even if you guys don't like this story all that much, i do, so here's a nice long chapter. it's mostly flashback to give a little context, hope someone enjoys.
Evin trembled in her boots as she took in the rocky scene before her. It was that new stage, Piranha Pit, the one she had been having trouble getting the hang of even with her normal weapon. What had she been thinking, testing an entirely different class now, when this deathtrap was in rotation? The long, brightly-colored gun in her hands was over half her height, what had made her think she could ever use something like this? Her aim was subpar, she was used to avoiding other players all together and inking turf over anything else, but this charger was for someone with precise hands, battle smarts and the will to splat any opponent that came within their range. She longed for the solid weight of her golden Aerospray, regretting her choice to even touch this plastic beast.
"Are you any good with that?" One of the boys on her team nudged her shoulder and she jumped, shaking her head vigorously.
"I've never used it in a battle before," she admitted, sinking into herself as a chorus of groans lit up from his side of the spawn pad. The tall girl on Evin's other side was silent, which made her feel even guiltier for some reason. "Sorry."
"Just stay out of the way, kid," the boy that had asked her the question sneered as the starting buzzer rounded off. He leapt from the spawn with his Krak-On roller, trailed closely by the two other girls on the team. One held a Luna blaster, the other a Tentatek splattershot. They left messy trails as they made their way towards the center, leaving Evin to finish inking the base.
Relieved that she wouldn't have to face an opponent just yet, she happily charged up a shot to fill in between their tracks, then another to begin to cover the path they hadn't taken. After only a few more, though, she found her ink tank empty and immersed herself to refill. How was anyone supposed to cover turf with one of these things if a full tank only yielded a couple shots? She stood and continued to ink, grudgingly monitoring her low ink efficiency to keep it in check. As she charged for the final shot on her tank, she spied a blue laser from the corner of her eye, contrasting against the slimy green of her own ink. When she realized where it had to be coming from, it was too late. A loud clash, like the sharpening of a knife, echoed behind her eyes as she stood back up a few seconds later, finding herself upon the spawn pad. Staring down from across the conveyor belt was a smirking girl with a scoped E-liter 3k under her arm.
Evin fumbled for the trigger of her Splat Charger, not daring to signal for help from her teammates. She'd already gone and gotten herself splatted within the first half minute, and they thought she was enough of a scrub without her needing help to take care of a single opponent. The other charger watched her ready a shot and bring her wobbly aim up, then jumped out of her way just as she released the shot. The inkling girl snickered from across the belt and signaled to another of her teammates to join her. Evin took a glance at her map: the rest of her team was still fighting for mid, so there was no hope of a sudden rescue, and to top it off the blue team was slowly overtaking them. She looked back up to the E-liter and saw that a teammate had joined her, a boy with a Splatterscope. As she held her breath and charged another shot, they fired their own into the green tracks her teammates had left on the conveyor path, swimming against the current until they were too close for her to fire at from the spawn pad. Evin watched helplessly as their blue overtook the green she had spread, the boy perching himself at the top of the tower path and aiming his Splatterscope at her head. She may not have been used to using a charger, but she knew what the laser hovering around her meant.
The spawn bubbled as one of her teammates returned from a splat, the tall girl that hadn't spoken earlier. Evin's cheeks flushed as she saw the girl observe the mess she'd allowed to overtake the base with her terrible shooting.
"Sorry," she whimpered again, turning her eyes to her feet so she didn't have to look at the laughing faces of the two enemy chargers or the surely-annoyed expression on her teammate's face.
"It's okay," the girl shrugged, spraying outwards with her splattershot at the blue ink creeping up towards their spawn. "Chargers are hard."
"I shouldn't have brought a weapon I can't use!" Evin broke down, determined to make the girl reprimand her, she was stuck with this green abomination for the rest of the day. She sniffled and lifted it slowly, arms and legs shaking as she struggled to refrain from sobbing. She fired at the ground just to earn a few more points in what was sure to be a staggering loss, but the opposing chargers covered her trails right back up with their deep blue. The splattershot rubbed Evin's shoulder gently, popping back up from the ink after a refill of her tank.
"You'll learn," she shot a few more rounds off as the chargers continued to cover up the ink they spread. One was still hiding a few steps below them, and the other had moved to cover the path that lead off towards the side platforms. The tall girl pinched Evin's side to get her attention, putting a finger to her lips as she readied her special weapon and nodded her head towards the boy along the side. "Charge a shot."
With widening eyes, Evin complied. She hadn't even thought about using her special weapon, or her sub for that matter. Now that she thought about it, she probably could have taken both of the opposing chargers out a while ago if she'd been smart enough to use her splat bombs.
The splattershot activated her Inkzooka, immediately splashing at the girl hiding below them. She was washed away in the swirling ink with a surprised cry, but the boy heard the special attack and leapt out of range before he could join his teammate. In the distraction, Evin painstakingly lined up her sights with his chest and released. Miraculously, the shot hit and his Splatterscope sank into the rippled path of green ink on the ground where he had stood a second ago.
"Go, go!" the splattershot gave her a shove from behind, and Evin leapt onto the step below with a new vigor. She charged and aimed to re-cover the conveyor as her teammate went around the other side of the grated tower, flanking the map's midsection as she rejoined their other comrades on the front lines. Evin happily finished off the base, even venturing further up to the tower peak. The E-liter girl was peeking around the middle conveyor belts, oblivious to Evin's presence as she aimed her scope towards the foot end of the green team's side. As silently as possible, and making sure to aim her sight laser inconspicuously, Evin charged a shot and slinked it towards her. With that same sickening clash, the E-liter burst into green ink.
"Good one!" Came a shout from behind the same conveyor, the splattershot was waving. Evin wiggled her fingers back shyly, that had really only been a lucky shot, right?
The countdown for the final ten seconds of the match began. The splattershot turned her attention back to the advance of the blue team's remaining members, activating her inkzooka again.
"What special...?" Evin struggled to remember the special weapon in her kit. Bomb rush, wasn't it? She realized with a gasp and opened her map as quickly as she could, locating a teammate near a mass of blue. Down on the far foot of the map, the Luna blaster was struggling to deal with the massive piece of territory on her own under the pressure of the timer. Thanking the quick-jump gear she had equipped mostly for escaping, Evin made her way to the blaster's aid as the clock ticked down.
"We still lost?" the Luna blaster whined with her hands on her hips as they all observed the final score. Green had lost 36.9% to blue, 48.3%.
"We did have a scrub charger," the boy with the roller huffed, and Evin looked shamefully at her trail boots, she had been hoping nobody would mention her place at the bottom of the rankings.
"If the scrub got more kills than you, what does that say?" the splattershot hissed from the corner of her mouth and the top position on their team's leaderboard. Evin didn't even know when she'd found the time for five splats.
"You're in third!" the blaster scoffed as well. "And I saw you fall off the edge! If anything, we had two losers, and at least one of them remembered they had a special weapon!" she spat as she shoved past Evin and the roller on her way out of the lobby, straightening the crisp collar of her white blouse.
Evin shrunk under the renewed glare of the Krak-On roller. The splattershot whacked his cheek with the back of her hand.
"Get out." he scrambled for the door like a kicked puppy at the command of the more experienced player, and the splattershot brought her long fingers to Evin's face instead. She braced herself for a slap for her performance, but was surprised when she found her cheek pinched.
"Ah, hey-!"
"You did good, kid!" In an instant, her hands had shifted focus to the charger in Evin's hands, hefting it up and observing. "Just need some practice, yeah?"
"I guess," Evin shrugged, still in disbelief that her teammates had defended her performance.
"Wanna stick with me today? I'll be your bodyguard 'til you figure it out!" she dropped the weapon back into Evin's unprepared hands, leaving her grasping at it to keep it from the floor. "What'd you say your name was, anyway?"
"It's Evin," she murmured in awe, wondering if she'd heard the offer correctly, looking up to meet the girl's excited eyes. Now that the stress of the battle was no more, she finally had a chance to get a really good look at her teammate. She stood half a foot taller than Evin, but a portion of that was due to the oversized red Hi-Horses she wore. Her stature was impressive, nonetheless. A loose red flannel hung around her wide shoulders, open to reveal a plain white shirt underneath. The wide eyes behind her black glasses were a bright pink, and the little ring in her nose was a glinting silver.
"I'm Demi," she grinned, smoothing her grabby hands over the tentacles hanging over Evin's ears and arms. "Gotta do something about these, though, gonna get in the way..." She noticed Demi's own tentacles were tied in a secure loop at the back of her neck, presumably so they didn't disturb her shooting.
"I think they'll be fine..!" Evin protested as the unfamiliar girl skipped to her back and dragged the heavy extra limbs behind her shoulders.
"Oh, but you're so cute when you pull them back like this!" Evin felt her cheeks turn hot and at the same time there was an odd squeeze where Demi's hands had grabbed her tentacles back. A glance over her shoulder found a band fastened around them, tying them together and out of her face.
"Erm, thank you?" she blinked, not sure if she meant it for being called cute or for the tie.
"Yep!" Demi snatched up her wrist and tugged her back towards the main lobby, catching her by surprise, and she stumbled after her. "Get ready to get really good at that thing!"
The black metal fence surrounding Inkopolis Tower was cold against Demi's neck and shoulders as she propped herself up against it, absentmindedly running her tongue over her sharp front teeth as she observed the flashing displays before her. The shady, covered front stoop of the Lobby was buzzing as teams and solo players made their way inside. It was late in the morning, so the initial early rush had subsided, leaving her to wait for her companions of the day.
Demi had been battling in Ranked exclusively for the past few days, tired of turf war after the recent Splatfest. Evin never grew sick of non-competitive battle, though, so they hadn't battled together in what felt like ages. No amount of pleading and and begging could drag Evin's scaredy-cat ass into Ranked when she wasn't feeling it, though, which annoyed Demi to no end. Evin was the best support one could ask from a B+ rank, and all Demi wanted to do was help her climb her way higher.
Today was for turf war, though, Demi reminded herself. She had found herself bubbling when Evin had asked to meet at the Tower. She was bringing a friend, sure, but that wasn't important. What was important was playing with her best friend again, and the chance to tempt her into Ranked for a few matches.
"Demi!" Speak of the devil. Demi glanced upwards from inspecting the scuffs on her shoes to find Evin running full speed towards her, wearing her typical pink sweatshirt and dragging a boy far taller than she. As they cut through the chatter of the Plaza, Demi spied a roller peeking from his bag. His Varsity jacket was zipped up to his chin and a pair of delicate-armed sunglasses rested atop his head. His fingers were interlocked with Evin's as they ran, and the stupid grin on his face said that he couldn't have been happier about it.
"Hey, hon," she touseled Evin's bangs in a replied greeting when the pair drew close enough, eyeing the boy suspiciously.
"Kyte, this is Demi! Demi, Kyte," Evin made a quick introduction, bringing Kyte's hand up and dropping it in Demi's waiting palm for a shake. He looked intimidated now that he was close enough to see her and be caught in her glare. He gave a limp shake and Evin was satisfied, practically skipping towards the sliding doors and expecting them to follow. Kyte took the opportunity to escape Demi's scrutiny, heaving his bag to the floor and unsheathing a Carbon roller. Demi raised a brow, normally she saw the Deco, but his did indeed appear to be of the regular variety. That, of course, meant that they shared a special, and Demi was quite partial to having the only Inkzooka on the field.
"Demi, we're going, come on!" Evin whined as she hopped in place at the door, waiting for her to unearth her splattershot and join.
"I'm coming," she rolled her eyes, mostly as a show for Evin, and tugged the weapon free from her backpack. As she passed the boy on the ramp leading inside, she nudged him out of her way with her shoulder sharply, and he jumped out of her way. "Don't get in the way, roller," she hissed, and he froze. Demi refrained from making her statement clearer: she did mean for him to keep our of her way in the battle, of course, but she couldn't have him stepping in between her and Evin, either. She could only hope his little mind caught that.
alright! i'll introduce my final main character soon! review if you enjoyed, please!
