"One house special please, please"

"With an umbrella?"

"Why not?"

The bartender turned around and got out a mug. He filled it up, placed a purple umbrella in it, and gave it to me. Today's patrol was rough; apparently an inkling broke into one of our kettles and stole the Zapfish from us…

Well… Reclaimed it.

"Here you go,"

"Thanks,"

I took a sip before placing the mug back down and looking around the tavern. It was a dimly lit metal shack with rusting walls. There were only a few people today, sitting down at tables playing card games chatting. The Dj was in the back, playing an ancient, untranslatable song. I sighed and stared at the table.

"Is there anything wrong?"

I looked back up at the bartender, a tall octotrooper.

"Nah. Patrol was a bit rough, that's all."

"What happened?"

"An inkling broke in. They took all of us down and… Well… Took the Zapfish from us."

"That's funny, most Octolings who drop by here would say they stole it."

I took another sip of my drink.

"Well, we can't really say they stole it. We don't even know who it belongs to in the first place."

The bartender paused. "Well, we have been fighting over it for the past 150 years, it makes sense."

"There's more to it than that," I pointed out. "I mean, it made sense for us to battle over it 100 years ago; we were running out of living space and nobody wanted to give it up. But the past century, it's been like tug-of-war. We're both pulling the rope to see who is the better species, just that we haven't budged. Maybe it's because neither of us is better than the other. We're really just neutral forces. In this case, what's the point of fighting anymore?"

"You know what, you're right. The fight is pointless. But why does Lord Octavio demand all of us to devote our lives to the military? Even to the point we can't see our families, and we have to sacrifice sleep to relax and hang out with people? The inklings are right above our heads tons of freedom, and we can't even choose what job we want? It's messed up."

The bar fell silent, the DJ even stopping the music. I looked up into the corner and my jaw dropped. There was a camera, pointed directly at our spot.

"Oh no..," I said, taking one more sip of my drink. "We need to leave."

The bartender tilted to the side in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"That camera caught our entire conversation and is reporting it back to Octavio. We need to get to the surface now."

The bartender nodded, got out from behind the counter, and followed me out behind the tavern.

"There should be a warp pad right around this area," I whispered, surveying the area. Gee, it was tough to see through the fog, but eventually I managed to make out a round circle.

"There it is!" I said running to it.

"FREEZE!" Oh no… I felt two pairs of gloved hands grab my arms.

"You both are under arrest for defying and questioning the logic of Octavio."

I faced the bartender. His breath was becoming rapid as a rope was tied around him.

"I… I'm sorry for getting us into this." I said.

"You better be," the Octoling to my right said. "Now move! Or your punishment will be worse than it already is."

I sighed and let the two soldiers guide me away from the warp pad. Hopefully, our punishment wouldn't be that bad…

I could only hope…

"What did I say? KEEP MOVING!" A gun was thrusted against my back. I grunted, and kept walking forward.