There was no light in the hospital. Due to the boarded up windows, that meant that it was pitch black in there. It looked like there was some semblance of light beforehand; a shattered, but still burning lantern flicked to its side, the clay floor failing to ignite.

The firefight had happened so quickly that neither of them had time to turn on their flashlight. First few muzzle flares gave off the position of anyone entering, so the strategy there was to wait until somebody fired and then to fire back at that general location. It worked superbly.

A few seconds had passed after the last few gunshots. One and Two took a deep sigh of relief, finally turning on the flashlight. Two did it first. The light shone on a red-haired Inkling, who immediately put his gun down and his hands up upon seeing a faint outline of the chocolate chip camouflage illuminated by the excess light. "Don't shoot, friendly!"

"...what the fuck?" A twinge of complete confusion crept into Two's voice, her finger coming off the trigger. She looked back at One quickly. "It's clear. Radio HQ and tell them that we've got basically all of our squad dead except us."

One looked over to the Inkling, raising an eyebrow before nodding slowly. "Riiight... why's he here?"

The red-haired Inkling gulped. "Where's... the rest of my squad?"

Two looked over to One. "Would you mind shining your flashlight around? I would take my flashlight off of this guy, but..."

One complied, turning on her flashlight and shining it around the room. Almost the first thing she noticed was a dead Inkling just in front of the doorway. "Uh, Marie...?"


The jeep ride into Octo Valley was routine for the most part. It seemed like hundreds lined the road, and they were all driving as slowly as they could. There was no colourful equipment like turf war in any of the Inklings inside the vehicles; just a drab uniform that was ubiquitous to everyone.

Ika couldn't sleep last night. He had just learned about Octo Valley's existence, and yet was going straight into the ghetto. He feared what he'd see there. There were no conversations. There was only a brooding silence that had infected everyone within earshot. Finally, the border was in sight.


The VCR was easily hooked into Meshi's large CRT television. "Alright, so how do you go to channel 3?"

"...channel what?"

Seth silently fiddled with the remote control. "There it is." The Octarian opened up the duffle bag further, letting Meshi peek inside. "There's a ton of these. Don't worry, labels are in Inkish."

Meshi walked up closer, kneeling down next to Seth and wrapping his arm around his shoulders. "Right..." He shuffled through the VHS cassettes, trying to find a name that popped out at him. "...The Godfather?"

"Oh yeah, that's a really good one. Pretty long though." Seth shuffled through the cassettes with Meshi. "Latest one I have is... Bourne Identity, I think. Made in... 2002."

"2002?"

"It's probably some dating system the people before us used. I had to set the VCR's time and the latest it went was 2004."

"So that means these guys... had only lived for 2,000 years?"

"That's the most popular theory. We're trying to find newer VHSes all the time, but the latest we could find was one released in 2006. It's possible that's when shit hit the fan." Seth took out the VHS for Scarface. "It's also possible they switched to a better format and these things were just relics of the past even to them. Why else would they bury them, you know?"

"Why don't we watch that one, then?"

Seth gulped slightly. "It's... it's not very good." Seth's hands started nervously shaking as he took Scarface out of its dust cover. "This one's much better. Trust me."


"HQ, this is One reporting in, over."

"One, this is HQ, go ahead."

"Multiple casualties, both Inkling and Octarian. We've got one Inkling alive that said that an Inkling fireteam cleared this area about an hour ago, over."

"10-4, One, keep the area secure until we can get there, over."

"Wilco, HQ. Bring evac for at least twenty. Out."

Marie's eyes widened as she shone her flashlight into one of the treatment areas. "Callie, come the fuck over here!"

Both Callie and the red-haired Inkling rushed to Marie's location. Inside were about half a hundred dead Octarians. They were not wearing fatigues nor did they have any guns. They looked freshly dead, some of them still bleeding. Marie wanted to say something, but no words came out.

They stepped inside the mass grave, shining their flashlight around the area. "Callie, go check the other treatment areas."

"...alright. Let's go, man." Marie was alone in there. None of the Octarians in there looked unscathed, and some of them were clearly under 16, making them ineligible for military service. One of said adolescents let out a large exhale, a slight gurgle in his continued breathing.

Marie immediately took notice to this. "CALLIE!"

Callie rushed back. "What is it?"

Marie ripped a portion of her own sleeve off, using it to apply pressure to the wound in the Octarian's chest. "Shine your light on him." Callie hesitated for a few seconds. 'FUCKING DO IT!"


Takoyaki had just gotten out of his jeep, walking over towards the rocket platforms. "Alright, everything set up?"

A non-commissioned officer came up to Takoyaki, giving him the raised fist salute. "Rockets are ready to be fired at a moment's notice."

"What about the IEDs? Those good too?"

"About as good at they will get. As soon as they cross the border, blam."

Takoyaki looked over to the ivory towers of Inkopolis. "Right, fire when ready."


"...you wanna work, eh? 10 fuckin' hours, you own nothing, you got nothing? Do you want a chivato on every corner, man, looking after you, everything you do, everything you say, man?" The movie blared from the TV, almost at full blast. Of course, it wasn't in Inkish or anything equivalent; the only way either Meshi or Seth could understand was from the subtitles at the bottom.

Meshi was cuddling up to Seth on the couch, resting his head on the Octarian's chest. "...hey, now he's talking about eating octopus."

Seth nodded, his arms wrapped around the Inkling. "Yeah... not very surprising when you think about it. They did own the sea, after all."

Meshi nuzzled against Seth's shoulder, sighing. "Hey, Seth?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever think... that you should've been born an Inkling?"

Seth lightly kissed Meshi's forehead. "Maybe... then again, it wouldn't make too much of a difference. Then the MP would start fucking with us for our sexuality."

"Well, I didn't mean... that. I meant your life in general. I... kind of wish you were an Inkling so that you could... y'know... live a good life and stuff."

Seth nodded, closing his eyes. "There's really no point in speculating on that. It's just painful how basically every opportunity was taken away from me because I was born on the other side of the wall." Seth smiled, leaning his head against Meshi's. "But... maybe that could change. Maybe, ten years from now..." He looked up. "I won't have to always go to your place."

Meshi chuckled quietly to himself. "Maybe we'll be able to get marri-"

A loud explosion knocked both Seth and Meshi across the room as a fireball engulfed the building.