This is quite literally my first time writing a serious fanfiction, so please judge me as harshly as possible. Criticize my every minute flaw or error! Flood my comment sections with angsty rage so hot it could burn a hole through my computer screen! Do this so I can learn and provide you all with the best work I can put forward.

Also, I have no plans for a consistent update schedule, but it will get done sometime. I can do the most work on fridays and weekends. It should go without saying that there are some spoilers for Splatoon 2 and maybe also the first one. Enjoy!

Beep! Beep! Beep! blared the alarm on Dane's phone, pulling him roughly out of the recesses of his sleep. He slowly opened his cyan eyes and reached to his right to shut his alarm off. Unplugging the charger from his phone, he glanced at the time. 7:00 A.M. it read. Too early in Dane's opinion, but he needed to be up so soon if he wanted to be on time for the train to the square.

"Nnn..." he groaned tiredly as he forced himself out of bed. Dane trudged to the hotel room bathroom (he sold his apartment a few days before), washed his face quickly, brushed his teeth, and tied up his two larger tentacles, which were green from his last battle, on top of his head. Glancing at the mirror and deeming himself ready for the day, he walked back over to his bed where his suitcase was, deciding on his Zink Layered LS shirt and his Pilot Goggles that everyone thought looked stupid, but he still wore them anyway. He slid his Purple Hi-Horses onto his feet, gathered anything he had left, and walked out to go get breakfast.

Dane turned right and carried his suitcase down two flights of blue-carpeted stairs to the lobby. He nodded kind of smugly at the other patrons as if to say Hah, I'm finally getting outta this dead-end town, but you're still stuck here! He walked over to the receptionist to turn his room key in and pay for his last day there. The receptionist was an older squid with dark magenta hair and worn out grey eyes that looked like they had seen off many kids just the same as Dane in the past. Her name tag read "Jane K." and was very faded, suggesting she had been here for a very long time

"Finally gettin' out of here, huh, kid?" She asked him. "Good for you. This town isn't so happening like it used to be anymore."

That was certainly true. Inkopolis felt much more deserted now than it did two years ago. Annie had closed down Cooler Heads, Crusty Sean went to start his own business like he had always talked about. Even Sheldon moved Ammo Knights over to Inkopolis Square - "Better for business," he had claimed. Spyke wasn't in his usual shady alleyway, Judd had left his pedestal (probably somewhere in the Square), and even the strange old squid who used to pop out of his sewer grate didn't appear anymore. Dane was also pretty sure the Squid Sisters hadn't recorded any original news segments for the daily news broadcasts in weeks, if not months.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, it's good to finally get out of here," Dane replied. "I'm going with my friend Hana and we're going to see if we can each start new lives there."

"I see! Well, good luck to both of you," the receptionist replied with a semi-genuine smile.

"Thanks!" Dane waved as he walked out toward the train station.

Outside the hotel there was a small cafe from which Dane ordered a breakfast sandwich and sat outside at one of those patterned black metal tables that cafes usually had. Just as he was about to take a bite, he felt his phone buzz once in his pocket. He pulled it out and squinted at the screen, which showed he had recieved a text from Hana. He opened his Messages app and clicked on her name.

"hey r u ready yet" the text read. Dane sighed at the way it was written. He had tried in the past to convince her to use correct grammar when texting or writing, but she still preferred her way. "Life's too short to be worrying about perfect grammar all the time," she had said.

"Almost, I'm eating breakfast now. I should be there in maybe, like, 5-10 minutes?" Dane replied. He set his phone down to eat some of his sandwich and after a few seconds it buzzed again.

"k see you there!" the text read. Dane smiled and put his phone back in his shorts pocket. He finished the rest of his sandwich and set off toward the train station. As he promised, it took him about eight minutes in total to get there and under one of the covered benches he saw Hana sitting next to some squids he didn't know and apparently she didn't know either. She was wearing a basic white shirt and listening to music with her Studio Headphones. Her long tentacles were magenta at the moment. She glanced up and her expression brighted when she saw him.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't Mr. Late Squid," Hana teased in greeting. "I almost thought you weren't going to show up!"

"Aw, you know I wouldn't skip out on something like this!" Dane replied, raising his arms up to demonstrate the scale of what they were doing. "Besides, I already sold my apartment, bought another one, and I only have $5,000 cash at all, so I really can't go anywhere else." They both laughed. Hana reached into her shorts pocket and pulled out her phone to check the time. It said 7:43 A.M. and there was an attached reminder she had recorded earlier which said,"If you aren't on the train already then y'all need to hurry your squid asses up and get on!"

"Oh no, Dane!" Hana exclaimed jokingly. "We need to hurry our squid asses onto that train!"

"Let's go then!" Dane replied, unable to keep the excitement off of his face. He and Hana each grabbed their suitcases and stepped onto the open doors of their train, which had arrived a few minutes ago so it seemed. They found a cabin with rows of purple seats and sat on the end closer to the door across from each other. The ride there was only going to be 20 minutes, but Dane figured he would listen to some music on the way there. He fished out his white earbuds and plugged them into his phone. He then opened up the SquidTube app because why pay for the music you listen to when you could just wait for someone else to illegally put it online? He quickly searched for an extended version of the song "Splattack!" by Squid Squad and set it on.

"All aboard train route 256 from Inkopolis Plaza to Inkopolis Square," a male squid's voice came in over the intercom in the cabin. The doors closed and there was a hiss as the cabin was pressurized. This is it, Dane thought to himself, and he was sure Hana was thinking something similar, even though her attention was directed at her phone. He felt the train start moving slowly at first until it pulled away from the station, but then got increasingly faster settling on a speed where plants along the ground blurred together slightly if he looked straight at them. The two squid-kids sat in silence across from the each other, listening to their music and wondering about what kind of adventure their new life would hold for them.