Edited Nov 7 2018: minors fixed and some added details
This girl was good.
The captain watched through the headset on his portable monitor as the girl shot, fought, and flipped her way through the platforms. She had incredible accuracy with that shooter!
"If you look ahead over there, you'll see and Octarian with a shield. Swim slowly and get behind it to take it out!"
"Yes!"
A few seconds and blasts from the hero shot later and the octo was splatted back to where the slimey bugger came from.
The girl cheered to herself in her language. She spent a lot of time pep talking herself (at least that's what he thought she was doing). It was a rather strange language with consonants far harder than most inkling languages. She also bubbled her voice very little. He knew many languages but he'd never even heard one similar to this. He'd ask later. Probably. If he didn't forget.
Ah, he could ponder that later. She was currently fighting a group of baddies.
"Remember to hide behind a wall if yer hurtin'!"
Several Octarians and one zapfish later, they were back at the base, standing by the kettle.
The girl was hugging and cooing incomprehensibly at the zapfish, which seemed quite content to let itself be pampered after its ordeal.
"Nice work on yer first mission!" At his words the girl looked up at him.
She held the zapfish above her head, much to the tiny catfish's delight "I have the zapfish! What do I do now?"
"Well there's two more kettles in this area to take ;fore we can get to the boss kettle. It'll be good practice fer you ta take 'em" He glanced back to the cabin behind him. "Once we make it past this sector we'll have a bit a time to rest an' gather our bearings. But we need to get at least a few zapfish back as quickly as possible."
The girl nodded and handed him the zapfish. The captain decided to really take a good look at her for the first time.
Her ink was still green from her mission, and she looked slightly more ragged than when she first slipped through the grate. The tentacles on her head were almost as long as how Callie kept her hair, though it looked as if she hadn't put as much effort into her style as Callie did. She was solidly built; she looked like she could easily punch out a kelp-haired octoling.
She started to turn down the path to the next kettle but he spoke before she could start walking, "Before you go on yer next mission, I think it's about time ta give you a proper title." The girl looked surprised before grinning.
"Ok!"
"From now on, you will be known as Agent 3 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon! As I mentioned before, I am Cap'n Cuttlefish, leader of this group." The newly titled Agent 3 looked quite excited. "I'll introduce you to Agents 1 and 2 sometime later. Fer now, off to the next kettle with you!"
Agent 3 was still grinning. She stood up straight and saluted him, saying "Yes!" before she turned and ran down the path to look for the next kettle.
"Ah… I was gonna ask fer yer name but I guess we'll get there later."
My note from AO3:
Trying to write an accent is harder than you'd think.
Agent 3 has her title and we'll learn her name soon enough.
I don't like reading things that I already know about so I'm gonna try to glaze over the details of the actual levels, and focus instead on the mentorship between Agent 3 and the good old Cap'n.