From the gentle breeze to the calming scent of blooming flowers, there was nothing quite harmonious like that start of spring! Along the outskirts of the big city, flower petals bore radiant hues of life one by one as dawn made Inkopolis for the past few months. A welcoming feeling for those who resided here. March, the month of madness in Inkopolis sports where the debate for who might make the Spring invitational increase by the hour as teams earn their bidding to compete for the prestigious Caesarean shield: A huge shield made of gold and silver with a gleam under the light that'd look beautiful in any trophy case. But, before the Spring Invitationals could even begin, first came the Rank Wars, which was in the thick of the season and the third week of the competition began. The new rankings released and had some movements here and there, but the talk that dominated most conversations regarding the Rank Wars was the emergence of Mayhem, the dominance of Kidvel and Squidcom, and the possibility that Squid Academy had a possible playoff where each team to compete had a solid chance to win it all; even though Kidvel and Squidcom stood as the top favorites, Mayhem, Legion, Rebels, and the Sealions were all strong competitors not too far behind the leaders both in record and quality. With Sally and Pastelle tying for the MVP vote, everyone was getting antsy for the eventual showdown between the two aces, a match that'd take place on matchday 16 of week 4, the final week that saw a colossal matchup of the top two duking out for the top seed and potentially a championship preview. A quick recap to show the status of the Rank Wars, Kidvel and Squidcom both were at the top of tables with undefeated records with Kidvel leading on scoring difference and less points conceded, following behind Squidcom in third place was Mayhem, who recently overtook the Sealions and Legion both, and just outside the top 5 sat the Rebels and a new team called Meta that had been picked as a sleeper team to give trouble in the playoffs. Aside from the sports side of things, Ixia had been interfering in the competition, mostly attempting to snub Squidcom while sending cryptic messages about society and the school, but thanks to allied forces for the police force and Telfin's selected team, Ixia wouldn't cause trouble much longer. A reinforced theme throughout the school was unity, which they took as their response as the showed spite to the hacker group and focused on the fun festival like competition that they'd been waiting for.
Birds chirp in the background with a songful tune as the school bell rings to start classes at Squid Academy; the students have jubilant smiles as they enjoy the transitioning scenery and the springing of life. Many were sprightly, but there was one person among the sea of smiles who had too many concerns to enjoy the same bliss as her classmates. That one person being Sky. Sitting at her desk, she twirls her pencil in her fingers-her notebook open and filled with plenty of notes from the lessons of the day. Nodding her head while peering at the chalkboard in the front of the classroom, the lecturing instructor serving as white noise for her while she projected the thoughts in her mind over to the board. Her thoughts were of Ixia and how to stop them. After weeks of looming terror from them, their attacks in the Rank Wars were only a warning, a consensus reached by everyone involved with this investigation. Sky knew there was a bigger message behind Ixia's involvement in the Rank Wars, and as she tried to formulate a possibility, her concerns grew larger. Piecing the puzzle together on the board, Sky's imagination went rampant on the possibility of what endgame could be with Ixia. Taking down one of the strong pillars of the Inkopolis military's facilitators in a tumultuous time when the nation lacked a leader would be the beginning of the end. Narrowing her eyes as she thought back to the failed attempt earlier for finding Ixia. It made her sick to her stomach that they were able to outsmart her and her team.
We found nothing.
She recalls in her mind with regret as she remembers the futile efforts her team exerted in in their patrol. They spent the day searching far and wide but found nothing after having placed nodes everywhere. Luckily, they weren't daft to just go and look around in hotspots. Throughout the day, all teams went to the districts they were assigned, and from there they attached small Nano sized devices nicknamed nodes which wiretapped into all electrical systems within the radius of a hundred meters from its location. They were devices created for this investigation with the backing of some government technology that got tweaked by the AV club to suit the specific target; this investigation served in showing just how much talent Squid Academy possessed in all fields-not just sports. For the Elites, this was the case as they placed the devices in many back alleys, under park benches, and even at the far reaches of department stores and shops and angles that a daily passerby couldn't detect it. Almost immediately were signals coming in from the nodes, but Gileslie found it too difficult to differentiate between what could possibly be valid since the devices were only capable of picking up the signal that resembled the one received through the hacking, which were multiple across the district. It was the same for the other teams who saw the same issue with some of the locations being in questionable areas. If there were to be any attacks it had to be later after the reactions of certain neighborhoods and turfs that didn't appreciate the investigation team's presence. Sky knew as much from their harsh glares, which told the entire story. The district her team had been assigned was one filled with many slums and a hotbed for turf wars among gangs and clans, some of which voiced their displeasure of Sky and her team's presence there. While patrolling the streets, Sky would be constantly catcalled by yakuza members and other thugs before Aaron and Apollo gave off their aura of bloodlust, intimidating others to silence and some to even act, where Aaron immediately forced them into submission with his quick grapples. Throughout their patrol, Sky gained crucial intel through eavesdropping and the placement of her nodes, learning that Ixia had connections to plenty of the gangs in the city and to some out in the countryside and were planning some big projects with linkage to a possible attack on the capital. Serving as a clue, Sky figured the next step in this investigation was to stick her nose into the yakuza's affairs-a setting she showed no fear in destroying as she thought back to when she busted Spyke's knees out of commission; if these gangsters took her lightly, she'd make them pay.
On the way home from his last class, Azule got a notification on his phone about a day of hanging out later in the week from Sally, who messaged everyone in the group chat. Reading through her paragraph of a message, she wanted to take the group out to a hot springs bath retreat to help everyone ease their minds through the stress of the Rank Wars...and in part because she got a special coupon from a client at her job who gave it to her as thanks for helping with a hefty purchase on a drum set. A kind gesture on her part, she continued to say that the hot springs bath house springs was at a luxurious hotel in the big city and that if she redeemed it during the midweek, they could get private use of the bath house, which usually closed early during the weekdays.
"It ends at 5 during the midweek, but my coupon allows us to stay until 7. If we get there when it closes and show the coupon, they'll let us in!" she wrote; everyone seemed on board with the idea, welcoming a visit to the place. Though everyone agreed with the plan to go to the hotel, Sally wasn't finished-exclaiming that there was more she still wanted to talk about, in person. Though there was some reluctance in the chat because most of them had work to do or were tired, everyone came along upon her insistence that it was important. After a dozen minutes go by, Azule and Reice at Sally and Violet's dorm-already beat by Fuchsia, Kosami, and Jory who sat comfortably on the couch; Friya and Brittany were there and welcomed them but headed to their beds to let the team talk. Reice takes a seat at the island in the kitchen while Azule crosses his arms and leans against the wall of the hallway leading down the bedroom and bathroom, his gaze on Sally.
"So, what's up for the sudden meetup? I've got homework to do."
"Same, I'm almost done with my paper and I'd like to finish it before it gets late."
Violet tilted her head with wonder of what could be on Sally's mind since she wasn't informed ahead of time what'd be discussed.
"The important subject I wanted to discuss isn't about the hot springs trip-we'll take care of that later. What I wanted to talk about is the Rank Wars. A team meeting."
"What about it. We've got games coming up-so what?" Reice was tired of the anxiety.
Sally placed her hands at her hips and glared at her brother, "Well, there's two opponents upcoming on our schedule that I feel like we should do more coverage on than before. Our opponents of matchday 14 and 16."
Violet caught on, "Mayhem and Kidvel."
Reice put his hands in his pockets, "The hottest team of the season and the strongest team. Yeah, we face them late in the season. Big deal, we're pretty good ourselves."
Violet shook her head, "It's not about skill, Reice. Sally's reason for having this meeting must be-"
"They're our counters and you spotted a weakness of ours that they can exploit. Is that it Sally?" Azule fixed his cap, understanding his teammate's concern.
Sally nodded, "Fuchsia and I were looking over the film and we noticed a pattern that I recognized and felt needed to be shared immediately: Mayhem plays to exploit the weaknesses of their opponents, and they do so quite effectively."
Fuchsia came forward with a notebook in her hand, "In all the games they've played, Mayhem has won by knockout in all but their match against none other than Kidvel. They're a team we can't take lightly."
Jory brought his hand up to his lips, "Interesting. They only have one loss, which is to Kidvel-who we haven't played either. But, how is this a concern?"
There was a pause as everyone looked to each other before turning to Sally, who already had the answer. Clearing her throat-her face turned serious, "We're severely flawed. We're an awesome unit and we're capable of evolution, but facing Mayhem is like facing our ultimate adversary. They possess a similar style to us, can be flexible with weapon choice, and are commanded by an incredible leader who happens to be a first year like us."
"We'll see when that day comes. For now, we shouldn't overlook our upcoming opponents for the week."
That they did not...
After crushing them in a quick succession of two straight games, Squidcom entered the 12th matchday with their streak still intact and their core performing at an alarming level of talent. The flaws seen previously from Azule had vanished as he played more to his personal style and focused solely on the objectives, only going out of his way for splats if anyone dared to enter his line of sight. Sally was merciless as she hunted down everyone before they had a chance to take aim, her reputation with the heavy splatling skyrocketing her to among the infamous talent considered to be the best in the country as she wielded the heavy splatling as though it were a dualie. Reice played solid as usual, sticking to defense most of the time by swooping in to save his teammates and holding the objective through and through until reinforcements came-a difference however was in his aggression as he played with a bit more fire in in his eyes, probably hyped for the upcoming big games. Violet was the most improved however, changing her style from her usual static positions of scoping down her targets to making plentiful changes after each shot, never staying in the same place any longer than she needed and avoiding being targeted by her opponents.
It's the second game of matchday 12 and Squidcom are in a commanding lead having shut out their opponents thus far. Ancho V games had always been a map filled with chaos from its hazardous out of bounds to the irritating fans dead center of the turf, playing any special type of mode hear what somewhat a death sentence, especially rainmaker! That was the case in this match where plenty of splats were coming from the platforms where the fans were to the corners for the poor squids trying to avoid calamity in no man's land. But, where this exciting match was going on, at the same time was Ixia's attack. After receiving orders to back out from Big Eye, Black X decided to take matters into his own hands command another hack of terrorizing the rank wars yet again. His commands were hard to go against for most of the cyber grunts since he shared the same status as Big Eye as one of the four bosses of the group, however his power resonated more with the most radical members of the group. Ixia's group hierarchy was broken down to a very simple one: the grunts and bossed. There were four bosses: Big Eye, Black X, Little Eye, and Apple. The rest were either unimportant pawns or notable pawns who'd done great work in the past and earned some nice social status among the ranks but nonetheless were still a grunt. After having been silenced by Big Eye in the group chat, Black X took to his own sub chat where he sits in command to voice his displeasure with the leader's reasoning and pushed for another attack, but this time a cyber-attack. He wanted more than to just threaten the school, he wanted to ravage them completely. Sending out orders, he started with setting up everything to break through the cybersecurity of the school's network. Next, he sent a group of his people to dig through the transaction history of Squid Academy and find a way to hack their account and withdraw all funds, as well as find any secrets worth creating blackmail over. Getting the signal from one of his grunts that they'd successfully completed their breach of security, Black X threw caution to the wind and took the airwaves this time to strike fear into the masses with his rhetoric. Stopping the game of Squidcom right in its tracks, he revealed the reason behind why they always interrupted Squidcom specifically-their popularity and ray of hope that Ixia were determined to crush under any circumstances. As he continued to rave about the destruction that'd follow, a warning error popped up on his computer screen that forced him to stop mid speech, followed by a buzzing siren that echoed from his location through the intercom. Confusion filled his voice as he tried to figure out what was going on, but while the siren went off, he got reports from his grunts that not only had they been discovered, but the enemy was returning fire and hacked them in response and even found their locations.
A voice came Black X's comms shortly after, "It is too late for you if you are hearing this. You're about to be visited by Midnight, prepare to bite the dust!" a snap of the fingers followed afterwards and in the dark room where Black X sat, he felt a sudden chill in the room before a sky-blue light glowed in the dark paired with radiant blue eyes filled with bloodlust. A shriek of pain and fear followed afterwards-silenced through mid-cry in the darkness. "Carry on. Ixia's days of hacking are over."
What wasn't explained was that there was an attack on Ixia. Earlier in the day, Lime contacted Sky and arranged for a meetup with Principal Telfin and discussed with him her plan to take care of Ixia. Lime was interested in the whereabouts of Ixia since their organization was rumored to be plotting some sort of terrorist attacks on the Inkopolis government to bring fear to the citizens of Inkopolis. Because of that, Lime felt it necessary to take a small militia and hunt them down before they could cause harm and had details she wanted to share with the organizer of the investigation. Turns out that Lime and her people were also tracking them down and thanks to the efforts of Telfin's people were able together all the information necessary to track down the members who foolishly left their locations easy to track through their behavior-several suspects who'd get caught once she gave order.
"I know the pride you and your institution have. So, I'd appreciate if you can mobilize all available units for today to encircle the areas I have marked on the map." she said as she pointed to a specific area marked in green; "One of the big fish of the organization is here and I'd like to go there myself and take him into custody, but I know you'd probably want to have one of your own handle him. So, send my little sister there. I know she must be just as upset as you are; both of you have that same sharpness of light in your irises. It's unbecoming of someone your stature."
"Ixia terrorized this proud nation. They terrorized my institution and instilled fear into my students. MY KIDS! If-if there is anything, I can do to show them my anger, then by all means I will grant it. I'll let Sky know she's got the task."
"Good-oh and let her know that she's free to go wild as long as she is sure not to kill the poor guy. There's still some interrogation I'd like to do myself." the menace in her tone bleeding from her aura as she-too had anger towards what this group had attempted.
During that match, everyone made their preparations and reported to their positions and staked their locations in secrecy upon the wait of their orders, which was to launch their attack once the A/V club and cybersecurity were able to return fire to Ixia. Once they were unleashed, the teams infiltrated the various buildings and hideouts of the supposed Ixia members who'd lost their incognito the moment Squid Academy returned fire and hacked their networks and servers, exposing all information aside from the major group chat that'd been protected by a high level of encryption. The rest of the Elites dispersed to handle the other suspects in the area while Sky handled the big boss by herself, containing more than enough venom to bite her target to death. A purge upon Ixia, over 300 members were captured by the end of the day, including one of their big bosses who wore a white mask with a black X, now with a huge crack down the middle thanks to a certain inkling...
At last, the controversy with Ixia is over.
Or is it?
The following day had the news headlines dominated by the breaking reports of the members of Ixia who were arrested and taken into the custody of the authorities with the Black X becoming the talk of the media as his mugshot was posted without his mask: A brown cuttlefish with yellow irises and a combination of black, yellow, and white in his tentacles. A chilling sight to behold, many inklings were shocked that of all the people who'd associate with terrorism in this nation, the person was a cuttlefish-a close cousin of their species. As that became the dominant discussion, Ixia went underground-hiding. All chat activity was suspended until further notice, probably because the bosses realized that Squid Academy had more power than they initially thought. The interference of Lime Royale was a powerful indicator that they picked the wrong school to mess with and that if they ever tried to cause problems for them again, an even scarier big fish might show up. Learning that not only were the younger Royale siblings at Squid Academy, but if the head general of the nation's military acted, so would her vicious second in command-her little brother Verde. There was also the issue of attracting the attention of the parents: Agents 3 and 4; people Ixia wanted no business dealing with.
"At the conference, we'll make our return…" Big Eye wrote as his last message before shutting down the chat and all other servers, deleting them one by one.
