"So what is this thing you wanted to show us?" Jace asked Agent 3.
Agent 3 didn't answer but instead jumped off of the roof and sprayed the ground below him, turning into an inkling before hitting the ground and breaking his fall. He continued walking as if nothing had happened, and Jace and Celine jumped after him.
"Hey, I didn't catch your answer." Celine followed up.
"I didn't answer."
He walked all the way to the Inkopolis plaza's entrance to the sewer system, and lifted up the manhole. "Just keep following me." He jumped in.
The manhole cover rattled back into place and Jace stared at it, the sewers were said to be dangerous.
"Are you sure you want to follow him?" Jace asked Celine, "This could be dangerous, I need to know if you're sure."
Celine nodded, "Yeah, we might as well follow him. Who knows, this might be fun." Celine lifted up the manhole cover and slid herself in.
Jace watched as his best friend lowered herself into the unknown, then he readied his mind and lifted up the manhole cover. There was nothing he could see, it was just darkness in the manhole. "Oh man that smells." The smell from the alleyway exuded from the sewers as well, but Jace held his breath and slid his body down.
The sewers were filled with ink that had gone bad, trash, and other junk items; and was set at an angle downwards. The second that Jace's feet touched the floor, he slipped and landed on his back, he then started sliding due to the ink. The sewers instantly turned into a massive, dangerous, and frankly smelly slip-n-slide.
Jace slowly gained speed as he careened down the sewers. Ink went up his shirt and stained his clothes and back. Wind whipped his face, launching trash and garbage into his body to sting him. He approached an area that had broken glass, and went into squid form to avoid it, when he popped back into inkling form he checked his body to make sure he wasn't just turned into a live cheese grater.
The minutes in the sewers seemed to elongate, becoming longer than what they should have bee, but Jace could finally see the end of the tunnel. It started out as a small pinprick of light miles away, but son started to grow into an escape from the stench. Jace braced himself and tumbled out of the sewer, ending up over a grate.
"Ow," he groaned, that wasn't the cleanest of landings.
"Are you all right?" Celine asked, her own clothes spattered with ink as well. Jace nodded and sat himself up, rubbing away ink for the second time today. "I'm fine. Just a little bit bruised, I wasn't ready for the sudden slip-n-slide."
Agent 3 held out a helping hand to Jace. "Don't worry," he told him, "Everyone else was surprised by it too, we really need to clean out those pipes. I think someone might get cut open on the broken glass a mile up. But yeah, when I first went down here I wasn't prepared for it."
"You take others down here?" Jace said while standing up on his own, ignoring the hand, "Why would anyone risk coming down here?"
Agent 3 looked at Jace in some sort of shock, "Have you taken a look around?"
Jace finally did widen his gaze and what he did see made him do a double take. All around him was a valley filled with greenery and statues, beautiful. Junky looking platforms that were inked so much they looked like a painting rose randomly in the valley, seeming to be magically floating on shaky supports. The only mar to the beauty of the valley and the abstractions of the platforms was the dull gray building that was closest to the small group of inklings. In contrast to the brightly colored buildings of Inkopolis, or the inked up platforms, this building was dull and lacking character.
"Wow," Jace said, his voice dripping with more inky sarcasm than someone run over with a splat roller. "Yeah, it's nice, save for the massive gray blob of a building that's literally twenty feet away from us. How many people did you even bring down here, and how many didn't come back?"
The teen agent opened his mouth to say, but was interrupted by a voice to Jace's right. "23 inklings have visited so far, and all have come back daily after I talked to them about what that... what did you call it? Gray blob? Yeah, that was it. They go to that 'Gray Blob' every day."
The voice belonged to an elderly inkling, dressed in rags that looked like old sailor's clothing that were being held together by medals. He held a cane in his right hand, and a captain's hat on his head, finishing the tattered look off with a nice gangly beard.
"Th' name's Cap'n Cuttlefish. And I'm the owner of this fine establishment. What would you two's names be?"
"I'm Celine and he is Jace." Celine told the sailor, "But what is this... place... exactly."
Cuttlefish shot a questioning look to Agent 3, who nodded, Cuttlefish then gestured to their whole surroundings. "This place is called the Octo Valley. It's where the Octolings were confined to after they lost the war with us."
He gestured to the building.
"And this is what we call 'Splat Academy'. It's built on the spot I used to live on, built by myself and a few helpers, but sturdy and reliable. It's my goal to take in inklings who have potential and train them with the help of my three agents. These inklings are planned to be some of the best splatters in Inkopolis." Cuttlefish looked at the two teenage inklings with anticipation.
Celine smiled wanly, "It's nice," she told Cuttlefish, "But don't you think that it's a little bit drab? No inkling would be caught dead in there."
"But that's the beauty of it." Agent 3 said, "Even if Inklings had found the academy, would they want to go in? No. They would think exactly what you would think and leave it alone. Therefore our academy will remain a secret."
"But why keep it secret?" Jace asked.
"This is an academy only for those who have potential. We can't have every squid in Inkopolis run down here to try and apply or practice, think of how annoying that would be for us who actually have a chance to become legends. Or those teaching the ones who have a chance to become legends. No, it's better that it remains secret.
Cuttlefish continued after Agent 3, "Agent 3 over there has been looking for recruits in the turf wars these last few weeks. He's found around 23 inklings, not counting yourselves, who have potential. I'm going to assume that since he brought you two here, you are potential recruits in the academy?"
Agent 3 shrugged, "They're decent enough. There's some potential there, but I didn't get enough chance to determine it; this was mostly a gut feeling."
"The last time he had a gut feeling was when Agent 1 snuck some hot sauce into his food." Cuttlefish told Celine with a chuckle.
"HEY! I thought she said that she wouldn't tell anybody." Agent 3 complained.
"Oops."
Cuttlefish settled down and got back to business. "Alright." He addressed the two potential Inklings again. "I assume that since you are inklings, you're fans of the turf wars?"
Jace grinned, "Oh yeah, that game today was awesome. Ray's moves were phenomenal."
Celine's foot dug into Jace's shoe.
"We can train you to fight at a higher level than him."
Jace's jaw dropped, "No offense, but I doubt that."
Agent 3 nodded, "Ray's been practicing and studying here since we set up the academy, he was the first inkling I went to for a recruit. Why do you think that his team was the underdogs this tournament and hadn't been heard of at all before? They only recently gotten better."
If possible, Jace's jaw dropped even farther, exposing all of his pointed teeth. "Ugggghhh. If that's the case, then I'm in! Sign me up!"
Celine looked over at Jace, excitement clear in both of their faces. Neither of them expected that ambushing an inkling who didn't want to get sprayed would lead to all of this. She unholstered her splattershot and spun it deftly on her fingers, "Since Jace is in, I've got to be better than him. So I'm in, he can't have all of the fun." She smiled and mimed shooting Jace in the head with her gun.
"Excellent!" Cuttlefish said, "You can come back here tomorrow for orientation. For now you might want to follow Agent 3 back to the surface of Inkopolis. See you tomorrow, recruits."
Agent 3 waved for them to follow him, but Jace couldn't believe that there was a way back up from the pipe. It was much to slippery for anybody to go up, that ride was much to tough. Nevertheless Agent 3 walked to the pipe and stepped in, turning into a squid in the ink at the bottom of the pipe, "Let's go." he blurbled.
Once they were back on the surface of Inkopolis plaza, Agent 3 told them the rest of the information they would need.
"Arrive at ten O'clock, one of the other two agents will show you around while I am teaching and get you situated. See you tomorrow."
Agent 3 flashed them a smile, then slid back down a pipe. Jace and Celine looked at each other, still messy, and silently conveyed their excitement because they were unable to talk for a moment. Then Celine was able to find her voice.
"Well this has been an exciting day."
And as the sun started to set, they walked back to their neighborhood, eager to get to sleep so the next day would come quicker."
