Plans

Maybe most Octarians aren't safe, but she is.

You're willing to bet Inkopolis's safety on that? Just some hunch?

No. But we can keep an eye on her without compromising our covers. She's a musician, Gramps. Nothing unusual about us supporting up-and-coming musicians.

And if she's in the spotlight and we're wrong? She breaks her cover, all Inkopolis will be against the Octarians.

You have a point.

So you agree it's safe?

All I agree is that we'd win a second great turf war.

xxxxxxx

"When you play your keytar, you can't dance as much. And no one can see you behind the turntables!"

"I don't want to dance as much. Having everyone stare makes me nervous."

"They're going to stare anyway, because you're on stage with Inkopolis's freshest tentacles."

"They are not-"

A light flashes in the wall over the door of their soundproofed practice space, cutting Marina off neatly as a buzzer. Pearl sighs, crosses the room, and slams her hand on the intercom button. "You rang?"

"You have visitors, Miss Houzuki."

Pearl rolls her eyes. Marina can tell without even looking at her. "Tell them my parents are on vacation and they should come back with any solicitations in a month."

"Where they would have at most two days to speak with your parents before they left again, time which your parents would desire to spend with you, Miss Houzuki." Marina purses her lips to hold back her laughter; for someone so impeccably polite, Pearl's butler can scold better than half of Octarian command. "And these visitors are here to see you, not your parents. I've taken the liberty of sending them up." There's a firm click as the butler hangs up on them.

Pearl growls and releases the button. "People never come to see me," she grumbles.

"I hope Scale drew them a map," Marina says. She walks over to the far wall and puts up her keytar, checks that the turntable and guitars and drums are all secure and starts tidying the coffee table in front of the couch.

"My house isn't that big."

"You have your own practice room, and it's big enough to have a living room suite. Couch, loveseat, pair of armchairs." Marina stacks their notebooks full of song lyrics and scribbles in a neat pile, then moves on to straightening the music stands. "And I got lost for over an hour during our sleepover yesterday."

"I warned you the guest wing is a maze. You could've just slept with me, you know."

Marina's whole face heats. She focuses harder on the cleaning. "That, um, Pearl, if you could hear what everyone back home would say."

"You're not at home now, Rina," says Pearl, just as the second light over the door flashes blue. "Least they didn't keep us waiting," Pearl grumbles.

Marina beats her to the door. "Good afternoon," she says, swinging it open. "How can we—C-Callie?!"

Callie and Marie of the squid sisters stand there. "Hi, Marina! Hi, Pearl! Gosh, you've got a nice place here." Callie sweeps past Marina and into the room before Marina can recover.

Marie smiles. "Do you mind if we come in?"

"Of—of course!" Marina steps aside and bows a little. "Please—come in!"

Marie smiles at her as she passes, making Marina feel giddy. She closes the door behind Marie.

"Yooooo!" Marina turns just in time to see Callie and Pearl high-five. "My girl Callie! What's up?"

Callie laughs. "Just swinging by to see what the best up-and-coming group in Inkopolis is up to." She collapses onto one of the couches and bounces a couple times. Marie takes a seat in the armchair Marina prefers, folding her hands in her lap. "I didn't see you at the Final Fest."

Marina twists her hands together. Callie was looking for her? Callie remembered her? Or—no, Callie remembered Pearl, it's gotta be. Pearl is difficult to forget. But Marie is looking at her.

"We weren't there." Pearl crosses her arms and drops into the other armchair. "You versus Marie? Making you two go up against each other, not just some opinion... it stank. Rina refused to choose, and I agreed with her. We went hiking up Mount Nantai instead."

"That's practically in your backyard," Callie says. "C'mon over, Marina!"

Marina twists her hands together as she walks. "It-It's nice to see you two." She stops in front of Callie, still twisting her hands. "Thank you for c-coming over."

Callie makes a noise in the back of her throat, grabs Marina's arm, and pulls Marina onto the couch beside her. Callie Cuttlefish is touching her by the zapfish Callie is touchingher. "You don't have to be nervous," says Callie. "We're all musicians. And I'm touched you couldn't choose." She lets go of Marina. "I didn't think hiking was your scene, Pearl."

"Callie and I haven't been since we were squidlings," says Marie. "It's difficult to find the time, certainly."

"It's Marina's turf." Pearl waves her arm at Marina, and they all turn their attention on her.

Marina doubts she can blush any harder than she is already, but she takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, adjusts her headphones two, three, four times. "My family hiked it, when I was little," she says. It was remembrances only, but she's in one now. "It's—one of the good memories. I'm trying to find the trail we were on."

She knows what trail they were on. She saw it in her book, the wonderful book Pearl gave her, but she's not ready to hike it yet. She's not ready to know, for sure and real and true, none of this is real.

As long as she doesn't go back to the old remembrances, as long as she doesn't climb that trail and see Pearl try to cross that log, she can keep pretending this is real.

"What are you looking for?" Marie props her chin in her hand. "It's been ages since Cal and I went hiking."

Marina's cheeks burn. "I'll know it when I see it."

"We've been taking pictures of every hike," Pearl adds. "I've got them lining the hall by my room, labelled and everything." She grins. "It's the best way to get Rina to take selfies."

"Pearl!"

"This I have to see," Callie says. She throws an arm around Marina's shoulder Callie is hugging her Callie is hugging her aaaaaahhh stay fresh stay fresh stay calm and stay fresh. "Can you show us? Or do you have a rehearsal to finish first?"

Marina leans into Callie's hug. Callie is hugging her. This is real. Can she feel how hard Marina's hearts are pounding? "We, um, we were just about finished..."

"Callie, wait a minute, we came here to tell them something, remember?" Marie leans forward, steepling her fingers. "Let go of Marina before the poor o—girl faints from excitement."

"But we've gotta work on that," protests Callie, hugging Marina tighter. Marina can't stop smiling, doesn't try to.

"Aw, let 'em hug. What'd you wanna talk to us about?" Pearl leans forward. "Got some juicy gossip?"

Marie shakes her head. "Hardly. No, with final fest over we're nearing the end of our contract with Inkopolis News."

Marina's mouth drops open and she sits up straight, though she doesn't shake off Callie's arms. "You're leaving?"

"Starting in a month, they'll give us an extra day off each week." Callie releases Marina and lays one of her hands flat on the coffee table. "I've got a movie audition lined up; Marie's received an invitation to host a radio show. By Squidmas, we'll only be half-time."

"That extra day will be another band." Marie lays her hand over Callie's. "They're looking for the news' next hosts. They were looking at Wet Floor, Chirpy Chips, High Tide Era, and Squid Squad. Each of them will cover once a month, then the most popular two will do one day a week each, until they choose the next host and we split the duties, then do once a week, and we'll be gone by late spring. They'll bring back splatfests that summer."

Pearl lets out a low whistle. "That's intense. I can't imagine the news without you two."

"Why do you need to tell us, though?" asks Marina.

The squid sisters share matching grins. Marie looks Marina directly in the eye. "Squid Squad's breaking up. They need a fourth group. They want us to recommend someone."

Marina just stares at Marie. Mouth open, brain empty, this close to going octo in shock. This is it. This is why they've been so lenient with her. Maybe this is all a hallucination, but maybe it's half true. Maybe she's still wearing the hypnoshades, but maybe she really is on the surface. Maybe she is in Inkopolis. Maybe she does have a band, and Pearl is real, and they've just changed her role from combat engineer.

Because having her on Inkling news, controlling what the Inklings hear, and sabotaging their information, would help the Octarian's next conquest more than any octoweapon she could design.

Pearl screams and leaps across the table to tackle Marina into the couch. "We're doing it! Rina! We are TOTALLY doing this!"

"P-pearlie! Calm down! We—we still have-"

"I told you so," says Callie, just heard over Marina's sputtering. "Should I pry Pearl off?"

"Give them a minute."

NOTES:

According to Marina's article on Inkipedia, the Splatoon wiki, they became popular enough to take over hosting inkopolis news around the release of their fourth single, about 'nine months' after Splatoon 1 ended. According to my timeline here, Ebb and Flo released in December; their second song, never explicitly stated (so either Acid Hues or Color Pulse, by my logic), would've released sometime between then and the Party splatfest. Single 3, Muck Warfare, probably recently released (or about to be released) at this point.

Final Fest, Splatoon 1, took place at the end of July. If this is early August, then 'nine months' from now would be May. Plenty of time to release a fourth single and get comfortable as Inkopolis News hosts before their first splatfest in July.

Also have to say: before uploading, the underlined words in the intro-section were aligned-right. That doesn't work on FFnet, so I've had to improvise.