[Before we begin, this story is not my idea. This was started by a fellow SMG4 and Splatoon fan named Master Perry Martin aka Pez Dispenser, who has a very interesting imagination and has written some fine fanfics such as 'A Leg To Stand On'. He was unable to continue this story due to his frustrations with SMG4, I have volunteered to write the rest of the story for him, but I am also editing the tale as I go. This is just the first chapter, the others will be up soon. Master Perry Martin, thank you for permitting me to edit, revise and complete the tale for you. End Note...]


Chapter One:

A Tragic Accident

This was it.

After months of training and many sleepless nights, after sharing many hugs with her friends, after shedding many tears of grief, after staring at Splatfest videos on her phone; it was the final Splatfest and Meggy Spletzer was ready.

The past few years had been a blur of epic proportions; meeting Mario, losing their first Splatfest, meeting Axol, losing her old rival to a crazy chameleon bent on having his own island full of disgusting filth and becoming human.

She'd gone over the events of Anime Island many times along with her Splatfest losses and was sort of bored of it by now. Meggy just wanted to end the hurting and do what she always wanted to do; win the Splatfest and take that coveted trophy home.

It was the final round of the tournament and it had been an amazing Splatfest so far. Meggy had fought hard to get here and she couldn't have succeeded without her friends on Team SplatSquad, the dim-witted Mario, his cowardly brother Luigi and the cyborg gamer girl Tari.

It had taken a great deal of training, but the quartet were molded into a force to be reckoned with.

Plus, they had help from an old professor with a board that emulated the powers of an Inkling and allowed them to swim through ink.

No one could stand in their way, except for their final opponents; Team Killer Ink, those guys were snotty, oppressive and were discriminatory towards humans and they would stop at nothing to win the tournament.

And all throughout the Splatfest, they'd played dirty and had knocked Meggy's team around, their leader had tried to kill her during the first round as well. Meggy was even certain they were using illegally tuned weapons, if only she knew how desperate they could be.

Jumping and weaving through the blue streams of enemy ink, Meggy closed in on one of the Killer Ink members; the Thug wearing a camo jacket and sunglasses.

Meggy ducked a blast from their weapon and fired orange ink from her Splattershot, her shot struck the cyan blue Inkling boy and he exploded with his angry soul floating back to the spawning pad.

Meggy took the chance while she had it and inked the mid-point of the map, coating it in a wonderful citrus-y color of orange. Up above came the voices of the tournament's hosts overlooking the arena; Callie and Marie of the Squid Sisters, Callie was the first to speak in her energetic tone.

"Alright, folks, this match has been red hot!" She proclaimed, "We're entering the final minute of the match!"

"Indeed." Came the calm and drier voice of Marie, "This has been a close match between the SplatSquad and Killer Ink. It's come down to this!"

"Looking at the turf map, it's neck-a-neck!" Callie continued, "The SplatSquad is trailing slightly behind with the ink coverage. Both bases are super-turfed, but TKI has the lead on their base and mid-point! The SplatSquad will have to push forward if they wanna take this!"

Meggy stopped, she was right, it was down to a do-or-die scenario by now.

She had two options; Stay here and slowly push toward or launch an all-or-nothing attack on their base.

Meggy began to sweat as she thought hard about her plan, heart pounding in her chest. The clock was ticking, the seconds were running out...

"You heard her, Meggy..."

She snapped out of her panicked trance by a voice to her side. Meggy turned to see Tari, the cyborg's face was filled with worry.

"What do we do?" The blue-haired gamer asked.

"Yeah, do we stay or go?" Luigi chimed in; his voice seemed to waver a little.

Mario, his face twisted into the same rictus grin it tended to be, gave Meggy a thumbs up, "Mario will-a support you no matter what"

Meggy smiled warmly, "I know, Red."

She placed a hand on her chin to think, then an idea struck and Meggy turned to Tari. "Okay, Tari, hang back at the mid-point and make sure that nobody tries to take back our turf." The beanie-wearing human told the cyborg, "Turn 'em back or turn 'em to paint."

Tari saluted and began circling the area, scanning the scenery with her blaster. Meggy then turned to the Mario Brothers, starting with Luigi.

"Luigi..." Meggy said, "I need you on the less-traveled paths, make sure every last corner of the warehouse is orange, no gaps! You build up your special move and hammer 'em where it hurts." Luigi nodded and set off toward the back routes, then Meggy turned to Mario, "And, Red, smash!"

Mario gave off a wide grin, "Oh, boy! Mario's going to kill a kid!" He hurried off.

"Alright, let's GO!" Meggy screamed, she reared up on her Ink Boi and zoomed into the fray. The seconds ticked down further and further as she skidded across the ink.

She had to admit, she had an... unfair advantage, being able to travel across enemy ink. But it was the last minute, there was no time for Meggy to argue rules. She zoomed across the ink, training her Splattershot on targets and terrain alike. Orange ink screamed out of the barrel, covering the ground in more of her color.

Meggy managed to splat one of the Killer Ink members on the way, the other two fell to a blast from Luigi's special attack and another was torn asunder by Mario. She was so close to the base, but just then...

"Get the hell off my turf!"

BLAM! Meggy's Ink Boi exploded under her feet! She screamed and tumbled head over heels, collapsing in the middle of Killer Ink turf near their Spawning Pad.

"Aagh! What the..." she grumbled, looking up at the cause for her tumble. She scowled at the white jacket and red boots of the cyan Inkling hovered into view, "You..."

"Ape-brained Ape," Leader growled back, twirling her .52 Gal in her hands. She leaned over Meggy and smirked evilly, "You ready to lose, kiddo? 'Cause I ain't letting some smelly chimp walk away with MY trophy."

Meggy got back up. After all of the discrimination, sneering, mockery and hatred from these guys, she was ready to knock them down a peg and assumed a combat stance.

"Bring it on, you discriminating Inkling bitch!" She said with disdain in her voice.

Meggy opened fire with her Splattershot, her opponent ducked and weaved around the stream, getting closer to Meggy. The Leader took a deft swing at the former Inkling with the stock of her weapon, Meggy dodged and answered with a swift strike from the bent iron feeding tube of her weapon and bashed Leader in the nose.

The Cyan Inkling jumped back a few feet and dabbed at the small stream of ink running out of her nose.

Leader growled like a wild animal and threw her weapon aside, letting herself tank the shots Meggy threw her way before. With strength unheard of from an Inkling, she batted Meggy's weapon aside and delivered the mother of all kicks to her chest.

Meggy stumbled backwards from the immense blow, clutching her chest in pain as she took many steps backward until she ran out of room. "W-Whoa!" Meggy yelped deftly and tumbled off of the platform...

...Right onto the edge of the shipping container below her.

A loud crack resonated through the entire arena. Tari's heart jumped out of her throat, having seen Meggy slam into the container's edge neck-first. The former Inkling tumbled to the floor and lay still, eerily still.

"Wow, this is certainly an interesting match!" Callie exclaimed excitedly, "It looks like some red ink has gotten into the fray!"

"Wait. What the...OH MY COD!" Marie screamed. The white-haired Inkling pressed a button on her intercom; "Stop the match, stop the match RIGHT NOW!"

The timer stopped, but at what time was anybody's guess, no-one bothered to look. All eyes were now on the crumpled human, huddled at the bottom the Killer Inks' spawn. Before long, medical experts (some of the weird jelly octopus-types) were upon Meggy, and inspecting her closely and gently.

Tari rushed over to look at her friend. Meggy's body was limp. and her head was...her head was...no human could have their head THAT far back.

"MEGGY!" Tari screamed.

She tried to get as close as she could, one of the jellyfish medics stood and blocked her path. Tari couldn't go further, the cyborg's heart hammered in her chest; her fear at the possibility was overwhelming. Tari asked at a low volume, keeping her voice down as low as possible, "Is she...?"

The jellyfish looked over to his colleagues, one of which looked up and shook his head. The jellyfish turned back to her.

"I'm sorry, ma'am." He said, "She's... She's dead."

Time crawled to a standstill, freezing around Tari. The cyborg felt things she'd never, ever felt before. She dropped to her knees and stared at the floor, a look of anguish in her eyes.

The other members of each team realized what was going on and stopped splatting, the other members of Killer Ink, who'd already respawned during the incident, stood by their leader's side.

Mario and Luigi came running, catching up to Tari. Even with his limited intelligence, Mario knew something was wrong. He pushed past the medics and looked at the body, his eyes filled with shock.

"M-Meggy...?" He said fearfully.

The opposing team gazed down at the scene from atop the nearest platform. Meggy's eyes were wide open, her body was lifeless, except for the odd spasm of a limb. The Killer Ink Commando, turned to The Leader with a look of horror in his golden eyes. "Great squid, boss." He said, "I think you just killed her."

"I...? I did?" The Leader stared dumbfounded at her hands. She continued to look upon Meggy's lifeless body and all was silent as the scene set in for everyone. Then...

"HA!" The nasty Inkling laughed victoriously, she hopped off the platform and danced around the distraught SplatSquad and Meggy's corpse, "HA HA HA! Wow, they just don't make humans like us, do they? Done in by a small fall! What a... OOF!"

Mario angrily pounced on The Leader, pinning her to the ground. He punched her in the face, beating her senselessly and head-butts flew everywhere with tears in the plumbers' eyes. "YOU KILLED-A MY FRIEND, YOU SONS OF A BITCHES!" Mario screamed. He kept beating The Leader until Luigi had to intervene.

"Bro, it's not worth it!" Luigi wept, trying desperately to pull him off of Leader, "Get off, Mario!"

Tari wasn't looking, neither was she listening. The world had gone grey and dark.

She didn't see the paramedics leave to get a stretcher.

She didn't hear the Squid Sisters, who were horribly shocked as well, announce that finals were cancelled and neither did she see an Agent clad in yellow and black subdue and handcuff The Leader before dragging her and the rest of Killer Ink to parts elsewhere.

All the cyborg focused on was Meggy's corpse. As the world erupted into chaos around her, she crawled over to the body, embraced it tightly, and sobbed like the world wasn't watching...