Chapter 4

Oven-baked Inkling

Somewhere deep within Cephalon HQ…

She hadn't had any idea how long she'd been there. At some point, all the days she'd spent stuck in the small metal cell had started to just blend together. Had she been there for months? Or years? Either way, she'd stopped thinking of ways to escape a long time ago. It would be virtually impossible for her to get out of there due to the solid steel walls on all sides, with no way for her to slip though with her octopus form. Her only hope of getting out would be if her jailers let her out. Even if she'd managed to get out of the cell, she'll soon be hopelessly lost in the maze of dark metal corridors she had no idea how to navigate. All for what? Why was she even here? Because she got smeared into a pink puddle by that Inkling agent?

The metal room, of course, gave her no answer.

Before long, she found herself humming the beat to that song again. It's been stuck in her head since the moment she re-formed back at base after being splatted. No matter how hard she tried to forget it, she couldn't.

Not only that, but ever since she heard that song, she'd been having strange thoughts. Thoughts that could possibly get her killed if she ever let them out of her head. Treasonous thoughts.

At first it didn't seem like much. It was normal for a soldier to question orders in hindsight from time to time, right? She had free will, that'll happen. But it didn't stop at just that. As time went on, she asked herself more and more hard questions.

What was the point of stealing those stupid Zapfish anyway…? Life didn't get any better… All it did was bring Agent 3 and the New Squidbeak Splatoon down on us…

"...What did that song do to me…?" She asked herself for what seemed like the thousandth time. Shaking off these intrusive thoughts became harder and harder each time they surfaced. She didn't make the connection between them and the song right away, but with all the time she had to herself, she had eventually put it together.

She hoped that Octavio and the other higher-ups of the Octarian army didn't know about this, but that could be why she was thrown in prison like this. The only explanation she had ever gotten was "Failure is not tolerated in the Octarian army", which was vague, at best.

Why they even kept her alive, she didn't know. Maybe it was because she was a former captain? Did they hope that throwing her into a featureless metal cell to rot for a while would fix whatever that song did to her?

Oh right… I was a captain… I wonder what my team is up to these days?… Are they locked up like me?

Octavio probably saw them as more expendable than her and splatted them, but she wanted to hold out hope that they were still alive. Even though she was their superior officer, she still cared about them. Good friends are hard to come by in Octarian society.

Getting bored of just laying on the ground like some kind of sea cucumber, The former captain decided to do something a little more productive with her time. The mess she made last time she did this had since dissolved, as their ink tends to do over time, so she had plenty of wall and floor space to work with. Using one of her sharp front teeth, she pricked a small hole in her index finger and waited for her vibrant pink ink to fill the self-inflicted wound. She had no shortage of the stuff, but no ink tank to store it. So this was the only way to use it. Once her finger had been successfully turned into a makeshift pen, she got to work on her wall. As weird and kinda gross as it was to use her own ink as a way to amuse herself, she didn't care. She was bored, and it's not like they left her some paper and pencils to help with that.

While she stood there drawing nothing in particular, she again let herself drift deep into thought.

Why do I hate inklings?

Long ago, this would have seemed like a stupid question to ask herself, but with her current mental state, it didn't seem like that anymore. It had been hammered into her head how horrible Inklings were ever since she was able to form coherent thoughts.

Sure, the Inklings won the Great Turf War 100 years ago, but that was almost a full century before her time. Her question for herself wasn't 'why do the Octarians hate Inklings?' it was 'why do I hate Inklings?'. And it was getting harder and harder to properly answer by the day.

I'm losing my mind… there's no way everything I've been taught about the Inklings is wrong… right?


Cuttlefish cabin, Tentakeel outpost

Four was still hung up on how good the shwaffle that Marie had gotten him for lunch was. It had absolutely no right to be as good as it was, but it was. It certainly wouldn't be something he'd indulge in often (lest his little inky hearts pop like greasy burst bombs), but once he gets a chance to settle into inkopolis he'd like to look into this 'Crusty Sean' guy.

His mind continued to drift off topic as he stood on the rim of the Boss kettle of Tentakeel Outpost.

"I'm totally ready for this.. Toooootally ready…" Four stated, just before he felt an unexpected weight on his shoulder.

"Are you trying to convince the boss of that, or yourself?" The unexpected weight said, leaning her arm on his shoulder. "Just relax. Psyching yourself out like this will only make things worse. I said you were ready, so you're ready."

"B-"

"Shush. No more quitter talk, now go." Marie interrupted, before lifting her arm off his shoulder and shoving him into the center of the kettle.

"Alright.. I'll trust you on this, I guess. See ya when I see ya.." He said, nervousness still clinging to his voice as he transformed and fell into the darkness below.

The octodome Four found himself in was unlike any other he'd been in up to that point. It looked less like a lived-in area and more like an arena. Even the walls seemed to be a bit closer, so he could tell this dome was much smaller than the other three he'd been in before.

"Wait, is that the zapfish?"

Sure enough, there the zapfish was. Suspended from a large light bulb prison about ten feet above a massive puddle of ink near the back of the arena. Would getting to it really be that simple?

"Alright! Doesn't seem like there's a boss here!" Four exclaimed, filled with relief. No way he'd say no to an easy mission.

"Wait, hold on. There's no way it's that simple…" Marie tried warning him, but Four had already stepped on the launchpad to go down onto the circular platform.

Four ran towards the puddle of ink to retrieve it, using his hero shot to get there faster. The zapfish was nearly in his grasp...

"Wait, Four STOP! It's a trap!"

"Huh..?"

The second that Four reached out to shatter the zapfish's prison, a massive octopus tentacle shot out of the ink puddle and slammed into Four's chest, instantly shattering his armor and sending him tumbling to the edge of the arena.

"AAGH…!" He yelled in pain, barely catching the edge of the platform and keeping himself from falling into the abyss below.

In one smooth motion, the tentacle that launched him snatched up the little electric catfish and pulled it under the ink.

"Clam it… It's just like last time... Four! Are you ok?"

"Y-yeah it think so… it just knocked the wind out of me…" He answered, still a bit shaken from the surprise punch. His stomach hurt and his armor was slowly regenerating, but other than that he was ok. Pulling himself back up onto the platform was easy enough, since he wasn't very heavy and his arms were strong enough. For once, he was thankful that he was as short as he was.

"Well, I hope so… 'cause here comes the main event…"

"The… main event…?" He questioned as his armor fully re-formed, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

As if on cue, a bright yellow light shot out of the pool of purple ink and Octarian onlookers, who were apparently surrounding the arena, started to chant along with a drum beat being played somewhere in the distance. With that, something began to rise from the ink. Something massive.

"U-uh… M-Marie…?"

"This is it, Four… stay calm.."

The chanting continued as the massive hexagonal silhouette continued to rise from the ink. The light was still too bright to properly make out what it was, but by the time it had fully risen from it's ink, the monolithic device stood nearly twenty feet over him.

The light finally died down to reveal the Inkling agent's foe…..

"It's…" Marie began.

"It's…?" Four continued, confused as to what he was looking at.

"An oven…?" They said in unison, both equally confused now.

The boss in front of him was none other than a massive baker's oven, complete with giant loaves of bread popping out of each shelf. For some ungodly reason, each loaf had a face on the end.

"Are.. are you serious? I just got punched by an oven…?"

"Well.. uhh… Didn't I tell you to be prepared for anything…?" Marie said, just as confused as he was.

Seeing the absolutely ridiculous looking octoboss in front of him, he could just feel the anxiety from before slowly start to melt away.

"Uhh.. ok… what do I do to beat it? Does it have some kind of weak point?"

"Hmm… Aha, this is just like last time. See that big tentacle at the top there? Shoot that, and you'll have this fight in the bag. Now go toast this tentafool!"

"Uhh… How do I get up there…?"

Four stood on the edge of the arena, with the Octo Oven on the opposite edge. Four was far out of the giant oven's range at the moment.

"...Good question. That part we'll have to figure out together. Be careful though, we don't know what it can do" Marie suggested.

"I dunno.. Doesn't look like it can reach me from he-"

And then the oven started rolling towards him, as if it were on wheels.

"Nope! Nope! It can reach me! Running now!" Four yelled as he tore off around the edge of the arena, firing ink at the ground and swimming to stay ahead of it.

"Now.. the million G question.. How does an oven attack…?"

As if the oven had heard Marie's question, one of the shelves near Four popped open and one of the giant loaves of bread shot out of it, almost like a punch. Four however, was faster than an oven. The attack missed him by a mile. The oven tried again with another shelf ahead of the inkling agent, but all Four had to do to dodge that was double back into the ink he had already laid down.

"Good job, Four. Guess you were BREAD-y for this afterall…" Marie said with a smirk.

"Please…" Four had been a big fan of the squid sisters for years… he knew exactly what was coming.

"What's up Four? Afraid things will go a-RYE?"

"Marie no.."

"Marie yes."

"C'mon, no bad puns while I'm in battle…"

"I'm sorry, who's the boss here?"

"..."

"I can't heaaaar you…" She said, a smirk crossing her face.

"..You are.." Four grumbed out as he swam in his ink to avoid another bread attack from the Oven he was becoming less afraid of by the minute.

"And that means I DOUGH not KNEAD you to tell me what to do… heh.."

"Is this really the best time for this…?"

"Oh please, I can already tell this guy is gonna be a joke… Wait…"

Just as she had finished speaking, every shelf on the oven popped open and it's loaves shot out. Four was able to dodge it, although the surprise made it a bit of a closer call.

"There, now! Go now!"

"Go where?!"

"Up the side, dummy! Get up on the bread!"

While Four definitely wasn't one to ruin perfectly good bread with his ink, normal bread didn't have a face and scream at you. So he quickly made his way up the loaf then up the side using his hero shot.

"Shoot that tentacle! That's the weak point!" Marie yelled at him through the headphones.

"This is for the sucker-punch earlier, you squiggly jerk!"

Taking his revenge, Four opened fire on the massive tentacle. It grew and swelled as he shot more and more of his ink at the slimey menace, until it exploded into green ink. Four took this as a sign to get the heck out of there, so he super jumped off the top of the oven and back down to the ground.

"D-did that do it…? Do I win?"

"Not quite… it can respawn, just like you. But it uses so much energy, but it can only do it a few times! Just keep wailing on it!"

Sure enough, the tentacle respawned after a few seconds and the bread started screaming at him again.

"Yep… that's my new least favorite noise…" Four said, rubbing his ears from under his headphones.

"Heads up! Giant purple churros!" Marie warned.

"...What?"

"Move it!" she emphasized, just as a massive spinning tube of ink slammed down next to Four.

"What the SHELL!?" He cried, sprinting away from the ink tube just as another landed near him.

"Wait, no, It's just ink pistons. They came from the top of the oven. More incoming!"

"OH… MY… COOOOOD!" Four yelled as he dodged left and right around the rim of the arena, avoiding falling piston after falling piston. He was eventually able to figure out that they were not falling towards the center of the arena, so he ran towards the center to keep them from falling around him.

"How… did… phew…How did you mistake those for churros…?" Four sputtered out, starting to feel the fatigue of all the running around.

"I dunno. Guess I'm just in a baked goods sorta mood right now. Hm… let's get some churros tonight after you get back… eh.. we'll worry about that later. Looks like it's time to rush it again!"

Just as she said, the oven attacked Four with the same pattern of attacks as before. The only difference was that he had to jump between two loaves of bread on the side to reach the inkable sides.

"Ok, that was slightly harder…" Four said, wiping a disgusting mixture of octo ink and his own ink out of his eyes with his hoodie sleeve.

"Getting tired there, Four?"

"Am I almost done…?"

"Close, just one more part to this. Looks like it's gonna get stronger agaaaai… what…?"

"What? What is it this time…?"

Just when they thought this fight against a wayward toaster oven couldn't get any weirder, the screaming bread loaves shot out from their shelves, now with thick metal armor partially covering the sides of each.

"Armor…? On bread? Really?" Marie said, trying to make some sense of it. "What's your game plan, Four?"

"My game plan..? You aren't gonna tell me what to do..?"

"Well, consider this part of your agent training. Look at that thing. How do you get up to damage it?"

"Uhh… well… it doesn't look like I can ink the armored parts… so… aim for the bread parts?"

"Mhmm. mhmm. Good. Now do it. And watch out for the icing machine."

"The whaAAAH!?" Four half screamed as he was interrupted by a veritable waterfall of octo ink spinning towards him, courtesy of a metal arm extending out of the side of the oven.

Reacting quickly, he was barely able to turn and run away fast enough to avoid being splatted.

"Icing machine…?!" The young agent questioned as he jumped and swam between spread out puddles of his own ink to stay ahead of the shower of ink.

"Well, it's an oven. What's a cake without icing?"

Four chose not to dignify that with a response, and just continued to dodge the Octo Oven's attacks until it once again shot out all of it's bread loaves at once.

"This guy's TOAST!" Four yelled in triumph as he scaled the oven once more and blew up the tentacle for the final time.

"Hey, that was my line!" Marie pouted, although Four doubted she was actually that upset.

Once he landed back on the arena after super jumping away, the oven began to shake and rumble. Every one of it's shelves opened to a burned loaf of bread.

"What's going on..?!" Four cried

"Ohh carp, brace yourself!"

Four barely had time to think before the oven exploded into a massive shockwave of his own neon green ink. The wave was so big, the entire arena was coated in green ink afterwards.

"Four…? Four! Come in! Where are you?!"

"Ugh… down here.."

He was able to avoid being thrown off the platform again, using the same strategy as before. He caught the edge of the arena and hung on for dear life.

"Nice save. Cmon, go grab that zapfish."

"Workin' on it.. Workin' on it.." he complained back as he pulled himself back up.

The now-exhausted agent slid his hero shot in between his back and ink tank. All he wanted to do was grab the zapfish and go back for a long shower.

"Heh.. joking aside, you did well. Could have been better, but also could have been a lot worse. That's about as much as I can ask of an agent who started doing this less than a week ago. Come on back, there's someone I want you to meet."

"Huh..? Who…?"

"He's a friend, don't worry about it." She probably meant to reassure him, but it did little to help.

Four's luck with new people so far has been pretty non-existent here in inkopolis. Aside from Marie, he hadn't met a single friendly face thus far. After what he had just been through, he did NOT have the energy to deal with another jerk right now. He grabbed the zapfish and summoned the energy to super jump back to the surface.


Cuttlefish Cabin, Tentakeel Outpost

"Ok, I know things didn't go so well when you first met hi-" Marie said, addressing her guest as he worked on a large fluorescent orange machine near the cabin.

"Didn't go so well?! Did you even see the state he was in..?! That weapon.. Those clothes… it's just… Ugh..!" A nasally voice interrupted.

"Hey now, that's a bit uncalled for, dontcha think? He's kinda, y'know, risking life and limb for us. Look, he'll be back here soon. At least try to be nicer… would you?"

"Hmph.. that depends on him.."

Carrying the small zapfish under his arm, Four emerged from the boss kettle and immediately unzipped his hero hoodie. He was well and truly exhausted, and didn't need the extra heat.

"M-marie..? I'm back…" He said as he released the zapfish.

"Be free, little guy. Back to inkopolis…"

"Four! Hey, come on over." Marie called out to him.

The instant he passed through the archway and into the Cuttlefish cabin area, he knew exactly who he was looking at.

"Wha… H-Hey! You're… you're the owner of the weapon shop.. The one who kicked me out.." Four's tone got lower and sadder as he remembered what happened after his first turf war. The bespectacled crab man just stood in place and looked the agent up and down.

"Hm…."

"What are you doing…?" Being stared at while in his run-down state was starting to weird him out.

"You look like a trainwreck." The crab man said matter-of-factly.

"Cut me some slack, I just-" He was cut off before he could defend himself.

"Let me finish.. You look like a trainwreck, but the kind you can't quite look away from. You're at least slightly fresher than when we last met. Not outstanding…but better. If we were in my shop… I'd grant you access to some of my wares"

Despite having fought a sentient oven the size of a 3 story building less than an hour ago, this was the biggest shock of Agent 4's day. Praise, even begrudging praise, was the last thing he was expecting out of the crab man.

"Th-...thanks…" Four said, trying his hardest not to start grinning like an idiot.

"Now, let me properly introduce myself. I'm Sheldon, owner of Ammo Knights and ink weapon extraordinaire." Sheldon said as he straightened his posture and gave Four a salute.

"Nice to meetcha… I'm L-... er.. Agent 4." Four followed suit and saluted back.

"Yes, yes, I already knew that. Now, as for why I'm here… You have the Hero shot, right?" Getting right to the point, he gestured to the small weapon currently strapped to the agent's back. "May I..?"

"Oh, sure." After slipping the weapon off his back, he handed it to the crab man, who was practically bouncing with anticipation. "For such a fancy sounding weapon… it's really not all that impressive.."

"Not yet it isn't… but just you wait…" He chuckled, clearly getting more and more excited as he walked over to the orange machine he was working on when Four walked in. "Just a little of this… and that and… hehe… a few power eggs aaaand… begin!"

The bright orange device started up the instant that Sheldon inserted the incomplete hero shot and power eggs into the slot. This must be why Marie wanted him to hag onto them throughout his journey.

"Uhhhh.. What's it gonna do…?"

"Shh… just be patient… it's workiiiing…"

Just as the excited crab man said, the machine started making loud whirring and clunking sound. As the noises got worse, the machine started to shake violently. It was starting to look like a splattube video Four had seen of a brick in a washing machine. And if that was the case here, he definitely didn't want to be anywhere near it.

"A-Ahh..! Is that supposed to happen…?!" Four yelled, covering his head. He wasn't expecting this to end well.

Just as the noise reached peak loudness, everything went quiet. After a few seconds of silence, the slot of the machine shot open with a loud DING and a plume of black smoke.

Four couldn't even get a word out before he was interrupted by a giddy, excited laugh from the resident weapons expert.

"Hee hee hee hee… It worked!" Sheldon laughed as he reached into the cloud of smoke and pulled out Four's hero shot.

At least, he thought it was his hero shot at first. Upon actually looking at it closely, he saw that it's color had changed from fluorescent yellow, like his hero hoodie, to fluorescent orange with white attachments added on the top and underneath the stock.

"What happened to it..? Is that my gun..?" Four said as he carefully took it from Sheldon's hands.

"It is, but better! Thanks to my state-of-the-art weapon enhanceifier and the power eggs you've collected, I have successfully turned that relic of the past into a force to be reckoned with! Go on, give it a try!"

Sheldon didn't have to tell Four twice, he'd been sick of the weapon's sub-par fire rate since the word go, so he was hoping that this upgrade fixed that. Taking aim at the neon-colored balloons next to him, he let fly a volley of shots. He'd never used a standard splattershot before, but from what he'd seen on tv and splattube, this upgraded weapon had very similar attributes to it. Medium range, slight shot deviation at maximum range, and a great fire-rate. In brief, it was everything he wanted out of a shooter weapon.

"It's… perfect!" Four's fatigued tone seemed to melt away with this newfound excitement. He was so excited that he didn't notice how much ink he was using, at least until he heard the dry clicking of his now empty ink tank. "Oop.. hehe… Thanks Sheldon.. This new weapon is totally fresh."

"You're welcome, Agent 4. Now.. about payment. In exchange for unlimited access to my weapon enhanceifier... I will be requiring some.. Let's say.. Data. From you." Sheldon's tone shifted from giddy to devious almost on a dime.

This certainly didn't bode well for Four.

"Data… Wh-.. What kind of data..?" Four stammered, shifting uncomfortably in place while holding his new weapon to his chest.

"Oh, don't worry about it for now. I'll be in touch."

And with that, the eccentric crab took his leave, leaving just Marie and Four.

"Well… that was certainly interesting. Always a character, that Sheldon." The pop star remarked.

"What did he mean by 'data'?" Four sighed, his excitement wearing off and his fatigued tone returning.

"I wouldn't worry. He probably just wants you to test some weapons for him. You like that sort of thing, right?"

"I do… Ok, what's next…?" The weary agent yawned and reattached his weapon to his back.

"Well, when you cooked that Octoboss, power returned to this area. Look there, you opened up a way to some more octodomes." Marie said, gesturing over to the comically long extension cord reaching from the boss kettle over to a power grid attached to a launchpad.

"New area… got it."

Four only managed one step forward before being smacked in the head by a parasol.

"Not yet."

"What? Why not..?"

"Firstly, you're exhausted. Secondly, we have to lay low for a bit, remember? I told you earlier, I want to try and keep a low profile, y'know? Keep the Octarian scum off our back? We drew a lot of attention to ourselves with that stunt with the toaster. We can't risk Octavio figuring out where we're coming from, I'm NOT gonna pull a gramps and get myself squidnapped…"

"How long do we have to lay low…?"

"Mmmm… Four…. Five days tops."

"Five days…? What am I gonna do for five days..? If I just sit around all that time, I might explode…"

"Good thing you won't be. You've got some potential to unleash."

"Potential? ...Oh, you were talking about that at lunch too, right?"

"Wow, you're just forgetting everything today aren't you?"

"It's been a long day…." The exhausted agent admitted with a weary sigh. Maybe Marie was on to something, he really was tired.

Four still wasn't completely convinced that he had any hidden potential, but if Marie said he could be strong, who was he to argue?

"That's right. Tomorrow, you'll be starting your training." Marie said, a devious smirk crossing her face.

Four would soon learn to fear that smirk more than any Octarian.


An hour later, Agent 4 was in bed. A long shower, his third of the day, had taken care of the Octarian ink still clinging to his body, and he was now absentmindedly scrolling through his music playlists on his phone.

Service out here is real dodgy… oh well, I'll take what I can get…

As if the internet gods themselves were smiling down on him, He suddenly got one bar of service. And with that, a small tsunami of text messages. His mother, father, big brother, and even his little sister and some of his extended family had sent him messages.

Mom: How's the big city? Miss you already :kissyface: Send pictures!

Dad: How was your first night in the city? Did your first day of battles go well?

Big bro: Good luck man, you'll be on TV in no time.

Four couldn't wait to leave his hometown and make his way to inkopolis, so he wasn't expecting homesickness to be an issue for him.

As he typed out responses and drifted off to sleep, he realized that wouldn't be the case.


Well, here we are again.

It's official. Chapter 5 has been completed, Chapter 6 is underway, and I have been taken by Splatoon 3 hype.

Please send help, my address is 3622 Imapushover blvd.

Or just leave a review. That would help too.

Until we meet again

~Ghost