"Inklings," the mistress said to the orphaned Octoling girls, "are the reason you sorry octopi will never see the surface."
Eight little Octolings, barely old enough to hold the humanoid forms they sat upon the splintered floor in, frowned up at their elder.
She brushed her tentacle hair from her face to watch them properly. Frilly and green, her dress fit her chubby frame like a giant cabbage, garish against the dark walls of the orphanage. Rotting wood and termites divided the girls' dorm from the other rooms.
"Once, long ago, the Octarians and the Inklings were allies," she continued, pacing in front of the group. "How foolish our ancestors were. This peace only lasted so long as it took us to realize those squids were savages."
One Octoling raised her hand. Smaller than the others, her glove hung loose around the fingers of her tiny hand.
The mistress' eyes fell upon her. "Yes, dear?"
Opening her mouth to speak, her tongue slid through the gap between her teeth. "Mish Octavilla, why-"
Octavilla's boot ended the question as it struck her face. The other girls flinched out of the way as she went skidding across the floor into the cabinet behind them, books on combat technique cascading down and burying her.
One of the larger girls guarded her own face and raised her free hand.
The mistress' gaze switched targets. "Yes?"
"Miss Octavilla, if you would be so kind, may I ask why you kicked her?"
Octavilla smiled. Her excessive makeup made her face look gooey, like it could melt in the sun. "Of course, dear. Obviously it's because she mispronounced my name."
The books slid down around her as the small Octoling struggled from the clutter, clawing at the bruise across her face.
"The world is harsh and cruel. It's my job to prepare you for it." Octavilla strode back and forth, swinging the eyes of the girls like pendulums. "You think it's unfair of me to punish you for such an insignificant mistake? Why?
The Inklings will do the very same." She bent down to glare into the eyes of the larger girl. "You take one wrong step, one misplaced shot, and an Inkling will splat you within an inch of your worthless life."
The girl swallowed.
Deep underground, in the slums of Octo Valley, Octoling girls suffer to mold them into the soldiers the Octarians need to reclaim the surface. Some weather the storm and emerge stronger. Some are not as potently willed.
Days later, at the crack of dawn, Octavilla snapped on the lights in the girls' quarters. The bulbs flickered into a dull glow, bugs dead inside the glass casting odd shadows across the room.
"Everyone up," she said.
Each girl obeyed as quick as her body could move, throwing off the sheets and standing at attention in her ragged pajamas.
Except for one.
Octavilla strode down the row of beds to the cot at the end where the small Octoling lay silently asleep. A pair of old, taped-up headphones sat closed over her ears.
The others cringed in her direction.
Octavilla sneered down at her. "Ahem."
The girl lay still.
"AHEM."
No response.
Octavilla drew an Octoshot from her belt and pressed it into the girl's shoulder, pulling the trigger. The girl's arm jerked from the impact, and ink gushed across her neck and torso.
She otherwise did not respond.
The mistress blinked. "... I know of girls too absorbed in their tunes, but this is the first time I've seen one ignore a bullet in the arm..."
She was halfway through the statement when the truth began to creep upon her. Octavilla reached down and shook the girl.
"Wake up," she said. "I ordered you to wake up!"
The girl never woke. She lay limp beneath the mistress' hands. Not moving. Not breathing. Her body was already cold. Octavilla lifted her hands away with a sickly, coagulated slime on her palms.
She backed away, hands quivering like the slime burned them. "G-... C-call a medic. One of you, now."
As if a medic would do any good. The Octoling girl wasn't sick, she was dead. Her body began to decay into the bed sheets, the stench bleeding across the room and stealing into the noses of her mortified roommates.
Over by two rooms, in a darkened closet, a girl stood lit from below by the orphanage's spawn point. Lifting her shaking hands, she flexed the fingers like they were stiff and difficult to bend. Half-dry ink melted down her like a twisted dress.
Opening her palms, she stroked the two tentacles hanging from either side of her head as her breathing raced.