Author's Preliminary Note (Again): Once again, guys, my bad on not getting this updated on time. In the end, I simply decided to take a break for the week, trying to focus on more pressing things I had to do. I'm feeling better now, in case you were wondering about my health, but geez, this was not a fun virus to go through. I'm not going into depth, not gonna bore you or gross you out with details.

I will tell you one of the main reasons I've been busy is a good surprise for some of you readers, and when I'm done with it, I'll be sharing that with you, so stay tuned next Sunday when I will, hopefully, upload another chapter. Just be sure to note that there are no promises at this point. Anyways, enjoy the chapter!


Chapter 9: ATTACK! Aileen

The Splatoon exited the building, entering the alleyway behind it. Looking both directions confirmed they are alone.

Four ran to the end of the street, took a look to the left around the building, and quickly flattened herself along the wall, out of sight of whatever was on the other side. The rest of the group ran up to her.

"I saw a patrol," she said when they get to her.

"Really? Lemme see." Eight shoved by and peeked around the corner. "Yup, just as Aileen said."

"Code names," hissed Marie.

Eight just rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Agent A. Better?"

"Yes, very much so."

"Anyways, it's just as Agent A said, the numbers all match up perfectly."

"What, did you not believe me?" Aileen inquired.

"What? No, I never said that-"

"Yeah, directly. Your tone, though, said otherwise."

"Psh, whatever. Just because my tone said one thing doesn't mean that's what I meant."

"I am aware of that, but knowing you, you meant what your tone gave away."

"Okay, you know what? I didn't believe you, happy?"

"No, but that'll have to do."

"What more do you want?"

"Respect. And frankly, you seem to not give a shit what I say."

"Respect? Why would I give you respect?"

"I'll let you think about that for a minute." She paused, but Eight said nothing. "Alright, what rank are you in the Octarian army?"

"I don't know, I don't remember anything from my life in the army."

"Well, judging by your uniform, I'd say you're a Sergeant, while I'm an Agent, making me higher ranking than you."

"Do I look like I care? Our old ranks don't matter anymore, we don't work for the Octarian army! That makes me your superior since I've been in the Splatoon longer."

"And I'm your superior," Cuttlefish interrupted. "And you two fighting isn't getting us anywhere. Am I clear?"

"Yessir," the two girls said in unison.

"Good. Now, I want Agent 2 and Agent A to get on top of these buildings and take out the regulars."

"Sounds good," Aileen said, grabbing hold of a ladder on a building and hoisting herself up, Charger slung over her back. Marie followed suit.

Once at the top, the two edged towards the ledge overlooking the street in front of the building. Below they see a patrol, consisting of the exact number of regulars, Octolings, Elites, Octobombers, and Twintacles.

"I'll get the one on the left," Aileen whispered to Marie, motioning to a regular on the left side of the group. "You got the one on the right."

"Sounds good," Marie whispered back. "On the count of three then?"

"Yup."

"One." The girls lined up their sights.

"Two." Their fingers itched on the trigger, ready for the ink burst.

"Three." They exhaled, keeping themselves steady.

"Fire!" They pulled the trigger and two bursts of ink silently flew to the patrol, hitting the regulars straight in the head, instantly splatting them.

"Ambush!" one of the Elites shouted, and the rest of the group took their stances, with one weapon pointing in every possible position.

At that moment, a long trail of ink was sprayed from the alley, and an object could be seen swimming through it. Out popped Josiah, right in front of the Twintacle. He quickly charged a shot and unloaded it, catching him off guard, another splat down.

Callie, Kevin, Pearl, and Eight then charged at the Octolings while Josiah dodged shots of ink. One of them glanced across his right cheek, leaving a deep cut that bled green. He did nothing about it, but rather fired shots at the Octolings to protect himself to the best of his ability. Eight tackled an Octoling while she was firing at Josiah, knocking her over. The two threw punches and rolled along the ground while Aileen sniped the Octobomber and Four, along with Marina, charged the Elites. Soon, all that were left were Eight and the one Octoling rolling on the ground. Bodies of the fallen patrol members were scattered about in pools of ink.

Eventually, Eight managed to get herself on top of the Octoling and got a hand free long enough to grab one of her Dualies and fired point-blank at the Octoling's head, finishing her. She then got up, panting.

"Nice work, Agents," said Cuttlefish over their headsets. "Come back to base, w get cleaned up. I think that may be enough for today. We need more planning."

"Roger," said Josiah, struggling to keep a hand clamped over his cheek and lug his Splatling with him. Instead, he resorted to dragging it with one arm, specifically the mechanical one, as it was stronger.

"Josiah!" Aileen exclaimed when she saw his hand clamped over his face, green ink seeping under. "Your face!"

"Nothing I can't handle," he replied. "I've dealt with worse back on the farm, remember?"

"Yeah, but still, I need to take a look at it."

"Let's get inside first, okay?"

"Okay."

The two followed the rest of the Splatoon back into the building, heading down to the meeting room. Josiah hung up his weapon, realizing that he hadn't used a single sub weapon. He shrugged it off.

Aileen hung her weapon up and then walked over to Josiah, a medkit in her hand.

"Well, you gonna move your hand or not?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah…" Josiah took his hand off his face, revealing a gash that extended a good few inches from just above his mouth to his ear. Not only that, but it was pretty deep, too.

"Ooh, that's bad, hang on." She pulled out some gauze and pressed hard on his face. "Apply pressure here," she commanded, and he put pressure on the gauze wad. While he pressed, she got a bandage out of the kit.

Meanwhile, Cuttlefish was preparing to make note of the next move they were to make. "Attention, Agents," he said after a little thinking. The Agents took a seat, ready to hear what he had to say. "Nice work out there, but it looks like more help wouldn't be a bad idea. This way we're able to launch a full-scale battle rather than these little attacks, because although we'll get somewhere with them, it will take a lot longer to succeed. So, with that in mind, anybody know where we can get some help?"

The group was silent, everybody shaking their heads. Everyone except Aileen and Josiah, that is.

"Aileen, don't-" Josiah started, but she cut him off.

"We've got some friends back in the County."

"The County?" asked Callie. "That's where Marie and I grew up, I didn't know you two were from there."

"I try to not make a point of it," said Josiah through clenched teeth, glaring at Aileen.

"Josiah, this is our only option by the looks of it! Move your hand, let me put the bandage on now." He moved his hand, allowing her to put the bandage on. He winced as she slapped it to make it stick well. "There. Now back to the planning."

"You say you have more friends we could recruit?" Cuttlefish inquired them.

"Yeah, we'd have to figure out how to get out of the city though."

"You, Eight and I are Octolings," Marina said. "And you've already managed to break out one person in an army uniform, perhaps we could pretend to be escorting some prisoners to a high-security facility or something like that."

"That would work on the way out, but how do we get them back into the city?"

"Same deal, really. You could've spotted them running away from the city, escaping."

"Well then. Do you and Eight have uniforms?"

"No…"

"Wait, I do," said Eight. "You've seen me wearing it."

"Oh, right! Looks like I'll stay here then while you two do this."

"Alright. We'll need a truck, though. Then, we'll need handcuffs and the Eel Bracelet."

"Eel Bracelet?" inquired Pearl. "Sounds bad."

"Oh, it is. Basically, it's to keep you from shifting from bipedal to your basic form by administering a shock whenever you attempt to shift. Kevin here knows about that."

"Yeah, and I'd rather not wear it again."

"Kevin, this is to get us out of the city to get more help, you're kind of important."

"No, Aileen. These are your friends, these are Josiah's friends. I don't know them at all, it's you two. Eight's only going for support. I'm not needed."

"It'll be more convincing the more prisoners we have. Would you say transferring one prisoner at a time outside of the city would be more convincing than, say, three or four?"

"No…"

"My point exactly. We do need you."

Kevin sighed. "I guess I have no choice, but I demand that the Eel Bracelet is off at all times, or better yet, not functional."

"I can work with that."

"So, what do we do when we're out of Inkopolis?" Josiah asked.

"We get our friends, duh."

"That's not what I meant, Aileen. I was meaning, who specifically do we get, and where do we head first?"

"Well, you're not gonna like this, but I was thinking…"

"What?" Josiah demanded, his voice slightly upset.

"We need to get Eric first."

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, NO."

"Josiah, it's our only option."

"Anything but that, please."

"There's nothing else to do!"

Josiah hung his head. "Alright, then...let's do it."


Author's Note:

What is Josiah's problem with Eric? Why does he not make it a point to tell people he grew up in the County? What's his problem?

Well, again, I really apologize for not uploading, although I'm not sure if any of you actively read my story, so maybe you don't care, I really dunno. Anyways, you may have noticed that I uploaded two chapters today. Surprise! I decided that I wanted to write some backstory, but didn't want to upload it as a single chapter but rather piggyback it on the previous one. That way, you're getting a constant flow of story line.

Thanks for the support and leave a review if you like!