It was quiet at the studio. Shelly was alone by herself, making sure everything was perfect for the studio crew tomorrow when they went live again. Shelly was proud of her job as the Squid Sister's TV Producer. She was one of the only people allowed inside the studio late at night, with her and the squid sisters themselves having the keys to the place, as well as some key members of the recording crew. The night air was especially quiet. There was a coolness to it all that she just absolutely adored. She adjusted her glasses as she got back to work on making sure every little minute detail was juuuuuust right.

Then she heard something she'd never heard before in her life.

Skrit. Skrit. Skrit.

All around the building. It certainly wasn't something she heard often. She made to look out of the window but saw nothing in the darkness. She shrugged off the noise as she just went back to work.

Then it got louder.

Skrit. Skrit. Skrit. Skriiiiiiiiiiit.

Shelly was suddenly unsure of the safety of the building. Her mind immediately wondered if she'd locked the door. She turned around just in time to see what was coming, but not enough to react.

And then there was a thud, like a metal can hitting inkling skull (Do Inklings even have bones?) and she saw starfish swirl in her vision before she fell unconscious. She's probably wishing she had locked the door now.


-=Chapter 2, Part 2: You Better Watch That=-


"This feels mean, Beat."

"As mean as getting our little base of operations taken over by an entire police force?"

"Alright maybe not that mean, but ya gotta admit..." Tab had just finished tying up the girl that really should have been asleep at home by now into the office chair. "That's still pretty mean. What if you gave the poor squiddie a concussion, man?"

"She's fine!" Beat assured his pants wearing friend. At that moment, Shelly, the accidental damsel in distress, started making a weird cooing noise as her mind took her to an imaginary land. She giggled at whatever her mind had conjured. "Pretty sure at least..." Beat corrected himself.

He skated over to the already set up studio. Everything was in place. Cameras, green screen, that little TV the squid sisters had to show off map rotations and the likes. It looked just like every other broadcast. "Do they just leave everything here the same every time?" he bumped into the camera tripod that was there, turning it around ever so slightly.

It really was kind of pitiful, what this studio did. It all just seemed so... Boring. Samey and safe. Beat hated it.

"Hey, Tab. Get the spray ink. Let's redecorate." Beat had a playful smile on as he was tossed the infamous can of ink by his partner in crime. They instantly got to work spraying inky chaos onto the entirety of the set. Colors, names and logos everywhere they can fit it, with an advertisement off to the side for Beat's new album.

As this was happening, a certain orange tentacled inkling was coming back to the land of consciousness. Just in time to see those two hooligans spraying up her entire studio!

"WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!" She screamed out, attempting to struggle against the binds that held her down to the wheeled chair, only resulting in her pitifully rolling away slightly. "The squid sisters are going to fire me if you stain that green screen! You hear me!? You're costing a poor inkling girl her job!"

Beat stopped what he was doing at that exact moment, and skated backwards towards the gal. "Oh, that right?" He said, as he leaned onto the chair Shelly was slowly gliding around on, keeping it still. "That's rich, coming from a Turf Warring rank C-, eh?" He took out the little wallet, which had many cute girly designs the likes of which men would vomit over. He let it fall open, revealing an official Turf War ID, which gave away every secret of an inkling's status in Turf Wars.

Shelly was immediately embarrassed to be called out for being a rank C-. "H-Hey! That's no fair, picking on me like that! You don't even have an ID!" As long as they didn't see how many losses she had, she'd be alright.

"Yeah, you're right. But when you've only got..." Uh oh. "One win and... Wow, ninety nine losses? Jeez, they even gave you the nickname Glass Shell for being splatted so easily. Now I just feel bad. I'm not even gonna finish that sentence. That just kinda finishes it for me honestly." He tossed the ID away, with Shelly trying her hardest to hide her ever growing embarrassment, refusing to make eye contact.

"Yo, we got another hour here man. Anything we should do before I call up K?" Tab skated over to the chair as well, placing his weight down on it, causing the trio to very slowly roll forward with none of them really noticing it.

Beat was cleaning out his ear with his pinkie as he thought. "Hm... You think they got ladders? I wanna see if we can get up there." Beat pointed to the still clean part of the green screen that extended well into the ceiling. Like... Really far into the ceiling.

Tab shrugged. "Probably. What do you think, producer lady?"

Shelly refused to respond.

"I think so..." Beat said finally. They finally left Shelly alone, as the office chair slowly rolled out of the room and into the hallway, finally leaving Shelly alone.

She sniffled, as all at once the tears started coming out. "I don't even like turf wars..." She said between quieted sobs, unaware of whether or not she was being heard. Which, as luck would have it, she was.

Beat was nearby still when he'd heard he had made the poor squid cry. "Ah man, you were right. I think I was a bit mean."

"Whuzzat? I'm on the other side of the room man, I didn't hear that. Oh hey, I found a step ladder! That's a ladder right?" Tab said, from the other side of the room... Man...

Beat shrugged, as he tried to roll back to the girl currently having a terrible time outside, only for his roller skate to stop on the leather wallet from before. He picked it up and looked at it. The idea of merchandising JSR came to mind, and it put a big smile on his face. He slid back over to the girl.

He leaned back onto that chair, this time from behind the girl, making it unable for her to turn around to look at him. "Hey, you feelin' okay?" He asked with a level of sincerity in his voice.

Shelly sniffled before answering. If she was anything, she was honest. "N-No..."

Beat sighed. He was fairly certain his mom would have something to say about making a poor little girl cry like that. Thankfully, she won't know until she reads this. (Hi Beat's mom. Don't worry, he's going to say sorry. Please don't ground him.) With that said, he held the wallet in front of the girl. "Never seen designs like this before. You know who made them? They're..." Beat looked at the horrendous amount of girly decorations upon this awful wallet, the mere sight of which made any shred of masculinity within an inkling shrivel up at the sight, and decided a little white lie never hurt anybody. "Pretty good."

Shelly, none the wiser, didn't notice that pause in Beat's speech, and tried her best not to cry any louder than she already was. "Y-Yeah... I made those."

Beat laughed. That really was convenient. "Maybe you'd be a better designer than a ranked battler. You ever think about that?" He tossed the wallet and caught it, much like a punk would with a baseball he'd found on the ground somewhere while trying to look cool. He even did that little elbow lean on the chair while he did this. "I mean, what's the point of turf wars if you can't have any fun?"

Tab then butted into the conversation. "Yeah. The game is fun. If it's not fun, why bother?" Tab was now leaning onto the chair as well... He then looks momentarily confused for a moment.

"Well said buddy." Beat waited patiently for Tab to do... Whatever it was he was doing. "Hey, are we set up yet?"

Tab suddenly has an epiphany, as the reason he came over was reminded to him almost immediately. "Oh... Yeah about that... Uh..."

Beat scratched his head. "Man, there's no way you're having this much issue trying to find a ladder." He eased off the chair and put his hands in his hips as he looked out to the TV Studio, which was slowly becoming a right and proper mess thanks to Tab's hard work.

"Well, you know stepladders? Well, they ain't the same thing as a ladder, man. Totally different things." He was quiet for an uncomfortable amount of time. "So uh... I need a ladder... Man..."

Beat sighed. "Uh, lemme think... I think I saw one-"

"There's one in the custodian's closet, it's down the hall to the left." Shelly said, the flow of tears no longer streaming freely down her face. Tab quickly skated off after a quick thanks, feeling the time constraint they had set bearing down on him, despite having plenty of time still. Which left Shelly and Beat alone in the hallway for the time being.

Beat scratched his cheek with a lone finger in embarrassment, not really knowing how to proceed from here. "So uh... I guess what I'm trying to say is... We could use a... Product... Designer?" Shelly careened her neck in the most awkward way she could to give him a wide eyed, surprised look. She was completely speechless. But Beat could very clearly see a thought cross her mind, and she considered the offer with doubt.

She was heavily conflicted. She'd always wondered what it would be like to make things for people instead of having to always play in turf wars just to make money. But on the other hand, she'd give up her status as a normal inkling girl to become an outsider. Was giving up your role in society worth it if it meant you could do what you wanted? "I dunno. I don't think I-"

"It's not as lonely as you might think, being an outsider." Beat had a rare case of intuition on this subject. "I mean, me and the rest of GG's are all outsiders... But I think that we're all better friends than anyone who just makes friends with people just because they're good at a sport or something." He remembered fondly how much fun he had simply just sitting in that diner with his newly made outsider friends. It wasn't about ranks or wins. It was about enjoying each other's company. And he's heard so many stories about Inklings dropping people from their friend circles just because they weren't a high enough rank. Beat could never do that to his friends.

"You're passionate about this kind of stuff, right?" He flaunted the wallet once more. "Shouldn't that be the only thing that matters?"

Shelly tried to shrink in on herself, still doubtful. Beat then untied Shelly, and once she was free, she rubbed the marks on her wrists from how tight she had been tied down. Beat patted her on the head, like he would a pet. "Think about it." That was all he said before he skated off to the TV. He wasn't going to be using it, and he figured he could do some more 'work'.

Shelly sat in the chair for a solid minute, simply watching. After that minute, she wiped off the remains of salty wetness from her face, and got up to find a quiet secluded place. Her first instinct was to take out her phone, and start dialing the emergency number. 9-1-...

She hesitated. Or more likely, she felt paralyzed as her finger hovered over the last digit. She willed her finger to move but it wouldn't. She didn't know if she should. She closed her phone and held it close to her, as she thought about it all. He did ask that she think about it, after all, and it'd be rude if she didn't... So...

Hm...

She had ran off to the girl's bathroom, and found her mirror image looking directly at her. She stared back, as they shared a somewhat blank emotion. She was a mess. Her tentacles were scrunched up ever so slightly, her glasses were askew, and she had terrible bags under her eyes. She got to work making herself look a little bit more presentable, but she couldn't really do much about how tired she looked, her eyes still puffy from tears.

Suddenly, she was angry, and she smacked both of her hands on the sink in front of the mirror, refusing to look into that mirror again. She hated how right that kid was. If it wasn't fun, why bother? Why should she care what other people thought of her? Glass Shelly, the girl with barely any friends, and a knack for design, forced to take a job she didn't even really care that much about. No one cared about her position of managing the Squid Sisters. Nobody really knew she existed, and if they did, they only cared about how bad she was at turf wars. She felt her hands curl up into fists, and then all at once, her anger became motivation.

She looked up at the mirror once more. She definitely didn't look as tired as she did before. She'd thought about it long enough. She left the room, and practically stormed over to the chair she had been bound to moments ago. She grabbed some rope, and tied up her tentacles with it. With some work, she managed to meld down parts of her tentacles over her head to look like almost seamless, save for the somewhat obvious bumps of mass, and the ends came out to some rather long double ponytail. Much like a traditional hairstyle for boys. She'd taken off her jacket, and tied it around the waist.

She looked like a punk now, and that was fine. She didn't care what people thought anymore anyway, right?

Tab had finally come back with a ladder. "Man, you didn't say that the custodian's closet was some kind of alternate reality. The thing is like, three times as big as- Wait what's with the getup?"

Shelly walked up to Tab, and held her hand out. "Spray can." Was all she said. Not even bothering being nice about it.

Tab smiled, as he handed it over. "You're a strange one, kid." He chuckled as he patted her on the shoulder and skated away. He called back to her from over his shoulder as he joined Tab at the TV, who was currently thinking about what else he could do to improve it. "Welcome to the team!" With that said, Tab pulled out his phone, his speed dial setting him up for a phone call with Professor K. It was almost time to go live...


There's only two events in the world that could wake the Inkling world all at once out of a peaceful sleep through the morning. Threat of an Octarian Invasion, and everyone's TV's all starting up at once to display a priority announcement from the Squid Sisters announcement channel.

You can probably guess which came first.

Every Inkling recognized the sound of a TV Announcement and were immediately wide awake. It didn't matter that it was getting into their sleep. A special announcement got everyone's attention.

And today would be a special announcement nobody would forget any time soon.

The TV started with the splash screen that every announcement started with... But it was static, and you could clearly see a pair of ink splattered hands at the bottom and top. A third set of hands holding a boombox then came into frame and hit play. A funky beat began to play over the broadcast. Funky music straight from the Jet Set Radio channel. And when the hands moved the splash screen, which was revealed to be a cardboard cutout, none other than Beat and Tab were in plain view.

"Good morning rudies! Here's your special TV Broadcast just for you!" Beat said, taking the lead for the show.

Tab continued on, just a little bit shaky it seemed. "Yep. Open up your eyes and your ears. We've got a doozy." Tab wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as Beat was about this. He did tend to be the quieter one when it came to strangers after all, and now that he was in plain view of the world? Well, he was just a tad self conscious.

Beat kept up the chipper tone from the left side of the view. "That's right. Today, we have an all new map rotation to announce!"

The world was confused. First off, how'd these idiots get on TV? Second off, what did they mean an all new map rotation?! Wasn't that the squid sister's job?

"Now I know what you're thinkin'-" Beat started off. "What the hell Beat? Ain't that the squid sister's job?" He had a somewhat mocking voice as he said that. "Well, yeah, you're right. But this ain't for Turf Wars. This is our own game! You get yours, right? Why don't we get ours?" Tab and Beat shared a chuckle, as they pulled out some more cardboard.

"Today's map rotation is simple. Every day gets one new rotation, and today's is our very own Inkuya. They've cleaned out all of our cool 'murals' from the walls, and that ain't cool! We worked hard on making that place have more color, so today, you guys gotta pick up the slack!" Tab announced, feeling more confident as the show went on, as he pushed the idea of the whole world looking at him out of his head and just focused on the script. As he was talking, he had pulled out a smaller, new cutout to show off of the landmarks of Inkuya.

"That's right everyone!" Beat said. "The game is simple! Have more spray tags than everyone else! The game ends when the sun goes to sleep for the night. Got it? Good!"

Tab butted in this time, as he carelessly dropped the cardboard cutout featuring some landmarks of the Inkuya district to reveal another cutout behind it, featuring Beat and Tab spray painted on, giving some pictures to better help explain the rules. "Anything goes when it comes to spray ink. Make sure to get to hard to reach places to avoid getting your tag sprayed over!"

Beat pulled up the radio into frame as the tunes died out. "Hey! Look at me 'ma! I'm on TV!" K's loud boisterous voice played through the radio. "But ya'll knew that didn't ya?" K's voice crackled over the speakers as he laughed. "Remember, it may be a competition, but we ain't knockin' off points for making friends along the way! You can put as many people as you want in your gang, so remember that squiddies! Now get out there and get funky! Stay tuned in, your main squid K's got your updates and reports covered! Now, if you don't mind, I've got some sick, fresh new beats coming up next!" And with that, the Radio tuned back into those sick fresh beats.

Of course, there were sounds of police sirens getting closer to the building as they continued to talk. Beat was acutely aware of this, and playfully beat the cardboard out of Tab's hands, who was currently shuffling through them while K talked to give everyone at home a visual, much to his dismay of being embarrassed in front of the world. Thankfully his stone cold expression and hard glare took over before he could show distress.

"Anyway, looks like we're out of time! We'll be keeping up the news on our very own radio station, 'Jet Squid Radio'!" Beat bumped the side of his fist to his chest, and threw out a peace symbol as they announced the end of the announcement. "Don't let those cops catch ya! Remember to stay off the hook! Or it's an instant gamer over!" Beat then skated out of the staging area.

With that said, Tab gave a similar gesture, and skated off after his friend. The show didn't quite cut off yet, however. Not until a third inkling came into view however, a fake visage of spray painted tears and wild color to mask their identity, with a step ladder in their hands. They blew a raspberry, as the ladder eventually hit the camera, causing massive damage to the lenses and officially ending the announcement. The last thing the viewers saw was the graffiti spray painted onto more cardboard taped onto the step ladder. It said "Sea ya!" in a beautifully puntastic way.

Callie and Marie were standing perfectly straight and staring at their TV as it finally cut back to black.

They both had their phones out trying to call Shelly as all this was going on.

But it went straight to voicemail...


DJ Mushoo's Author's Note (Mandatory Collectible)

Epic.

Keep on rebellin' rudies!


NAH JUST KIDDING!

What, did you seriously think I would disappear for like, a whole year and then not explain what's up? Come on, have some more faith!

Sorry for the teaser earlier. I was still writing up this chapter when I made that just so that you guys could have a little something to tell you that I'm back in it again. I dunno if you guys will forgive me for this, but oh well, there's not much I can do about it at this point. I'm just glad to have the free time to finally write something again! I've been constantly back and forth between jobs trying to make enough money to survive that I've had almost no time to write this, and it sucks, because I have shit from way back in my google docs that's like "HEY WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF THIS HAPPENED HOLY SHIT DUDE YOU SHOULD WRITE THAT NOW" and me, now a year older after writing that, just went "yeah haha cool lmao brb gotta go work at taco bell for like three shifts" LIKE?!

But yeah, I'm free of my curse and now have an actual schedule I can follow which gives me plenty of time to, ya know, actually write this story?

Ontop of that, I'll also be working on another story in the meantime, mainly because if I run out of fuel for Splatoon, I'll be able to replenish it while I work on the other story as well. Anyway, I hope this chapter was worth the wait, and hey, keep on rebellin' rudies.

It's good to see you all again c:

Edit: BECAUSE MUSHOO FORGOT TO UPLOAD THIS YESTERDAY, HE SHOWS THE WORLD THAT HE'S LAZY AS HELL, AND MAKING HIM TONIGHT'S BIG LOSER!