Hello and welcome to the longest chapter I've ever written, being about four thousand words long.

I was forming a rivalry with Masked Mayhem's Dualies user. Whenever we saw each other, it became an unexpectedly intense fight for those extra few seconds on the battlefield. I still didn't know which one Dualies was. I only knew that Gemini was the Charger.

We made eye contact again, me and Dualies. They were on the Tower, and I was at spawn or whatever it was called.

Moray Towers was, in my humble opinion, not the best Tower Control stage. It all depended on who had the good Charger.

And in this case, it was Masked Mayhem.

I kicked off the wall, shooting myself forward as I fell straight for the Tower. Somehow, I splatted Dualies while in midair and landed in the little splash of ink I made. But as soon as I did, the Roller came out of nowhere and flattened me.

Yay.

Someone else took Dualies' place, and the tower kept sliding along, closer to their goal on our side. Another swam up the nearby wall, and as they leapt out of it, they opened fire, catching both Eileen and Jacob in the volley.

And with that, they won. Another knockout. Again.

Unsurprised, I jumped to the spawn point. When I landed, I saw four squid shaped silhouettes in the distance, all flying away in the same direction. Masked Mayhem just left the battlefield instead of returning to the lobby.

Of course, they didn't have to return. The system already had the match results, so it didn't care where they were.

As far as I knew, they still had a perfect win streak. The best advantage they had was what I assumed was communication. They didn't talk or anything mid-battle, it was like they could read each other's minds.

It couldn't be headsets, their ears were all bare, and that was illegal, anyway. That was the main way I could tell they were all Inklings; their pointed ears were a dead giveaway.

I climbed out of the camera lens floor thing back into the cleanest lobby in the building. That wasn't saying much, though. There were still weird clumps of dirt in the corners and extra spray paint on the walls.

"There's no way..." Eileen said. She had one hand on her head and a wide-eyed look that told me she realized... something. "I feel like I've fought them before..."

Before saying anything, I shot a glance at Jacob. He looked just as confused as I was, so no, this wasn't an Octrope thing.

Eileen looked up at me, dropping her hand back down. "N-no, forget it. It's nothing."

My phone said it was five minutes until midnight, so I didn't have time to press her. "Fine. Uh, I gotta go now. Uh. See you."

"Bye," Jacob muttered. He was still looking suspiciously at Eileen, who was trying her best to look natural. It wasn't working. She was fidgeting a lot.

I suppressed a grin, then backed out of the lobby.

That's Eileen, I thought. Amazing...

From the bench, the stars were pretty much the same as they were the night before. Not in position, but in quality. Not as good as from the forest, but better than Inkopolis Square.

I couldn't get what Eileen said out of my mind. Why did it take her this many matches to feel that? She said she felt like she'd fought Masked Mayhem before, and judging by the reaction, it wasn't from a previous battle with them.

But for some reason, I felt the same way, but only about Dualies. There was something familiar about their fighting style. They really liked to kick off of walls.

I checked my phone again. Rose was running late. Somehow, I wasn't surprised. I guess she struck me as the kind of person to do that.

Sighing boredly, I dropped my phone back into my pocket and fell into the bench.

The jewel of the sky — the moon — was full. I still didn't know why there was a moon cycle, but it seemed to add another layer of prettiness to the scene. Even when it wasn't there, it would reappear again. The moon was reliable. Every month, it would be full again, then disappear like it was never there to begin with.

I looked down at the ocean. The reflection of everything was there, too, but it wavered in the constant motion. Sure, the sea was nice, too, but it couldn't compare to the static image above me. I smiled faintly at the sky.

A boat's horn caught my attention. On the other side of the bridge was a small ship that looked run-down and neglected. There was a torn umbrella on the back, and several areas needed repainting.

The weirdest part was that it had the Grizzco logo on it, painted on one part of what was left of the umbrella.

It took me a while, but when it halfway across, I suddenly realized the boat was coming to me. The horn sounded again, and it swayed violently to one side. When it righted itself again, it kept going.

That wasn't Rose, was it?

Of course it was, who else would be in there?

As the boat chugged right next to the bench, it dropped an anchor on its far side. Another piece of the umbrella fell off and rode the breeze out to the ocean.

A door on it's near side slammed open, and who would it be other than Rose?

She looked up frantically. "Yes, it's clear!" Then she looked up at me standing, confused about the boat. "Uh, I mean, ta-da!" She jumped to the front of the boat and held her arms out, as if she was presenting it to me as a gift.

I stared at her. She was waiting for me to react. "I'm not... sure what you're trying to do," I admitted.

"Get in the boat. Please," she said playfully. She was still smiling, which didn't do much to help the really creepy thing she just said. Whatever she was planning, she was excited about it.

I could appreciate the ocean, but that didn't mean I liked being on it. Every time it did as little as shake, I had this weird feeling that another murder statue would rise out of it and start blasting everything again.

"Sorry about the really bad ship I brought," Rose apologized. She was in front of the controls, facing away from me. "But One and Two wouldn't let me use their yachts, and this is best thing I own."

"O-Okay," I stammered from behind her, on a long seat in the back. "H-hey, there isn't anything dangerous about this, right?"

"Nope!" she sang. "Captain Jaqueline has it all under control!"

I stared at the back of her head. Didn't she just say-

"Wait, no. I'm not a captain. Don't start calling me captain, please."

Yeah. That. "Got it..."

I fumbled around to pull the communicator out of my pocket. I wanted to tell her I used to be Agent 8, but it feel right to say it right then.

Since I couldn't see anything outside from where I was, I took to unlocking the communicator. Rose couldn't see it, she was focused on the water.

But p there was nothing to do on it other than reread things I already knew about, so I shoved it back in my pocket, next to the phone.

"Wanna know how I got this rust bucket of a boat?" Rose chimed. She hit another button and spun around in her own seat. I still didn't know what any of the controls did, so maybe that was the autopilot button.

Rust bucket. How reassuring.

The boat kept moving forward. I was almost positive she was breaking some water safety law... or something. "Sure," I murmured.

She smiled even wider. "Alright, so one day the captain — not me, alright? — asked me, One, and Two to raid Grizzco, 'cause at the time, that Akash dude ran it, remember him? So basically we all went in, pretended to be there for Salmon Run, but he knew that we weren't there for that, so he took all of us to some tiny island and attacked us using this ship right here." Her hands were flying everywhere as she invented hand signals for everything she was saying.

"I lured a few missiles towards another boat, and that lowered the shield on this one. Two used a Splashdown on the deck and broke every weapon on it. Octarians still run Grizzco, but none of them are like, evil. It turned out that the weapons were for emergency defense if the Salmon Run goes really bad.

"And there's no cheap way to fix the weapons, so they just gave me this one. All of the actual movement and floating things still work, so I use it from time to time."

I shifted in my seat. We were on NSS talk again. Everything she just said was under the assumption I didn't know a thing about it. "How often do you mean by 'time to time?'"

She whirled back around to look back at the controls. "...this is my second time using it. The first being to get back to shore after Two ripped everything apart."

"How do you talk with each other? Like, now. If something was to attack the ship, how would you get the message out to the rest of the team?"

Somehow, I could sense that Rose's face lit up from the other side of her head. "Glad you asked! Geez, I should like Sheldon... I'd use this thing! 'Course, if something attacked us out here, we'd be utterly screwed, but don't worry about that." From her own pocket, she retrieved a small, phone-like rectangle. There it was. Her own communicator.

After showing me that brief glance, she dropped it back in. She was still facing the water, so I reached for my own.

Rose continued on about the possibility of something attacking. "The only thing that could attack out here is the Piranha, but that's been missing for-"

"Hey," I said through the speaker on the communicator. "I have one, too."

I watched as Rose tensed in front of me. She came to the realization that she just heard my voice, again, but from a different direction.

And again, she fumbled her hand around in her pocket before almost accidentally throwing the communicator backwards. From where I was, I could only see a white "8" on a black background on the screen.

"Y- You're Eight!?" she yelped, staring at the screen with disbelief. "That's been bugging me for ages!"

"N-not anymore," I blurted. "I'm not... Eight... or whatever."

"Okay!" she continued, turning to face me again. "But still! That was you the whole time! Three said... Three never told me that part! So if you're... were... Eight, then... actually, this doesn't change much, does it? There's no Five, or Six, or Seven..."

It did not change much. She could talk freely about NSS business to me, but she was already doing that.

Somehow, I did not regret saying that. I'd been avoiding attention for half a year, but Rose's reaction felt nice. I knew she wasn't going to turn me in.

Not that there was anyone left to turn me in to. Octavio's been pretty much gone since the Flash.

"It was only a title your captain gave me," I said. "I got rid of it later. He really likes to say 'Agent.'"

"Tell me about it," Rose sighed. I did not tell her about it.

I left the room in silence and kept her to herself so she could process the whole "Sky being Eight before" thing. I drifted back into my own mind. I tended to do that when it was quiet.

I wonder what Eileen and Jacob are doing.

My life had been crazy, even ignoring everything that might have happened before the six month cutoff. Literally the first substantial thing I could remember was shooting an NSS member. Then I spent, like, three or four weeks trapped in a subway with the NSS, apparently saved the world, then... for the most part, the next few months were pretty normal.

Then the Flash happened, then Sharktown... all with the NSS playing huge roles. And then Annie became Eileen... while an NSS member was there.

Ugh.

I tried to cut ties with them, but it looked like I'd failed. I didn't mind spending time with Rose, though, because apparently she and Agent 4 were different people. Metaphorically, of course.

"Just to be clear, you named yourself, right?" Rose asked, looking over her shoulder. Her pink hair whipped the air.

That was a weird way to put it, but it was true. "Yeah?" I said questioningly.

"Perfect," she said. "Give me a sec."

I felt the momentum change. I couldn't see it, but the boat was slowing down.

"Sorry," Rose said again. "This thing stops really weirdly."

I didn't feel a thing out of the ordinary. But this was the first ship I'd been on.

"Alright, give me another second." She shut off the boat entirely, turning off the lights as well. I think she left one thing on, though, but it was probably the balance weights.

Rose hopped off of her seat and went to the door leading outside. She opened it, left, then closed it. For a short moment, I could hear the gentle breeze and the waves.

The ocean didn't exist underground either. Neither did natural wind.

I still didn't know what she was doing, taking me all the way out here. At that point, I kind of just accepted that she was trying to impress me with something.

The side door opened again, and Rose peeked her head in. "Close your eyes," she whispered.

I chose to humor her. I did as she asked, shutting my eyes silently. I felt her grab my wrist and lead me outside.

As I crossed the doorframe, the wind started hitting the side of my face. The waves got louder, and the gentle tipping of the boat seemed a bit less gentle.

But with her leading me, I felt fine.

Slowly, she pulled me somewhere else. It reminded me of the day before, when she took me to the bench, but this time, it was a lot more peaceful, and I couldn't see.

The air felt fresh out in the ocean. I was in an open area, I could tell. The air was cool, but not too chilly.

"You're already tilting your head back," she whispered. Saying anything louder than that would feel wrong, breaking the serenity of the open air. "Eh, it's fine. Look up."

I took a deep breath. I don't know what I expected. I don't know what I was supposed to expect. Why, at midnight, did I let her take me to the middle of the ocean?

The light swaying of the ship became more relaxing. The breeze weakened, got a bit quieter, and the lapping of the waves, a bit louder. Before I opened my eyes, I took a moment to appreciate the sounds. Even if I was blind, I could still get something out of this trip. I don't know what I was doing, hesitating and leaving the surprise for later.

By then, I knew that Rose brought me here to look at the sky. Maybe even some stargazing. It just... I don't know. I needed to feel ready. I wasn't surely how exactly it would look. What would change? Does it look similar at all? Or completely different?

Once more, I took a deep breath. Rose wasn't pressing me to go ahead, but eventually, I did. Opened my eyes. Except I was looking at the deck.

She was standing next to me, weight on one leg. She was facing forward herself, maybe didn't even know I wasn't staring upwards with her. One last time, I took another breath.

And when I looked up, the sky seemed to look back.

I don't blame any Octoling for keeping me — the old me — from this. If there was one thing that I was sure didn't change with the memory suppression, it was my admiration of the night sky.

But the old me never knew that if she looked up on the surface, this is what she'd see. I don't think anyone did. Any Octoling, that is. Travel between Kettles was strictly forbidden at night unless it was for a mission, and even during the day, only the elites could. The elites, and Octavio.

He must've seen the night sky. I wondered if he knew it was better from the ocean, with the open air and the waves. I wondered if Eileen did. She must like it too, right? The sky, after a childhood spent with a never ending ceiling.

Unlike her, though, I had the freedom to change my name. Freedom. Knowing nothing set me free from the past.

Everything around me seemed to fall away, even myself. All that was left was a pair of eyes and the distant glimmer of stars.

There were more of them. Stars. Why were there more? The blanket seemed fuller, there were stars everywhere. There were the ones that were always there, the brightest ones, but there were smaller, dimmer stars scattered between them. Like they were holding it together. Like a web.

There was one part I couldn't stop focusing on, the part that looked like a scar, a weird cut or tear in the sky. I couldn't tell if there were just a bunch of stars there, or some odd illusion, or something else entirely. That was never there before, was it? That purplish fade, full of tiny dots of light.

This, I could tell, was completely new.

I realized I was holding my breath, out of fear that the slightest touch would shatter the image forever. Reality rebuilt itself around me. I was still standing on the deck, the boat was still rocking, Rose was next to me. I slowly exhaled.

"Is it always like this?" I asked Rose, still in a whisper. "Out here..."

Rose turned to look at me, but I kept looking up. "Pretty much," she said. "Not only here. Anywhere without any other lights around would have the same look."

That, I didn't know, but I couldn't process her answer. My mind was preoccupied. I breathed out as a response.

I didn't know what I was feeling. It wasn't happiness, fear, anything I could identify. Awe, maybe. Just awe. For a few more minutes, I stood there in silence, swaying forward and back with the ship.

Then Rose started telling me another story. "Recently, I found some ancient human records underground," she said. "I don't know how they lasted this long, but there were audio files, too. It's all saved on Three's computer."

I nodded lightly.

"Nobody's ever found something like this before," she laughed to herself quietly. "The humans saw patterns in the stars," she whispered, just barely louder than the wind. I nodded, but kept my eyes facing up. "Sit down, lemme show you something."

I didn't want to sit down. That would take me ever so slightly farther from the sky.

But no, that's nothing, I told myself. It's no distance at all.

Hesitantly, I took a step back on the deck, kneeled, then sat. Rose was already down, using one hand behind her to support herself. The other was on her lap. She was facing the other direction, away from the scar, so I turned around to face the same way.

She took that free hand and pulled us together. Our faces were really close, our heads were touching. I pulled my hair to the side so she wouldn't have to deal with it.

"See that really bright one there?" she whispered, pointing at a star. It was so bright, I found it immediately. "The humans called that one Polaris... or the North Star." She started to trace her finger away from the star in a curved motion, stopping for a short moment whenever she hit another. It ended with a cup-like figure on the other end. "They called that shape Ursa Minor," she finished.

Polaris. Ursa Minor.

The names sounded foreign, but in a specific way I felt like I'd heard before. The thought slipped away before I could pursue it.

This was not what I had envisioned this outing to end up like. But I was enjoying it, a lot. Tracing the stars was a different way of looking up. It was more methodical, more focused. It gave each cluster its own meaning.

Rose laughed again. "Congratulations, you're one of the six people on the planet to know that. Here, turn around. I'll show you another one," she let go of me, letting me spin around with her.

I said nothing. I didn't think there was anything to say. Right now, she was the teacher, and I was the student. How long had it been since I was taught anything?

Again, she pulled us together, and I pulled my hair the other way.

"That big red one, they called it Antares." It was near the scar, a red dot whole worlds away. "This one's a bit more complicated. There's one claw here..." She drew another path with her finger, going to one star, then another, and then one more. "And another here..." Then she did it again, also from the red star. Antares, was it?

For once in my life, I found myself only looking at one part of the sky at a time. Before then, I always darted between stars or clouds, or let go of my focus so I could look at it all at once. Like I said, each cluster had its own meaning, its own name, its own significance.

I was right when I thought of it as a web, with smaller stars holding the brighter ones together.

"And then a tail," Rose continued. From Antares, she traced a hook-like shape that reached into the scar. "That one's called..." She trailed off. For a moment, she pulled her hand back. The finger she was using to paint the path fell. "It's called... Scorpius. Sometimes, Scorpio."

Antares, I repeated in my mind. Scorpio...

That was enough for me to tear myself away from the stars and stare at Rose. I couldn't see her, only her silhouette. "Scorpio..."

"Y'know. I guess that was their word for 'scorpion,' right?" Her voice, as quiet as it was, still told me what she was hiding.

I was one of the six people to know these few things, huh? The four from the NSS, their captain, and me.

And Scorpio...

"Is that you?" I asked. Why I needed to ask, I don't know. "Dualies?"

"Is that what you call me? Dualies? It's Scorpio." We still weren't getting any louder than a whisper. "Two claws? Get it?"

Eileen felt like she'd fought them before. She was right. She had.

And I had fought Rose before, or Scorpio, or Agent 4, whatever it was. In the training camp after the Flash, we had sparred several times as practice.

The revelation that Rose was Scorpio — and by extension, the NSS was Masked Mayhem — didn't surprise me as much as it really should have. Between Annie being Eileen and that, the Eileen part was more... jarring. At the time, of course.

It all went back to who knew who was who.

"You really like to kick off walls," I told her.

"It works, doesn't it?" Even in the darkness, I could tell she was flashing one of her signature smiles.

"I'll find a counter to that eventually..."

"Don't you want me to point out more of these?" Rose said. Because of course she was changing the subject.

I knew that, and yet I sill agreed.

Gemini, Leo, Taurus.

And Scorpio.

Which one was Gemini? It wasn't Agent 3, I knew he used regular shooters. So that made him Leo.

Gemini was the Charger, and Taurus was the Roller. One of them was Agent 1, the other Agent 2. I still didn't know which was which.

But they weren't here, so they didn't matter. Scorpio wasn't here, either. Just Rose and me, staring at the stars.

"That one's called Ursa Major," she whispered. That one was really complex.

What if I was one of these patterns? Did humans ever see something like me up there?

No... I wouldn't be one pattern. I'm Sky, I'm the sky. Scarred but healed, incomplete but complete. Yeah, that sounds right.

"Sky. My name is Sky..." I whispered to myself, so quietly that even Rose didn't hear.

Nothing else felt right.

Remember that chapter with the protest that ended up being longer than I anticipated? Yeah, so this chapter is that, but even more so.

Makes sense, since I've wanted to write this one for ages.

But can you guys believe I've never actually seen the night sky without any light pollution? And I still tried to write about it? I need to get on that sometime.

Anyway, one last thing. Another hiatus... sorry.

I need to get on my other story's rewriting and get the future plot straightened out for this one. Don't know how long this hiatus is gonna last...

But I'll be back, I promise.