Lime ink splatters the wall, Purple ink covers the floor; the setting of Saltspray Rig was a total battleground as the Elites and Mahi Mahi Prep went at each other's throats. Sky was over by the starting area in the lean pathway battling it out with a shooter for the bottom area, the rest of her comrades with dealing with the others that were scattered on the top and middle areas-securing the ends of the map and looking to trap the pressing Elites. Aaron focused his aim on trying to splat an enemy inkling that was inking from the moving platform overhead with the help of Austin and Pearl covering him from behind.
Gileslie was filming the match with an expensive-looking camcorder in one hand and taking notes with the other hand with the notepad resting on her lap; she was much focused on her task. I know Aaron and the others asked me to film them and take notes in case I notice any errors in their play, but right now I'm not seeing any flaws in their performances; they've been leading the entire match, not once trailing in the match and always maintaining the lead.
Sky's forced to stay on the higher ground as her current opponent doesn't let up his attack, throwing out suction bombs to push Sky back. Sky gets annoyed and decides to change her route, Playing conservative and logical isn't my type of style anyways…sorry Aaron, but I like my aggressive approach!
One thing that always was apparent in the Elites was that they had essentially two leaders with two different approaches. Aaron was the true captain, devising all of their different tactics and formations, and being the cool headed leader that never let his emotions cloud his thinking-apparent from the previous match with Squidops; but with Sky-the undisputed ace of the team-it was the opposite. Sky's playstyle was very aggressive and reckless-despite mastering a weapon class that frowned upon her actions as a charger and sniper-often letting her emotions influence her decisions in a match. Sky and Aaron-although a healthy couple-didn't usually agree on many ideas and matters when it came to turf wars, which always led to Sky taking her own approach and deviating from the initial group strategy that Aaron created; leading to more work for her teammates.
Gileslie freaks out as her jaw drops like a cinderblock, "Why is Sky leaving her post!?" she yelled in a frenzy jotting down notes like madman. This must be why Aaron tasked me with doing this…he knew Sky would probably disobey his instructions again! Its lucky thing the others aren't here to see this…
Sky furiously swims through the purple ink, going down the pathway to her left and then blocking off the only exit from the bottom area where she was dueling with the inkling earlier by dousing the turf in purple. She halts when she notices the boy sitting on the pile of lime inked boxes in the middle of the area with his left leg crossed over his right, his head tilting to the right with his shoulder pushed up, and a sly smile; his hair was blond like pure gold, and sharp green eyes filled with greed and corruption like money that hid behind his dark aviator shades; the surrounding area was also covered in lime ink.
"So you really are the infamous Midnight Sky!" he marveled; Sky's guard is raised as she heard one of her aliases.
Sky sneers, "I go by many names bub!"
He raised his eyes to stare at Sky, "But I'm surprised…The description for the infamous Midnight Sky was supposed to be of a ruthless girl with Sky blue hair and a dark set of skills like the midnight…but you're talent displayed is not at all awe-inspiring!"
Sky tilts her head to side, "Not impressed huh? I'll give you a performance you'll never forget then!"
A dark aura emerged from Sky as she glared at the boy, clutching her gun tightly; Aaron and the rest of the Elites recognize the murderous intent. The boy only laughs, calling her bluff-"If you can land a hit on me and splat me, I'll take my leave and surrender this area to you."-but Sky ignored the offer, peering at him as she studied how she'll break him apart.
"There…I know what to do now." she said in low tone, taking aim at the boy.
"Oh? You're very hasty…"
Sky fires a shot and covers the entire right side in purple ink, "There…that should do it."
The boy laughs, "What was that!? I thought your aim was supposed to be among the best in the continent? Although…"-examining the width of the ink's path-"I'm impressed that your gun was able to release such an amount of ink."
Sky held up a finger, "My custom E-liter 3k: Sky edition, was made a little differently from the other models. First, its speed at which it releases ink is a lot quicker than normal ones. Second, it is also lighter to hold, but that isn't the most effective of the three. The third is the most important and that's the inside of the barrel; accompanied by the speed at which it can fire a round of ink, it has a much smaller and compressed opening-so when I do fire, tons of ink will come out due to the pressure and spread across the turf…also the reason why it's a one-shot splat machine."
The boy begins to sweat after hearing the information, "But you only shot one side, aren't you going to trap me? Are you sure you could even handle me in a one-on-one scenario? I'm quite fast y'know…especially with my rapid blaster pro. So Sky what's your body count like? I heard you slaughtered hundreds of Octarians on missions…"
Sky's eyes turned cold, "Do you really think, that you can say all the crap that's coming out your mouth and get away with it?"
"Whoa…the air around you has changed…did I finally strike a nerve?"
She pounds her chest, "My experiences are something that I take to heart…the lives that I took for the sake of this race are something that I spend my time regretting...because of me, many octoarian family lines ended and nothing but pain remained for many of the victims…"-the overwhelming pressure grew-"I refuse to let some snob from a rich school mouth off about who I am and what I should be as if he knows me!"
Like the wind, Sky vanished! The boy got up to his feet and became alert; he now knew he might have stepped a certain line. Gileslie was panicking as her legs began shaking with anxiousness, messing up her writing while still filming the match. Oh no…! Sky's going to kill that poor soul! She thought as she put her hands over her eyes to avoid seeing what might happen.
She was too fast to see, leaving only trails of ink across the area; the boy struggled to defend as more of the turf got taken away each time she appeared. She encircles him in the ink as the only turf he has left is a small circle of space; Sky inks his feet leaving him stuck there. He struggles to escape, and Sky takes aim at him from the front.
"Check. Mate." Sky splats him with one shot and secures the bottom area; Aaron and the others hear the loud shot, looking up at one of the boards suspended in the air to see what the score was.
The members of the Elites grinned from ear to ear as they saw the lead in their favor heavily; there is only one thing left to do they all thought. Aaron and the other accelerate their pace and push Mahi Mahi all the way to the back and continue to apply pressure until the final whistle blows to end the match. Everyone cheers for the MVP performance from Sky; The Elites won: 71-28.
Shiva was in the team locker room lying down on a bench relaxing before the game; she guffawed wildly after hearing from her teammate that the Elites had demolished Mahi Mahi Prep a moment earlier, "So my favorite Inklings are going to the finals, huh Ciri?"
Ciri nodded; Ciri had cerulean blue hair and green eyes with a small mole under her right eye. "Indeed Princess Magenta, they have advanced to the final."
"Oi now, I told you to call me Shiva. Don't be so formal with me; we're good friends!"
Ciri bowed her head, "B-but Princess, I must show you my respect!"
Shiva wagged her hand, "Boo! That's a boring name, so call me Shiva!"
Ciri conceded with a smile, "Whatever you ask…Shiva."
"Ahh much better…"-she relaxes on the bench, resting her head on her hands and staring up at the ceiling-"So, give me the summary…"
"Well, they had been holding Mahi mahi Prep to a microscope-leading throughout most of the match. It was broken down into two separate battles: Sky against Peyton at the bottom area and then the rest of the teams at the top area; But towards the end of the match is where the attention lies. Apparently Peyton was irritating Sky by refusing to give up the bottom turf, so she left her position and decided to aggressively take him down in a shootout to which he must have upset Sky with words because she ended up trapping him and then left him defenseless and splatted him-sealing the win."
"Wow, so Sky's finally playing serious now…"-She sits forward-"Ciri, Reluna, Vaairie…come here." She said in a serious tone; two more girls appeared from the showers afterwards in their towels.
She gets up and signals for them to huddle around her, "I usually don't to do this kind of thing, especially for a preliminary match. But you guys know who we are playing today…So there isn't much I need to say about this."
It was last year in the Semi Finals at Nationals…-Shiva clutched Ciri's back as she tried to control her emotions-We had previously faced Beacon Hills three times prior with the current rosters: first in the winter championship the year before where we won in the final, and the second time was later that same year in the spring invitational final in which they won and got their revenge. A year later we defeated them again, but this time in the spring invitational. The next meeting was later that year in the National tournament…
The Black arena in Beacon Hills was crowded with a deafening audience in attendance; today was a major day for both teams with Beacon Hills having the home field advantage and Octo Valley having their fellow Octarians journey from Octo valley to come and support them on a potential second consecutive appearance in the final (They lost the previous year to the Special Forces).
It was a special day for us, mainly because I had negotiated a bet with the Inkling government that month for our equality; the bet I challenged them with was that if we could win our first national title, we'd be given our complete freedom and have the right to expand our land and become our own country on peaceful terms as long as we didn't try to invade-which they happily agreed with. Once the news of the bet reached back home, everyone couldn't help but feel hope to finally gain equality; this led to them attending every one of our matches throughout Nationals in overwhelming numbers of support. It was a day meant to finally give us the equality we deserved…
The game we were playing was a best of 7 turf war, and we were happily prepared that specific match since we had trained for the possibility of this moment for two years-now with a heavier result in store.
The scoreboard read 66-33 in the sixth game in the best of seven series with Octo Valley leading 3-2. The fans of Beacon Hills were booing with tons of hateful slurs at the students of Octo Valley, but the Octarians fired back by supporting the team and block out the negativity; The Octarians were forced to not lash back regardless of the situation, since many of the S.I.A.T were in attendance with the orders to shoot to kill on instant the moment any Octarians showed hostility.
The game was intense as Shiva and Ciri forced Platinum and Silvia to retreat and join up with Gin and Alumia. Silver and Magenta traded spots on the turf second by second, with the lead shifting more and more towards Beacon Hills in the dying minutes of the match. Shiva and the others desperately tried to hold onto the lead to seal the match and earn the important victory and second finals appearance, but as the time waned to zero so did Octo Valley's lead. In the last three seconds, Gin released his special weapon-the inkstrike-at that very moment and secured some extra turf right after the whistle blowed; every Octarian at the moment the whistle blew thought it was all over and began to cheer, seeing that right before the whistle blew they thought they had a narrow lead to secure victory. Unfortunately when they looked at the scoreboard after the officials did some review, they saw the result change. Every single Octarian's heart sank as they heard the Beacon Hills crowd grew louder, realizing that they were being cheated out of their victory; it was clear that the match should have ended and the last gasp attempt by Gin shouldn't have counted, but because it was in Beacon Hills, the refs allowed it.
"That last play shouldn't count! It landed on the turf after the whistle blew!" Shiva argued in the face of the officials as Ciri and Reluna held her back; the Octarians were silenced with absolute shock, and the fear beginning to set in of defeat. For game 7, the difference in endurance showed. Even though every Octarian in the building chanted with pride for their team to stay strong and capture victory, Shiva and her team were too stunned by their loss in game 6 to rally a comeback.
We lost our spirit after that…we never recovered from the result of game 6. They went on to completely obliterate us in game 7 of the semi final. After that match, I refused to shake hands with them; I could hear my people's hearts break, their hopes crushed, and their cries echoed as their tears flowed…
Shiva and her team remembered the painful result-all four of them staring at the floor as drops of tears splattered on the white tiles. All four of them knew this was their chance to get some revenge, to get payback on the team that broke the heart of an entire race in just one game.
Shiva's body tensed up, "Don't ever forget that feeling…"-her tone was concrete like stone, but she couldn't hide her emotions-"Don't ever forget that result, that defeat!"-She grits her teeth as she stared into the eyes of each of her comrades-"Show this team absolute hell!" she yelled putting a fist in the middle of the huddle, each girl followed behind her-putting a fist in too.
"Ciri…Reluna…Vaairie…we're the voice of our people. We're the ones who have carried the burden of Octo Valley since we were little girls…so let's go out there and win this one for them. For the people of Octo Valley! For us! Let's go to the finals!"
