Chapter 20: Weapon Testing
Disclaimer: I own Adstrum. Not Splatoon. Iris, Clair, Barry, Annabelle, Cici, and Anita belong to Apikachua.
The next day Adstrum had arrived at the Turf War Subway Station holding a metal case. He looked to be slightly struggling to lift it with one arm, however. He entered the Ammo knights and greeted the barracuda behind the counter.
"Hey Barry!"
"E'llo mate." Barry chewed on some gum as he watch the monitor. "Ya wanna grab some curry? Iris made it a moment ago."
"No." Adstrum replied as he set the case on the counter. "Don't like curry."
"Your loss mate."
"Got the newest weapon here." He opened the case and showed it to him. "Check it out."
"Ah did ya? Nice but um what is it mate?"
"Half a motorcycle." Adstrum smiled.
"Oh…. um alright… why?"
"Because why not?" He smirked.
"Okay… mate…. Iris? We got parts!" Barry called out.
"Papa…. You don't need to shout…" Iris walked towards hi., "Good morning mister."
"Hello, Iris. Got a weapon here." He showed her the weapon.
"Is this what your friend was telling me about?" Iris asked. "Um so how does it work?"
"Friend?" Adstrum was confused. "Which friend?"
"The one that kind looks like a squid sister…"
"Oh, you mean Jewel. You two hung out?
"Well, no…. We ran into each other when I went shopping."
"Oh, really? Cool." He smiled before turning back to the weapon. "Well, this is the Ink Wheel."
"Okay… what does it do?"
"Well, it's supposed to act like a faster way to get around the stage. Kind of like an Inkbrush, except a thinner trail of ink, but much faster. Um, you test the weapons, right? Despite the fact me and Chase test them before bringing them here."
"Yes…. um… are you trying to kill me? It looks like this can blow up..."
"I'm not trying to kill you. And don't worry about it. I replaced the gas tank with a battery to allow the motor to run and an ink tank for the, well, ink."
"Oh okay."
"So…" Adstrum closed the case and picked it up. "Think you can lift this?"
Iris tried to lift it, but it didn't budge.
"Alright. So...can you still find out what needs to be fixed if someone else uses the weapon?" Adstrum picked up the case but was slightly struggling.
"Uh huh."
"Okay. So mind showing me to where you test the weapons?" Adstrum smiled at her.
"Umm sure." Iris turned and headed downstairs. Adstrum followed right behind her.
"So you and Jewel hung out last night?" Adstrum asked.
"Not really… We just happened to run into each other." Iris replied.
"Okay… So what did you guys talk about?"
"Well, her friends were with her… They talked about…. you?"
"Me?" They had gotten to the bottom of the stairs and were in a firing range. "What did they say? If you don't mind me asking."
"Well… um are you guys dating?"
"What?" Adstrum looked at Iris confused. "D-dating...who?"
"Jewel…"
"Um...no...I think...I don't know…" He placed the case on the ground.
"Her friend was just messing with her, I guess, but umm, she called her Marie…" Iris pondered about it.
"Oh...she called one of her friends Marie for teasing her?" He stared ahead for a second. "That's interesting."
"Uh huh."
"Well…" He placed the ink wheel on his arm and pulled the Ink Wheel out of the case. He was leaning to the side as the wheel was sitting on the ground. "So should I show you how this works?"
"Okay, let me just activate the bots…" She walked to a laptop and started typing something. "These guys will act like players, but how active do you need they?"
"What?" He looked ahead and saw some Inkling that looked to be made of rubber, with some parts some of the joints revealing plastic insides. "Where did you get these?"
"I made them…. I get lonely in here..."
"Wow...Nicely done…" He smiled at her. "I'm jealous."
"Their names are Gears, Cogs, Springs, Metal, Cannon, Copper, and Livewire."
"Cool. You need to show me how you made them one day." He looked ahead at them. "Um, what do you usually set them to when you test the weapons?"
"Oh, um… I usually ask them to do normal mode. At least when I'm playing a match with them."
"Okay. That'll do. I don't want to get annoyed with hard opponents." Adstrum pressed the button on the handle of the Ink Wheel, causing it to start spinning slowly and some black ink to start flowing over the wheel.
"Normal mode engaged." All the bots moved and actually acted like inklings as they walked to line up.
"Which ones do you want to be tested with?"
"Um...do they respawn like an inkling does?" He knelt down and held the wheel slightly above the ground. He held the button and the Ink Wheel started humming.
"Yeah, I somehow found out how to do that."
Adstrum shrugged. "Alright, bring them. All of them. Let's make this a good test."
"By the way…. They can talk back… I just have them on mute..."
"Unmute them if you want." He sat in the kneeling position, the Ink Wheel still humming it's metallic tune.
"Nah… It's kinda weird." Iris chuckled as Livewire crossed their arms.
"Then start them up. I'm ready." Adstrum looked ahead and smiled.
They moved to their positions. Metal rushed at him wielding a normal roller.
"Party time." He released the button and the Ink Wheel let out a motor sound as Adstrum quickly dashed forward and uppercutted Metal with the weapon, immediately splatting the mechanical inkling. He placed the still spinning wheel on the ground and dashed alongside it, leaving a thin trail of black ink behind him.
Gears swam up to a high vantage point and fired a charger at him. Adstrum dodged it as he continued sprinting with the Ink Wheel and got behind a wall.
Cannon charged at him with it's luna blaster. Adstrum backed up out of his range and smirked. He lifted the Ink Wheel upward with his other arm holding onto the underside. He aimed the wheel at Cannon and held down a second button on the handle, causing the wheel to rapidly spin and ink to fling off of it. The ink flew in an arc and multiple blobs hit Cannon before he exploded in a shower of black ink.
Cogs came behind him with an ink brush. Adstrum heard the brush bristles on the ground and quickly placed the Ink Wheel back on the ground, quickly rushing ahead and going faster than Cogs was. There was a noticeable difference in the ink trails as while Adstrum was going faster, he was leaving a thinner trail of ink than the ink brush.
Livewire zipped close by and fired his Aerospray. Adstrum quickly made a sharp turn and caused ink to splash up onto said robot, similar to when a car drives through a puddle and water splashes upward.
"Livewire… let's not over do this…" Iris muttered and it looked at her for a bit.
The bot hid into it's ink and swam away very fast.
Adstrum continued running and found himself right next to the wall that Gears was on top of. He aimed the wheel upward and started slinging ink onto the wall to create a path.
Copper flicked it's dynamo Roller at him and Adstrum shielded himself with the Ink Wheel. He ran toward Copper and swung the Ink Wheel in an uppercut at him, leaving a trail of black ink from Copper's left thigh to it's right shoulder. Adstrum quickly swung the weapon sideways across the bot's torso, this attack being enough to splat it. He then went back to inking the wall and quickly swam up it.
Gears jumped away as Adstrum got to the top and swung at it. He watched the bot jump to the ground and land in some blue ink, watching it swim away in the trail that Cogs left with it's ink brush.
"Where is the ink brush user anyway?" He looked around from the vantage point he was on.
Cogs was looking around the training room for him as well. It seemed to be trying to be careful.
Adstrum noticed the robotic inkling sneaking around and layed on the ground. He waited until it got close and jumped down when it did. He held the Ink Wheel in front of himself and rammed it into Cogs's face when he landed. The robot exploded in a shower of black ink.
"Still need to take out Livewire, Gears, and Springs." Realization hit Adstrum's face. "Where is Springs, anyway? Haven't seen them yet.
It seemed to hold it's face at the spawn point. Metal patted it's fellow bot's back.
Adstrum ran alongside the trail of ink, covering up some of it with his Ink Wheel as he followed along. He looked ahead and saw a charger scope aimed at him.
Gears fired it's charger at him. Adstrum quickly brought the Ink Wheel up to protect him, the blue charger shot hitting the weapon and pushing Adstrum back a bit. He ducked behind a wall and noticed his tentacles were bubbling under his hoodie.
"Oh, party time." He jumped out of his cover right in front of Gears, noticing Livewire was behind the metallic inkling. Springs jumped out from nowhere and open fired using his dualies. Adstrum quickly placed the wheel in front of him and activated his special. The wheel started spinning extremely quickly and zipped ahead, pulling Adstrum along for the ride. He quickly drove straight toward Gears and Livewire, splatting the former after running into him and turned and chased the latter after it tried to run again, but it was also splatted as it couldn't get away.
Spring looked dumbfounded. It kicked a rock.
"Your turn, Springs." Adstrum turned toward said robot and placed the wheel on the ground next to him.
It smirked and got ready. Adstrum held button down and released to try uppercutting the bot, but instead the wheel came flying off and rolled past Springs.
Both Adstrum and Springs watched with dumbfounded faces as the wheel rolled away. Adstrum looked down at his right arm, seeing the motor and no wheel. "Huh...I found a problem…"
Springs went to pick up the wheel and handed it back to him.
"Thanks." Adstrum grabbed the wheel and stood up.
"Heh… let's call this a draw…" A robotic voice spoke up.
"Fine by me." Adstrum looked up at Springs. "Wait, I thought you guys were muted."
"I don't always follow orders… I'm over here by the way..." Livewire walked to him.
Adstrum turned to look at said robotic inkling. "Oh… okay. Well, good, uh… good game?"
Spring smiled and put his arms behind his head.
"Good game." Liverwire shook his hand.
"Alright. Where's Iris? I need to give her this." He held up the Ink Wheel and the wheel.
"Tending to Cogs. You hit him good." He pointed to Iris sitting with Cogs.
"My bad." Adstrum walked up to her and placed the Ink Wheel on a nearby table. "Sorry about that, Cogs. But I'm not a nice guy during turf wars. Or any competitive thing."
Cogs moves his hand to signal it's no big deal.
"So…" Adstrum sat down on the ground. "Iris, you notice anything that needs to be fixed? Besides the wheel falling off."
"Damage is pretty high, considering you shattered Cogs's face plate. That would probably rip someone's face off…. So I guess I'll tone it down a bit."
"Yeah, the damage is high in order to balance it out with how slow it is to swing it. But maybe it's too high." He scratched the back of his head. "Anything else?"
"The ink lines aren't too straight. But that's probably because the wheel was loose."
"That was proven correct at the end. Need to find a way to keep that from happening." Adstrum nervously smiled. "What about the special?"
"I wonder if that maybe too extreme considering it's like getting hit by a car."
"Well, it is a motorcycle...but I made the special kind of like a Kraken. Except you don't need to jump in the air to splat someone, you can't climb walls with this special, and I was technically still vulnerable using it." Adstrum shrugged. "Tone it down a bit if you want. Anything else important?"
"Maybe make it a bit more manageable to carry…. Other than that we are good." Iris replied as she continued fixing Cogs.
"Okay. Welp…" Adstrum stood up. "I'm going to go home now. See ya Iris. Let me know if you ever need someone to hang with." He headed for the stairs.
"Bye! Let's play again soon." Livewire and the other robots waved.
Adstrum got to the top of the stairs and headed for the front door of the store. "See ya, Barry." He waved to the barracuda behind the counter.
"G'day mate." Barry waved,
Adstrum left the Ammo Knights and immediately headed up the stairs to leave the Turf War Subway Station.
Author's Note: Okay, I'm sorry I took longer than usual to post this. I was feeling extremely unmotivated for a couple days. I'm thinking of changing the update schedule to every four days, but only time will tell.
Anyway, thank you all for getting the views on this story past 1,000. I greatly appreciate it. Also, thank you ThePizzaLovingTurtle and The Dragon Brothers for leaving reviews. I appreciate your feedback.
So the Ink Wheel. Supposed to be a pun on ink reel. I guess. And the robots...well, Apikachua added those. So...yeah. Thank you all for reading and I'll see you next update.