Crisp autumn air filled Inkopolis, and a chilly wind made colorful leaves dance through the streets. The early morning left the trees and spare greenery doting the streets covered in dew.
One Inkling hurried through the morning, her step brisk and her face a grimask as the light fog in the air caught in her clothes and dampened them. Fortunately for her, she reached her destination soon. An empty plaza, a proud tower overseeing it all. The place was empty, except one lonely girl standing in front of the tower, looking up with a wistful expression. The sound of hurried steps caught her attention, and she turned to the newcomer. A brief flash of recognition flashed through her eyes, and she lifted a hand in a short greeting.
While the newcomer approached, the second inkling allowed herself another glance around Inkopolis Plaza.
"Have I really been away that long?" she asked quietly, slowly turning to her friend.
She blinked. At least she didn't change, at least on the outside. Still the same white hair with the green tips, in the same hair-do as always, with the same green hat and jacket and same white mask.
"Well. It has been four months. And the people already started to leave towards the square while you were here. Really it was just a matter of time…" she trailed off at the end. She could tell that ehr musings were clearly not very welcome. A quick, awkward cough escaped her throat.
"Well," Uhg. Repetition. "At least you're back now. We've missed you, Three." A mischievous spark entered her eyes. "Especially Callie."
Her reward was a long drawn groan, and she grinned with an evil glee, knowing her mask hid most of her face.
"Shut up, nerd. You sure sounded happy talking about that new agent of yours. Speaking of, you wanted me to meet her, no?"
Twitch. That's all reaction she got from Marie, just a small twitch of her ears, but it was enough.
"Watch it, short stuff."
Agent Three cackled unconcealed. She could even forgive the jab at her height, something she rarely let go.
"Let's just go, we'll be late."
The way to the new Inkopolis Square was thankfully not too long, although it was still early and cold, something the two agents were both quite miffed about.
Yet, the sight of a bouncing, excited Callie greeting them made them both forget miserable weather.
Agent Three always wondered how no one recognised her in her outfit, since she wasn't really trying to hide her true persona from the world.
Oh well, as long as it worked, who was she to complain?
Then she noticed something was different. Three squinted in confusion.
Callie always wore shades with her outfit.
Except today.
A big, dark red bandana hid most of her face, which was weird because Callie loved her shades and she hated bandanas because she said they made her feel too hot underneath and-
Her derailing train of thoughts was cut off by Callie, who literally jumped at the younger agent and wrapped her into a tight hug.
"Tessa! I missed you so much!"
Her ears twitched intensely hearing her own name. It seemed so long since she last heard it. Captain Cuttlefish insisted on calling her by her agent name.
Hearing Callie of all people say it now send a rush of emotions through her body that left her feeling high in her head and weak in her knees.
"You just saw me yesterday when I came back-"
"But that wasn't long enough! We only brought you home!"
Marie rolled her eyes at the two girls, who both were painfully oblivious to their obvious feelings for each other.
Maybe it wasn't surprising that Callie couldn't figure it out, but Tessa seemed be outright denying that Callie had any kind of feelings for her.
"Alright, you're very happy to see each other, I get it, can we please get going, people are staring, guys."
The last part got at least Tessa to wiggle away from the hug, face flushed.
Marie pointedly ignored the pout on Callies face and walked past the two towards the entrance to Octo Canyon.
The first thing Tessa saw when she stumbled out of the sewer mbled out of the sewer was yellow. A lot. Of yellow.
The entire place was covered in - was that glitter? - yellow ink. The ground, the small cabin in the corner, the boulders, even the damn trees were dripping.
What in the goddamn-
Behind her, the sounds of moving ink told her that the other two agents had arrived. The then following silence told her that this wasn't what they had expected either.
"That absolute madwoomy she actually did it." breathed Callie behind her.
Seconds later the sound of an inkling soaring through air alerted their gazes to the sky, where they saw a squid in the air, already changing their color from green to a bright yellow. As they neared the ground, they changed into a humanoid form, and seconds later landed on the ink covered ground, perfectly balanced.
Show-off.
As the inkling popped took out her earphones, a few notes of Calamari Inkantation were heard, before the music was shut off.
Tessa took a moment to take in the new agent. She was tall. Very tall. Was this Maries way to get another jab at her height?
The next thing she noticed after her height were her short tentacles - specifically the frontal left one. It was...oddly colored. Much lighter than the other ones. The yellow made it seem almost white. There was also a small scar on her chin. It look faded and old.
Despite her rather brute looking appearance, there was a bright smile on her face as she greeted the three agents, who had been stunned into silence by the whole situation.
"Hey! Sheldon told me you guys were coming, so I came here as soon as possible. Was just finishing off the rest of the inkjob."
"You painted more than this?" Marie sounded extremely exasperated.
"Oh yes absolutely. I spent the whole morning on it."
"Fucking amazing."
A little while later the four agents sat gathered in front of the cabin, sh-aring stories from the past months.
"So what was your mission about, Tessa? Grandpa didn't tell us anything! Was it that much of a secret."
Tessa almost choked on the drink she was sipping, but managed to compose herself quickly enough to not make the others question her. Yet she felt Four stare at her with an eerie, suspicious gaze.
Dangerously observant, she noted mentally
"Oh, it was really boring honestly. Mostly some research, going through reports, checking everything out that we were supposed to check. It was long but not really exciting, nothing happened, honestly."
She prayed that she sounded casual, that the others would just buy it and not question her any further.
"You were gone for four months for nothing?" Callie questioned, thus denying her prayers to be answered.
"Seems like it."
"Really nothing interesting? How didn't you die of boredom? Gramps is not really a guy to have fun with." The last comment got Marie a punch from her cousin, to which she only grinned. "You know it's true, Cal."
"Well," Tessa said, rummaging in her memory, "the people everywhere were really nice. There was this one dude who was really cool, he told me he was travelling around. He had a lot of stories! He said he'd come to Inkopolis eventually to visit his sister, maybe I can introduce y'all then, you'll love him."
She was completely oblivious to the shadow passing over Callie's face while she talked.
"So," Tessa finally said, looking at Marie, "how come we're four now?"
There was a instant shift in the mood. Agent Four quietly looked at some birds flying by. Marie shifted uncomfortably, her whole body suddenly tensed up. Callie just looked very confused at Marie, but didn't dare to say anything yet.
"Wellllll, the work was getting a lot, y'know, and me and Callie are real busy, y'know. So we. Got Four here to help out."
"Marie."
"Yes."
"You're still a terrible liar."
"I know."
Finally Callie spoke up, voice quiet and eyes nervously flitting between her to friends.
"Marie, why didn't you tell her…?"
The other girl stayed silent, her gaze averted and body tense. After a while, without looking at anyone, she spoke up again.
"Gramps said you were busy and that your mission was important. And I didn't want you to get upset and worried, and you had to focus, and I had anything under control anyway-"
"Just tell me what happened, for fucks sake!"
Marie flinched, and when she looked at Tessa, she looked scared, and guilty, a lot more emotions that mixed in her face. It was probably the most expressive that she had ever seen her. In that moment, she cared little about that though.
It was Callie again who finally explained.
"About a month after you and Gramps left… Octavio escaped. Afterwards he kidnapped the Great Zapfish… and me too."
There was silence. The kind of silence that felt incredibly loud. The calm before the storm, if you will.
Tessa was just staring at Callie. She felt blood rushing through her eyes, and an intense, angry heat welling up inside of. She felt an intense mix of emotions shoot through her.
Rage.
Confusion.
Hurt.
Betrayal.
She looked at Marie. Golden eyes full of guilt. A traitor.
"Why."
Her voice sounded hollow and empty and yet had the edge of held-back emotions.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted to! I just didn't know how… I couldn't risk that you abandoned the mission and gramps, just to run home like a headless chicken to save her!"
Another silence. Longer. Deafening.
Tessa got up.
"I'm going."
"Where?"
"Home."
She didn't look back as she walked to the sewer.
"Tessa, I'm sor-"
Marie watched her disappear before she could finish her sentence.
Hewwo I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, it is a rewrite of my first horrible attempt at a story.
Now on a completely different note, if you want to know more about the characters or share your own ideas and stories, please give my new discord a visit that I created for exactly this purpose. I think doesn't allow links so uhhhh pm for the link or ask me in a review- you know what no that sounds like a shitty way to make it seem like I have more reviews, just pm me.