Live, Die, Repeat

Chris has had some bad experiences in the past. Once, right at the beginning of a Turf War he discovered right after he had wandered into enemy territory that two of his teammates had bailed on him and Cobalt had run off somewhere to undoubtedly get on with his own shenanigans, leaving him to be ganged up on by the entire enemy team all at once. As he had stood there utterly dumbfounded with ink raining down all over him, he had thought it can't get any worse than this.

Now, running through a series of pitch-black tunnels for dear life while being chased by a madman with some kind of flame-spewing device, he realized that he had been horribly, HORRIBLY wrong.

"THIS IS RIDICULOUS!" Chris yelled, while the team rounded another corner just as another gout of flame roasted the wall they were next to seconds earlier.
"You're telling me!" Cobalt shouted back, pulling the triggers on his guns to no avail. "I think that burst just shortened out my ink tank or something, it's not built to handle two guns at once! We're gonna end up as fried squid in here unless we find an open area!"
"We need to lose this maniac!" Mei-Lin said breathlessly, "I can't keep this up forever!"

Chris pulled out his Dual Squelcher, and pointed ahead of him. "Quick, follow me! I'll paint a path ahead, and you two jump right in!"
"Wait, I can't do that right now!" Mei-Lin replied, "I'm not the same color as your ink, I'll just get stuck in it!"
Chris slapped himself in the forehead, irritated he forgot such a crucial detail. "Can't believe I forgot about… Okay, what we'll need to do is to find a respawn pad. If we can find one of those, we can change our color on the fly there. For now, we'll need to go on foot, so just hang in there a little longer!"
"Oy mate!" Riley shouted, "'ave ya forgotten about us already?! We ain't as adverse-like as you guys, give us some consideration!"
"Agreed, mate." Beano added, looking at the orange glow of flame behind him. "Bein' turned into urchin chow ain't very high on me to-die list. 'sides, if ye need help in finding a respawn pad, oi reckon I've seen one of them nearby. You'll need us!"
"As much as I'd hate to admit it," Chris said, turning to the urchins, "they're right. They know the tunnels down here better than we do, we'll have to rely on them a bit longer. Don't suppose you two are demanding anything in return?"
"Naw man!" Riley shouted, briefly looking behind him to confirm that the rogue urchin is still chasing them, "I think that bein' alive is suitable enough payment this time! Oi reckon if we do get outta this, we oughta kick that habit of eatin' Super Sea Snails. We be tryin' ta eat one from you lads, and look where it got us!"

The tunnel in front of them began to widen, and they reached a large circular room with multiple dimly lit pathways all scattered around. Picking a random route, the gang all ran into one, and found an alcove to hide in. Seconds later, their pursuer jumped right into the room, stopping and scanning the area with his eyes and breathing loudly.
"Oy, where'd ya all go?" the rogue urchin growled, "C'mon, give poor lil' Tetanus a little company, wouldya? I'm DYING to have some fun round here!" Marching around the room, the urchin eventually gave up and disappeared into the shadows, disappointed.
"Pah, they'd be back soon, I'm sure of it." His voice echoed down the tunnel, followed by the sound of guitar strings being haphazardly played. The sound of the guitar became quieter and quieter, until the room was completely silent.

"I think he's gone." Chris whispered, determined not to make too much noise in case the madman decided to return.
"Thank the gawds." Riley groaned while gripping his neck, "Oi reckon that took ten years offa me. Hearin' about Tetanus from Beano's run-in ain't the same as an actual bloody encounter."
"Well look on the bright side, mate," the stout urchin grinned, "Least Needler now owes us a coupla pounds o' fish for that. Wait till 'e hears about ya survivin' a run-in with THE BOSS."

Mei-Lin collapsed onto the stone floor, clearly winded from the chase. "Urgh…" she groaned, "This is all more than what I had bargained for when I joined you guys. First Katelyn goes missing, now I've almost died thanks to some madman with a flamethrower." She leaned onto the wall, staring at nowhere in particular. "All this action and violence. I don't know how you two and Katelyn take in all this without going mad."
"Well, you're not the only one, Mei-Lin." Chris said, pointing a thumb at Cobalt who experimentally pulled the triggers on his guns again to no result, and giving out a barely suppressed scream. "None of us are prepared for…well… all this. I didn't think that I'd find something much worse than that incident during one of my matches."
"Incident?" Mei-Lin repeated, her curiosity piqued somewhat.
"Well, I got piled up on by the entire enemy team once." Chris replied. "Never seen that much ink that doesn't belong to my color ever since, I reckon."
Mei-Lin barely stifled a chuckle. "I feel sorry for you, somewhat."

"AUGH! This is infuriating!" Cobalt grumbled, once again failing to fire his weapons. "How am I supposed to get these repaired when we're stuck underground with a homicidal urchin running about?! It feels wrong to not be able to use my weapons!"
"Funny ya mention weapons, boyo." Riley said, "I know a guy…"

Cobalt tipped his credits pouch upside down, with only a single measly coin falling out alongside a few lumps of lint. Next to him, a hunchbacked urchin with a wrench in one hand and a screwdriver in the other cackled loudly, a decent pile of credits in front of his crossed legs.
"Kehehe! Thanks for the credits!" the urchin said, putting one last bolt onto Cobalt's ink tank. "Now, ye better try ta treat ye weapons with care in da future. As an added bonus tho I gave ye a lil' tweak to yer arsenal, so if ye ever get the silly idea ta overload the tank again by doin' a dual-wieldin' burst, it'll repair itself once the tank fully refills, so blast away! Oh and I increased your overall ink capacity just so the tank has time ta repair itself if ye ever get tha' crazy idea ta do so."
"Thanks…I guess?" Cobalt replied, grumbling as he picked up his one solitary coin before pocketing it.

Nearby, the two inklings and two urchins were waiting for Cobalt to finish his errand.
"So, whaddya think of ol' Wrench?" Riley sneered, "Worth it?"
"I can't help but feel I've just been scammed." Cobalt replied with a sigh. "Does everyone around here charge that much for services?"
"I guess if they're stuck down here with nowhere to go…" Mei-Lin said, "I won't blame them if they want some extra money just to get their lives back on track one day." She looked briefly at the two urchins, then at Chris. "I thought we'd be entering into a den of lawbreakers, but all I'm seeing so far are desperate people."
"Well look on the bright side, Cobalt." Chris said, patting Cobalt in the back, "At least you now got a new method of attack if you ever need it. Speaking of though, where's that respawn pad that Beano mentioned earlier?"

Beano briefly stopping looking round the corner while straining his ear, and turned to the inklings. "Oh, right. There be a wee lil' problem 'bout that."
"What would that be?" Chris replied, raising an eyebrow. "If you're worried about attracting Tetanus, I think we just need to get to it without too much noise."
"Ehh….that is it, boyo." Beano groaned. "That respawn pad is deep in Backwater Barricade, quite close to the center. We'd be likelier ta grab THE BOSS's attention if we venture that close."
"Well, ya 'eard it from Beano." Riley said, shrugging. "If ya be wantin' us ta willingly walk into dangerous tunnels, we need down payment."
"And that would be…?" Cobalt asked, his eyes narrowing.
"All the money y'all 'ave on ya." Riley smirked, holding out his hand. "Cough up, and I'll lead ya there. Urchin's promise."

Cobalt stared agape at Riley, before quickly turning to Chris and Mei-Lin, huddling for a group chat.
"Erm… don't suppose you got that much money on you, right?" he asked quietly.
"What should we do?" Mei-Lin whispered, "I don't have any money on me, Katelyn was holding on to them for me."
"Don't worry, man." Chris whispered back, and giving a wink. "Let me handle this."

Chris broke from the group chat, and walked up to the urchins.
"We decided." He breathed. "We'll take your offer."
"Ehehehe, izzat so?" Riley replied, grinning slyly and waving the palm of his hand. "Well go on. Give it 'ere, I may just retract my generous offer."
Chris turned out his pockets, and three coins fell out. "Oh right," he said, "Forgot I only bought money for the bus fare. Welp, guess I'm Super-Jumping back home." He turned to Mei-Lin and Cobalt, and winked.
"Oh…um…" Mei-Lin stammered, checking her parka and turning up a single coin. "Ah, must've forgotten to give this one to Katelyn. Well, it's the only credit I have on me. Cobalt?"
"Well I still got this one coin left." Cobalt flipped his last coin in the air once, and then he handed it to Chris. "Here ya go. I'll manage without it."
Picking up the three coins on the floor, as well as accepting Mei-Lin's singular coin, Chris put the sum onto Riley's outstretched hand.
"That's it, that's all the money we have on us." Chris smirked. "All five coins."

Riley stared dumbfounded at the credits in his hand for a brief moment. Behind him, Beano was having trouble stifling his laughter. "Oy mate," he snorted, "Oi reckon you've been 'ad in return!"
"GAH! Damned blasted loopholes!" Riley grumbled, his head hung low in exasperation. "Well, an urchin's promise is a promise. Course…" He turned to Beano with a leer, "I dunno anythin' 'bout where dat respawn pad be at, so Beano will accompany me. Isn't that right, boyo?"
Beano's laughter died abruptly as if severed by a guillotine. "Aww darnit."

It has been half an hour ever since that exchange, and the gang's feet are starting to get a bit sore from all the wandering. While the urchins led the way in front of them, the inklings lagged behind albeit somewhat nervous.

A small cloud of dust got disturbed by the inkling's footsteps, causing Mei-Lin to have a brief coughing fit.
"Ugh, what's with all this dust?" She said, sniffing. "The air here feels stale, too."
"I notice we haven't been passing by any urchins along the way." Chris added, "Not even any trash, just cobwebs. Guess not a lot of people come through here."
"Can't say I blame them." Cobalt said, shrugging off a strand that got stuck to his mask. "Would anyone want to go somewhere rumored to have homicidal monsters on the loose?"
"Erm, you always wander into clearly guarded enemy territory in our matches. I think you might not be entirely qualified to ask that question."
Cobalt rolled his eyes. "Eh, whatever."
"Will ye quieten down back there?!" Beano shushed, "THE BOSS could'a be anywhere!"

As if on cue, a distant echo of a guitar rift wafted down the tunnels, and everyone froze on the spot, the sound of conversation giving way to the whistle of a distant breeze. Once they confirmed the guitar rift wasn't getting any closer, the group kept on walking.
"Best we be keepin' that yammerin' ta a minimum from now." Riley hissed, brushing aside another handful of cobwebs out of the way. The inklings decided that keeping it quiet would be the best course of action, and just followed the urchins wordlessly.
Eventually, the tunnels stopped being lit by lightbulbs, the walls gradually becoming more and more roughly carved. Riley withdrew a small flashlight from his pocket, and lit the way for the group. The pathway slowly became more linear, as the splits in the pathway became less frequent. The way before them began to widen more and more, until they couldn't see the walls beside them in the encroaching darkness.

Soon, Riley's foot stepped on something metallic, and everyone stopped as the tall urchin shone his flashlight on what he stepped on. On the floor, covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs, was a circular metal pad with a concave basin made out of plexiglass and two arrows pointing at each other in a circular direction. Hurrying forward, Chris examined the object that Riley stepped on, and smiled.
"This is it." He said, keeping his voice down. "That's a respawn pad. It seems to be unpowered though, how…"
"Hey, can I take a look at that?" Mei-Lin said, kneeling down to examine the pad and frowning. "Hmm… how are these things powered anyway?"
"We'd need a large source of power." Chris replied, frowning as well, "Rebuilding splatted inklings take a lot of juice. Doubt we'd find one down here."
Cobalt ignored Chris and his monologuing, and idly paced the area around the respawn pad lit by Riley. He then spotted a cord attached onto the respawn pad, and began to follow the wiring outside the lit area while the other two inklings mused over how to power the device.
The wire terminated onto a decently-sized cuboid object, about half of Cobalt's height aside from a bulb-like formation protruding from the very top of the object that was about his size. The masked inkling couldn't make out much more in the darkness, and began to grope around the device.
"This looks important." He said to himself, "There oughta be a…" He then spotted a big red button on the machine, and pressed it.

A sudden harsh ring resounded from the device, causing Cobalt to recoil in surprise and the group in the distance to turn to the source of the sound in alarm. In response, the device abruptly lit up, revealing the device to be some sort of generator with a Zapfish contained in a large glass bulb on it. The sound was coming from an alarm clock roughly taped onto the side of the gigantic light bulb which has woken up the presumably napping Zapfish as its eyes blinked sleepily, and it began to glow as it began to feed electricity onto the generator, the generator itself wheezing loudly and whirring into life.

"Cobalt!" Chris shouted, the thought of keeping quiet all but abandoned, "What did you do?!"
"I uh….found the power source, at least." Cobalt replied sheepishly.

All around them, spotlights mounted onto the cave walls lit up one by one, the sudden change in contrast causing everyone in the room to shield their eyes. At the very center, the now brightly lit respawn pad whirred into life, the glassy surface turning a serene sky blue color and rippling as a thick liquid the same color as the surface began to fill it.

"Oy, whatever yer gonna do, ye better 'urry!" Riley yelled, as the sound of a guitar rift went off in the distance but persisted. "He's coming!"
Cobalt didn't waste a second, and shifted into squid form, hopping right into the sky blue liquid. A second later, Cobalt emerged from the substance with his tentacles dyed a sky blue color, while the tips remained a dark blue color.
"Seems to be working alright." Cobalt said, shaking off any excess sky blue color off of him, "You two are up next."
Mei-Lin stepped up towards the active respawn pad, then hesitated as she glanced at the sky blue liquid.
"Hey…" she said, "Is this okay to…"
"Don't worry, Mei-Lin. This is not like our ink." Chris replied. "I don't know how these things work myself, but this liquid won't hurt an inkling." He dipped a hand in the liquid and withdrew it, showing to Mei-Lin the sky blue fluid flowing off without ease. "See?"

Mei-Lin still seemed somewhat hesitant. Looking at her worried expression, Chris decided to step onto the respawn pad, moving his feet to show that he was not caught in the substance. He then shifted into squid form and sunk into the liquid, emerging from it with his head tentacles also dyed sky blue.
"Now it's your turn." Chris said, holding out his hand. "Grab my hand. We'll do it together."
"Oh…. Um…" Mei-Lin replied sheepishly. "Well… okay. I'll try…" She slowly reached out her hand to take in Chris's…

"Oh this is taking too long. Screw this."
Cobalt quickly went behind Mei-Lin and gave her a gentle shove, the unfortunate inkling falling head-first into the liquid and shifting into squid form in surprise. She emerged from the liquid, her auburn tentacles dyed sky blue aside from her tips.
"COBALT!" she sputtered, coughing as she spat out some of the liquid from her mouth. "What did you do that for?!"
"The suspense was killing me." He simply replied. "Come on, we need to go before ol' Urchin Mc-Roasty catches up."

Mei-Lin got up and ran without looking back towards a cave exit opposite to where the cacophony of strings was coming from, the two urchins following suit in panic.
"You know," Chris said, turning to Cobalt with a look of annoyance, "You could have read the atmosphere for once."
"Hmm? What are you talking about?" Cobalt replied.
"Oh for…whatever. We'll talk once there isn't a homicidal urchin chasing after us." He began making towards the cave exit, with Cobalt following up close behind him.

"You know, it's a funny thing, man." Cobalt said as they ran from the lit cave into darkness, "She kinda reminds me of you somehow. Quite like back then."
"…suppose so."

The inklings disappeared into the darkness, the sound of heavy metal steadily increasing in volume in their wake.

AN: Sometimes when I write these I wonder if the characters are staying in...character. It's all the little subtleties, mostly. Depending on a character's personality and experiences they can respond to a situation with small changes in their own dialogue which carries their character across. What am I going with this? Well I'd like you guys to tell me if these characters are indeed staying within range of their archetypes, I'm not entirely sure if some of them still are.
These chapters are getting hard to write. Not because I'm low on ideas mind you, in fact I already have the entire layout right here. Just that I'm getting Writer's-Block'd by the finer details. I can never truly escape from that blasted curse, can I =_=