i refuse to consciously think about the fact that i not only made original squids but i am also actually WRITING about them what the fuck
"Private battle?" Evin murmured to herself in confusion, glancing around quickly to make sure no one was staring, then turning her attention back to the invitation. The sender's handle seemed vaguely familiar, but she struggled to put a face to it. It wasn't uncommon for her to receive messages, sometimes angry ones, from inklings she'd splatted a few times, especially in a turf war. This was a first, though. Was someone aching that badly for a rematch?
A shadow crossed her vision as a bird passed overhead, and she stiffened, feeling her hand shoot backwards to the Custom E-liter 3k slung over her shoulder. She cursed at the ground when she realized her own instinctive reaction; she'd been trying hard to combat her overactive nerves in her past few battles, worrying that her shooting wouldn't be as accurate as it needed to be if she charged to kill at every bit of movement from the corner of her eye. With a tired sigh, she tucked her messenger away in the bag dangling at her hip, then trudged towards the lobby. After a long day of battling, the last thing she really wanted to do was encounter some angry past opponent bent on splatting her, but her pride as a charger wouldn't allow her to turn down a challenge of her skill. If they wanted to battle again after that, well, she might just give them a couple easy shots so she could go home and nap.
The sunlight scorched Evin's eyelids, and she opened them in surprise of the bright scene. Mahi-Mahi was one of her favorite maps, and she had missed most of its rotation in the lobby that morning after sleeping late. It was late in the evening now, but the wisps of orange in the horizon were reminiscent of the morning battles she warmed up with and made her blink as they reflected off the glimmering blue pools of deadly water. The glare from her chrome weapon was unbearable, as well. A sick feeling in her stomach overwhelmed her initial delight at the opportunity to play the map again. Had her opponent planned this? Should she have switched to something more suited to a solo turf war, or had she wrongly assumed that her opponent wanted a rematch completely? She gulped down air anxiously and shielded her eyes from the light with one arm as she waited for the battle to begin, twisting her trigger finger into its comfortable place under her weapon.
She released a deep, slightly shaky breath as the beginning buzzer sounded to calm herself, and the first charged shot slid down the long platform before her. It buzzed in her palms and she scattered uncharged flecks of ink around the spawn point. Evin had seen the boy waiting in the other spawn with a roller, probably Carbon but she couldn't quite recall. As with any roller she encountered, she wanted to be prepared with a Kraken before facing him head on, just in case.
This was good, she told herself. Immerse her frantic mind in battle strategy so that she didn't have to think about how odd this whole situation was. Evin mumbled in agreement to herself, kicking her anxiety under the rug to focus on the game as she charged up a shot to aim where the roller was mostly likely to emerge. After a few seconds of nothing, though, she dared a glance to her map. With a surprised grunt, she realized that the roller had yet to lay down a splash of ink.
"Over here!" A loud voice rippled through the stage, and Evin whipped her head to the source, the roller boy. He was well within her range, but she paused before lining her fatal shot up with his chest; he had left his roller on the ground and his arms were above his head, waving her down to the main platform. Without a clear battle goal, her worries came crashing back into her head. He swung his arm in a big motion from her direction to his, inviting her down again. Reluctantly, she stepped from the edge of her perch down to the grates below, not daring to move her finger away from the E-liter's trigger.
"What do you want?" she asked gruffly, squinting to find some sign of malice in his face.
"A smile would be nice, for starters," he grinned and propped his sunglasses up from his face, revealing yellow eyes staring at her expectantly.
"Excuse me?" Evin glared into them, but couldn't seem to find anything suspicious.
"C'mon, smile!" he poked at his own cheeks. "You looked awfully happy after splatting me on Hammerhead today, you can do it again if you like?"
"Do you want a rematch or not?" she furrowed her brows, taking the opportunity to size up the boy and his gear. The powder blue of his short-cropped tentacles was fastened low on his neck with a white band, brushing the collar of a loosely hanging red and white jacket layered over a plain tee. The flexible leather of his ankle-high boots was white as well, awfully impractical for an ink battle.
"Not really," he shrugged and looked her up and down, too. She waited a few moments for him to elaborate, but no follow-up came.
"Then why am I here?" she placed her empty hand on her hip and stared down the bridge of her nose at him, becoming irritated as he wasted her valuable sleeping time.
"Like I said! You kept splatting me in turf war," he pointed to her E-liter, "You're pretty good with that thing."
"And?" she curled a protective hand around the tank of her charger at hearing him refer to it as a thing.
"I like a girl with a bite," he grinned, showing off his pointed teeth as he sank into his shoulders and tucked his hands in his pockets.
Caught off guard by the sudden admission, Evin stared. She cringed.
"Is this how you always flirt?" her own teeth ground together as she worked through the second-hand embarrassment.
"Well, yeah," he shrugged, looking at her like she was the odd one for questioning his methods. "You're pretty much stuck here with me for three minutes."
"And that works?" she asked, disbelieving.
"Well," his constant stream of direct eye contact cut off abruptly, gaze dropping to his feet as his cheeks heated. "Not yet. Unless..?" he looked back up to her hopefully and she shook her head vigorously.
"No! Definitely not," she stamped her foot on the grate she forgot she had been standing on, wobbling in her footing as it echoed back at her. She hopped towards him to avoid falling over, and he offered his hand to help her steady herself. Evin dropped her wrist into his palm and let him tug her from her heels to standing flat on her feet. She stole her arm back, wrapping her fingers around where he had touched. "Strong grip..."
"Did I hurt you? Sorry!" he took a sharp breath and reached towards her again. "It's the roller, if I don't hold tight enough it slips with all the ink-"
"I'm fine," she cut him off with a wave of the same hand. "I get it, I've seen enough newbies drop a roller to understand."
"Or fall over because a flick makes them top heavy, right?" he chuckled, withdrawing his hovering hands. "Especially the big Dynamo ones!I wouldn't even want to try lifting one of those," Evin nodded in agreement with a snort. He stooped to grab the stem of his Carbon roller from where it laid on the ground. "Mine may not deal as much damage, but at least I can use it without steroids, right?"
"Right, right," Evin nodded, running her eyes down the weapon. "You've got the burst bombs, right?"
"Sure do," he gave a curt nod.
"I'm kind of curious, why don't you use the one with Seekers?" Evin leaned on her hip, looking up the short distance to his eyes and waiting for his answer.
"I switched from a shooter to a roller for this set," he laughed from his chest, grinning. "When I first started playing turf wars, I was splatted by this girl who threw a burst bomb and finished me off with a flick! She was the fastest roller I'd ever seen!"
"I might have seen that before," Evin nodded thoughtfully, comfortable enough to carefully hook her charger back over her shoulder.
"I just really wanted to try that, you know? And it just sucked me in," he opened his mouth to continue but was cut off by the alert that only 10 seconds remained in the battle. "Shoot! I guess you'll be leaving, then?" he pouted.
"I can talk a little longer," Evin smiled. She always enjoyed listening to inklings talk about the weapons they had fallen in love with. Lord knew she could babble about her E-liter for hours, and the fire in his eyes when he spoke about his set was sweet.
"Really? I guess I'll just set a new round, then?" Evin nodded. "I can show you the burst bomb flick, even?" she nodded again.
"Meet you in the middle," she waved, the last few seconds were ticking down. "Oh, shoot! I didn't catch your name!"
"It's Kyte!" he managed to get out before the timer went off and they were both frozen, then whisked back to the private lobby for the results.
i guess... that's it... not really i have another chapter pre-written. review i guess? let me know if it anything is weird or if you like evin and kyte so far. ill introduce more of my lil squiddles in later chapters and work on an actual plot, for now it's just forming the relationships between my main two. i have some sketches of them if anyone's interested, i know i didn't do a lot of physical description.
stay fresh!