Splatoon: Number's Game
Chapter 15
The ship pulled into the harbor. Alex and the other members of his crew got out and made their way back into Grizzco HQ. Usually, Alex liked to make conversation with the other crew members, but these octolings were pretty much mute throughout the whole shift.
Alex thought it was weird, but he remembered 8 and how she acted, so he gave them a pass. Besides, his mind was more focused on the phone call he needed to make. So as soon as he changed out of his hazmat suit back into his baggy shirt and joggers, he made the call.
"Hello? Alex?" Marina's voice answered after a bit.
"Hi! Yes, hey, Marina, it's me. You doing okay?" He asked.
"Yes, I'm doing well. Are you alright? You sound out of breath."
"Yeah, no, I'm good. I just got back from pulling some late night salmon runs." He explained.
"Yikes! That had to have been a lot at this time of night." She acknowledged.
"Haha, yes, but I'm used to it. Anyways, I wanted to call and give you an update. We got some, uh, new intel on those metal casings we found." He began. As he talked, he made his way out of Grizzco towards the subway station.
"Oh good! I was trying to look into the old files I have saved in the backlogs, but nothing popped up. Whatchu got?" She asked.
"Apparently they're these things called bullets? I don't know, the old man said that they're these piercing rounds. They were used for killing." He explained as he made his way down the steps.
"Goodness! That's insane! Who would ever think those little things could be so deadly? How do they work?" She questioned.
"Apparently you fire them out of a gun. They're like our ink guns, but you load em up with those things instead. Sounds really weird to me. Like, how do you recharge?" He mused.
"I don't know. But if they're really as bad as your guy says, we'll need to figure out what the octolings are preparing to do with them and fast. We don't want to anyone to get hurt." Marina said worriedly.
"I agree completely. Listen, if at some point you could text me your addy, our squad can meet at your place and start figuring out what to do. We'll set a date and stuff." He offered.
"Okay. Yeah, sure, that's fine. I'll text it to you now. Be careful, Alex."
"I will. Okay. Talk to you soon." He said.
"Bye." She hung up the phone.
Alex sighed and put the phone back in his pocket. Under better circumstances, he'd be pretty psyched about having Marina's number on his phone. But since things were how they were, he was totally stressed.
He couldn't shake the feeling that something seriously bad was coming.
His subway train finally arrived at the station. Alex put his headphones over his ears as he stepped onto the train, resting his hands in his pockets and having a seat. Since it was so late at night, the train was relatively empty.
Alex opened up his phone to pick a song to play. He saw that Marina had sent her address. He also saw a text from Evan letting him know that he was waiting at his stop. Alex nodded, replied to both messages, and then put his phone back into his pocket.
Alex crossed one foot over the other, minding his own business as a few more people got on the train. The doors soon closed and the train continued moving. Alex folded his hands in his lap and twiddled his thumbs, letting his music calm him somewhat.
The lights started flickering in the subway car as they often did. It was enough to get Alex's head to lift up. When he did, he noticed that there were three octolings, two to his left and one to his right, beginning to walk towards the middle where he was sitting.
Two octoling boys, one girl. All three of them wore leather clothing and shades. At first, Alex wasn't going to do anything about it, but then he noticed that there was a red glow in the lens of each of their sunglasses.
Just like Callie…
Alex quickly got to his feet, reaching for his N-Zap. The octoling boy to his left quickly jumped at him, grabbing his arms and trying to restrain him. Alex dropped down into squid form before popping back up and knocking him to the ground with a quick push.
The octoling pulled out a single dualie with tape wrapped around the front. Alex quickly shot at her and jumped to the side as she shot at him. Instead of paint, each shot rang out with a loud bang! Alex yelped, hearing the shots through his headphones.
He quickly shot a trail up the wall of the train and onto the ceiling. The girl continued taking shots at him, and the other octoling boy fired his regular ink-shooting Aerospray at him. Alex swam up the wall to avoid the shots.
The ink that he shot onto the ceiling began to trickle down onto the octoling girl, stinging her skin and throwing her off. Alex quickly jumped out of the wall, throwing a bomb at her. The girl quickly turned to run away, diving to the ground as it exploded.
Alex turned around just in time to be punched in the face by the first octoling boy. Alex stumbled back then slid his foot back to avoid a second punch. He shot ink into the octoling's foot then whipped him with his N-Zap.
The other octoling boy began to shoot his ink at him. A few shots hit Alex, making him stumble back in pain. He growled and fired some ink back at him, kicking the first octoling boy at the same time. Since he had a longer range with his N-Zap, the octoling with the Aerospray was forced to step back.
Alex ducked under another punch from the first octoling, shoving the barrel of his N-Zap into his stomach. As the octoling doubled over, Alex fired enough shots to splat him. As his ink exploded all over the inside of the train, Alex ducked down into squid form to recharge his gun.
The octoling with the Aerospray began to shoot at him again. Alex quickly swam forward and popped back out, taking his N-Zap with both hands. As they shot at each other, Alex jumped onto the seats of the train to get more range on him.
The other octoling backed into the wall of the train and took all of Alex's shots. He too was quickly splatted. Alex jumped off the seats to the middle of the train car, breathing heavily. He then remembered that there was one more octoling and turned to his left.
Another loud bang rang out. Alex was struck in the left shoulder. He fell to the ground and his headphones were shaken off his ears. He groaned out in sharp pain and watched as this octoling approached her with her gun in hand.
"Wait wait hold on, please." Alex huffed, trying to back up.
The girl remained expressionless as she aimed her gun at him. Alex swallowed and closed his eyes. However, instead of a loud bang, all he heard were clicking sounds. He opened his eyes and realized that her gun was out of ammo.
"Looks like you're out." Alex said, quickly going back into attack mode.
He scooted forward and kicked the girl's feet out from under her. She fell on top of him and quickly began clawing at his face. He grunted in pain as he tried to push her off with his right hand, barely able to reach behind him with his other arm.
"Say hi to your friends when you get back to your spawn point." Alex quipped through gritted teeth, finally pulling out another bomb. He grabbed her by the shirt as the bomb quickly began to beep.
Instantly, the girl was splatted and disappeared. Alex, seething in pain and covered in his own ink, laid his head back tiredly. The train stopped at its next station: his stop. He groaned and tried his best to pull himself to his feet with his other hand.
As Alex hobbled out of the train with his gun still in his hand, his eyes began to blur from his tears. This concentrated pain that he was in was unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. He limped up the stairs, growling in pain.
"Alex? Alex?! Alex! Holy crud, dude, what happened?!" Evan exclaimed, seeing him and hurriedly rushing to him. He grabbed him by the arm.
"Ahh! Don't touch me there, dude! Ow!" Alex yelped. Evan quickly pulled his hand back.
"What happened?!" He asked again.
"I-I've been shot." He answered, holstering his N-Zap. He reached over with his right hand and felt where the injury was. He hissed in pain and drew his hand back.
There was blood on his hand.
"O-Oh crap, dude! How did that happen?!"
"I need you to help me get to my car. I have first aid in the trunk. Come on." Alex urged him, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. Evan helped him along, his eyes wide in shock.
"We need to get you to the hospital pronto, dude!"
"No. No, we can't. It's not safe there." Alex shook his head.
"Not safe?! Alex, what's going on?!" Evan demanded.
"Please, we'll get to that. We just need to get to my car first. I need you to drive me somewhere." Alex insisted.
"You want me to drive…?" Evan asked. Alex never let anyone drive his car.
"Yeah. Quickly." Alex urged once more, his voice straining from the pain of his injury…