In an attempt to come out of retirement as a fanfiction writer, I've resolved to write a nice little Splatoon series. So, welcome everyone!
Hope you enjoy this series, starring a few OCs I've conceived.
Let me warn you ahead of time, there will be some single player mode spoilers in the series, but this first chapter should be safe for you.
Disclaimer: I own OCs, everything else is Nintendo's.
The turf was even, so even!
The seconds counted down in the last seconds of Turf War in Walleye Warehouse as yellow ink wrestled with blue ink. The inked turf between the two teams was almost perfectly even. So close, the match had reached a point where, if one competitor splatted a member of the opposing team, the loss of manpower for one team would likely be what decided the match.
One yellow-haired Inkling, wielding an Octobrush, ran for cover as two of his opponents closed in on him.
"Nice try, pipsqueak." One of the blue haired Inklings chuckled. He turned to his ally and nodded, signaling an unspoken plan.
Rushing in, the ink of a Splatterscope left a trail, intended less to splat and more to hinder his opponent's movement. His eyes met with the yellow-haired Inkling, and his lips curled into a smirk as he fired again, boxing his opponent in.
The yellow haired Inkling was in a dire bind. Two paths of ink cut off his escape routes, straight in front of him was his opponent, who would splat him before his brush would reach him. Behind him was a wall that couldn't be climbed. He readied himself for a bold response to his dilemma, and then the signal for an unexpected attack came.
The yellow haired Inkling looked up just in time to see an Inkstrike coming down. The opponent standing across from him burst into hysterical laughter as his opponent disappeared behind the ink.
"Hah, you let yourself get cornered, idiot." The second blue-haired Inkling returned, holding his Roller. The ink of the Inkstrike continued to swirl, violently twisting as though it was sending a harsh declaration that the match was effectively over.
Five seconds left...
Satisfied with the plan, and fat with pride at an inevitable victory, the Splatterscope wielder turned away, but the Roller user squinted his eyes to look into the inky vortex.
"Wait, he's...!"
The Splatterscope wielder turned back, something was still inside the Inkstrike, and now it was hurtling towards them!
"K-K-Kraken!" It proved to be the last words of the Roller for the match. The yellow Kraken rushed ahead as the Inkstrike vanished, and splatted the boy before the panic could even properly take hold of him.
The Splatterscope wielder saw how the tables had turned and tried to flee. His body seemed to melt, then take semi-solid form as a small squid as he tried to escape. It was only half a second before he swam into crippling enemy ink. Desperately, he shifted back to his humanoid form and tried to turn and fire at the Kraken, but to no avail. His body burst into ink at the Kraken's touch, before he could even make a single panicked shot.
At what seemed like a millisecond afterwards, the ringing sound that signaled the end of the game was heard. For better or for worse, the game was over.
Judd began his survey of the battleground. The two blue haired Inkling boys collectively swallowed as they stood by their teammates. The Splatterscope wielder looked at his enemy. That one solitary yellow haired boy was waiting for the results, looking like the picture of calmness. Did he feel assured of victory, or-
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of cheers and groans mixed together. He turned back to Judd, and his mouth gaped open. The blue team had lost by exactly 2%. Probably all because of the defeat they had been dealt by the Kraken in the closing seconds.
"Lum!" He shook an indignant fist at his yellow haired opponent. "I'll return this favor soon enough! Fair victory or not, I'll have you quivering in your own ink after one of these battles!"
The yellow haired Inkling, Lum, smiled at the angry response. His opponent stormed away, still outraged at how close the battle had been, the rest of the blue team followed after him.
Lum left the tower and entered into Inkopolis Plaza. As tense as some might have said that game was, outside things carried on as usual. A plethora of Inklings of various shades of skin and differing genders were walking around as if they owned the place. Some trying on new clothes, others swarming Ammo Knights in hopes of trying out new weapons. Oh, and there was that one Inkling trying to jump on another Inkling's head at the wall across from the tower. Always an awkward sight.
The Great Zapfish was wrapped around the tower at the back of the plaza. It looked almost oblivious to the creatures meandering beneath it. It seemed quite content as it practically cuddled the tower, as electrical power was drawn out of its massive body to power Inkling society.
As Lum prepared to take a step forward, a girl suddenly came beside him.
"And away walks the conquering champion." She said, grabbing Lum by his shoulder, just slightly jerking him to the side.
"Wha-" Lum turned to the girl, recognition lit his eyes. "Oh, Hum."
Lum's elder sister. While he had fourteen years of life, Hum had sixteen. Hum wasn't a common sight in this area. Unlike her brother, she expressed no real interest in Turf Wars, which made her a little out of place in the plaza, which was built around the Turf Wars. She wasn't really good at them, and wasn't exactly a team player either. In fact, the only time she paid any amount of attention to them, was when Lum was competing.
Like her brother, she possessed yellow hair. She also shared Lum's eye color and skin tone, it didn't take much brain power to see that they were related. Heck, they even both wore glasses. Lum pushed his own pair up his nose as they started to slip down.
"How did your new weapon work?"
Lum smirked, then glanced down at his Octobrush. "Good enough, but..." He put the weapon away, then took out a distinctive golden gun. "The RG is still my stand-by."
Hum tapped her cheek a few times in thought. "Seems to me like you're all about a good fire-rate." Her eyes drifted skyward, examining the distant sky. A lot of Inklings would be enthralled at the idea of a weapon that shot so far it might ink the clouds. Lum seemed satisfied with a short range weapon, provided it did all it needed to do in that short range.
"You're done for the day, right? Let's get back home." She glanced across Booyah Base. "You know I hate crowds." This girl was rarely one for social interaction, unless it was with her family. Hum didn't like the sheer volume of Inklings that collected in this area every day.
After a moment of thought, she turned back to her brother. "Your team was three strangers. None of them tried to get cozy with you after the match, right?"
Lum shook his head. Hum sighed, in what seemed to be a mixture of annoyance and relief. "Too many others just want you as a 'win button' for the battles, and they don't care about you as an individual. Though it would be nice if you met an actual nice person."
"Didn't you sabotage my last attempt to meet an 'actual nice person', little miss inconsistency?"
About a week back, Hum had been pressuring Lum to 'find a nice girl'. The day after that, Lum had left the tower with a female teammate, just discussing some memorable moments from the day's matches. Before long, Hum walked up and just about bit the girl's head off for being in her brother's general proximity. Now that girl was too scared to approach Lum.
"That's not my fault, Lum." Hum retorted. "You're a terrible judge of character."
Lum's eyes widened and he took a step back, like he had been struck. Hum was smiling for a second, then her mouth gaped open when she realized what she had said.
"L-Lum, I didn't mean that, I-" She buried her face in her hands. "I'm sorry."
Throughout his life, Lum had tried to make friends. The friendships just never worked out. As some kind of cosmic joke, every 'friend' Lum made would betray him sooner or later. Blab any personal secrets he had told them, sell him out when it was convenient, or other examples of backstabbing. Sometimes it took longer than others before it happened, but it meant that, in his regular life, Hum was perhaps the only person around Lum's age who was truly loyal to him.
"It's alright." Lum soothed, putting a hand on his sister's shoulder. "Forget about it."
"I really am sorry." Hum whispered. She was technically correct, Lum wasn't the best judge of character, but it's not something Lum would be reminded about. The typical conclusion to Lum's friendships had led to Hum being extremely picky in regards to who approached her brother. As that girl from a few days ago learned the hard way.
Lum looked ready to assure his sister again, but then the sound of footsteps approaching caught his attention.
Two Inklings, the very two he had splatted in the closing seconds of his last match. Hum also took note of them, and immediately positioned herself between them and her brother.
"Get lost."
They seemed more amused at Hum's threatening tone than anything else.
Lum and Hum knew these two well. One of them, Pyrot, who favored a Splatterscope, with his notably pale skin. The other, Cranch, with tanned skin, like he had spent too much time at Mahi-Mahi, preferred the Roller. However, it wasn't any antagonism over Turf Wars that spawned Hum's hostile words.
"Why all the venom?" Cranch asked, tilting his head to the side. "Your brother and I are friends."
Hum's eyes narrowed. "Were friends." Her hands suddenly clenched. "Among everyone who's wronged Lum, you two were by far the worst."
"Your pipsqueak brother wronged me." Pyrot suddenly interjected. His voice was low and hostile, it seemed he was still upset about the last match. "I ask for a few small favors, and he abandons me."
Lum tightly shut his eyes. 'Small favors' Pyrot calls them. Pyrot had been having him do things that could have put Lum into real jeopardy, or even have him serving jail time. Meanwhile, Pyrot stayed snug in his house, away from any potential risks.
"I'm quite thankful that Hum finally convinced me to be done with you." Lum retorted. "Do you have any real business here?"
"Be careful, Lum." Hum took a step back, nearly backing into her brother. "Remember, these two are perfectly fine taking advantages outside the game to win a Turf War."
Pyrot's scowl shifted to a smirk. "It's about the principle of the thing. I like winning. Though it's a bit unfair to accuse me of having something to do with how my opponents have a funny tendency to be so late they miss the games."
Cranch laughed. Hum growled. Lum grabbed his sister's shoulder.
"We should just go, Hum. Anything's better then encouraging them." Without waiting for an answer, he began to drag his sister away. She tried to hold her ground and had to be literally dragged at first, but then followed the path her brother was guiding her on.
"You never make a good face anymore, Lum." Cranch called after them, wearing the smug, condescending face that was basically his normal face. "It was fun using you to ride to victory back then, but my favorite part of our friendship is that look you gave me when you realized I didn't care for you at all."
Hum suddenly hissed and broke free of her brother's grip. With that little warning, she suddenly lunged.
"Be thankful no authority was looking. You could have really gotten into trouble for that." Away from Booyah Base, they were now in the comfort of their own home, in Lum's room. Lum sat on his bed, Hum stood across from him.
"He deserved a lot more than a punch, Lum." Hum soothed her fist. "How could he throw that in your face, like that?"
"Because he's Cranch." Lum answered. "At what point after the friendship did he do anything that remotely suggests that he had any kind of standards?"
Hum nodded. "I really do hate the two of them." Cranch and Pyrot, two shameless opportunists who hurt and betrayed Lum, and Hum was certain that her brother wasn't the only person they had mistreated like that.
And it certainly didn't take them long to run after Hum turned violent. Those two had no spine. Well, no Inkling had a spine, boneless and all, but one probably got the point.
"Lum, please don't test out new weapons in matches one of those two are participating in again. I really don't want to put up with the attitudes those two will have if unfamiliarity with their weapon lets them squeak out a win."
Lum shrugged. "Without any cheating tricks, those two aren't really all that skilled. I don't think there'll be any problems."
Hum sighed. If only her brother took this more seriously. It would have been wrong beyond wrong for them to have another excuse to taunt Lum, and that last round was unsettlingly close. But the perception of the younger sibling on this matter was clearly very different then the perception of the older sibling.
"A bit of music might perk me up." Hum said after a silence. "Lum, I let you listen to my music. What's your favorite song from Squid Squad?"
"Um..."
"Okay, your favorite song from Hightide Era?"
"Er..."
"Chirpy Chips?"
"Ah..."
"...Bob Dub?"
"Is that a band or an individual musician?"
Hum's palm smacked into her forehead. "Honestly, Lum, you wouldn't even know who the Squid Sisters are if they didn't host stage rotations."
Lum made a weak laugh. "I've told you enough times that I'm a musical illiterate."
Making a small sigh, Hum walked over and sat beside her younger brother. "Well, that's okay. Sometimes peace and quiet with no music is fine, too. Really, as long as there's no unnecessary crowds."
These two had been blessed with a wonderful sibling relationship. They had their disagreements and their squabbles, but they seemed incapable of staying angry with each other. Though there had been those occasions where they didn't speak to each other for exceptionally extended periods of time.
"Even if you have your moments where you drive me up the wall, I still love my dear brother."
"Truly? You didn't seem to love me that much on the day I gave my appraisal of your violin skills."
Hum shot her brother a look. "I'm trying to give us a nice sibling moment here. Don't ruin it."
"Really? Sibling moment? From the girl who almost daily uses 'older sibling authority' to get her way? I think-mmph!"
Hum had put her index finger and thumb on Lum's lips to clamp them shut.
"Zip it."
Mostly a character introduction chapter. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it. More chapters will be coming.