Chapter 5: Surf Shops and Turf Wars Part 2
**Warning* Data may be compromised or damaged*
Log 2:
Subject:Pro_ct Chi_
Date: J_ 31, _
La_:S_g
All r_rds of me_al str_th tes_ng for s_cts 1-4 have been taken. They all show p_
me_al st_e for te_ng and now we _ be intro_ them to physic_ tests to see how
heal_y they are. Subject 1, my s_ Attor, has _e in with the h_st _ score of 180,
amazing for a tender age of _. Subject 2 my d_r Me_e, had a good score as well,
scoring 149 on her final test.
The Lowell's on the other hand had lower scores in comparison. Faolan had gotten a 135 with
his sister Guadalupe having a sl_tly lower 132. But it won't be their in_nce alone that
will make them or break them, their ad_ity is key. They will have to e_e and solve
maze-like obstacle courses as well as have a res_nce to to_ins. Their ordeal has just begun
Pr_or Raza Dr_e.
/ \
Arsonist's Lullaby by Hozier
Luke fought to say something but couldn't even muster a sound, instead they silently passed by each other, each second doing so seeming like hours.
'It's definitely her.' he thought, memories of her burning eyes resurfacing, her pupils were the coals set alight within them and the setting sun along with her milk chocolate skin only made them seem to burn more brightly. Her pink tentacles glistened with the colors of a lofty sunrise. She wore a black Squideye shirt along with the blue and yellow striped band accessory and zombie Hi-horses. Her face was set in a stoic gaze as she looked into him once more, and yet he found her alluring, like a moth to a flame.
Her followers, although not focusing on him, also had a equally detached look. A fair skinned boy with turquoise tentacles and glistening green eyes moved besides her, a tan girl with green tentacles and green eyes, an extremely pale boy with magenta eyes (although from this perspective Luke swore they looked blood red.) and in the back a set of twins with pale skin, purple tentacles, and-
Wait a sec...
His eyes widened into saucers when he realized that one of the twins was the one who gave him the balm from earlier.
"A-a..." was all he could utter before they had completely disappeared from view.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Inside the tower, there were flashing lights everywhere within the lobby, each color and shape symbolizing a different battle mode.
"Wow..." Nova said looking around in amazement. "Oohh... pretty colors!"
Brodie laughed, "You look like a kid in a candy shop Novs."
"As far as I'm concerned I am a kid in a candy shop." she replied giddily.
Luke twisted his face in confusion. "Uh, Novs?" he asked Brodie.
Brodie put his arms behind his head and smiled in satisfaction, "Cool nickname right? Came up with it on the fly."
Luke was speechless for a moment and began to walk faster to get closer to his sister until Brodie had a "I've got an idea!" expression on his face.
"And we can call you Lu, and you guys can call me Bro."
Luke turned to him with a deadpan,"No."
Brodie's face had fallen into some sort of sad, puppy dog look."Why, not Lu?"
"I rather just call you both by you proper names." he said then said, "And the both of you please just call me Luke." as stern as he could.
"But Lu is easier to say." Brodie whined back.
"It's just as easy to say as Luke, and Luke is my real name. Therefore, Luke is just fine."
Brodie raised his brow at him."You keep insisting I call you Luke instead of Lu, but I honestly don't see how that matters. It's just a nickname." Brodie put his arms to the side and sighed. "But if it makes ya happier I'll call ya Luke."
"Thank you." Luke said in contentment. "Now to bring up something more important. That girl I mentioned earlier...we had passed her when we went into the tower." Brodie's fins perked up when he said that.
"Really?"he asked. Nova had fell behind at this point to be able to hear the conversation better.
"Yeah. You didn't notice?"
Brodie rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Luke apologetically, much to the latter's annoyance. "Sorry bro."
Nova only added to his disappointment, "Didn't see 'em either. I probably turned the corner before they started walking out."
'Great, maybe I am going absolutely insane.'
As if hearing his thoughts Nova muttered,"Well sounds like my 'you're crazy theory' isn't too far off now does it?"
"Shut it."
"Just sayin'."
At the front left corner of the lobby, Judd went around the desk, hopped into the chair and turn on the computer on the desk.
"Meow.(Ok, I just need your names and you'll have your ID's in no time.)"
"Luke Vernon."
"Nova Aldjoy."
Judd tapped away at the computer and within moments handed Luke and Nova their cards.
"Here you are. With these you'll be able to participate in normal battles."
The cards read:
Luke Vernon
Level:1 Rank:-
Nova Aldjoy
Level:1 Rank:-
With that done, Judd scuttled off somewhere in the tower.
"All right let's get you into your first turf war. While you guys were walking in the back, I asked Judd to assign us together as a team for this round." Felicia told them.
Brodie was the most surprised,looking at her with wide, saucepan eyes,"You can do that?!"
Felicia responded to his reaction with a cocky grin,"When you're one of the best you can~"
Luke rolled his eyes and suddenly remembered something Brodie said earlier. "Hey didn't you say you were going to Sheldon's to get something."
Brodie's head snapped towards him, "Dammit, you're right!" He took off shouting, "Be right back!"
/ \
When Brodie came back, his group was waiting for him in the regular battle lobby, prepped with their weapons.
Each lobby contained two benches for contestants of each to wait on, two locker rooms for girls and boys and branching corridors that led the teams to any of the locations ink battles took place in. The corridors had locking mechanisms for each stage, so an inkling wouldn't easily get lost easily when going to a stage in rotation.
"'Kay, I'm back and ready to test this thing out!" Brodie reached into his bag and pulled out a Splattershot. Luke and Nova looked at his weapon.
"Nice! How much did it cost?"
"500 coins."
"That seems like quite a bit of cash." Luke suddenly was worried about his pockets.
Felicia simply scoffed at him, "You think that's expensive? When we get to my apartment, I'll show you my arsenal."
"Meaning you'll show me all the money spent out your arse." he muttered to himself.
"What was that dear brother?" Felicia sounded like she was ready to shove her Splattershot Jr. where the sun don't shine if he told her what he said.
He quickly turned his head away from her with a quick, "Nothing nevermind."
Satisfied, she turned to Brodie with annoyance."I thought you've been here before, you still haven't put your stuff up."
Brodie did a double take of his bags and then darted into one of the adjacent locker rooms.
Luke saw three other kids walking into the lobby room and straight into the locker rooms. 2 guys and a girl went in and judging by their appearance they were new too. The guys came out first, one had blue tentacles with dark eyes and pale skin wielding a Splattershot Jr., and the other had orange tentacles with orange eyes and light peach skin. What was interesting to Luke was the giant paint-roller weapon he slung over his shoulder.
"Impressive, what weapon is that?" Nova asked.
The boy looked at her with zealous pride. "This? This is a Splat Roller and I'm gonna crush you newbs with it!"
Nova twisted her face in disagreement, "Ugh, rude! What makes you so sure you're gonna win anyways!"
"Pfft! You guys got Splattershot Jr.'s, you're obviously new to Turf Wars! Me and Deborah's gonna splat the shell outta you newbs!" The boy with his Splattershot Jr simply looked around awkwardly trying to stay out of it
Luke turned to Felicia to gauge her reaction of their opponents. To his amazement she had a serious look to her face, and didn't even once try to banter.
Brodie and girl from before, presumably Deborah, came out. She was a light tan like Luke but had pink tentacles and magenta eyes. She also carried a long gun-like weapon and held it under her right arm.
"Showing out as usual Tytus?" she asked. "We're great and all but y'know you don't gotta embarrass the newbies 'cause they just got here and everything." she said it casually but there was no mistaking her arrogant tone and the haughty little smirk she made at them.
Brodie laughed triumphantly,"And I'm not sure if your blind or what, but one of these squid's is not like the others."
Tytus looked completely confused, Deborah on the other hand had made a complete 180 of emotion on her features and looked subtly at her charger out of nerves.
The look of confidence returned when Felicia spotted a familiar face enter the room and she was surprised.
"Koray? What are you doing here?"
Koray had orange tentacles with orange eyes like Tytus but he was paler in complextion and was wearing pilot goggles, white anchor tee and red hi-tops. He smiled at Felicia with a wholehearted smile.
"Judd sent me here when he said you were showing you're brother and his friends how to do turf wars. He wanted to keep the competition even on both ends I assume."
He went into the locker room and when he came out he was equipped with a cylindrical shooter with a long barrel.
".96 Gal huh?" Felicia asked. Koray nodded. "Interesting choice..."
"Is it just me or is your sister getting more competitive?" Nova hissed in Luke's ear.
She wasn't wrong. Felicia had her fingers ready on the trigger of her Splattershot Jr. and stared at Koray with a stoic look on her face.
The sudden whining of unlocking mechanisms meant they were going to the arena. Each team turned around into their respective door, and began walking down the corridors, the door closing behind them.
"You all nervous?" Felicia asked them.
"Again, not my first turf war so no, I'm not." Brodie stated with slight irritability.
"Speak for yourself." Even as she said it Nova trembled with anticipation.
"Luke? How about you?"
"H-huh? Y-yeah I guess..." Luke looked away from the rest of them, lost in thought.
He heard Felicia sigh and start an explanation."Ok, the game's Turf Wars. Ink as much ground as possible, walls do not count."
He finally mustered up the courage to ask something.
"So sis, who's Koray?" Luke dared a glance at his sister who had gone completely silent.
"H-he's my teammate." she said. Luke noticed how she stumble on her words and then realized she had a faint blush.
Confused on her behavior, he asked ,"Why are you so embarrassed talking about your teammate?"
"Embarrassed?"She gave a nervous chuckle, the blush spreading throughout her face. I'm not embarrassed! Why would I be embarrassed about Koray?! It's not like I-Anyways back to what I was saying before that question came up."
Both Luke and Brodie continued to look at Felicia's strange behavior in confusion while Nova had a small blush of her own coupled with a grin.
'Girls can be so weird.' Luke thought to himself. No doubt Brodie was thinking something similar.
They reached the end of the hallway which had doors on their right side, each of them were closed and had a red colored light above them except for one that had a green light on above it.
"Ok, we're going through this one." At Felicia's lead, they went into the door, and once again, it closed behind them. "We need to try and stratagize this. I can try to track Koray and make sure he doesn't do too much damage but you'll have to worry about the others. The weapons they have are pretty strong too, the Splat Charger that girl had and the roller the cocky guy had are going to be your biggest threat weapon-wise."
"What about Koray and the other kid?" Nova inquired.
"Koray's weapon is stronger but it's not good for covering the ground, meaning he's probably their main offensive. You see him, try and get away and sneak attack him from a close vantage point, especially you two." she pointed at both Nova and Luke. "These weapon don't have much range on them in comparison to Koray's or Brodie's for that matter so Brodie you already have an advantage on us and that timid kid in terms of weapon choice too."
"Roger that." Brodie said with a goofy looking grin plastered on his face.
The reached a small, circular platform that was covered in blue ink at the end of this hallway.
"This is a special pad that helps you change your ink color." Felicia explained. "Turn into your squid form and it does the rest."
She walked on the pad and turned into a squid. Rapidly, her colored darkened into a blue identical to her brother's, Brodie followed her lead and the same thing happened to his tentacles. The two level one players shared quick glances at each other and got onto the pad as well, changing into squids like their higher level teammates. The pad suddenly rose upwards once they were all on it.
"I know Koray, he'll also be telling his team strategies about the stage once they get there so we have to worry about his plan." Felicia told them.
"That Tytus guy looks like a hot head, so we should try and use that to our advantage." Luke suggested. Felicia made a noise of confirmation.
"The charger is gonna be a small problem, but she shouldn't be too much of a hassle if you keep moving." Felicia continued. "The guy with the Splattershot Jr. looks like a newbie just like you two so you might be on an equal playing field with him."
They rose up into the arena: Urchin Underpass.
They turned into their humanoid forms a couple of moments after the pad stopped its movements
"Brodie have you played here before?" Felicia asked the dark-skinned squid.
"Nope I only played in Saltspray Rig and Walleye Warehouse, and even then, it was only once for each stage."
"Ready...!" Announced Judd, who was on the edge of the arena atop a wall with a megaphone.
"Alright then here's a strat tip: Use the side alleys and remember that are opponents have a weapon advantage as well as more experience. Good Luck everyone!"
"GO!"
Somebody New by Joywave
The group split up almost immediately. Luke, Nova, and Brodie had rushed off, inking the ground as they went while Felicia stayed behind to ink up their starting point.
Luke took the slope to the side alley while Nova went straight into the central area.
Only to get splatted by Tytus almost immediately.
"Yeah baby! Ty: one Blue Team: Nil!" he screamed in victory.
Unfortunately for him, his victory was short lived when he got blasted by Luke who was able sneak a splat through the grate.
Brodie and Felicia were following close behind so he went into the alley to ink it. At the end he spied Koray and the other kid nearly done inking the center area. He quietly aimed from the grating below him and fired at the nearest one which was Koray. Koray got hit three times before he managed to get out of Luke's range of fire and started firing back. Out of panic, Luke turned into a squid and fell into the orange teams' ink. He was stuck at the mercy of Koray .
"Not so fast Koray!" Felicia shouted, he looked in her direction before realizing his mistake. Luke pried himself free from the ink, while he was distracted and splatted Korey.
"Thanks sis!" he called called over to her as she leapt the gap.
"Keep your head in the game!" she shot back at him inking around the passage to the opposite team's base.
Over her head he noticed some movement in the enemies alley. An orange laser was trying to focus on her.
"Sis! To your left!" he called out to her. He quickly went back to inking the turf blue.
Felicia realized she was being targeted by the orange team's sniper and went to work. She deftly avoided Deborah's clumsy attempts to splat her and she turned the alley blue with a few quick shots to the wall below it and well placed shots into her enemy.
Luke dived into enemy territory, watching his step. He apparently had been spotted despite his caution, as he he was inking the orange teams slope he heard a cackle before he was promptly ambushed.
"Surprise, son of a squid!" Tytus bellowed from above him before getting squashed by the Splat Roller.
Luke respawned at the pad with a slight headache from his attacker's flanking. His bruise pains from earlier were starting to flare up from the exertion.
Luke began to sim back to the action when suddenly an orange wave of sound energy surrounded him. He took this as a sign to move and he darted away as quickly as possible. He sighed a small breath of relief as he missed the devastating sound waves of a Killer Wail.
He saw Koray and his sister locked in a firefight at the center area. Grinning slyly, he carefully advanced in squid form and when Koray got close enough...
SPLAT!
Felicia gave a brief nod of gratitude and the siblings advanced into enemy territory. They looked at Brodie and Nova firing back to back covering the area before them. They were immediately set upon by three orange team members.
"Gotcha again Newb!" Tytus shouted from above.
'Not this time!' Luke quickly swam away back into the center area trying to avoid the oncoming roller.
Felicia tried to run over to her brother's aid when the sudden force of shots drove themselves into her back, splatting her. Her flanker was smirking to himself in triumph.
Luke turned around when he was good distance from Tytus and began to shoot him while backing up, eventually forcing his attacker to literally give up the ghost. Panting heavily he swam back into the fray, the time had one minute remaining on the clock and the adrenaline began to numb his nerves and made his blood pulse in his ears. He went back in, splating Koray a second time and recovering the ground he had sprayed. He went up the ramps and joined his friends near the orange team base.
"We got 'em cornered now!" Brodie cheered.
10...
Brodie went up and tried to attack the new kid only to get splatted due to his ignorance of the shield that the pad had.
9...
The Splattershot Jr wielder rushed toward them in an attempt to splat them.
8...
Both Nova and Luke backed up. Nova took out the orange kid while doing so.
7...
Deborah respawned next. She aimed at Nova, who sunk into the ink below her.
6...
Deborah looked around for them by splatting the area as best she could.
5...
A well aimed shot gave her a shot at Nova who was instantly splatted.
4...
Tytus respawned and began taking some of the territory back with Deborah following his lead.
3...
Felicia splatted Tytus before he could go out into the main area. Luke silently followed Deborah into the alley that she had clambered up, inking carefully so that she didn't notice him.
2...
Deborah aimed her weapon at the back of Felicia's head, her target busy with a respawned Koray.
1...
SPLAT! SPLAT!
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Time was called both siblings looked at each other. The jumped up in joy and went back to the pad. When they were back on the pad, Judd counted the results.
BAM! A crushing defeat for Team Orange with a percentage of 13.6% while Team Blue had a score of 68.2%.
/ \
The Blue Team, with the exception of Felicia had exited the tower. She had stayed in to catch up with Koray for a ranked match. Or at least that's what she told them. Luke had gotten 558 coins, Nova had 556 coins, Brodie had 878 coins.
Suddenly Tytus came out of the tower, just as loud as he was when they were in tower and during the match, with Deborah in tow.
"You guys suck!" Tytus screamed furiously at them. "We could've easily won if you didn't have that pro player with you!"
"Dude, they were on the same Splatoon team before we even got here. They were probably equally skilled too." Nova flatly stated. "Even if that wasn't case that player that was with us was just Luke's sister."
"So what no one cares if-"
"TYTUS!" his companion shouted at him, silencing his complaints. She then turned to them, her cunning magenta eyes rested on Luke. "So that player was your sister?"
Luke nodded hesitantly.
"Impressive. Although, you all have skill yourself, both me and Tytus are level 3 players and this is the first match we've lost since we got here. So I have a proposition."
This piqued everyone's interest.
"How's about the five of us become a Splatoon. You can't officially become a Splatoon unless you have a minimum of 4 players."
"Wait a sec..." Brodie suddenly asked, "I thought Splatoons only consisted of 4 players."
"That's the minimum." Deborah repeated. "The maximum is 6 which serves as a..." she paused, twirling her finger in the air in an attempt to look for the right words to use. "Publicity team." She then walked up to him and wrapped a hand around his shoulder and whispered into his ear. "Do we have a deal?"
Luke looked over at Nova and Brodie who were looking at him with expectant eyes.
It was all up to him.
"You have a deal."
Deborah joyfully clapped her hand into the air, "Excellent! We can sort out the details tomorrow at the Catfish Cafe." She pointed at the restaurant that Luke had went to prior to the competition.
"Yeah! Not even the Death's Tide Splatoon can beat us now!" Tytus piped up.
The entire plaza went silent the moment he said that.
"Did someone just issue a challenge?" a male voice coolly asked.
Luke, Nova, and Brodie turned around to see the group of six that had exited the tower earlier walking up to them.
The pale one with the red-like magenta eyes was the one who was speaking,"Well, well, I haven't heard people actively challenging us in weeks. I was beginning to feel like nobody was up to turf wars against us."
Luke felt his body freeze up immediately. His friends seemed to be in a similar situation and they looked like lambs cornered by a pack of wolves.
"Aeolia." he called with a grin on his face. "Want to humor them with a game?"
The rest of the group parted for Aeolia, who slowly walked up to Luke. Recognition shocked him even more than before, his mouth, at this point, was gaping. It was the girl from before who was staring at him before.
"Fine with me." Her eyes locked into his once more, fire blazing within.
Thanks for the 1000 views, 8 follows, and 6 Reviews! This is a good milestone for me and I hope to get more. Reviews especially since this was the chapter that is debuting turf wars scenes and the musical suggestion (which I was giddy to get to anyways.)
Like I said above I want to know how I did with describing the turf war and hope it was a good start.
I also mention the music suggestions which are the sections that begin with the underlined bold italics and end with the squiggly. They're as the name states: suggestions for music to play during certain parts. I recommend it because: 1. Might be a song to consider for your playlist. 2. Usually tie in with the story in some fashion in terms of theme. (When it doesn't, it's because it felt perfect for the moment.)
One last thing before I'm done: These chapters are getting longer and longer. It's getting to the point where I had 12 pages in OpenOffice so I'm going to extend my chapter limit to 15 pages. So if you guys like longer chapters, it's your lucky day!
See ya soon and Staaay Fresh!
