowhere. The avian and sea mechas soared above the buildings, while the feline land mechas climbed up the structures beneath the midday sun.

“Now isn’t this interesting?” Shadow Hachi remarked, “Just too bad my counterpart couldn’t be bothered to show up.”

“Who needs them?” Shadow Marcus laughed, “Let’s just blast them all!”

The Parallel Ultramaech flapped its wings, sending out dozens of metal feathers, while OctoShooter fired two explosive blasts directly into the falcon and swordfish mechas. The feathers embedded themselves in the surrounding buildings, engulfing the Squidbeak mechs in explosions of dark fire.

In the streets below, Jacob fired plasma at the debris falling from above, reducing the slabs of concrete, rebar, and stone to dust. “How often does this happen to you guys?!”

“Often enough to lower the cost of rent like you wouldn’t believe!” Callie answered.

“To be honest, that’s the only reason I still live in this whacked-out city.” Herbert remarked.

“That’s fair.” Marie deadpanned.

From the cockpits of the hawk, lion, and goblin shark mechas, the three agents activated their combinations.

“Soaring past the clouds above! New Squidbeak Skymech!”

“Racing across the earth to annihilate the enemies of life! New Squidbeak LandMech!”

“Diving past the darkest depths! New Squibeak SeaMech!”

Lauren piloted the winged humanoid after the Parallel Ultramech. “Do you knockoffs seriously only have 3 robots? Let a real Squidbeak agent show you how it’s done!”

“It’s not about the number of mechs.” Shadow Lauren argued, “It’s about the use you put them to!”

The Parallel Ultramech and the Skymech each shot a volley of feathers at the other. The blades collided between the mechs, exploding in a cloud of red, orange, and black flames that eclipsed the sun. Lauren piloted her mech into the fire itself.

Compared to its original design, the New Squidbeak LandMech was far lankier, with long limbs and feline claws at the ends of all four. Marcus piloted the green robot to climb atop an apartment building, where he looked down at Zodi-O-Clock with the mech’s claws outstretched. Each one was stainless silver, and the length of a sword.

“Let me show you my new power, agent 4!” Each of the twelve symbols on Zodi-O-Clock’s chest glowed, one-by-one in a clockwise order, before firing a series of converging lasers.

The LandMech jumped off the building less than a second before the lasers collided and exploded above the structure, somersaulting over Zodi-O-Clock and scratching the back of its shoulders while the mecha was upside-down. The LandMech flipped again, landing on its feet and turning to roundhouse-kick Zodi-O-Clock in the back.

“Woah!” Marcus laughed, “This thing is way faster than the old model! Must be because I lost the elephant.”

Zodi-O-Clock jumped out of the building, tearing off its cock-hand to use as a sword and slash across the LandMech’s chest, sending out a shower of sparks. The LandMech stumbled a few steps back, before it lunged forth and grabbed the clock-sword.

With the man-o-war robo having fallen into the nonexistence of the Ginnungagap, the SeaMech had lost the electric tentacles around its waist. It dual-wielded the swordfish’s rapier and the goblin shark’s chainsaw as it marched to meet OctoShooter in combat.

“Looks like a bad matchup, traitor! You don’t have any melee weapons!” OctoShooter fired two consecutive shots. “All I have to do is keep my distance!”

The SeaMech deflected the first shot with its rapier, and the second with its chainsaw, sending them both into the sky where they exploded harmlessly. “Wrong! Let me show you just how much range I’ve got!” Katherine activated a lever, opening a hole in the SeaMech’s chest from which the dolphin’s head emerged. “Now to adjust the sonar frequency… there!” She turned a dial on her dashboard to its maximum output, and pressed it down.

The dolphin opened its mouth and released a chittering screech, alongside a series of concentric circles that rocketed down the street and struck the Neo OctoBeast from hundreds of feet away.

The SeaMech leaned forward and charged at OctoBeast, all while it continued firing the dolphin’s killer wail.

Lauren’s SkyMech and the Parallel Squidbeak Splatoon’s Ultramech battled in the center of the half-black fireball.

“Black widow swords!” Shadow Marcus commanded, as the Parallel Ultramech slashed at the Skymech in an X pattern.

Lauren used her wings as a shield, blocking the strike before she unfolded her mech, sending out a torrential gust of wind that dispelled the fireball and forced the Parallel Ultramech back.

While the Parallel Squidbeak Splatoon was caught off-guard, Lauren capitalized by shooting dozens of her own yellow feathers. The blades engulfed the dark mecha in a series of explosions.

“And that’s why parallel lines don’t intersect!”

The LandMech ran past Zodi-O-Clock again and again continuously, slashing it from all directions, until the monster was covered in green sparks. It dropped its clock-sword onto the street. The LandMech jumped up and roundhouse-kicked it in the center of its clock.

“Okay! Now my time’s up!” Zodi-O-Clock fell backwards, exploding before it struck the ground.

“Second time’s the charm!”

As soon as the SeaMech was close enough for a melee strike, it ceased the killer wail and slashed OctoShooter with the swordfish rapier, followed by the goblin shark chainsaw. “Double sea-strike!”

“I can’t believe it… killed by a deserter!”

The SeaMech turned around, as its opponent went up in a fiery blaze at its back. “I didn’t desert anything. But I’ll be glad to help give you Neo OctoBeasts your just desserts!”

Feb 1 2025; 8:00 PM

Marcus had already escorted Rose, Simon, Annie, Jacob, and Victor back to their own universe. Sky had convinced her group to let her stay behind and watch the constellations with Katherine.

The two octolings had returned to the battle lobby balcony. They each wore a jacket, a pair of boots, and a pair of gloves. Sky’s winter clothes had been borrowed from Lauren, rendering them oversized on the young teenager. The cold wind nipped at their faces beneath their hoods.

“Amazing.” Sky leaned forward, with her arms crossed over the railing as she looked up, protected by her baggy sleeves. “It does look the same as in my world.”

“That’s a little disappointing.” Katherine admitted, “I was hoping maybe we could come up with some new constellations.”

“No reason you can’t.” Sky stood upright, beneath the infinite pinpricks of light. “And if you think about it, it’s almost like we’re united by the stars above our earths. Or something like that.”

Katherine smiled. “I like that.”

“Thanks.” Sky looked back up. “Hard to believe a lot of those stars are dead right now. Almost like the sky itself is lying in a way.” She sighed, “But it’s still so beautiful.”

Katherine glanced over to the side. The moon was in a waxing crescent phase, barely visible as a curved slit of silver light in the heavens. “If you think about it, the moon is a beautiful liar too. All of its light is just a reflection of the sun.” She leaned back, gloved hands gripped on the railing. “And yet, it seems more trustworthy than the sun, because you can actually look directly at the moon.”

“That’s a nice way to think of it.” Sky looked over at Katherine. “You stole it from a TV show, didn’t you?”

Katherine grinned at the younger octoling. “Every word. But it’s still true.”

Sky rolled her eyes. “Thanks for letting me stay here anyway.”

Katherine patted Sky on the back. “You’re welcome. Think you’re ready to head home now?”

Sky Octrope paid one last look to the familiar stars of an alien world. “Yeah. I’m ready to go home.”

Chapter Text

Mar 7 2025; Midnight

Katherine and Lauren were aggressively making out on their bed. Marcus and Hachi were asleep in their own rooms, leaving the two women free to lock the door and do as they wished.

The back of Lauren’s head pressed against the sweat-soaked pillow, lips melding with Katherine’s. Her hands traveled up and down the octoling’s bare back, skin sticking together from perspiration.

Katherine pulled away from Lauren, slowly waving her hips from side to side. “You know where I want those hands, Lorie?”

Lauren grinned beneath her girlfriend, spider-crawling her fingertips down the middle of Katherine’s back and eliciting soft purrs from deep within her chest. “You want them down here?” She reached the bottom of Kat’s back and squeezed.

Katherine moaned, “Yeah! That’s it!” She swiveled her hips, pressing her scantily-clad waist into Lauren’s palms. She bent her elbows, grabbing Lauren’s chest and squeezing it passionately.

Lauren wrapped her legs around Katherine’s, rubbing them together and creating a puddle of sweat that matted the sheets below. “Oh… oh yeah, that’s good. You’re so good at this, sweetie!”

Katherine leaned in, devouring Lauren’s mouth. Their tongues laced together. They squeezed each others’ hips. They rubbed their chests together, separated only by their bras. The bed creaked under them.

Katherine sloppily pulled her mouth away from Lauren’s, panting, “I love you so much, Lorie. Do me.”

Lauren purred as Katherine squeezed her upper thighs. “I love you too, Katie. I wanna do you too.” She grasped at the hem of Katherine’s panties, pulling them down while Kat tried to unclasp Lauren’s bra with her teeth.

Lauren’s bra was barely askew when Katherine’s mouth fell away. She spat out the aftertaste of the fabric. “Maybe I should just use my hands.”

Lauren giggled, “It was a good try, hon.” She raised her head up slightly, for just long enough to kiss the exposed part of Katherine’s cleavage.

The two cephalings laughed as they undid each others’ bras. “One of these days.” Katherine drawled, lowering her hand to the hem of Lauren’s panties.

The clattering, metallic sound of pots and pans crashing onto the floor echoed in the room.

“Let’s just ignore that.” Katherine suggested.

“Agreed.”

Lauren and Katherine heard more metallic crashing sounds, interspersed with grunting noises.

Lauren groaned, rolling her eyes. “We’re not gonna be able to ignore that, are we?”

Katherine leaned up, eyes trained on the locked door. She heard the sounds of grunting, and something wet slapping against the kitchen floor. She grunted in frustration. “I guess not.” She pecked Lauren on the lips.

Lauren and Katherine quickly put their underwear back on, before Lauren unlocked the bedroom door. Katherine turned on the light switch.

Half of the kitchen floor, between the island and the counter, was covered in pots, pans, and lids, all of varying sizes. Behind the island, they could hear a gruff voice muttering, “Where Treasure? Treasure maybe here? Where Deco?”

Lauren and Katherine glanced at each other in mutual confusion.

A snatcher salmonid emerged from behind the other end of the kitchen island, sniffing the floor as if diligently searching for something. Sections of purple mohawk traveled halfway down its back from its head, it had a golden butterfly-shaped birthmark under the corner of its eye and a gold nose ring, and it was clad only in a yellow tail-fin equivalent of pants, with a simple yellow belt holding it up. A gruff, raspy voice came out of the fish’s mouth. “Need find Treasure.”

“A talking salmonid?” Katherine wondered aloud.

The sound of someone else’s voice prompted the salmonid to look up and finally notice Katherine and Lauren. “Inkling! Octoling! Where Deco Treasure?!”

“We don’t have any treasure.” Lauren leaned forward into a battle-ready stance. “Now, what are you?”

“Not obvious? I Deco! Deco snatcher!”

Katherine swiftly lunged to grab a large saucepan from the floor, brandishing it like a weapon. “You’re not snatching anything from us!” She dashed across the relatively clean side of the floor and swung her cookware at the salmonid.

The sentient fish dodged the strike, narrowly enough that he felt the minute amount of wind from the air it displaced, and ricocheted off the kitchen wall to slap Katherine across her cheek. The wet sound radiated through the kitchen and sent her stumbling backwards into the island. “Ow!”

“Katie!” Lauren ran over to grab two knives out of the utensil drawer. “I know you’re the dagger girl and all, but flick! Flick!” She tossed the knives at the salmonid, only for him to dodge the blades. They soared past Katherine, reflecting her eyes for a fraction of a second, and embedded themselves in the far wall.

Katherine turned her head. “Cutting it a little close, are we?”

“Sorry!” Lauren attempted to step forward, only to get her feet caught in two pots. “Oh no.” She tripped forward, smacking her head on the island, and collapsed onto the floor. “Owie.”

Katherine sprinted over to the knives, pulling them out of the wall and turning around. “Where is that slimy salmonid?!”

Marcus and Hachi opened their respective bedroom doors. Marcus glowered, rubbing the crust out of his eyes. “Can you guys keep it-” He took in the sight of half the kitchen floor covered in cookware, his sister holding knives in front of two gouges in the far wall, and a salmonid on the kitchen table.

Lauren stood up, with her head covered by four nesting saucepans, their handles pointing in four different directions. “Oh, good, you guys are up. Mind helping?”

“Uh… yeah, I’ll grab the belts.” Marcus pushed Hachi into the kitchen. “Try and do something while I do that!”

“I- whu- Marcus!” Hachi sputtered indignantly.

The salmonid jumped across the kitchen table, dodging each of Katherine’s jabs and slices, albeit with some modicum of effort. “Dirty octoling not hurt Deco! Deco hurt and hurt and hurt dirty octoling and inkling if hurt Deco Treasure! Dirty octoling and inkling not hurt Deco baby Treasure!”

Katherine paused. “What-?”

Someone grabbed Katherine from behind, ensnaring her wrists in dual vice-grips. “Get away from Deco. Now!”

Katherine glanced back as best she could. The other octoling looked slightly younger than her. The tentacurl-style tentacle-hair on her head was a soft cotton candy-blue. “I’m guessing Deco’s the salmonid?”

“Correct. And he’s also my friend, so you’re not hurting him if I have anything to say about it.”

Lauren took two of the saucepans off her head and clanged them together. “Oh yeah? Well you guys aren’t hurting my girlfriend if I have anything to say about it.”

Another inkling walked out from the living room, pointing a splattershot at Lauren. “You’re not hurting my friend if I have anything to say about it!”

The octoling holding Katherine’s wrists glanced over at the other newcomer. “Camryn, you’re here too?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out and get home, Meep.”

Katherine blinked in surprise. “Meep?!”

“Don’t judge. I picked it myself.”

Marcus walked back into the hallway, holding up three devices. “I got the- oh, what now?”

A fourth inkling walked out of Lauren and Katherine’s bedroom. “What the hell is going on and why was that bed so wet?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Marcus deadpanned, before doing a double-take. “Oh come on, another one?!”

The inkling was in her late teens. Her yellow hippie-style tentacle-hair hung at her sides. In her hand was a hero shot replica.

“That’s it. I’m going to bed.” Hachi deadpanned, walking past the inkling and into the hallway. The sound of their bedroom door closing behind them echoed in the silence.

Lion! Gun!

Marcus held his bright green firearm at the yellow-headed inkling. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not hurting-”

“We already did that bit, Mark.”

Marcus glanced past Camryn and at his sister. “What? Really?”

The inkling with the yellow tentacle-hair pointed her replica weapon at Marcus. “Seriously, what the hell is that thing?”

“It’s technology that I’m willing to bet your dimension can’t even begin to comprehend.”

“Dimension?!” Meep snapped, “What, you mean like alternate universes?”

Camryn rolled her eyes derisively. “For the love of the great zapfish, don’t tell me this is some kind of multiverse thing.”

Lauren shrugged her shoulders. “’Fraid so.”

Deco’s eyes darted around at the assorted cephalings. “Deco extremely confused. This not getting anywhere. What hell happening?”

“You’re right, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Katherine agreed. She turned her head slightly to address Meep. “Do all of you know each other?”

“Yes. Deco and Camryn are two of my best friends.” She glanced over at the hippie-tentacled inkling. “And Annabel is my girlfriend.”

“I’m annabel.” She clarified.

“Yeah, I think we kinda got that.” Marcus confirmed, lowering the lion gun. “Listen, I know this is confusing, but we’ve dealt with this sort of thing. We’re practically experts at this point.”

Annabel squinted at Marcus skeptically. “Really? Who even are you guys?”

“Basically, we’re the New Squidbeak Splatoon.”

Annabel’s eyebrows shot up. “No way. We’re the New Squidbeak splatoon!” She jabbed her finger at her own chest. “I’m the captain!”

Lauren held her arm out over the island. “In that case, welcome to the captain club.”

Annabel slowly, gradually turned to look at her counterpart. She looked down at Lauren’s hand, then up at her face, eyes never blinking. She gave Lauren a handshake, despite the confusion on her face.

“I’m sorry, I know this must be a lot for you guys.” Lauren leaned back. “Tell you what. Marcus and Katherine can escort you to our headquarters, and then Hachi and I will join you as soon as we clean up here. Deal?”

“Not deal.” Deco growled, “Deco mess. Deco clean.”

“You sure?” Katherine asked, “And follow-up question. Meep, could you please let me go? We’re on the same side now! And my wrists are starting to hurt!”

“Oh, sorry.” Meep released the other octoling. “Mine too.”

Lauren smiled and walked over to the kitchen table. “Thanks, Deco. I’ll stay and help you clean up.”

Deco looked up at Lauren. “Other captain not trust Deco? Can’t blame other captain. Deco stranger, trash house.”

“Ah, dude, it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that if I help you, it’ll go by faster. Especially since I have opposable thumbs.”

Deco looked down at his fins. “Deco see point.”

“Right.” Lauren slapped her palm down on the table, grinning. “Glad we’ve got it a little cleared up now.”

Lauren picked up a pot and placed it back in the cupboard where it belonged. Deco took the knob of a pot lid between his fins, and tried to lift it despite fumbling. “Hey man, it’s fine. I’ve got this.” Lauren took the lid from Deco, despite his attempts to hold onto it.

“Why inkling captain forgive Deco easy? Deco trash house! Deco try hurt inkling girlfriend!”

Lauren sighed, setting a pan down in front of the sink. “You were trying to find your baby. I’ve never been a parent myself of course, but I know what it’s like to know someone you love is in danger. And we did kind of attack you first.”

“Deco understand. Inklings, octolings, all scared salmonid. Deco not blame. But Deco not with swarm. Swarm hurt Deco. Mock Treasure when Treasure just egg.”

“I’m sorry to hear about that. You seem nice.”

“Deco thank. Other inkling captain seem nice too.”

“Thanks.” Lauren muttered.

The rest of the cleanup went by silently.

Despite being the middle of the night, Alterna’s artificial sky was blue and clear as the middle of a cloudless day. Gathered in the camp on Future Utopia Island were seven cephalings, a salmonid, and a half-empty box of tacticooler soda.

“Okay, so just to be clear…” Lauren pointed at the other group, sitting on her box-chair. “You guys are all friends, salmonids have a whole culture where you’re from, and Treasure is actually Deco’s daughter and a baby zapfish, who was kidnapped by one of your Pearl’s employees.”

“Koya Kingbell.” Deco’s voice was low and guttural, tainted with pure hatred. “Not know why. Not care why. Deco find her and save Treasure and rip filthy goldfish fins off! Make goldfish hurt as much as Deco hurt!” He was shaking with apoplectic rage.

Meep knelt down in front of Deco. “It’s gonna be okay, Deco. I promise, we’ll find your baby.” She slowly held out a hand, palm splayed and flat. “Can I touch you?”

Deco nodded. His voice softened to a minute degree. “Yes. Please. Deco appreciate.”

Meep slowly brought her palm down onto Deco’s head, stroking it comfortingly. The salmonid gradually, yet visibly, calmed down. “Thank you. Meep good friend.”

“You’re a good friend, too, Deco.”

Annabel looked over at her fellow captain. “So, do you have a plan to get us back home?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s no problem. We’ve got access to interdimensional magic.”

“Of course you do.”

“You know what? Something’s bothering me.” Camryn interjected, “If we’re from two different universes, then how are we all speaking the same language?”

Marcus shrugged. “What can I say? Apparently, lots of dimensions have roughly the same languages. Also, we’re pretty sure the planet-sized cosmic serpent who built the Library at the center of the multiverse is giving us some kind of pan-dimensional automatic translation field thingy.”

Camryn sat down and splashed a fistful of fake snow into her face.

Lauren looked up at the glitching hole in the sky. “Something about that name… Koya Kingbell…”

Meep wheeled around. “You think it sounds familiar?”

“Not the name itself, necessarily. But a goldfish…”

Marcus side-eyed his captain. “You’re not talking about Marigold, are you?”

“I don’t know anything for sure, but something’s off about her. That kind of food, at those prices? I never acted on my suspicions because we have more important things to worry about, but it feels like there might be some kind of laundering scheme going on.”

“Other captain think Marigold maybe type steal baby zapfish?”

“I’m not sure about that. But I really think there might be something going on with her. I think we should split into a group and investigate the Splatsville Crab-N-Go. Namely myself, Annabel, and Marcus.”

“And what about the rest of us?” Camryn asked.

“You guys…” Lauren tapped the side of her box in thought. “Meep, you seem to be closest to Deco. You two stay here and watch over Alterna with Hachi; maybe have some inter-team bonding.”

“What?!” Hachi yelped, “Do I have to? I’ve never even played Salmon Run before!”

“We don’t want you to kill him, just hang out with him and Meep.” Lauren argued.

“I’ll gut you if you hurt Deco.” Annabel stated bluntly.

“Fair enough.”

Lauren continued delegating. “Cam and Kat, I want you two to go out in the streets and see if anything’s going on. Whenever we get dimensional visitors, there’s always something going on.”

Camryn pounded her palm with her fist. “Four plus eight! I like it.”

Katherine smiled. “That’s the spirit.”

The battle lobby tower in the middle of Splatsville was closed in the middle of the night. Lauren, Marcus, and Annabel each wore an outer layer of winter clothing as they walked up to the metal sheet covering the closed sliding glass doors.

“Okay, so, how do we wanna get in there?” Annabel asked.

“You two wait down here. I’ll see if there’s any way in from above.” Lauren stepped back and activated her belt buckle.

Hawk! Armor!

Lauren spread her wings and kicked off the ground, leaving a small influx of heat in her wake.

Marcus glanced over at Annabel with a smirk on his face. The other-dimensional captain was staring up at Lauren with her eyes and mouth wide open in shock. “I- huh- what the f-” Each sentence caught in her throat before she could finish it.

“I told you, we have crazy tech in this dimension.”

“I thought you were just talking about, like, laser guns or something! Not sci-fi armor!”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ve got laser guns too.”

Lauren rose through the air until she reached the top third of the battle lobby tower, where the Great Zapfish was resting. The titanic sky-fish was coiled around the central structure of all splatsville, its closed eyelids alone dwarfing Lauren. She held out her arm, gently placing her yellow-metal-covered palm on the zapfish’s skin, just below its eye. “Hey, big guy. We just heard about something that happened to one of your kind in another world. I guess I just wanna let you know, we’ll do whatever it takes to stop anything like that from happening to you again.”

The Great Zapfish continued slumbering. A low electrical charge traveled down its monumental body, ending at its wedge-shaped tail before another charge started back at the Great Zapfish’s forehead.

Lauren almost flew in a complete circle around the tower before she noticed a small opening in the wall, normally concealed behind the gray, yellow, and purple screens wrapped around the lower portion of the building. “Hello.” She touched down in the opening. Several yards below, she could see hints of the floor through the scaffolding. She flew back out to hover near the opening, and called down, “I found some kind of secret doorway! Just wait down there, and I’ll open it from inside!”

Annabel strained her ears on the ground. “What did you say?!” She turned to Marcus. “What did she say?”

“Beats me.” Marcus looked up and cupped his hands over his mouth. “What did you say?!”

“What?!” Lauren yelled from the sky.

“What did you- we can’t hear-”

“I can’t hear you guys!”

“-still can’t hear you! Look, just go inside-”

“Look, I’m just gonna go inside and open the-”

“-and open the door from in there!”

“-door from in there!” Lauren flew back in through the opening.

Annabel blinked. “What just happened?”

“I… I-I have absolutely no idea.” Marcus shrugged.

Hachi stayed at the corner of Future Utopia island, away from Meep and Deco. They occasionally glanced over at the two, while turning a small rock in their hands.

Meep waved at Hachi from several dozen yards away. Her voice carried through the air of the bizarre landscape. “Hey man, what’s up?!”

Hachi stood up. “What do you mean?!”

“I mean-! Oh, forget this.” Meep sprinted over to Hachi. They flinched, almost unnoticeably, when she approached. “Are you okay? Why are you acting scared of us?”

“I’m not scared.” Hachi crossed their arms over their chest. “It’s just that I don’t know how to start conversations, and I don’t want to butt in on yours. I barely talk to the other agents, and I have to live with those three.”

“Oh. Here I thought you were scared of Deco because he’s a salmonid, but I guess you’re just socially awkward.”

Hachi looked past Meep at Deco. The salmonid was idly tracing patterns in the snow. “Actually, to be honest, he’s the first salmonid I’ve ever seen up close. If anything, I think the others would have more reason to be afraid of him. But they don’t seem to be.” They shifted their gaze back over to Meep. “Besides, he’s nothing compared to the jelletons.”

Meep raised her eyebrow. “You’re scared of jell-o? I guess it is kind of weird how it’s neither a solid nor a liquid…”

“No, not jell-o. Jelletons. Freaky bone-fish from a virtual world Marina created that almost got fused with this dimension.”

“Oh, jelletons. Good thing I’ll never have to deal with anything like that. I’ll leave you if you want to be alone.” She started walking away.

“Thanks, but there’s something I want to ask you.”

Meep paused, turning around. “Shoot.”

“How come your name is Meep? Is it, like, something to do with your backstory?”

The octoling shrugged. “I squeaked when someone bumped into me in the lobby, and it just sort of stuck from there.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound like a real name, but it’s grown on me. Plus I like when Bel says it.”

“Bel?”

“Annabel. The captain where I’m from.”

“Oh yeah, that one.”

Meep rolled her eyes.

Camryn and Katherine walked through the night streets, their way illuminated by streetlights and the stars above. “I gotta ask, what was it like when your agent 3 became captain? Because personally, I still can’t get used to it. And now there’s like, two captains.”

Kat shrugged. “I don’t remember there being much to get used to, honestly. Lauren and I were already dating at that point, and Marcus is my brother, so it’s not like she made us call her captain all the time or anything. Just on missions, if even that.”

“Right, and Marcus is agent 4?”

Katherine nodded.

“So I’m a dude in this universe? And he’s your brother?”

“I’m adopted. Also, my birth parents were total pieces of- squit, get down!” Katherine grabbed Camryn by the arm, clasping a palm over her wrist, and pulled her into the nearest alleyway.

Camryn narrowed her eyes in frustration.

Katherine leaned forward, whispering, “Thank goodness for convenient dead-end alleyways.” She yanked her hand away from Camryn. “Dude, did you just lick my hand?!”

“You can’t just put your hand over someone’s mouth and expect them not to lick it.” Cam spat in disgust, “Also, you use way too much moisturizer.”

“I get dry skin in the winter. Now shush. I saw something.”

The two cephalings peeked out from the corner. A few dozen feet down the road, two figures were holding knives, the metal glinting from the streetlight above. They wore black hoods, thus making it impossible to tell whether they were inklings or octolings.

Camryn squinted at something small, trembling in front of the knife-wielders. She audibly gasped and sprinted out of the alleyway. “Leave him alo-!” She yowled in pain as one of the cephalings turned their knife, reflecting the streetlight directly into her eye. Their partner followed up by tossing his own blade straight at her.

Goblin Shark! Robo!

The small purple robot flew out in front of Camryn, deflecting the knife with its cranial protrusion. Katherine sprinted in front of the inkling. “You stay back! I can handle this myself!”

Dolphin! Robo! Swordfish! Robo!

Katherine sent out all three of her robos to disarm the other hooded cephaling, while she set both of her dualies to ink-firing mode. Purple ink covered the pavement beneath them in seconds. She shifted her dualies into daggers while spinning them on her thumbs, and pointed them backwards over her shoulders. The slightest flick of her wrist was all she’d need to launch both daggers into one each of her opponents’ hearts. Her palm-sized machines floated around them like sentries, while her ink kept them adhered in place.

“Make your choice. Either tell me what’s going on, or I’ll show you what a real dagger-toss looks like.”

With the two hooded individuals sufficiently distracted, Camryn ran past them, careful to avoid her new ally’s ink. “Benny, are you okay?!” She knelt down in front of the small octocopter on the ground. In lieu of a propeller, he wore a bandana with two kerchiefs adorned in the colors of the great zapfish.

“Camryn! Thank goodness you’re here!” The octocopter leaned into the inkling. “What about Meep and Deco?”

“It’s a long story, but they’re safe.” Cam picked up Benny and sprinted back over to Katherine.

One of the attackers snarled. “How dare you?! Don’t you realize what that thing is, kid? It’s a monster that’ll kill you and your loved ones in your sleep!” He jabbed a finger in Katherine’s direction. “Just like that thing!”

Camryn replied solely by narrowing her eyes and flipping both of the inklings off.

Katherine held her daggers steady. “Let me guess. You guys are with the Inkadian Reclamation Society, aren’t you?”

“Of course we are! We’ll do whatever it takes to protect our fellow inklings from the octarian menace!” The second inkling turned his head to Camryn’s direction. “Listen to me, kid. I know your generation is being corrupted to accept these monsters. It’s not your fault. But you have to listen to reason, and do what’s right!”

Camryn looked down at Benny. They exchanged a brief, silent conversation. “Okay. I’ll do exactly what’s right.” She sidled up next to Katherine. “Hey, you’re not gonna kill them, are you? Cause like, I hate them and all, but-”

“No worries. I’d hate to give them the satisfaction of proving them right.” Katherine snapped her fingers, prompting the aquatic robos to slice her own ink apart.

“Don’t think we’re fooled, octarian.” One of the inklings snarled. He and his partner climbed up a fire escape, using their splattershots to fire and subsequently swim up trails of blue ink.

Camryn glanced over at Katherine. “We’re so trailing them, aren’t we?”

“Oh hell yeah. Here.” She handed Camryn a wrist-mounted device. “This is a transporter. All you have to do is enter a code, and it’ll teleport you back to Alterna so you can drop off your friend. As soon as you’re ready, just borrow Hachi’s communicator and call me. I’ll set up a new teleport beacon and tell you the code.”

Benny looked up at Kat. “Thanks. But who are you?”

“Yeah, and what’s the code?” Camryn followed up.

“Ah, right. Basically, I’m the agent 8 of this timeline. And the code is 2-0-1-5.”

“What?!” Benny exclaimed.

“Yeah, dude, it’s a long story.”

Camryn looked down at the octocopter in her arms. “I’ll tell you about it when we get to Alterna.” She looked back up at Katherine. “Thanks for this. Now start going after those guys already!”

Katherine nodded, while Camryn entered the code to disassemble her and Benny’s molecules.

Swordfish! Sword! Goblin Shark! Armor! Dolphin! Battery!

The dolphin robo folded back into its battery form and returned to Katherine’s belt buckle, while her other two robos reshaped themselves around her. With the points of her blade and arm-mounted saw, she gradually climbed up the wall. With the armor covering her entire body, and the added weight of her sword, her arms screamed with a dull ache.

A few minutes passed before Katherine paused and glanced around. She was barely halfway up the wall. “Note to self.” She sighed, “Sometimes, a good old-fashioned ink trail is more efficient than fancy octarian tech. And also way easier on the arms.”

After a few minutes, Lauren was able to open the doors for Marcus and Annabel. All three of them stood inside the battle lobby, with Marcus and Lauren’s tentacle-hairs partially illuminating the empty space in a mixture of green and yellow.

“Man, this place blows the Inkopolis lobbies out of the water.” Annabel scanned the darkness beyond her new partners’ bioluminescence. “So where do we look first?”

“Over there.” Lauren pointed at the metal sheet covering the opening to the Crab-N-Go concession stand. “And I think I know exactly how to get in there. Marcus, ready for a six-armor lift?”

“Kinda sounds like overkill.” Marcus grinned. “My favorite kind of kill.”

Hawk! Armor! Eagle! Armor! Falcon! Armor!

Leopard! Armor! Panther! Armor! Lion! Armor!

The two inklings sprinted over to the stand while their armors assembled around them, gradually slowing them down. They hooked their fingers under the metal sheet and lifted. With three armor layers adding to the upwards pressure, they effortlessly lifted the metal sheet into the wall.

Marcus slowly turned his head to the third inkling. “Now, Annabel! Hurry!”

“Okay, but why? You guys don’t look like you’re struggling.”

“No, but we’re basically wearing four layers now and this armor doesn’t have air conditioning!”

“Oh, ew.” Annabel sprinted and jumped between Marcus and Lauren, spinning and shifting into squid form long enough to pass through the opening. She turned back into an inkling before she hit the ground.

Eagle! Battery! Falcon! Battery! Hawk! Battery!

Leopard! Battery! Lion! Battery! Panther! Battery!

Marcus and Lauren vaulted over the counter, using their squid forms to enter Crab-N-Go at the same time, before the metal sheet slammed itself closed behind them. Its entire surface was covered in dents and scratches.

“Do you think anyone will notice?” Annabel snarked.

“Probably, but we can’t worry about that right now.” Lauren casually opened her belt buckle and retrieved the eagle battery. She loaded it into her hero shot DX, and pointed it at the nearest electrical socket. “You guys might wanna stand back. I’ve never actually tried this before.”

Marcus grabbed Annabel’s arm and dragged her away. “Trust me, you’re gonna want to stand back.”

Lauren fired a burst of electrical plasma at the wall near the outlet. A small scorched crater was left in its wake, with the outlet on the outskirts of the lightning field.

With a low electrical hum, the lights flickered a few times until they stabilized, drowning out Marcus and Lauren’s bioluminescence with their own artificial light. Lauren twirled her weapon and rested it on her shoulder. “Thank goodness. That would’ve been really embarrassing if it hadn’t worked.” She returned the battery to her belt buckle and holstered the gun on her waist. “Now let’s look around and see if we can find anything. Employee records, any evidence where she might live, hints she might be working for someone on the down-low, that sort of thing.”

“So just to be clear, we’re like, fully doxxing Marigold here?” Marcus questioned.

Lauren sighed. “I know this isn’t our usual MO, but something really bothers me about this woman. And after what Annabel’s group told me about a goldfish kidnapping a baby zapfish, I really think we need to investigate her preemptively.”

Annabel glanced around. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure about this myself, but since this is your dimension, I’ll trust your judgement.”

Lauren smiled at her fellow captain. “Thanks. Now let’s start looking.”

An octoling stalked her way through the streets of a foreign Splatsville. Her dark purple tentacle-hair undulated around her head in a sort of tentacurl style, each strand tapering off into a point.

From the corner of her eye, she caught someone in the corner of her eye, aiming a punch at her. The octoling barely managed to roll out of the way before two black-hooded inklings landed in front of her. “What now?”

“Now, we’ll make sure Splatsville is safe from you, octoslob!” One of the men lunged at the octoling and threw a punch at her. She dodged to the side, only for his partner to grab her shoulders and knee her in the stomach.

The octoling wheezed as her breath was jettisoned from her lungs. The first inkling’s fist slammed into her cheek, knocking her to the ground and sending a few of her teeth scattering.

“Now to do a little public service!”

The octoling weakly held her arms over her face and curled up into a ball, as the two IRS members started kicking her when she was on the ground. They struck her back, her legs, her arms, every part of her they could, trying to bludgeon her to death. All she could see was a watercolor from her own tears of pain. Desperately, she grabbed onto one man’s ankle and bit down, hard as she could. She tasted the bitter, metallic flavor of his ink-blood.

The inkling man screamed in pain, stumbling and knocking over himself and his partner. The octoling scrambled to her feet, kicking dust into her assailants’ eyes to blind them, and ran away. She turned corner after corner, sprinting down the streets until she was panting with ragged breaths, until her legs ached and she stumbled with each step.

“I… I can’t run anymore.” The octoling desperately knocked on the nearest door. “Please let me in!” She pounded her fists on the door, practically denting the wood.

Wendy had been sleeping in her bed when she was roused by the sound of someone knocking on her door. She rolled around, still in a limbo state between sleep and wakefulness, until the frantic knocks dragged her into consciousness. “Fine, okay, I’m up! Gah!” She walked downstairs, through her kitchen, and opened her front door. Her eyes widened.

An octoling stood, trembling, in Wendy’s doorway. Her body was covered in bruises and her fists were bleeding slightly from the force of her knocks. Every breath came out as a ragged gasp. “Please let me in!” She lowered herself to her hands and knees, bowing her head. “Please, I beg of you, let me in!”

Wendy took a short moment to process what she was seeing. As soon as she did, she knelt down and lifted the octoling’s head up. “Hey, it’s alright. You can come in.” She helped the octoling inside and shut the door, locking it again. “Just sit down, and I’ll grab some bandages.” She guided the octoling over to her couch before sprinting into the bathroom.

The violet-headed octoling slowly leaned back against the couch, rubbing her bleeding knuckles. Her eyes were wide, pupils darting around as if to analyze every detail of the living room. There was a medium-sized television in front of her mounted on a small shelf, a clock on the wall, and a small chair over to the side.

Wendy jogged back over with disinfectant and bandages. “Here. I have a friend who’s better at first aid, but I don’t want to wake her up. She’s been teaching me, though.” She gently took hold of the octoling’s elbow. “What’s your name?”

“Ilkani. Why are you helping me? I probably woke you up, and you’re just letting me into your house? Using your own resources to help me? I don’t have anything to give you in return, you know.”

Wendy looked up at Ilkani. “I don’t want you to give me anything in return. Now hold still, this stuff’s cold.” She started applying the disinfectant, eliciting a hiss. “Told you.”

Ilkani resisted the urge to pull her arm away. “That stuff’s not cold, it stings!”

“Oh, yeah, that too. Sorry.” Wendy continued applying the disinfectant to Ilkani’s hands. “There’s not much I can do about the bruising, but I can at least bandage up your hands. What happened to you, anyway?”

“I was knocking really hard.”

“Damn. But I meant about all the bruising.”

“Oh, that. I was sleeping over at my friend’s house, but there was a weird flash of light, and then I was outside in a random street. I walked around for a while until a couple of inklings jumped me and started spouting something about protecting the city and me being a monster. I could’ve taken them if they hadn’t caught me by surprise.”

Wendy opened the box of bandages. “Sounds to me like you’re from another dimension. That’s been happening a lot lately. And as for the guys who attacked you, sounds like they might be part of the Inkadian Reclamation Society.”

Ilkani scowled. “And here I thought they were just random thugs. Wait, did you just say another dimension?! A-a-and you’re just acting like this is completely normal?!”

“Yeah. My sister’s group has more experience dealing with other dimensions, but I’ve tagged along once or twice.”

There was a knock at the door.

Wendy paused. She pushed the bandages into Ilkani’s hand, whispering, “My room’s upstairs. Hide in the closet, and I’ll come get you once the coast is clear.”

Ilkani’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

There was another, louder knock.

“Thank you.” Ilkani sprinted up the stairs.

Wendy applied the latch to her door before she unlocked it, opening it as far as the latch would allow. “Whaddaya want?”

Two inklings stood in front of Wendy’s door, with their hoods lowered. “Sorry to wake you, miss, but this is an urgent matter. It concerns the fate of our entire city. You see, we’re with the IRS-”

Wendy slammed the door shut and locked it.

Katherine perched atop a building, wearing her dolphin armor. “Find those guys who were attacking Benny, will you?” She held out her arm and activated the sonar. After a few tries, two heat signatures appeared on her visor’s HUD alongside the direction and distance. “There we go.”

Marcus tapped on a tile in the back of the wall. “Maybe there’s some kind of secret passageway?”

Annabel walked over to him. “Maybe. I guess we could just knock until we hear something hollow.”

“Welp. Knock on wood.”

“Or in this case, linoleum.” Lauren remarked.

The group of three knocked on the wall, until Annabel heard a slight echo. “Guys, I think I found something! Maybe there’s some kind of code, like we have to push the tiles in a certain order or something…”

Falcon! Gun! Hawk! Gun! Eagle! Gun!

Lion! Gun! Leopard! Gun! Panther! Gun!

Annabel glanced over at Marcus and Lauren. They’d attached all six of their guns and Lauren’s hero shot DX to all sides of Marcus’s splatling. “Oh right, you guys are ridiculously overpowered. Carry on with your wanton destruction.”

Lauren and Marcus nodded at each other. “Property destruction on 3.” Lauren started, “One… two, three, go!”

The pair was tossed back into the wall by the recoil of their own blast. The entire wall exploded behind Annabel, forcing her to duck away from the dust cloud.

Falcon! Battery! Hawk! Battery! Eagle! Battery!

Lion! Battery! Leopard! Battery! Panther! Battery!

While Marcus and Lauren set their batteries back into their belt buckles, the dust cleared. In the midst of all the wires and pipes and insulation fluff, there was a tunnel leading downwards.

“Okay.” Marcus admitted, “Maybe there is something going on here.”

Annabel stepped into the tunnel, the path lit by fluorescent light bulbs. “Let’s get down there already.”

Katherine and Camryn perched in the shadows of the rafters in a relatively small building, where Katherine had seen Benny’s assailants being welcomed inside.

An individual wearing a stygian cloak with crimson tassels on the sleeves, golden tassels on the hood, and a staff in his hand marched onto the stage. He spoke into the microphone, with a voice like age made manifest.

“No way. These guys were supposed to be with the Inkadian Reclamation Society.” Katherine hissed, “They’re double-dipping!”

“What’s going on? Those guys down there look like some kind of cult.”

“That’s exactly what they are. They call themselves the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver.”

“Sounds like a pleasant bunch. So, what’s these guys’ deal? You think they might be double-agents?”

“Maybe, but I guess some overlap isn’t entirely out of the question.” Katherine preemptively grabbed Camryn’s arm to stop her. “I’ll call Hachi.” She slid the screen out of her belt buckle, along with the earbud.

Camryn nodded and looked back down, watching the unholy congregation.

Marcus, Lauren, and Annabel followed the tunnel down into the depths of the earth beneath Splatsville. At the end, they found a small room carved into the rocks and stones, with a locked chest in the corner, and a desk and chair off to the side. Atop the desk was an unlit lamp.

“Okay, there’s definitely something in that chest.” Annabel knelt down by the object and picked it up, audibly straining. It was wide enough to fit in both of her arms. “Some help…” She gasped, “...would be appreciated.”

“Got it!” Marcus helped Annabel carry the chest over to the desk, while Lauren pulled the chair out of their way. The chest produced a loud, dull sound when it was lowered onto the table.

“There wasn’t any dust, so someone must’ve been down here recently.” Lauren observed. “And we can’t just blast this thing open if we want to investigate whatever’s inside.”

“Maybe we could melt the lock somehow.” Annabel suggested, “At this point, I refuse to believe you guys can’t do that somehow.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Hawk! Sword!

Lauren gingerly tapped the lock with the tip of her sword, melting it into a puddle of molten slag. “There we go.”

Hawk! Battery!

Marcus opened the chest. Inside were three small plastic cards. “Holy squit. Fake IDs.”

“How can you tell they’re fake?” Annabel asked apprehensively.

Marcus gestured all around them, at the chamber hidden underground beneath the center of Splatsville.

“I see your point.”

Lauren picked up the fraudulent IDs and fanned them out between her thumb and index finger. Each picture was of the same goldfish, with only their hairstyles differentiating them. “Nishiyo Oranda, Poisson Rouge, and Ran Chi-Yu.”

“Do you think she might be working with one of the factions?”

“Maybe. Y’know, we really should come up with some kind of blanket term for them.”

“Like what?” Slowly, Marcus grinned. “Something like the Anti-Squidbeak Syndicates, maybe?”

Lauren had to think for a moment before she started laughing. “I like the acronym.”

Marcus and Lauren’s communicators started beeping. They exchanged a glance before taking the screens out and answering. Each one showed a 2-way split screen.

“Guys, Katherine just called me. The Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver are having a meeting at Anarchy District 3.”

“No way. Anarchy District 3 is where one of Marigold’s fake IDs lives.” Annabel held up a set of documents and a file folder, in front of an open drawer in the desk.

“So maybe she’s been a member this whole time.” Lauren realized. “Okay, Hachi. We’ll be right there. Are you coming too?”

Hachi shrugged. “Might as well, I guess. I’ll ask Meep if she wants to come, too.”

“Alright. See you there.”

Once Hachi informed Marcus, Lauren, and Annabel of the code for the teleport beacon Katherine had set up, a group of seven cephalings quickly assembled in the rafters.

“Everyone ready?” Lauren mouthed.

She was met with a round of silent nods. Despite her hesitation, Meep nodded as well.

Lauren turned the volume dial on her belt down to mute it. “4, 8, silence your belts.”

Marcus and Katherine did as their captain told them. Camryn nearly moved her hand before she realized Lauren wasn’t referring to her.

Silently, the belt-equipped four donned the falcon, leopard, swordfish, and therizin armors. Lauren handed the eagle gun to Annabel, Marcus passed the lion gun over to Camryn, and Katherine gave the goblin shark gun to Meep.

Lauren held up three fingers. She counted down. When she made a fist, the seven jumped into the throng of cultists.

Wendy knocked on her closet door. “They’re gone now.”

Ilkani slid the door open. “Thank you. For all of this.”

“You’re welcome.” Wendy walked over to her dresser, and picked up her phone. “I’ll call my sister. She’s probably sleeping right now, but I’m sure she’ll be willing to help once we explain your problem to her.”

Annabel, Meep, and Camryn fired down while they fell. The eagle gun electrocuted its target, opening him up for Annabel to dive-kick him in the head.

Lauren spun in midair, casting a gust of freezing wind in all directions.

Marcus jump-kicked a cultist in the chest, stabbing him with the claws on his armor before jumping off, turning around, and slicing down another cultist’s face with his hand-claws.

Panther! Robo!

Marcus punched one cultist while his robo pounced on the other.

Dolphin! Sword!

Katherine sprinted at a cluster of cultists as they fired multiple hues of concussive ink at her. She deflected the ink bursts with her dolphin sword and the swordfish rapier on the back of her arm, with expert precision and speed, until she was close enough to lunge into the crowd. She twisted herself upside-down with her arms outstretched, slicing their ankles like an inverted helicopter.

Hachi pulled two of the therizin spikes off their shoulders and lobbed them at two of the cultists like javelins, forcing them to roll out of the way while the spikes automatically replenished themselves.

Atop the stage, the cult leader raised his staff. “Come hither, my spawn of the stars, to avail us in battle!”

A horde of hellish monsters from beyond the earthly plane entered the physical realm, through holes that were torn into reality itself by arcane magic.

“What the hell are those things?!” Camryn screamed, instinctively firing at several of the nearest beasts.

“They’re called star spawn!” Lauren yelled over, freezing one of the eldritch horrors by shooting her feathers into the tentacles covering its horrid face.

Liopleur! Gun! Ornitho! Gun!

Hachi twirled the guns in their hands before setting a single therizin spike into each of their barrels. When they pressed the triggers, the spines shot out with explosive force and impaled several of the star spawn, with bolts of plasma following each one. They attached the liopleur and ornitho guns back-to-back, spinning around and firing simultaneously in front and behind themself.

In moments, Hachi was surrounded by small, floor-melting explosions.

Camryn, Annabel, and Meep stood back-to-back in a triangle, firing bolts of plasma at the star spawn and cultists all around them. Each of Annabel’s blasts was amplified with artificial lightning. “Is it just me, or does this seem a little above our pay grade?” She remarked.

“Way above our pay grade.” Camryn agreed, “Especially since we’re not even getting paid for this!”

“Sorry if this is a bad time to ask, but did you find anything about the goldfish lady?”

“Yeah, we found a bunch of fake IDs and documents.” Camryn answered, “So 50/50 shot she’s up to something.”

“Especially since one of her possibly-fake addresses is right in this district.”

“Oh, yeah, that too. That’s gotta bump it up to at least 75/25.”

Overhead, Lauren kicked a star spawn in the head, forcing it down and sliding its body across the floor. She launched her feathers and let them explode into a cloud of ice behind her, before kicking the star spawn away and turning around. Lauren allowed herself a brief moment to admire her handiwork.

The falcon’s ice feathers had encased several of the cultists and star spawns in crystalline sculptures. The star spawn had fallen to the floor, some with cracks along their unearthly bodies.

Lauren’s wings automatically replenished themselves, allowing her to fly onto the stage while Marcus climbed, his claws digging into the side of the wooden structure.

Hawk! Sword!

Panther! Gun!

Lauren touched down next to Marcus, a few dozen feet away from the leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver. The residual heat of her sword contrasted with the frost of her armor. “It’s over, old man. What’s your game this time?”

“Such an insolent young squid. You have no idea what you are interfering in.” He wreathed the top of his staff in black smoke of pure dark magic, and swiped it at the agents to send the sorcery flying at them.

Lauren jumped in front of Marcus, using her wings as a shield while he fired the panther gun at the cult leader. Each shot was deflected with a swing of his staff.

“You stay back, and I’ll get up close!”

“Aye, captain!”

Lauren jumped into a glide that lasted a few seconds, before she came down and sliced at the cult leader. He blocked the sword with his staff, triggering a swirling cloud of fire and darkness all around the two combatants.

Zipcaster!

Marcus transformed his arm into a rope, extending it and yanking himself back into the rafters above the stage.

Lauren glided backwards while remaining upright, spinning and folding her wings to barely deflect another concentrated blast of unholy sorcery.

The Servants of the Dreaming Cadevers’ leader raised his staff. “Once more, I call upon the star spawn to battle alongside me!”

Three gateways to an unspeakable beyond appeared slightly behind the cult leader, above his shoulders and head. From each one there poured out a swarm of star spawn.

“That many?” Lauren brandished her sword and spread her wings. “Now you’re just insulting me!” She flew directly into the horde of that which never should have existed, slicing with her sword to set their soulless bodies ablaze, and occasionally spinning to cut their skin with her freezing wings.

From the rafters above, Marcus fired the panther gun at any and all star spawn who attempted ambushing Lauren from behind.

Lauren froze two of the star spawn and grabbed them, tossing the sculptures at the cult leader. They shattered on impact, granting her a split-second opening to kick him to the ground.

The leader of the cult grunted in pain, covering his head with his hand, and hurriedly lifting his hood back into place. He stood up with his staff held aloft. “This place is no longer advantageous. My fellow Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver, let us leave this place and let the star spawn enact our will against these interlopers!”

A dark sorcerous smoke engulfed the massive room. The Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver disappeared as if into thin air, leaving only the seven agents and the remaining hordes of star spawn.

“That filthy coward.” Lauren growled.

Inkjet!

Marcus floated down to Lauren, firing explosive blasts at the star spawn in the middle of the floor as he descended.

Hachi leapt through one of Marcus’s explosions, trailing fire behind their spikes like smokestacks, and ripped two of them out to stab several star spawn with their flaming points.

In moments, all seven agents gathered in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by several dozen star spawn.

“What happened to all the guys we were fighting?” Annabel asked.

“Their leader wussied out, that’s what.” Lauren answered.

“In that case, I say we finish these things!” Camryn decided. The rest of the group wordlessly agreed, and charged back into the fray.

Panther! Sword!

Liopleur! Armor! Ornitho! Gun! Therizin! Sword!

Katherine jumped onto one of the star spawn, stabbing it with the blade attached to her swordfish armor, while slicing another monster above her with the dolphin sword.

Lauren slashed the air with her hawk sword, launching a flaming beam that scorched multiple star spawn all at once. She flipped horizontally so that her back was facing the floor from a few yards above, and scattered half of her feathers. They rose in an arc before descending all around her. Some stabbed the star spawn and encased them in ice, while others embedded themselves into the floor and exploded into stark white clouds of frost.

Marcus leapt into one of Lauren’s frost clouds, protected by his leopard armor, and jabbed his panther sword out. Concealed by the opaque mist, he was able to stab a star spawn clean through its stomach.

Each of Hachi’s armored limbs bore one of the liopleur robo’s triangular fins on their forearms and upper legs. They jump-kicked several star spawn, slicing their jugulars with their leg-fins, and stabbed their arm-fin down into another star spawn’s bulbous head.

Annabel, Meep, and Camryn stayed together as they fired their respective guns into the monstrous horde. Whenever a star spawn attempted to attack one of them from behind, another dove into its path and shot it out of the air.

While Lauren was flying through the air, shooting and slashing with frost and flame alike, her phone started ringing. “Seriously?” She rolled her eyes, offhandedly slashing a star spawn as it dove at her from the side.

Falcon! Sword!

Lauren descended as her armor dissipated, reforming into a second sword in her free hand. She combined the ice and fire blades by attaching them pommel-to-pommel. “Cryoblaze sword!” She answered her phone. “Hi, Wendy. What’s got you up so late?”

“Sorry about this, Lauren. There was an octoling knocking on my door, and she was being attacked by a couple guys from the Inkadian Reclamation Society. We’re pretty sure she’s from another dimension.” Wendy caught the sounds of crackling fire and metal slicing something that might’ve been flesh. “Are you fighting someone right now?”

“Yeah, just some of those star spawn freaks I told you about.” Lauren twirled her double-sword, freezing several of the monsters and subsequently melting them into a steaming puddle. “Did you get her name?”

“Yeah. She said her name is Ilkani.”

“Got it. I’ll start a thorough investigation.” Lauren yelled at the top of her lungs, “Does anyone here know an Ilkani?!”

“Ilkani?!” Camryn started running over to Lauren. “Sorry girls! I gotta take this!”

“Unbelievable.” Annabel remarked.

Lauren held out her phone. “My sister called me. Apparently, Ilkani’s staying at her place.”

“Okay, thanks.” Camryn took Lauren’s phone out of her hand. “Hi, are you Lauren’s sister?”

“Sure am. Name’s Wendy.”

“Camryn. Listen, I know this is insane, but I’m actually-”

“A member of a New Suidbeak Splatoon from a parallel universe who somehow got warped here because of an inexplicable distortion in the fabric of reality?”

Camryn blinked in surprise. “Um. Yes.”

“Yeah, we’ve been doing this for a while now. Anyway, Ilkani’s right here if you wanna talk to her.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I don’t wanna talk to my friend while we’re stranded in another dimension.”

“Right.” Wendy deadpanned, “So I’ll take that as a yes.” She handed the phone over to Ilkani. “Here ya go. I’ll give you some privacy.”

“You’re just gonna leave me alone in your room? With your phone? What if I go into your stuff?”

Wendy shrugged. “I guess I’m just trusting like that. Also, it’s still locked, so the worst you could possibly do is fill up my camera storage.” She waved and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Hesitantly, Ilkani put the borrowed phone up to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hi, Ilkani! How’s things?”

The sound of Camryn’s voice caused Ilkani’s to briefly catch in her throat. “Alright, aside from getting assaulted, needing to ask a complete stranger for help, and learning that I’m in another universe now. And apparently, the guys who attacked me were part of a group.”

“Yeah. I think we ran into them too. Listen, I’m glad you’re safe now.”

“Oh, please. The only reason they stood a chance was because they ambushed me.”

“I don’t doubt it. See you soon, Ilkani.”

“You too, sap.”

By the time Ilkani and Camryn hung up, the last of the star spawn had been vanquished. Lauren examined the scorch marks and small fires littering the floor. “Okay, team. Sounds like we need to regroup.”

Chapter Text

Meep and Annabel had returned to Alterna to rendezvous with Benny and Deco.

Lauren, Mark, Kat, Hachi, and Camryn were gathered in Wendy’s living room, along with her and Ilkani.

Wendy tapped her fingers on her knees. “Sorry I don’t have a lot of furniture. I wasn’t planning on having this many guests.”

Lauren was sitting between Wendy and Katherine on the couch. Marcus, Camryn, and Ilkani were all sitting on the floor. Hachi was standing in the corner of the room, pointedly keeping to themself. “It’s fine.”

“So, you guys are all part of the same New Squidbeak Splatoon?” Wendy asked.

Ilkani nodded. “Yes. I’m agent five, Deco’s agent six, and Benny’s agent seven.” She leaned forward. “So, what number are you?”

“Oh, I’m more of an auxiliary agent.”

Lauren sputtered, “Excuse you?! You’re a civilian!”

“What about when the makoids invaded, huh?”

“That- that was a city-wide emergency!”

“And that heart monster I fought?”

Lauren blinked in surprise. “So that’s how it was already giant… we’ll talk about this later, sis.”

“So you guys filled all the numbers, huh?” Marcus remarked. “Y’know, I think we’ve got more than enough auxiliary agents to fill ours, too, but we kinda stopped numbering ourselves a while ago.”

“Yeah, it gets pretty confusing sometimes.” Camryn agreed, “I’m still not used to Bel not being agent 3 anymore, and we just recruited two new agent 3s at the same time before this whole thing started.”

“So that means you guys have 10 agents?” Wendy asked.

“Technically yes, but Benny’s not much of a fighter.” Camryn clarified, “And we didn’t get to do much with the newbies before we got warped to this dimension.”

Lauren crossed her arms over her lap. “Just out of curiosity, how come you guys had to recruit two new agents?”

“Okay, so remember when we told you about that goldfish stealing Deco’s baby?” Camryn started counting on her fingers, “Well right after that happened, the Great Zapfish in our splatsville went missing, we found our universe’s Alterna covered in this freaky stuff called fuzzy ooze, and captain- sorry, ex-captain Cuttlefish got dragged away by a whole cloud of the stuff. So, yeah, take your pic.”

“Oh. Yeah, those are good reasons.” Lauren stood up, yawning and stretching her arms overhead. “Anyway, I think I speak for all of us when I say, I’m exhausted. We need to come up with some kind of sleeping arrangement. Ideas?”

“You and Katherine can stay here with me and Ilkani.” Wendy suggested.

“I will never understand how inklings can be so trusting with a complete stranger in their houses.”

Camryn grinned. “Speaking of which, Ilkani and I are already roomies back home, so I don’t see any reason we can’t bunk together here, too.”

Ilkani sputtered wordlessly, with Camryn’s hand clasped on her own.

“Okay. So Lauren and Katherine will stay in my room, Ilkani and… what’d you say your name was? Cameron?”

“Camryn.” The inkling enunciated each letter.

“Right. Sorry. So, you and Ilkani can have my guest room, and I’ll take the couch.”

Ilkani scowled. “I don’t like this. You shouldn’t have to inconvenience yourself for our sake.”

Wendy shrugged. “It’s really not an inconvenience. The couch is pretty soft, and I’ve got a TV right there.”

“Just don’t stay up all night, okay?”

“You’re my big sister, not my mom.”

Lauren gave her sister a stern look. “Wendy Laker…”

“Okay, okay! I promise I’ll turn on something really boring, like the Home Shopping Network!”

“That’ll work.” Lauren patted Wendy on the shoulder and stood up. “Okay, guys. Let’s all get some shut-eye, and in the morning, we can figure out our game plan.”

Mar 7 2025; 3:20 AM

In the abandoned, lifeless depths of Alterna, a salmonid and an octoling appeared in the tomb of a species. The octoling looked around. “Where is everyone?”

“I have no idea.” The salmonid answered its sister, “All I know is, there was a flash of light-”

“-And then everyone disappeared. Yeah, I know. What should we do?”

The salmonid jumped into its sister’s hand. “We survived on our own for years.”

“Yeah, and going into civilization was your idea.”

“Don’t argue. Let’s just stay here for now, and wait for the others to come back.”

The octoling’s eyes drifted over to a pile of boxes. Nearby, there was some turquoise device she couldn’t discern the nature of, with a plush zapfish on top. “Okay.”

Mar 7 2025; 7 AM

Ten agents teleported into Alterna. Lauren, Marcus, Katherine, and Hachi had distributed spare transporters. Annabel, Camryn, Meep, and Ilkani wore theirs around their wrists as they’d been designed, and Deco’s was on his fin. Benny’s physiology prevented him from wearing a transporter, and thus, he was carried in Meep’s arms.

A sharp voice was the first thing they heard. “Where did you all go?! You just left us! And who are these guys?!”

A tiny smallfry, barely the size of one’s palm, was angrily bouncing and snarling on the ground. It was standing guard over a young octoling while she slept, curled around a zapfish plushie. She muttered incoherently, stroking the stuffed animal in her sleep.

“Aww…” Lauren quietly cooed.

“Sorry, Agent 3A.” Annabel apologized to the amphibious fish.

The smallfry was visibly taken aback with shock. “You can understand me? And I can understand you? How is that even possible?!”

“Apparently, it has something to do with a snake-god who built a magic library.” Camryn deadpanned.

“No seriously, what the actual hell is going on now?!”

The teenager was roused awake by her sibling’s yell. She groaned and lifted herself up by pressing her palms down in the fake snow. “Buddy, what’s wrong?” She sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her bleary eyes.  As soon as she saw eight cephalings, half of them strangers, she screamed and scrambled back, eyes wide and breaths shallow with fear.

The smallfry growled protectively.

“Easy, agents.” Annabel spoke softly, trying to assuage their fears. “These guys are with us now. Lauren, care to explain?”

“Oh. Right. Okay, do either of you two know anything about the multiverse?”

The siblings simultaneously tilted their heads to the side in confusion.

Camryn elbowed Lauren in the side. “Dude, I’m pretty sure these two spent their whole lives in the desert. They barely understand how a city works, let alone the multiverse.”

“Ah. Fair point.” Lauren knelt down. “Listen to me. I’m not going to hurt you, okay? My name’s Lauren.” She pointed to herself, and then unfurled her palm to gesture at the two. “You guys?”

The salmonid and the cephaling kept their eyes trained on Lauren apprehensively. The former was the first to speak. “I’m Agent 3A, and my sibling is Agent 3B.”

“Huh. Okay, then. I guess you don’t have to tell us your real names if you don’t want to.” Lauren stood up and made a quick headcount, pointing at each of the agents. “Alright, it looks like there’s a dozen of us this time. Again.”

“So, um, what’s going on?” Agent 3B asked, subtly trembling.

“Oh, right! Sorry about that. Okay, so, um, have you ever had to make a choice before?”

“Yeah. Like when Buddy and I decided to come to the city, and when we decided to help the old man with his zapfish problem.”

“Okay. Well, just imagine if you hadn’t gone into the crater, or if you’d never gone to the city in the first place. There are worlds beyond your own where that’s exactly what happened. Are you following me so far?”

“I, uh, I think so.”

“Okay, good. Now there are some worlds that are similar to yours, and others that are completely different. To be honest, I think this one is somewhere in between. Basically…” She gestured at Marcus, Katherine, and Hachi. “We’re a different New Squidbeak Splatoon.”

“Woah… Is that why I can understand you?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, we were all about to have a meeting about what’s going on here, if you’d like to join us.”

“Um… okay.”

The agents gathered in a circle in the middle of Alterna. Katherine started, “Okay. So, Camryn and I found Benny here being threatened by two guys from the Inkadian Reclamation Society, but when I trailed them, they went to a meeting with the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver. I’m not sure if they’re double-agents, or if they legitimately believe in both groups somehow, but either way, it could be a problem. The last thing we need is those two groups making some kind of alliance.”

“Who are you talking about?” Agent 3B asked.

“Two of the factions we’ve been fighting against this year. Basically, the Inkadian Reclamation Society wants to either kill the entire octarian race or banish them back to the underground domes, where they’d probably all die anyway, and the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver want to awaken their dark god who slumbers beneath the waves.” Marcus explained.

“Gotta be honest, I’m really not seeing the overlap.” Ilkani pointed out, “Except for the general goals of death and destruction, of course. Maybe those two are spies?”

“That’s also a possibility.” Lauren agreed, “Right now, we need to try and find them, and figure out what they’re doing.”

“How do we do that?” Camryn asked.

“Marigold. Or whatever her name is. After what we saw beneath Crab-N-Go, I’m sure she’s the key to all this.” Annabel shrugged. “Or at least the key to something.”

Meep spoke up, “So we’re all going down there?”

Lauren shook her head. “No, I don’t think all of us could fit. How about we go half and half instead? Me, Katherine, Marcus, Camryn, Ilkani, and Meep go back down into Crab-N-Go to investigate Marigold. Hachi, Annabel, Deco, Benny, and agents 3A and 3B can go out into the city, and try to find those two.”

Camryn tapped Lauren on her shoulder. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? If these two are part of some kinda anti-octarian group, then maybe- hear me out, but maybe half the group we send to spy on them shouldn’t be octarians.”

“Oh shoot, that’s actually a good point.”

“Deco want go ’neath Crab-N-Go as well.” Deco interjected, “Maybe get ideas how find filthy baby-stealing goldfish in Deco’s own timeline-thingy.”

“Alright.” Lauren conceded, “So we’ll replace two of the inklings in the Crab-N-Go team with Deco and Agent 3B.”

“You’re not splitting us up!” Agent 3A insisted.

Agent 3B hugged her sibling closer. “Buddy’s right.”

“Oh, geeze, okay.” Lauren put her hand on her forehead. “Look, let’s just go to our place, and then we can strategize over breakfast.”

“Sounds good to me.” Annabel agreed.

Marcus jogged over to some boxes, retrieving two transporters and bringing them over to Agents 3A and 3B. “Here you go. Just put them on your wrist, like this.” He handed both transporters to Agent 3B, and pointed to his own.

Agent 3B flinched away from the contact. “Th-thanks.”

“Sorry.” Marcus backed away from the octoling, while she helped Agent 3A put one of the transporters on his fin.

“I don’t think that’s going to work.”

Agent 3A glanced at the transporter, and the tiny smallfry in her palm. “I see your point.” She handed one of the devices back to Marcus. “Do you have any smaller ones?”

“Uh, no, sorry.” Marcus took back the transporter. “But your sibling should be teleported with you when you use it anyway.”

“Okay.”

After Lauren explained the transporter to Agent 3B, the twelve disassembled their molecules and reassembled them in her and the other three agents’ living room. “Okay, so, we’ve never actually planned on having eight guests over. Or salmonid guests, for that matter.” Lauren admitted, “But I think Marcus and I can make some pancakes.”

“Sounds good to me.” Annabel smiled.

“What are… pan…cakes…?” Agent 3B asked, somewhat nervously.

“Dude, you’ve never had pancakes?!” Katherine grabbed Agent 3B by the shoulders, eliciting a fearful squeak from the younger octoling. “Sorry, sorry. But seriously, you’ve got to try pancakes. They’re so good.”

“Okay. I’ll try them.” Agent 3B spoke quietly. She stumbled backwards until she fell onto a couch cushion, clutching her smallfry sibling.

Hachi glanced at Katherine, then Annabel. “I’ll talk with her.” They walked over to the couch and sat down next to Agent 3B.

Agent 3A snarled at Hachi. “Can’t you see she’s scared?! Doesn’t anyone have any sense of personal space?”

“Sorry!” Hachi put a cushion’s worth of space between themself and the siblings. They looked up at Agent 3B. “Kinda overwhelming, huh?”

Agent 3B looked over at Hachi. “Yeah. It’s…” She darted her eyes around the living room, at the walls and furniture. “... so small. I can’t even see the sky.”

“Oh, the windows are right there.” Hachi pointed behind the couch.

“Really?” Agent 3B set Agent 3A down on the arm of the couch, before turning around to look out the window. “It still looks so small, though. There’s all these buildings and… and stuff!” She slumped back into a sitting position, arms crossed over her lap. “In the desert, it was all open space. I could see the entire sky when I was outside. But here, it feels like I’m trapped. Especially with all these walls.”

“I kinda know what you mean. In a way. I didn’t exactly grow up in a desert, but my world was ruined and I got yanked into this universe. I can never go back to my old home, and I’m in no position to move out of here, either. Right now, I just have to make the best out of things.”

“Buddy says we have to live in the city if we want to survive. But I’d rather stay in the desert. Everything is less busy, less overwhelming out there.”

“And less safe.” Agent 3A argued, “We were barely getting enough food to survive out there.”

“But we had a reliable food source out there!”

“The closest thing we had to a reliable food source was more dangerous than it was worth, and you know it.”

Agent 3B sighed. “I guess you might have a point. Maybe.” She looked over at Hachi. “Thank you for talking with me. It feels good, having someone who sorta knows what I’m going through.”

“You’re welcome. I’m not usually good at anything social.”

“Neither am I. It’s just been me and Buddy all this time. Now I’m part of an entire group, this… New Squidbeak Splatoon. I have to help find two great zapfish, and the old man, and it’s just… so much pressure.” Agent 3B leaned back on the couch, sighing.

Agent 3A nuzzled into Agent 3B, wordlessly comforting her. Hachi slowly turned their gaze away, unsure of what to do or say next.

Mar 7 2025; 7 AM

The twelve agents gathered around the kitchen table. Katherine and Marcus had set up a few extra folding chairs for their guests. Agent 3B had grabbed a single pancake, bereft of any toppings, before darting away from the gathering.

“Wow.” Ilkani remarked, taking a knife and fork to her breakfast. “And I thought I was anti-social.”

Deco was perched on the table, incapable of handling utensils with his fins and therefore eating pancakes with his mouth. “These good! Thank captain and captain friend!”

“Thanks.” Marcus smiled.

“Yeah, thanks.” Lauren acknowledged after swallowing her own bite, “They’re actually pretty simple.”

“They taste different than where we’re from.” Annabel pointed out, “Maybe you could give us a recipe later?”

Marcus grinned. “I’d be happy to.”

Agent 3A leaned back in front of the counter. She set her sibling down, turning the pancake in her hands. She analyzed every detail skeptically, the fluff in the middle, the whites at the edges, the chocolate chips inside. Agent 3B looked up at her. “Are you going to eat that?”

“I guess so. It’s just… it feels too easy. Too good to be true.”

“Maybe this is just what it’s like to be part of a group. Not a swarm, not on our own in the desert, just part of a group who respects us.”

“Maybe…” Agent 3B darted her head like a viper to take a bite of the pancake, as though she thought it might attack her. Her eyes widened as she absorbed the flavor. All hesitation disappeared, and she stuffed the rest of the breakfast into her mouth. Bits of pancake fell out onto the floor.

Lauren sidled up next to the young octoling. “Good, huh? I did the exact same thing once.”

Agent 3B looked up at the captain. “Your first time eating them?”

“Nah.” Lauren shook her head. “I hadn’t eaten anything for a while, because of… well, it’s a long story. But the morning after I got home, Marcus made pancakes, and I just- I just fully lost control.” She laughed, leaning back against the counter. “I stuffed two of those things into my mouth, syrup and all, and I hugged Marcus. Got- got it all over him.”

“Was he mad at you?”

“No, of course not. He actually made extra for me, since he knew I was hungry. And of course, Katherine and I cuddled the night before.”

“They… um… they sound like good friends.”

“Marcus is. But Katherine’s actually my girlfriend.”

Agent 3B’s eyes widened. “Oh. Does that mean…” She paused, considering all of what little she knew about such concepts. “Does that mean you’ll spend the rest of your life with her?”

“Fate willing, I’d like to.” Lauren patted the octoling’s shoulder. “Now, are you gonna join us or not? We’re having a strategy meeting.”

Hesitantly, Agent 3B nodded. “Okay.”

The 12 agents gathered around the table. “Okay.” Lauren dramatically stabbed her pancake with her fork. “Right now, we have two groups we have to split into. Team A will go into Marigold’s secret basement under the battle lobby and try to figure out just what the hell is going on with her. Team B will go out into the city and try to find those two double-dippers; figure out what their deal is.”

“And we’re all in agreement that nobody on team B should be an octarian, right?” Annabel glanced over at Meep, Ilkani, Benny, and the new Agent 3s.

Katherine raised her fork, with a piece of her breakfast impaled on the tines. “For the record, I wouldn’t mind trailing those two weirdos. I’m not scared of them, and with the dolphin armor’s sonar, I’m the best one for actually locating them.” The piece slipped off her fork and onto the floor. “Aw, dammit. That one had butter and everything.”

“I’m thinking each team should be led by one of us captains, too.” Lauren suggested.

Marcus performed a quick headcount. “Hey, wait a second. Agent 3B and 3A are staying together, so if team basement is all octoling, then neither of you will be able to go with them.”

“I could stay aboveground.” Hachi suggested, “I’ve got the ornitho armor, remember? I can fly and look for those two while Kat sonars them.”

“Good idea.” Annabel approved, “And since it sounds like everyone on team A is from my universe anyway, I might as well be the captain for that team.”

Lauren counted on her fingers. “Huh. You’re right. Okay, so I’ll lead the aboveground team, which will also consist of Hachi, Katie, Marcus, Camryn, and Deco. That cool with everyone?”

Deco looked over at Benny. “Friend Benny okay without me?”

“I think so. I’ll still have Meep and Ilkani, after all. And Agent 3B.” He added, as if an afterthought.

Agent 3B shrugged. “That’s fair.”

The smallfry on the octoling’s shoulder glared at Deco. “I still don’t trust you. You smell like the swarm.”

Deco growled, as if the smallfry had uttered a grave insult. “Maybe for best I not come with you.”

Lauren cleared her throat awkwardly. “Right… If both teams are decided, then let’s finish breakfast, and then head out.”

Mar 7 2025; 7:15 AM

As Annabel, Meep, Ilkani, Benny, and agents 3A and 3B walked into the Splatsville battle lobby tower, one of the screens on the interior wall showed the opening logo for a news broadcast.

“This is Spatsville Operational News! Your source for fair, balanced, and unbiased coverage of every important event in the city of Splatsville!”

“That’s not Deep Cut.” Annabel remarked.

Meep held out a hand. “Hold on, I wanna see where this is going. Maybe they’ve got something about last night. Or would it be this morning?”

“It all happened after midnight, so it’d be this morning.” Ilkani pointed out.

“Hey, it’s starting.” Annabel pointed at the screen.

“Last night, the terrorist organization calling themselves the New Squidbeak Splatoon attacked the Crab-N-Go at the Splatsville battle lobby tower! Our interviewers are downtown right now, interviewing the poor, innocent owner of the store Marigold, who has asked to remain anonymous! Dammit, cut to commercial! Cut to-”

The security footage showing Marcus, Lauren, and Annabel breaking into the Crab-N-Go was abruptly replaced by an ad for crab milk.

Perched on the vantage point that was Agent 3B’s shoulder, Agent 3A looked over at the abandoned Crab-N-Go station. “So that’s why Marigold isn’t there.”

“In that case, we’d better get in and out before the authorities arrive. Everyone, make sure your transporters are ready, and then we’ll head down.”

Mar 7 2025; 7:15 AM

Katherine, Lauren, Marcus, Camryn, and Deco were perched atop a building. Katherine was wearing the dolphin armor, while Hachi was hovering overhead in the ornitho armor.

“Find anything?” Marcus asked his sister.

“Not yet.” Katherine walked a few feet closer to him. “The sonar only has so much range. It’s not like I could just cover the whole city. Plus, even if I do actually find them, there’s still the whole matter of actually following them.” She called up, “Yo, Hachi! Find anything?!”

Hachi turned in a full circle, keeping their eyes downcast and scanning as much of the streets as they could. “No sign of them.”

“Maybe I should help them.”

Hawk! Armor!

Lauren shot into the air on her new wings, until she matched Hachi’s altitude at several dozen feet above the roof. “How’s this? You stay up here with the others, and I’ll go out and look in other parts of the city.”

Hachi considered Lauren’s suggestion, their face unparseable through their helmet. After a few seconds, they nodded. “Okay. Maybe you should avoid going that way, though.” They pointed in the direction they were referring to. “There’s a news crew setting up.”

“Really?” Lauren turned to look over. “Huh. Yeah, it looks like they’re getting ready for an interview. Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.” She looked back to Hachi. “Thanks for the warning.”

“You’re welcome.” Hachi acknowledged. Lauren nodded, and started flying away.

Benny clung to Meep’s side while she traveled down the underground steps. With his stubby legs, he jumped down each stair.

As the only one in the group who’d been to the basement before, Annabel was two steps in the front. “Remember, guys, we’re looking for evidence of who this lady really is. And more importantly, who she’s working for.”

The group stepped into the basement. Meep bent down to pick up Benny. “This place looks creepy.” She muttered.

“Agreed.” Agent 3B mumbled, visibly on edge. Her hands were splayed, almost like claws, and her eyes were constantly darting around.

Annabel rapped her fist against the Mahogany desk. “Here’s where we found the fake IDs and the documents." She opened the other drawer in the desk. “Okay, not what I expected.” She held up the booklet for everyone else to see.

Agent 3A recoiled on its sibling’s shoulder. “What is she doing with that?!”

The booklet in Annabel’s hand was bound by small rings. On the bright orange front cover was a silhouette of a cohozuna, surrounded by an army of salmonid silhouettes of all varieties, with the Grizzco logo in the upper left corner. “The Salmonid Field Guide.”

“I’m with the smallfry.” Meep gestured at Agent 3A, then at Annabel. “Don’t tell me that’s Marigold’s idea of casual reading material.”

Annabel turned the Salmonid Field Guide in her hands. “Nobody with this kind of hideout is that boring. My guess is that she’s with Grizzco somehow, maybe even one of the higher-ups.” She set down the communicator tablet she’d borrowed, and entered Lauren’s code.

The other captain’s face, covered by a hawk-themed helmet with a yellow-tinted visor, filled Annabel’s screen. “Hey, Annie B. Did you find anything?”

Annabel scowled. “Okay, first, never call me Annie B. And second, yeah.” She held up the Salmonid Field Guide in front of the communicator screen. “We’re thinking that if Marigold went to all the trouble of hiding this underground in a secret passageway, then she might be someone high up on the Grizzco totem pole.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.” Lauren argued, “We had to blast the CEO of Grizzco into the depths of space a couple years ago. Then again, they’ve still been operating since then…”

Ilkani perked up, face scrunched in confusion at the bits and pieces she’d overheard. “Why exactly did you have to blast Mr. Grizz into space?”

“It’s a long story. Also, spoilers. But the point is, either Marigold is up to something way bigger than we expected, or she’s just a small part of things.”

“Oh, I assure you dear, it’s the former.”

The six wheeled around to the source of the voice. Standing in the doorway was an orange, plump-faced goldfish wearing the Crab-N-Go uniform and apron.

“What’s going on?!” Lauren asked, “I can’t see!”

Annabel picked up the tablet.

“Oh, now I get it.”

Annabel slammed the Salmonid Field Guide down on the desk. “Mind telling us who you are, Marigold? If that’s even your real name?”

“Oh, me oh my, I’m afraid you little darlings have figured out my scandalous little secret.” Marigold’s voice was sickly sweet, cloying, condescending. “Yes, it’s true. My name is Nishiyo Oranda. It’s also Poisson Rouge. Sometimes, I go by Ran Chi-Yu. But Marigold is my true name. Marigold Mazakoi.”

“Why go to all this trouble?” Meep demanded, “Three fake IDs? A secret basement under the place where you work?”

“Yeah, not to mention it’s under what I’m guessing is the single busiest place in the entire city.” Lauren pointed out, “Why would you set up shop here of all places? Why not, I don’t know, where you actually live?”

Marigold gave a high-pitched laugh. “Oh, my dear captain, that simply wouldn’t do. With the power I’m using, I need direct access to the Great Zapfish. Otherwise, the authorities would’ve caught on to my machinations long ago.”

Benny glared at Marigold as best he could given his small stature. “Define machinations.”

“Oh, goodness, is that an octocopter? So sorry I didn’t see you, young man. And certainly. Machinations are a set of plans and strategies, all working towards a single major end goal.”

“Don’t be cute, lady.” Ilkani snarled, “What are your machinations? What’s your end goal?”

Marigold threw back her head with a bout of abrupt, raucous laughter. “Oh, you silly little octo. The cephalings of Splatsville and Inkopolis alike take their Great Zapfish for granted so much. Living sources of infinite energy, and you use them for what? Ink sports? To power your TVs and heat your coffees in the morning?”

“I don’t actually like coffee.” Lauren muttered.

Marigold scoffed derisively. “Point being, the power of a single great zapfish has the potential to shape the earth. Or alternatively, the power to unbalance the natural order of the world’s oceans. Haven’t you kids wondered why the salmonids seem to be so much more restless nowadays?”

The entire group tensed up. Lauren blanched under her helmet. “You caused the big runs?! Why?!”

Marigold waved her hand out flat. “Yes and no. The first big run at Wahoo World was all the makoids’ doing. In fact, I must confess I took some inspiration from them. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I pulled a string here, a string there, and well, you all know what happened at Inkblot Art Academy, don’t you?”

Those who were physically present in the basement glanced around at each other, oblivious to the events Marigold was referencing.

Lauren, however, gasped in horror. “That was you?! There were civilians there! Students without access to any weapons! And you unleashed an entire horde of salmonids on them?! Did you even realize there was a horrorboros there?! You little… you… screw you!"

“Oh yes, the horrorboros. Who knew the salmonids were capable of evolving such a specimen? And you wanna know something just amazing? I’ve caught word of something even bigger.”

Marigold paused, letting her words sink in. “That’s right, kiddos. It’s all just some vague, black and white images right now, but all of my readings indicate that it’s far bigger than any other salmonid that’s yet been discovered. I call it ‘Megalodontia’.”

Hachi thrust their hand out, pointing downtown. “One of our guys is west! I think he’s about five blocks from here!”

“I just got a ping!” Katherine yelled up at the sky, “He’s due south, about a mile from us!”

“So, now what?” Camryn asked.

“If filthy Benny-hurters split up, Deco and others split up as well.”

“Exactly.” Katherine extracted the communication tablet from her belt buckle.

Lauren’s communicator started beeping. “Oh, dammit, what now?” She accepted the 3-way call. “Hi, Katie. We’re kind of in the middle of something right now.”

“So are we, hon. Those guys we’ve been looking for split up.”

“Which means there’s a non-zero chance they might suspect we’re tailing them. Especially after that stunt we pulled last night.”

“This morning.” Annabel corrected from behind the screen.

Marigold cleared her throat. “Pardon me, my darlings, but it’s rude to put such an important conversation on hold just to go on your fancy gadgets.”

“Oh, sorry-wait, why am I apologizing? Annabel, just turn me around, please?”

“Yeah, sure.” Thoroughly confused, Annabel turned the communicator tablet in her hands to face Marigold.

“Thanks. Look lady, it’s just, we’ve got a lot to deal with right now. If you could just tell us exactly what your evil plan is-”

“My dear, I’m afraid there’s not a chance of that happening. You’ll all just have to wait and see along with everybody else.” She began walking upstairs. “You’re all more than welcome to follow me, if you don’t mind a news crew or two.”

“Wait! Annabel, get me close!”

Annabel sprinted into the middle of the room, arms outstretched and holding the tablet. “Marigold, Lauren has something to say to you!”

Marigold turned her head. “Oh? And what would that be, dearie?”

“Cut the sweet old granny gimmick, Mazakoi! If there really are news crews out there, then how do you expect to get back up without exposing your little hideout?”

“Oh, you think you’re so clever, don’t you, little squid? Well, you know those strings I mentioned? Let’s just say they allow me to do more than turn the tides in Salmonid waters. They also give me very good reason to believe that the newspeople will stay well outside the lobby. Although if you kids follow me, I can hardly promise they’ll extend you the same courtesy. Buh-bye for now, darlings.” With a wave of her fin-like hand, she turned around, and started walking upstairs.

“Get back here!”

Meep lunged, grabbing Ilkani before she could chase after Marigold. “Wait! We can’t go after her!”

“Like hell we can’t! She doesn’t stand a chance against all of us!”

“No, but we don’t need that kind of legal baggage!” Lauren argued from the other side of the split-screen in Annabel’s hands.

“Yeah, especially not with all the bad press we’re already getting.” Katherine added, “I’m pretty sure the only newscasters who’re fully on our side at this point are Deep Cut.”

Ilkani grumbled, reluctantly relenting. “Fine. Let’s say we don’t go after her. What are we supposed to do, dig our way out with our bare hands?”

“I’d offer to come help you guys, but I’m not sure how I could do that without attracting even worse attention.” Lauren admitted.

Annabel turned the tablet again to face her counterpart. “We’ll figure something out. You guys still have to come up with a plan on your end.”

“You’re right.” Katherine agreed.

“Talk to you later.” Annabel shut her communicator off, and set it back in a clip on her belt.

Annabel disappeared from Katherine and Lauren’s screens, leaving only them on each others’ communicators. “Let’s hope those guys can handle things down there.” Katherine sighed, “Because I’m already starting to lose my signal.”

“Okay, how’s this? You, me, and Camryn go after the guy you spotted, while Marcus, Hachi, and Deco go and follow the guy Hachi caught.”

Katherine nodded. “Sounds good to me. I’ll tell the others.”

Annabel, Ilkani, Meep, Benny, Agent 3A, and Agent 3B spread out around Marigold’s secret basement. “So, what are we looking for, exactly?” Ilkani inquired.

Annabel shrugged. “Anything, I guess. Just keep an eye out for anything that looks even slightly out of place.”

Benny looked down at a few floor tiles. “Hey Meep, come look at this.”

Meep knelt down by her old friend. “You see something, bud?”

“Yeah. Look at the tiles. Doesn’t this one look different somehow?” Benny tapped his foot against one of the cracks in the floor.

Meep examined the tile in question. It was smaller than the others, as though the tile next to it were overlapping with it somehow. “Huh. Now that you mention it…” She took one of the tiles in her hands and lifted it, revealing a blue button. “I know I shouldn’t press it, but I want to.”

“No.” Annabel held out her hand. “Nothing good ever comes from pressing buttons in evil hideouts.”

Ilkani crossed her arms. “And yet, it might just be our only chance.”

“You’re just saying that for the sake of disagreeing with me!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Unless you have a better idea, we might need to press that button.”

Annabel weighed her options. “Okay. Someone press that button. But Ilkani, just know that I’ll never let you hear the end of it if we die.”

“That’s fair.”

“I got it.” Agent 3B walked up to the hole in the floor, and pressed the button with the toe of her shoe.

The entire group tensed up. At the back of the basement, a section of the wall split in half and folded behind the wall, unveiling a vertical doorway from the floor to the ceiling.

“Well, whaddaya know?” Meep remarked, “I guess we lucked out.”

Ilkani glanced over at Annabel. “Great thinking, Annabel. And since it was your idea, you can lead the way.”

“I was gonna lead the way anyway.”

At Marcus’s behest, Camryn had borrowed the land batteries to enhance the hero shot DX she’d borrowed as well. Without a belt, she was unable to switch them into any other mode.

Lauren was flying next to the skyscraper windows over the street, with Katherine’s armored shoulders in the talons of her own hawk armor, and Camryn strapped onto her wings by her shoes. “Still got him, hon?”

“Yep.” Katherine tapped her visor. “He’s about twenty feet in front of us.”

“Better make sure he doesn’t spot us.” Camryn noted.

“Agreed.” Lauren weaved behind a building.

Without any wings, Marcus settled for running across rooftops, occasionally using the zipcaster to launch himself between those which had been erected farther apart from one another. In parallel to him, Hachi was flying with Deco in the ornitho armor’s talons. “Sure you can’t give me a ride too?”

“Sorry. My wings don’t have any fancy straps.”

“Fair enough.”

Four pairs of footsteps echoed in a narrow, closed staircase, lit only by fluorescent lightbulbs. Annabel, Meep, Ilkani, and Agent 3B could only walk single-file in the narrow space. Benny was perched on Meep’s shoulder. Agent 3B was carrying her sibling in her palms.

At the top of the staircase, there was a solid orange door with no window to the other side, and a black Grizzco logo engraved in the top. Annabel took the doorknob in her hands. “No turning back now.” She turned the doorknob.

The group entered a chamber filled with shelves of multicolored capsules, weapons, cupboards full of footwear, and shirts and pants mounted on hangers. The door closed behind them, melding into the wall itself. “A one-way door…” Annabel remarked. She walked over to one of the shelves, tapping a yellow capsule. “This must be where Grizzco keeps their rewards.”

“There’d better be some massive evidence in here.” Ilkani glanced around the room.

“How’s this?” Meep walked away from a desk, holding a pile of documents and cards. “I found some more documents and fake IDs.” She handed them to Annabel.

With each document Annabel skimmed, her eyebrows shot farther up, until they nearly gave her a headache. “I don’t believe this. She’s the CEO of multiple news stations and a healthcare company, all under fake IDs.”

“I can’t believe… are you serious?!” Ilkani yelled, running up to Annabel.

“Yeah. Whoever this lady is, she’s got her grubby little fingers in just about every dirty pie in this city. And she’s got enough money to buy out any jury she wants.”

“Plus direct access to the Great Zapfish.” Meep added. “We have to tell the others.”

Agent 3B nodded as if she understood anything being discussed. “Maybe we should go outside first.”

“Yeah.” Annabel nodded. “Maybe.” She opened the shutter in the middle of the wall, where part-time employees would receive their rewards, so that the group could climb out into the main building.

Outside of the Grizzco building, multiple news vehicles were parked outside of the Splatsville battle lobby tower. Dozens of cephalings’ attentions were drawn completely to the spectacle. “Come on.” Annabel hissed, “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

The group of six snuck away from the commotion, while everyone else was enraptured. As soon as they were behind a building, they collapsed, allowing themselves to catch their breaths.

“I can’t believe we didn’t teleport.” Agent 3B panted.

“Wait.” Agent 3A realized, “Why didn’t we just teleport out of there?!”

“Oh…” Annabel stared at the ground. “I guess we just sort of forgot about them.”

Ilkani blinked and leaned back, hitting her head on a window.

“Well, um, at least we found some new evidence about Marigold.” Meep cautioned.

Ilkani held up a hand. “Don’t. Just…” She slowly brought her head into a facepalm. “...don’t.”

Lauren’s target walked into an abandoned department store. She perched on a fire escape directly across the street, where Katherine and Camryn dismounted as well. All three of them leaned over the railing. “How are we going to spy on him now?” Camryn asked.

“I’m not sure.” Lauren admitted, standing up straight with her metal wings folded at her back. “I’ll go fly over by the windows and see if I can listen in. You two stay here and keep watch.”

Katherine patted her girlfriend’s shoulder. “We’ll be right here, Lorie.”

“Yeah.” Camryn held up her hero shot DX in one hand, and the land batteries in the other. “If anyone tries anything, I’ll shove these down their throat and make them choke.”

“That- that is horrifying.” Lauren pointed at Camryn. “Don’t do that. Just use it on the weapon, not anybody’s mouth. Please.”

“Fine.”

Lauren perched on the railing. “You two, I’d recommend standing back.”

Camryn and Kat each took a step back, giving Lauren room to spread her wings. “Thanks.” She launched off the fire escape and went airborne.

Marcus set his zipcaster onto the wall of a building twenty feet above him, rocketing up and somersaulting onto the roof. He sprinted across the surface, vaulting and flipping over the smaller structures in his way, until he was at the opposite edge.

Hachi and Deco perched on a balcony, halfway between the roof and the street. After a moment, Hachi yelled up, “He just went into that apartment building!”

“Then so are we.” Marcus jumped off the roof, allowing himself to plummet for a second before he activated his belt.

Ink Armor!

Marcus landed on the balcony hard enough to leave a dent in the stone, shattering his ink armor while leaving himself unharmed. “That one?”

Deco followed where Marcus was pointing. “Yes. Squid hurt Benny go there.”

“Alright, then.” Marcus leaned back so he was standing upright. “Deco, I’ll carry you and inkjet down there. Hachi, you just fly down. Sound good?”

Hachi nodded. Deco looked Marcus up and down. “Okay. Deco trust squid. Squid friend of Benny, and of Benny friend.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Marcus picked up Deco with one arm, and pressed his belt buckle with his free hand.

Inkjet!

Lauren silently hovered near an upper window of the store, at an angle where those inside wouldn’t be able to easily see her. She strained her ears to catch as much as she could through her helmet.

“...sure you’re… process… irreversible.”

“...sitive. Those… family. My brother… don’t care… kill them all.”

“...the spirit. You’ve… the right group. Please… inside.”

“With pleasure.”

Lauren shot away from the wall. “Forget stealth! We’ve gotta stop them, now!”

“Okay!” Katherine picked up Camryn with one hand and leapt off the fire escape.

“Woah!” Camryn squeaked in alarm, her breath catching in her throat as she and Katherine plummeted through the air.

A small crater appeared around Katherine when she landed on the street, protected by the dolphin armor. She held Camryn aloft so that the unarmored inkling wouldn’t strike the pavement as well. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, just…” Camryn groaned, stumbling when Katherine set her down. “Just gimme a sec to keep my stomach from escaping out my mouth.”

“Sorry.” Katherine nervously chuckled. “I figured it was the fastest way to get down here.”

“And the most nauseating.” Camryn took a few breaths to recover. “Okay, I’m good now.”

“Good.” Lauren acknowledged with a curt nod. “Now let’s head in.”

Two windows shattered as Hachi and Marcus burst through, with Marcus holding Deco in his arms. For all of one second, they were surrounded by shards of glass, reflecting them from all angles.

Marcus’s inkjet dissipated the second he landed on the floor. The inkling being pursued, and the cloaked cephalings flanking him, all turned around in shock. “You’re those squidbeak guys! And… is that a salmonid? How long have you been following me?!”

A low, hateful growl escaped Deco’s mouth. “Deco and squids follow squids hurt Benny long as need to stop!”

“Your primitive speech patterns betray your savagery.” one of the cloaked cultists remarked, “Now please, allow us to continue with our own matters.”

“Hell no!”

Therizin! Sword!

Hachi held out their blade, while Marcus brandished his hero splatling DX.

The other cloaked inkling handed a small, pot-shaped object to the un-cloaked individual. It was covered in buttons, as well as a telescoping handle. “This pot was used by the last remnants of humanity after they were forced underground. The same fate you wish to visit upon the octarians, funnily enough.”

“And what am I supposed to do, bludgeon every octarian on the surface with this thing?”

“No.” The leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver walked out of the shadows in the back corner of the abandoned lobby. “Allow me to assist you in your ascension.” He snapped his fingers.

The pot exploded into crimson beams like a sun in the inkling’s palms. His agonized screams distorted as his mouth stretched outwards, warping and transforming into a long, narrow nozzle. His hands distorted into the shape of stainless steel pots, while his forearms narrowed and changed color until they resembled handles. The rest of his body grew one and a half times larger, tearing his clothing asunder while his skin transmogrified on a molecular level into stainless steel.

As soon as the transformation was complete, the former inkling threw his arms up and poured all of his rage, vitriol, and bitterness into a single scream.

Liopleur! Gun!

“Don’t even try it, octoslob! I’m no longer a cephaling. You can spend your last moments calling me Stingling!” A beam of sickly green light energy launched out of the nozzle that had once been his mouth.

The laser struck Hachi in the chest before they could react. Even with the ornitho armor covering them, they could feel the residual heat as it sent them flying into the wall hard enough to shatter it. They rolled on the ground, crushing debris under their own armored body.

Hachi lifted themself up onto their palms and lower legs, before realizing their hands were empty. “Where’d they go?!” They frantically looked around for the liopleur and therizin weapons.

Lauren kicked the door open, setting it aflame as her talons ripped clean through the mahogany. The two inklings who were already inside the building grabbed their shooters as soon as Lauren, Camryn, and Katherine entered. “That was unlocked, you know.”

“Yeah, but what kind of self-respecting superhero would I be if I just turned the doorknob on an evil lair?” Lauren shrugged, before her fingers went down to her belt.

Falcon! Sword! Eagle! Gun!

Dolphin! Sword! Swordfish! Armor! Goblin Shark! Sword!

Katherine’s dolphin armor reshaped itself into a blade while the swordfish replaced it. She combined the dolphin and goblin shark by their pommels in one hand, opposite the rapier jutting out from her forearm.

Camryn loaded the leopard battery into her weapon.

Lauren attached the eagle gun to the hilt of the falcon sword above her hand, pointing the combined weapon at the Inkadian Reclamation Society members. “Talk. What are you guys doing here?”

“I believe I can answer that question.” An inkling wearing a lab coat spoke from the side, alerting the intruders to her presence.

“Who are you?” Katherine demanded.

“My name is none of your concern. All you need to know is that I’m the lead scientist of the Inkadian Reclamation Society, dedicated to ensuring that your invasion of the surface doesn’t come to pass.” Dr. Hisashi patted the side of the device standing next to her. “And it’s to that end I’ve invented this, the Genet-ink Enhancer.”

“Let me take a wild guess.” Katherine surmised, “That’s what you use to create the… the… wait, what do you guys call your monsters?”

Dr. Hisashi scrunched up her face. “We don’t call our monsters anything.”

“Come on, dude, you’ve gotta have some kind of name for your monsters.” Lauren argued, “The makoids had makinoids, and the octarians have OctoBeasts and now I guess Neo OctoBeasts. Don’t tell me you can make a device like that, but you’re too lazy to think of a good name for the monsters it pops out.”

“I’ll consider it. For now, though, I have far more important matters to attend to.” Dr. Hisashi turned her head slightly to address her fellow Inkadian Reclamation Society member. “You there! Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.” The inkling started walking up to the device. “I don’t care how painful it is. My parents were killed when one of the Octarians’ monsters fought Squidbeak’s mechas.” He turned his head around to shoot a venomous, tearful glare at Lauren, Katherine, and Camryn. “That’s why me and my brother will do anything to exterminate them both!” He broke into a sprint.

Lauren’s ink-blood dropped to sub-zero temperatures. Her armored hands turned clammy. Scalding bile rose in her throat, forcing her to choke it down. “No! No, please don’t do it!”

The inkling turned around and stepped into the Genet-ink Enhancer.

“Thank you for agreeing to help me test out this new enhancer. If this proves successful-”

“Yeah yeah, one for every hideout. Let’s go already!”

“Can’t fault you for enthusiasm, I suppose.” Dr. Hisashi muttered, closing the capsule around the prospective monster.

“Stop her!” Lauren shrieked, her voice yanked up an octave by the terror coursing through her veins.

Just as the three agents were sprinting towards the Genet-ink enhancer, Dr. Hisashi spun the genetic sample wheel attached to the side.

Stingling’s opening strike had launched the therizin sword and liopleur gun out of Hachi’s grip. Marcus picked them up from the floor where they lay askew, standing in front of Deco.

“Squid out Deco way! Deco handle monster deco self!”

“No way, man! This is officially our problem now!” Marcus attached the gun to the sword hilt and spun the firearm, so that when he slashed the blade, a sword beam sliced through the air.

Stingling obliterated the energy blade with a casual blast from his nozzle. “I’m afraid you’ll need more than that!” He fired another blast at the unarmored inkling and salmonid.

Ink Armor!

Even with years’ more experience than Hachi, Marcus reacted less than a millisecond before the laser would have impaled him and Deco both. As was, however, his ink armor shattered against it, the force tossing him backwards and into deco. They rolled on the ground in a tangle of limbs, ultimately unharmed.

Hachi glided over to Marcus and Deco, helping them both up. “Can I have my weapons back? Please?”

“Yeah.” Marcus held out the combined weapon. “But listen, I’m not sure what the three of us can do against this guy. We need the others.”

“I think you’re right.” Hachi moved their arm to their belt buckle.

Before Hachi could enter the code for Lauren’s communicator, the cult leader rapped his staff against the floor of the lobby. “It is time to retreat, Stingling. Before we draw any more attention to ourselves.”

“What?!” Stingling turned around, shooting the cult leader an indignant glare. “Who cares about unwanted attention when there’s an octoling and a salmonid right there, just begging to get turned into scorch marks?!”

Hachi held up their hands. “For the record, I’m not exactly begging for that.”

The leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver raised his staff. “I care. And now that you are but one of my creations, your cares are irrelevant.” With a wave of his staff, he and Stingling disappeared as wisps of black smoke.

The floor trembled and cracked underfoot. Loud noises and screams of agony echoed from within the Genet-ink Enhancer. “Stop! Can’t you see you’re hurting him?!” Lauren pleaded, desperation lacing her every breath.

Dr. Hisashi stood off to the side, away from the Genet-ink Enhancer’s seismic radius. “I’m afraid the pain is simply an inescapable part of the transformation process. And besides, even if I wanted to, I can’t turn off the machine while it’s performing its function. If I did, the energy would have to go somewhere, and the results would be catastrophic for all of us.”

The closer the trio approached their target, the more severe the localized earthquakes became. The floor itself was upturned, sending splitters flying while the agents crashed to the ground. The panther and lion batteries rolled out of Camryn’s hand.

“No!” Katherine swept out her hand. Her fingernails brushed up against her brother’s batteries before they fell into a crack in the floor. Another shake buried them under wood and rock.

Lauren grabbed her girlfriend’s shoulder. Despite her own horror, she forced herself to be as calming a presence as she could muster. “They’ll be fine once we get them into mecha mode. Those things are made out of sturdy stuff.”

“Okay.” Katherine nodded hesitantly. “You’re right.”

Gradually, the ground stopped shaking. The agents stood up, weapons at the ready. The Genet-ink Enhancer opened with a deafening mechanical hiss, unveiling a cloud of smoke and the silhouette within.

The monster jumped out of the smoke, cracking the floor underfoot. He was covered in glittering golden scales like a suit of medieval armor, with fish skulls facing outwards as pauldrons. Three gills were torn into each of his cheeks, inert without any water to breathe. Fins as sharp as blades lined his arms and legs. “Shakeling has awakened!” He spun around in a full circle before thrusting his arm out, pointing at the agents. “I’m about to shake things up and shake this planet empty of all its octarians! Best you get shakin’ back down to the domes where you belong already, octoslob!”

Katherine held out the dolphin end of her double-sword. “No thanks. The surface has grown on me these past few years. If anything, it’s idiots like you we could all do without.” She launched forward, charging at the former inkling.

Shakeling moved faster than Katherine’s eyes could track him. Before she realized what was happening, he kicked her with the fins on his legs. The organic blades sparked against her armor, launching her back.

Shakeling whooped and jumped up. “Did you see that? Hell, I’d bet you felt it before you saw it!”

“Cam, fire!” Lauren commanded, shooting the eagle gun while Camryn fired enhanced plasma bolts from her hero shot DX.

Shakeling jumped over the lasers and somersaulted, landing in between Lauren and Camryn. Before they could process what was happening, he spun around to kick them both to the ground.

While Lauren’s armor merely sparked, yellow ink-blood sprayed out of Camryn’s cheek. She screamed in pain as she crumpled to the floor, with a bleeding, horiontal scar dug into her face.

“Cam!” Katherine jogged over to cradle the other cephaling in her arms.

“Okay, that does it.” Lauren ordered, “Kat, we’ve gotta book it, now!”

Katherine nodded in wordless agreement. She activated her transporter, as did her girlfriend, and teleported away alongside Camryn.

The two New Squidbeak Splatoons had retreated to Alterna. Camryn was lying on a cot, where Katherine knelt beside her in the faux snow, applying disinfectant to the wound on her face. “Ow ow ow cold cold cold!”

“Sorry.” Katherine gently peeled the skin apart to examine the wound itself. “On the bright side, it doesn’t look too deep.” She resumed applying the disinfectant. “Now, did you feel any particular stinging or burning sensation after the cut?”

“Uuuh, not really. It was more cold and numb, and kinda wet.”

“Okay, good. That means there probably wasn’t any poison in those fins.”

“Venom.” Ilkani interjected from nearby, “If it comes from a living thing, it’s venom. Like if a snake bites you and you die, that’s venom.”

Camryn gave a pained smile. “What if I bite a snake and still die?”

“That would be natural selection.”

“What if two cephalings bite each other and neither of them die?” Annabel asked.

“That’s a fun night at home.” Camryn laughed for a second, “Oh no everything hurts.”

“Don’t talk. I’ll give you some anesthesia to numb the wound, and that way, you won’t feel anything when I put the stitches in.”

Camryn shuddered, closing her eyes. “Okay.”

Annabel tilted her head skeptically. “Are you sure we shouldn’t take her to a hospital?”

“No, it’ll cost too much. And don’t worry.” Katherine took a bottle of anesthesia off the nearby table. “I know what I’m doing.”

A few hundred feet away, Lauren sat down next to Marcus. He was petting the leopard robo in his palm, stroking its green metal head. “Worried about the lion and panther?”

Marcus sighed, “Not really. I know they’ll be fine until I get them back into mecha form, but…” He tapped the leopard’s head. “I dunno, I guess I’m just feeling kind of impatient.”

Lauren placed a hand on his arm. “I get that, but we can’t turn them into mecha form until we have a kaiju for them to fight. Otherwise, we’ll just be giving the news studios more ammo against us with all the property damage they’ll cause.”

Marcus looked up at Lauren. “Are you okay? You look really spooked.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m good. It’s just, y’know, Shakeling really caught me off-guard.”

“I’ve been there.” Marcus leaned in close to Lauren. “Do you want a hug?”

Lauren wrapped her arms around Marcus, trying to force her own voice into steadying itself. “Yes, please.”

In an undisclosed building outside the city borders of Splatsville, five individuals were sitting around a table. The leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver, clad in robes and a hood that concealed his face. Jason Maeda, leader of the Inkadian Reclamation society. The brothers Shakeling and Stingling.

At the head of the table sat Marigold Mazakoi. “Thank you for gathering here. When these two young men vented to me about the New Squidbeak Splatoon and the octarians treating their parents as nothing more than pawns in their grand game, I knew it was the perfect time to unite your two groups.”

Jason glared at the cult leader. “Let me be perfectly clear. The only reason I’m aligning myself with this deranged lunatic is because we share a common enemy in Squidbeak. The second they’re out of the picture, this alliance is over.”

The leader of the cult nodded. “Rest assured, the feeling is mutual.”

“Be that as it may, what’s important is that we’re all working together for a common goal.” Marigold gestured to a plate of confectionaries in the middle of the table. “Cookies?”

Shakeling’s hand moved like a blur to grab several of the cookies. He loudly sniffed them, turning them in his hands to smell them from every angle. “Ooh, chocolate chip.” He looked up. “None of them are poisoned.”

“And how am I to trust you’re not merely saying that in the hopes of me poisoning myself?” The leader of the Servants of the Dreaming Cadaver demanded.

Shakeling glared at the cult leader with his bulging red-pupiled eyes. “Because I would never risk my brother like that.”

“He’s telling the truth.” Stingling took two of the cookies from the plate. “If my brother says they’re safe, then they’re safe.” He handed one of the snacks to his creator, and broke pieces off the other to shove down his nozzle. “Huh. Eating feels different now.”

“A small price to pay for ascending past your own limitations.” The cult leader took the cookie in a black-gloved hand, and raised it to the black hole within his hood. The only evidence that a physical mouth was eating the cookie was the sound of crunching.

Marigold smiled, almost motherly. “I suppose you all can’t be too careful. Now, let’s discuss our plan.”

Chapter Text

Mar 7 2025; 7:00 PM

“Thanks for staying over, Marcus.” James sat down on the couch next to his boyfriend.

“You’re welcome.” Marcus put an arm around the other young man. “I figured I should come over, so that way I can protect you with everything going on today.”

James rested his head on Marcus’s shoulder. “I do feel safe with you.”

Marcus pecked James on the forehead. After a moment, a subtle beeping sound drew their attention. “Oh, the chicken’s done.”

Before Marcus could stand up, James patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll get it.”

“You sure?”

“You’re my guest, sweetie.”

“And your boyfriend.”

“Okay, okay. If you really wanna do something, you can set the table.”

“Sounds good.” Marcus stood up. Before he could start walking into the kitchen, he caught sight of the sky outside.

It was blood red.

“Oh no. James, change of plans! You’ve gotta get to the basement, right now!”

“What?” James turned around on the couch. “Oh, squit, another big run?”

“Yeah, and I think this one’s gonna be way worse than the last two. Please, get to safety. I promise I’ll be back after I’m done.”

“I know you will.” James hugged Marcus, stabilising the shaking agent. “Don’t worry about me, Mark. Just watch out for Splatsville, and I’ll be safe.” He brushed his fingers through Marcus’s tentacle-hair.

“Okay. But seriously, please go into the basement.”

“I will. But one of us needs to turn the oven off first before something burns.” James pointed out.

“Oh, yeah, I got it.” Marcus patted James’s back, and jogged into the kitchen. After turning off the oven, with the sound of the basement door opening and closing in the background, he dialed his phone.

Lauren’s voice came from the other end. “Agent 4, I was just about to call you. We’ve got another big run at Inkblot Art Academy.”

“Really? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they attack the same place twice? And why somewhere outside of Splatsville entirely?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve seen some of the footage, and there’s hundreds of salmonids there. Plus, Shakeling and Stingling.”

Marcus sighed ruefully. “So the IRS and the SDC really are teaming up.”

“Sure looks that way.” Lauren tapped her fingernails against the counter next to her. “Look, right now, the best we can do is stop this invasion and hope this is only a one-time alliance. Their goals contradict each other, right?”

“Yeah. How’s Camryn doing?”

“Oh, Katherine called me a few minutes ago and let me know she’s back up and at ’em.” Lauren’s tone noticeably softened. “Apparently, Ilkani hugged her as soon as she got up. The way Kat was gushing, oh, it must’ve been the cutest thing ever.”

“Focus, captain.” Contrary to his own words, Marcus was smiling.

“Ah- r-right. Sorry.” Lauren cleared her throat. “Anyway, we’re all gathering at Inkblot Art Academy for a salmon-splatting party.”

Marcus nodded. “Understood. I’ll be right over.”

The twelve agents sprinted into Inkblot Art Academy. Salty, briny water had risen into the school, covering entire structures and flooding into windows. Hundreds of lesser and boss-type salmonids in all varieties swarmed the area, filling the red sky with the sounds of screeching amphibians and clattering cookware.

At the front of the army were Shakeling and Stingling.

Benny had been outfitted with an octodisco’s propeller-armor, allowing him to float overhead with his shield inactive for the time being. The rest of the agents walked next to each other, forming a horizontal line that moved like an impenetrable wall.

Lauren was in the center of the group, clad in the eagle armor. On either side of her, Annabel carried the hawk sword, while Agent 3B wielded the falcon gun.

Marcus was covered in the leopard armor, claws prepared. Camryn held the dolphin gun in one hand and a hero shot DX in the other, while Ilkani wielded the liopleur sword.

Katherine wore the goblin shark armor with its arm-mounted chainsaw. Meep held the swordfish blade, trying to hide her nerves by tapping the flat of the metal. Hachi’s body was concealed by the orange metal of the therizin armor, with the ornitho gun in their hand.

“Agent 3! Captain Lauren Laker!”

“The captain of another world! Anna-!”

“Wait, shouldn’t we go next?” Agent 3B demanded, pointing to the smallfry on her shoulder.

“W- no, Lauren and I are the captains. Obviously we should both go first.”

“Mutiny!” Agent 3A yelled, bouncing up and down on its perch.

“Nobody’s mutinizing anybody!” Lauren admonished, patting Annabel on the shoulder. “Carry on.”

“Thanks.” Annabel cleared her throat. “As I was saying, the captain of another world! Annabel!”

An octoling and a smallfry called out in unison, “The gulls of the sands!”

“Agent 3A…”

“...And Agent 3B!”

“Agent 4! Marcus Myers!”

“The superior agent 4! Camryn!”

“Apparently, the one and only agent 5! Ilkani!”

“Make sure swarm never harm friends! Agent 6! Deco!”

“Agent… uh… well, technically I’m more of an auxiliary agent, but still! Agent 7! Benny!”

“Agent 8! Katherine Kyanshu-Myers!”

“A different agent 8! Meep!”

“New agent 8! Hachi Hikuma!”

Lauren jumped into the air and spread her wings, electricity sparking on the tips of her bladed feathers. “For the first time in this world’s history, salmonids and cephalings are uniting for the common good! The twelve of us are…”

A dozen voices from two worlds united as a single declaration that cut through the snarling and the metallic savagery of the invading forces. “New Squidbeak Splatoons!”

The dozen agents rushed into the fray. Lauren flew overhead, shooting her feathers into the water to electrocute the salmonids within. Agent 3B took Agent 3A off her shoulder, spun around while continuing to move forward, and tossed it before continuing her sprint, all without missing a step.

Agent 3B’s mouth hung open as it cut through the air, a blur of colors and shapes passing by it like a tunnel until its tiny jaws clamped around one of Shakeling’s gills.

Shakeling shook his head, screaming in pain, “Get offa me!”

Agent 3B fired the falcon gun into Shakeling’s chest, just as he tossed Agent 3A off. Its octoling sibling caught it out of the air. “You okay?”

“Yes, but you know I hate when you do that!”

“Sorry.”

Annabel sprinted past the siblings, slashing with the hawk sword, only for Shakeling to blitz past her and roundhouse-kick her in the back. “Face it, cephalings! We’re here to shake things up right down to the foundations of society, and there’s nothing you can-”

He was interrupted by the wet sound of metal tearing into scales and flesh, as Lauren dive-kicked him from above and behind, letting her own talons dig into his upper back. Artificial lightning traveled down the legs of her armor and into her talons. While Shakeling tumbled to the ground, sparking with electricity, Lauren stood alongside her fellow agent 3s.

Shakeling stood up. “Ganging up on the salmon, huh? Let’s see if you cephalings are still having a shakin’ good time after this!”

A blur passed through the agent 3s, slicing Annabel and Agent 3B, before redirecting itself and colliding directly with Lauren. Shakeling dashed into Lauren again and again from all angles, faster each time, until it felt as though he were striking her from two directions simultaneously. She felt the air around her grow hotter from the energy he was expending, and the oxygen grow thinner as the heat absorbed it little by little.

Lauren gasped for air. “3B! Falcon gun! Shoot him!”

Agent 3B glanced down at her hand holding the falcon gun. From the shoulder to the elbow, the entire top half of the limb was covered in bright yellow ink-blood. Her face was scrunched into a wince of pain. “Captain!”

“Kinda busy here, kid!” Annabel was anchored in place by a gash on her leg, forcing her to kneel while she swung the hawk sword into the salmonids swarming her. The resulting inferno burned several cohocks, at the cost of Annabel coughing and choking on the smoke. Still though, she swung her blade in self-defense against the herd.

Agent 3A spoke into its sibling’s ear. “Just aim. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Agent 3B had to concentrate just to force her jaw to move. “I can’t do it.”

“You have to! You’re the only one who can do this!” Agent 3A gestured, with its tiny fin, around the entirety of Inkblot Art Academy. “Everyone else is busy right now!”

“You… you’re right.” Agent 3B summoned the strength to stand up. As she lifted her arm, ripping more and more of the tendons within, she screamed in a cacophony of pain and determination. “I’ve got nothing else to do right now!”

Agent 3A jumped down from its sister’s shoulder to her gun. With its fins, it pulled the trigger and fired a bolt of freezing plasma.

The recoil elicited a shriek of pain from the octoling. Despite the fact that the plasma shot missed Shakeling entirely, the trail of frost it left in its wake absorbed a miniscule amount of the heat it generated from the energy expended by its burst of speed. The change was just barely noticeable enough for Lauren to capitalize upon, by swinging her arms and slicing her wing across Shakeling’s midsection when he charged at her.

The electric shock from the eagle armor’s wings sent Shakeling flying past Lauren and directly into the path of Annabel’s next swing. He crashed to the ground with his back scorched by the hawk blade.

Deco leapt onto Shakeling from behind, clamping onto his upper leg. “Oh, ow, ow, owie!” He hopped around in an erratic pattern, as all the while, Deco bit harder down through his scales. Just as the snatcher’s teeth broke the skin, Shakeling managed to kick him off.

Deco tumbled to the ground, spitting up dirt. “So that what Deco taste like…”

“Yow! Good thing I managed to shake you off!”

Lauren pressed a button on her belt buckle.

Tacticooler!

Lauren tossed the tacticooler down in front of the other agent 3s. “Here, drink these!”

Annabel took two of the drinks off their hooks and passed one over to Agent 3B. “Thanks, but how come you didn’t use these for Ilkani?”

Lauren shrugged. “I figured she could use the rest as well.”

“Gotcha.” Annabel nodded, and took a swig of the tacticooler drink. Agent 3B did the same.

Each of the pair drank two tacticooler cans, healing their wounds and temporarily strengthening themselves. “Woah…” Annabel looked down at her vibrating hand, and clenched her fist. She could feel the sheer force behind it. “What’s in these drinks? I feel like I can do anything!”

“Yeah, me too!” Agent 3B replied

“You can all go to hell as far as I’m concerned!” Shakeling sped towards the cephalings.

With their senses and speed enhanced by the tacticooler’s beverages, Annabel and Agent 3B were able to see the monster even as he entered his full speed. Agent 3B shot multiple blasts of icy plasma, forcing him to weave and dodge, slowing with each burst of frost and energy that rocketed past him.

Annabel ran forward. Her legs felt stronger than ever before, propelling her at superhuman speeds. As soon as she was close enough, she swung the hawk sword.

While Shakeling managed to dive out of the sword’s path, the trail of fire it left in its wake caught him in the arm, sending him into a yelp of pain. “Oh, oh, this is so not shaking down the way I hoped! You agents are shakily overpowered!”

“Man, you’re so annoying that you’re making me shake with anger!” Lauren facepalmed. “Great, now you’ve got me doing it too. Just for that…”

Eagle! Sword! Falcon! Sword!

The eagle armor shattered itself off of Lauren’s body. She held out her arm, to grip the hilt of the sword which appeared in its place.

Agent 3B’s eyes widened in alarm as the gun in her hand reshaped itself into a sword. “How…?”

“Science, that’s how!” Lauren twirled the sword in her hands, sending out a spiral of electricity. “Now follow my lead, you two!” She slashed diagonally.

Annabel and Agent 3B slashed their swords as well, forming a triangle of yellow lightning, red-orange fire, and blue-white frost.

“Triple triangle slash!” Lauren called, as the triangle of laser blades spun and rocketed towards Shakeling. “And now, we all turn around.”

“Why, though?” Annabel asked, just as the triple sword beam exploded upon contact with Shakeling. A radius of debris rang out from the blast.

Lauren turned her back to the fiery explosion. “Because it looks cool! And it helps keep smoke out of the eyes.”

Annabel was coughing, while Agent 3B furiously rubbed her eyes. “What did you say?”

“Yeah, see, that’s exactly what I mean.”

Marcus lunged forward over Stingling’s laser, arms outstretched to claw the yosotholing’s nozzle just as he landed on the ground. He turned in a quarter-circle and kicked Stingling with the claws on his foot, sending him staggering back. “That stings, you little jerk!”

Ilkani and Katherine ran past Marcus, slicing with the liopleur sword and the goblin shark armor’s chainsaw respectively. He turned and slid his foot, pivoting to sideflip and dodge their dual slashes.

Standing next to each other, Camryn and Hachi fired the dolphin and ornitho guns to shoot Stingling out of the air.

“Now!” Katherine ordered.

Ilkani scowled. “Who are you telling what to do?”

“You! Now get with the program!”

Despite rolling her eyes, Ilkani charged alongside Katherine to simultaneously strike Stingling before he could recover. The monster screamed as sparks flew out of him, pushing him back into the throng of salmonids.

Hachi jumped into the piscine hordes, dual-wielding double-ended blades made from four of their shoulder spikes. They spun around and twirled the rapiers like a blender, slicing and stabbing every smallfry, chum, and cohock that approached.

A ring of green ink appeared at Hachi’s feet. They looked up and saw a flipper-flopper aiming its metal-encased head at them. Just as the salmonid was diving, Hachi tossed one of their double-spikes like a javelin and fired the ornitho gun to shatter its mask, before firing once more between its eyes.

The flipper-flopper fell to the ground as nothing more than a corpse. Rather than trudge through the puke-green ink it had left in its wake without any weapon that could paint over it, Hachi pressed four buttons on their belt buckle.

Therizin! Gun! Ornitho! Armor!

Hachi flew out of the ink and started firing down at the salmonids from dozens of feet above them. An entire squadron of drizzlers launched their torpedoes at the airborne octoling, only for them to dodge the strikes and return fire with the therizin gun.

Marcus found himself surrounded by four steelheads on all sides. “Ah, come on, guys. Can’t we all just get along?”

Leopard! Gun!

Bereft of armor, Marcus attached the leopard gun to his hero splatling DX. No longer needing any time to charge the weapon, he spun around in a circle and fired a salvo of plasma into the steelheads’ bombs just as they were charging their explosions.

Leopard! Armor!

Marcus was bombarded by four simultaneous explosions, just as the leopard gun reshaped itself into a suit of armor around his body. “Guess not.” He walked through the flames, completely unscathed, and immediately slashed a steel eel pilot in the back.

Camryn somersaulted out of a Maws’s path just as it was bursting out of the ground beneath her. She combined the dolphin gun with her hero shot DX, holding them in both hands, and fired into the monstrous salmonid’s mouth while she was upside-down.

Camryn landed with her back to the exploding maws, and detached her weapons while sprinting over to Marcus. “I think we lost that Stingling guy, but we’re still surrounded by salmonids.”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.” Marcus stood back-to-back with Camryn. “I just hope the others are handling Shakeling okay.”

A small explosion went off in the distance, followed by the sound of Shakeling screaming as it launched him into the air. He landed on top of a small swarm of smallfry, a few yards in front of Camryn. “I guess that answers that question.” She noted off-handedly.

Stingling jumped in front of Shakeling. “Man, these Squidbeak guys are knocking me around! Wanna fight ’em together, bro?”

“I was just about to say the same thing!”

Ilkani, Katherine, Meep, and Hachi gathered nearby. “Tell you what.” Ilkani tapped the flat of the liopleur sword against her own shoulder. “How about us octos fight the salmon guy, and you inklings go after the nosey one?”

“Better idea!” Stingling thrust his arm out to aggressively point at the octoling agents. “How about I finish what we started with you myself?” He fired another laser aimed directly at Ilkani’s hearts.

A blue dome enveloped the four octolings, projected from Benny’s propeller. Stingling’s laser continuously buffeted it with a concentrated strike.

Meep looked up at her friend. “Thanks, Benny! Think you can cover us while we charge?”

“Of course I can! Probably!”

“Then let’s go!”

As the octolings ran forward, Benny flew above them, blocking the yosotholing’s strike. Hachi flew up next to the former octocopter. “I’ll cover you!” As if to demonstrate, they thrust forward with their wings curled in, spinning and flipping to kick two drizzler’s torpedoes with the ornitho armor’s talons.

“Thanks…!” Benny panted, “But I’m not sure how long I can keep this up!”

“Don’t worry, this is close enough!” Katherine leapt out of the protective dome, sailing over Stingling’s laser for the remaining distance to slash him with her arm-mounted chainsaw.

Benny’s dome expired. Hachi landed on the floor.

Stingling rolled on the ground, while four octolings surrounded Shakeling. “Now it’s time to finish you.” Ilkani pointed the liopleur sword at Shakeling.

“You think so, huh? This is a pretty shaky strategy!” Shakeling sped past Ilkani, slashing the elbow of her sword arm before she realized what was happening.

“Dammit, not again!” Katherine yelled.

Ilkani screamed in pain, collapsing to the ground. The liopleur sword clattered out of her hand. Hachi picked it up while activating their belt.

Tacticooler!

“Here.” Hachi knelt down to give Ilkani a can from the tacticooler. “Sorry we can’t let you rest now, but this should heal you.”

Ilkani downed the can with a single messy swig, dribbling copious amounts of liquid down her chin in the process. Hachi cringed at the sight. The young woman tossed the can away and stood up. “Thanks, I feel way better!” She lunged at the tacticooler machine.

“There’s a recycling can right over there.” Hachi muttered.

Ilkani downed the rest of the tacticooler drinks. Her perception of time slowed down as her speed and strength increased beyond their previous limitations. Her pupils dilated. “I’m the lord of speed now.” She sprinted, matching Shakeling’s velocity, and dodged his fins before turning around and roundhouse-kicking him. While he stumbled forward, she ran back to grab the liopleur sword back from Hachi.

Hachi blinked in surprise. “What?”

Ilkani and Shakeling moved at the same supernatural speeds. To them, each ripple of water, every swing of a salmonid’s pan, looked to be moving in slow motion. As they sped past each other, fin clashed against blade, sending out a shower of sparks.

Hachi, Meep, and Katherine watched as two blurs moved in erratic patterns, constantly intersecting and colliding with each other. Marcus sprinted up to them. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened!” Katherine pointed at the blurs. “Ilkani hogged an entire tacticooler and now she’s got, like, super-speed!”

“Huh. While she’s doing that…” Marcus brandished his claws and disemboweled a chum. “Let’s take care of things here!”

“Agreed!” Hachi launched into the air and noticed a stinger emerging from the briny depths, and firing a concussive laser of sickly green ink into the battlefield.

Lauren twirled and sliced clean through a cohock with her wings, when she caught a stingray’s laser in her peripheral vision. She kicked off into the air, spreading her wings and shooting feathers while the laser followed mere inches behind her.

Annabel, Agent 3B, Deco, and Agent 3A fought the salmonids amidst the flaming explosions brought about by Lauren’s explosive feathers. Annabel sliced into two big shots while a steelhead charged its bomb directly behind her. One of Lauren’s feathers pierced the expanding cranial mound, killing the beast with a premature explosion.

Annabel walked in front of the massive eruption of flames that melted the floor and warmed her back. A smirk appeared on her face. “Lauren was right. This does look cool.”

Hachi stretched out one leg to dive-kick the stinger from above, obliterating it layer by layer until they landed back on the ground. They spun around, slaying several more salmonids with their wings.

Therizin! Sword!

Marcus climbed on top of a fish stick in mere seconds with his claws, where he unfolded the splatling off his back and slaughtered all eight of the smallfry pilots with a single half-charged stream of plasma. He returned the weapon to his back and jumped at an open flyfish.

The flyfish shot eight missiles at Marcus from below. He slashed one with his hand, kicked off another to enter a backflip which he turned into a headfirst dive, and put his arms together below his head to impale a third on his way down. He reoriented himself, slashing the remaining missiles in the process, and landed inside one of the flyfish’s launchers before it could replenish its ammunition.

The smallfry piloting the vehicle squawked in panic as the sudden additional weight caused it to pitch downwards. Marcus ripped into the launcher with his claws, tearing apart wires and all the mechanisms within. He jumped out of the explosion, protected by the leopard armor. 

Ilkani and Shakeling ran parallel to one another, constantly turning to dodge the throngs of salmonids. A flyfish exploded above them, slowly enough that if they’d been paying attention, they could have watched it expand before the fire engulfed it. They converged, grinding the fin-blade on Shakeling’s forearm against the liopleur sword in Ilkani’s hand. Neither combatant lost a step as they trailed sparks behind them like a comet.

Shakeling gave a malevolent half-smile, showing his sharp curved teeth. “Not bad for an octoslob! But I’m beyond any cephaling now!” He pressed his arm harder against Ilkani’s sword in order to gain enough leverage to jump, turning himself horizontally in front of Ilkani.

The octoling’s eyes widened in shock. Shakeling’s fin-blade scraped against the edge of the liopleur sword until it was on the other side. Shakeling twisted around to the other side of Ilkani in tandem, and swept out his leg to kick her in the shoulder.

Ilkani and Shakeling fell to the ground. Time resumed its normal flow all around them. Ilkani sat up, groaning and rubbing her head. “Oh, man, is this what a hangover feels like? It sucks.”

Shakeling rose to his feet. “Speak for yourself! I’m just shaking and itching for more!”

Agent 3B tackled Ilkani out of the way before Shakeling could charge at her. “You okay?”

Ilkani pushed Agent 3B off of herself. “Now I am.”

“Great. Another octarian.” Shakeling spat, “Just as well. Now I’ll be able to rid the world of all of you at once!” He sped towards the octolings once more.

Agent 3B pushed Ilkani behind herself and started shooting Shakeling rapid-fire with frosted plasma blasts. Each one absorbed a small amount of heat from Shakeling, decreasing its energy output and therefore its speed. When the monster was close enough, Ilkani shoved Agent 3B out of her way and slashed Shakeling diagonally.

Agent 3B crumpled to the ground, with a small army of salmonids in front of her. “Ow.” She stood up, shooting flaming plasma bursts at several salmonids before running up to Ilkani. “What was that for?!”

“Sorry. I had to get at him, and you were in the way.”

“In the- in the way?!” Agent 3B shoved Ilkani. “I’ll show you ‘in the way’! Those salmonids could’ve killed me!”

Katherine jumped between her fellow octolings. “You two, stop fighting! Wait, 3B, didn’t you have the falcon?”

“We traded. And more importantly, she threw me to the salmonids!”

“She got in my way!”

“Okay, okay, let’s do this. Each of you take turns saying to each other, ‘When you do this, it makes me feel this’.”

Ilkani and Agent 3B glanced at each other. “You wanna do literally anything else?”

“Sounds good to me.” Agent 3B ran alongside Ilkani into the salmonid throng.

Katherine shrugged. “That works too.” She turned around. “How come you didn’t attack us then?”

“Are you kidding? And miss that?!”

“Fair enough.” Katherine sprinted at Shakeling with her goblin shark chainsaw at the ready.

Shakeling sped towards Katherine. She spun with her arm outstretched, slicing him mid-sprint and sending him back. The octoling instantly followed up by slashing downwards.

Shakeling grabbed the chainsaw with his arm-mounted fin-blade, and bent his knees to kick Katherine in her armored stomach. While she stumbled back, he stood up.

Katherine and Shakeling circled each other. The former inkling sneered. “Why don’t you take off that armor to fight me?”

“I’ll pass.” Katherine dashed at Shakeling. The monster reacted in time, and clashed blade against blade.

The two captains of the New Squidbeak Splatoons soared through the battlefield, with metal straps keeping Annabel mounted on the eagle armor’s wings. She fired bursts of flaming plasma from the falcon gun at the salmonids, while Lauren sent her wings out to explode and electrocute the hordes. “So, how are you liking this new power?”

“It’s insane! You guys do stuff like this all the time?!”

“Sometimes it feels like every week. Oh, wait, I found Stingling!” Lauren dove to the ground, causing Annabel’s arms to flail as her body was forced to lean upwards from the force of gravity.

“Whoa, little warning next time?!” Annabel yelled, nearly silent as her voice was snatched by the wind rushing all around her.

Lauren grinned toothily beneath her visor. “Oh, now where’s the fun in that? And speaking of which…”

“Oh no.”

“Oh, yeah!” Lauren spun in a full circle, drilling downwards and launching several feathers at the ground in all directions.

Annabel’s scream was silenced by the vortex of air.

Stingling looked up. “There you are, cephalings!” He shot a dark green laser beam into the sky.

Lauren reoriented herself to use her wings as a shield while she continued her descent. On top of her, Annabel’s entire body wobbled limply. “I feel like a bobblehead.”

Stingling ceased firing. “Oh no.”

Lauren twisted around and stretched out her leg to kick Stingling to the ground. Her wing-straps opened, allowing Annabel to jump onto the ground and stumble. “Woah, woah, not used to my legs.”

Lauren grabbed Annabel’s shoulder to stabilise her. “Better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Stingling stood up. “Oh don’t worry, cephaling, I’ll make sure those legs won’t bother you anymore. Not once I get rid of them!”

Annabel dove away from a laser beam aimed at her waist, rolling on the ground before shooting the falcon gun. The monster dodged the freezing plasma, only for Lauren to dive in and slash at him with her electric wings.

Stingling cried out as artificial lightning coursed through his body.

While the captains were battling Stingling, Marcus had reunited with Katherine. The Myers siblings had started pressing against Shakeling with Mark’s claws and Kat’s chainsaw, while he attempted to run through them.

Shakeling’s fin-blades pressed against his opponents’ green and purple armor. Showers of sparks sprayed out like twin fountains. The siblings dug grooves into the ground as they were slowly pushed back.

“We could really… use some help here.” Marcus spoke through gritted teeth.

The liopluer sword, swordfish blade, and therizin sword all struck against Shakeling’s fin, as Ilkani, Meep, and Hachi joined Katherine and Marcus.

“Well, whaddaya know?” Katherine remarked, “We could really use a galactic seanwhich here.”

“What are you talking about?!” Ilkani demanded.

“Worth a shot.”

Marcus, Katherine, Hachi, Ilkani, and Meep all slashed at once, screaming with effort and sending Shakeling flying back.

“Marcus, I’ve got an idea!” Katherine grabbed the splatling on her brother’s back and unfolded it. “Wow, that’s heavy.”

“Here.” Marcus took the splatling.

“Thanks. More of a dualie girl, y’know? Anyway, what if we put all of my and Hachi’s batteries in there?”

Marcus replied with an open-mouthed grin. “I like the way you think!”

Katherine nodded at hachi. “Do I have to?”

“Yes! Because it’ll probably look really cool.”

“Fine. Except, who has the dolphin?”

“Oh right, I gave that one to Cam. Ah well. Mark, you can just use the leopard, right?”

“Works for me.”

Liopleur! Battery! Therizin! Battery! Ornitho! Battery!

Goblin Shark! Battery! Swordfish! Battery!

Leopard! Battery!

Marcus took the liopleur battery from Ilkani. “Thanks.”’

“Whuh…?”

Katherine held out her hand for Meep to give her the swordfish battery. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Hachi gave Marcus the ornitho and therizin batteries. “Thanks, man. I promise I’ll take good care of them.”

Hachi looked down at the small, cylindrical devices. “Make sure you do. And also, make sure this looks really cool.”

“It will.”

Lauren and Annabel forced Stingling into a retreat with their armor and gun respectively. Every laser he fired was either dodged or blocked by Lauren’s wings. Electric feathers and flaming plasma exploded all around him, forcing him to keep running away from the inklings.

Lauren turned herself upright a dozen feet above the ground and flapped her wings a single time, launching half the feathers on each side.

Marcus loaded each of the batteries into the nozzles on the hero splatling DX.

Shakeling panted with exhaustion. “No more. Please, no more.”

Tenta Missiles!

Twin lines of code trailed out of Hachi’s belt buckle at nigh-imperceptible speeds and solidified into a pair of missile launchers. “Kat, let’s make sure he can’t run!”

“Good thinking.”

Triple Inkstrike!

A storm of purple and orange explosions erupted all around Shakeling, terraforming the ground around him and pinning him in place.

“Thanks, guys!” Marcus aimed the hero splatling DX and began charging it. Imbued with the power of six batteries, its plasma glowed with swirls of purple, orange, and green. “This thing’s probably gonna have some serious recoil, by the way!”

Katherine grabbed Marcus by the shoulder. “Guys, you heard him! Help us out here!”

Despite Ilkani rolling her eyes, she jogged over to the siblings.

While Marcus charged the splatling, the rest of the group stood behind him, bracing him against the inevitable recoil.

An electrical explosion, visible in the distance as a rapidly-expanding dome of artificial lightning, sent Stingling flying into the air.

“I guess that means Lauren’s doing alright.” Katherine remarked.

“Good for her.” Ilkani deadpanned.

The ball of energy and light coalesced in front of the splatling’s nozzle, absorbing the heat from the air all around it to further enhance itself. The three colors of the land, sea, and paleo batteries swirled and melded together within the plasma.

“Six-beast strike!” Marcus yelled, pulling down on the trigger. The recoil was so great that even with four others bracing him, it nearly sent him flying into the air. The entire group collapsed.

At the same time, Stingling fell to the ground in between his brother and the plasma blast.