Jace and Celine followed Callie into the cafeteria and saw that everyone else was in there. The cafeteria was packed, no room at any of the tables, everyone already in their certain cliques. Callie showed them where you can pick up food and they took their seat in a corner, munching on peanut butter sandwiches.

The table in front of them featured a group of squids who were exchanging modified parts to their weapons. As one tried to hand a customized bomb over to another inkling, it blew up in their face and splattered all of them in a shade of vermillion. They laughed and teased the squid that tried to handle the blown up bomb, wiping ink off of themselves and throwing it onto the inkling. Even that inkling got into the laughter, the merriment spreading. Jace smiled as he watched.

"Those guys are very weapon focused." Callie told Celine, "They mostly believe that a weapon makes a squid. You can normally find them trying to modify their weapons, or testing out their newly modified weapons at the firing ranges. Then over to the right hand table, we have our best turf war team. Led by Ray who is a member of the Flying Brushes. Those guys seem to win every time someone decides that they want to play them."

Jace turned his head to look at Callie, "Turf war team?" He asked thoughtfully, "I don't remember seeing any rooms for turf wars. Did I miss them?"

"Oh," Callie said, "I forgot to tell you. If you look at your schedules you'll see a portion of the day is dedicated to 'Team Battles and Debriefing'. In this time slot we will often review what we learned that day, but every Wednesday we head outside to the platforms. We clean off the ink on the platforms and then divide into teams and splat it out. That's why the outside platforms are so inked up, we use them every week to practice a turf battle. The teams are normally already set up beforehand, and often consist of friends who have been splatting with each other for a while. We had five teams of four and one team of three. Where the six teams would battle every week, but now you two joined and we have an odd number." Callie considered the two new squids thoughtfully, "I don't know what Cuttlefish will have you guys do. Maybe sit out."

Jace's spirits dropped, he was hoping for some real battle in this school, not just waiting as he watched other squids duke it out. Now he'd have to wait until two more squids joined so he could team up with them. "Okay," he said, "So what if we join one of the teams?"

"Then I would think that you would battle, but the team would have to give up one of their players. I doubt that would happen as most of these teams are very close and would not like a new squid wanting a spot on their team. If anything, you'd need to prove yourself before getting into a team."

Celine swallowed her sandwich. "What if we made a team of two? It's been done before in turf wars."

"Without much effect, those teams never went far against the teams of four. They always get flanked and destroyed, or if not they are pinned down the whole game and the other teams will just ink up the whole area and let the time run out." Jace told her, "Nah, I am not going to play a team of four as a team of two."

Callie shut her mouth, she was about to talk about some sort of team of two that did well but Celine interrupted her.

"So you'd just let me be a team of one then?"

"No, get yourself on a team. Prove yourself in training. You're good with that splattershot, show them how good you are."

"And what will happen to you?"

"The same thing. I'm decent with my .52 gal, I can get into a team."

"And we'll play against each other when we've been playing as a team for years. We're good together as a team, why shouldn't we team up?"

Jace put down his sandwich and looked at her, "Then your suggestion is that we lose?"

Callie opened her mouth again, then closed it. Jace turned even farther to look at Callie, "What?"

"We have extra classes for two person teams. Nobody has signed up yet for them, but we have the class. It's a class that you can have after the debriefing. Myself and Marie teach it, we used to play as a two person team."

Now it was Jace's turn to open his mouth like a fish out of water.

"What?"

Callie nodded. "I'm not lying to you. Nobody has signed up, so we don't have any reason to teach it, but it still is a class."

Celine looked at Jace and started talking before he had a chance, "There. We will take the class and be a team of two. Happy, Jace?" She didn't even let him finish before picking up his sandwich and shoving it in his mouth. "Wait, wha- mfff, mfff."

"He'll take the class with me."

"Okay, I'll tell Cuttlefish about it. You guys will start the class tomorrow along with your other classes."

They ate the rest of their lunches and Callie went over to talk to Marie about the team of two class, Jace and Celine were left to look at the different groups and teams that were eating lunch at the tables and discuss how powerful the inklings looked.

"Hey, check out that group in the middle." Celine told Jace. "They've got all aerosprays, maybe they play super offensive?" Jace looked at the group Celine had pointed out and sized up the squids. They were all very hefty inklings, more muscle than anything, but they all had aerosprays strapped on their backs.

"Yeah." Jace said, "They look like they're a very offensive team. I don't think they'd be hard to get around though, and a charger firing on them in a wide open area would definitely end them all quickly. They might think the same about us though, we have mostly offensive weapons and no real covering weapons as we DON'T HAVE A TEAM OF FOUR!"

"Then we need to be faster and play smarter. Now, do you see that team of four in the left hand corner, they've got a great balance of weapons. A roller, charger, 92 Gal, and a splattershot. They've got close up weaponry, ink covering, and mid range power."

"Nah, that team looks like they don't know each other that well. They keep trying to escape to other tables to talk to their friends. Odds are that they don't work well as a team. Find a weak link and punish them."

"Are you not going to admit any team's strengths?"

"Sure. They all have good weapons, there? Happy?"

Celine stared at the unimpressed Jace, "No, not really. You're underestimating every team, that'll never do if we face them. You're going to play like they're nobody squids who had never worked with a blaster before and can barely turn from squid form to inkling. You'll be splatted in seconds."

Jace shot a skeptical look at Celine, "I doubt that. No offense, but I really doubt that."

That was the moment that a flying fruit landed on one of the inkling's who sat on the middle table's head. The same moment that the inkling who was hit threw his own lunch back at his attacker. And the moment that the cafeteria devolved into an all out war of foods.

It was also the moment that Callie walked calmly through the crowd of squids to talk to Jace and Celine: "You guys can go home for today. Same time, tomorrow, we'll see you in classes. Tomorrow's Wednesday, so you can see how the other teams play. See ya tomorrow. Stay Fresh."

Jace left that day with an odd feeling in his mind, like his surroundings were surreal. What in the world just happened. The day just moved so fast, out of my control. The day did go ridiculously fast, with him going home with Celine turning into his watching the daily squid news and seeing Callie and Marie on the television. It soon went to him going to bed that day, anticipating tomorrow, but also still feeling surreal. An altogether funny day, but a hopefully better one tomorrow.