Rules of Nature
"So…where are we now?"
The group had gone as far as their dwindling stamina had allowed them, now they had gathered at the entrance of a room much larger than the cave where the respawn pad was located. From the inkling's perspective, the lights from the tunnel behind them failed to light up the vast empty space before them, a strangely flat floor fading into the blackness and the ceiling obscured from view.
"Ain't got a clue, mate." Beano replied, looking around. "Never 'ad the guts ta be this darned close ta THE BOSS's lair."
"Good luck, mate." Riley continued, "From this point on, yer on ya own. Oi reckon y'all understand we ain't gotta reason ta follow ya."
"We understand." Chris replied. "Oh, if you two find Katelyn along the way back, tell her to come here as well."
Riley grumbled something incomprehensible and rubbed his forehead. "Ehh… normally I'd charge ya fer somethin' in return, but ye already gave us all da money on ya. Tell ya what, we'll do that free o' charge."
"Thank you." Mei-Lin replied with a sigh of relief. "I just hope she hasn't gone somewhere dangerous in the Barricade. Knowing her…"
Just as the urchins turned to leave, Cobalt decided to go on straight ahead, and set foot into the vast dark room ahead. The moment his foot hit the floor, there was a deafeningly loud metallic clang. Looking straight down, Cobalt realized the floor he was standing on was composed of reinforced steel paneling, which judging by the unusually loud noise it made was hollow underneath.
"Oh…" Cobalt said meekly as the clang reverberated all over the vast room, and the group gawked at him with a look of disdain. "Welp, if that madman didn't know where we were before, he does now."
As if on cue, a dozen spotlights turned on all at once, illuminating the large space and revealing that the entire room was composed of the aforementioned steel plating, aside from an opening on the opposite end which was haphazardly boarded up by wooden planks. The sound of an electric guitar began to play from the opening, and to the inkling's utter bewilderment the wooden panels exploded violently as a tall figure catapulted itself through it, slamming onto the center of the room with a loud impact.
"IT'S HIM!" Beano shrieked, "SCREW Y'ALL, I'M OUTTA HERE!" The stout urchin immediately spun round and ran so fast he managed to leave an afterimage of himself.
"GAH! BEANO, WAIT UUUUP!" Riley yelled, stumbling and chasing after his companion, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
The spotlights mounted on the ceiling spun and focused onto the figure, revealing it to be the maniacal urchin that had been chasing the inklings through the Barricade the entire time. By all appearances he was very unusual, the spindly and tall urchin was wrapped from head to foot in tight red and black leather attire, even his urchin quills were dyed a shade of crimson, matching his glaring red eyes. Quite unlike the other urchins however, his quills were smoothed backwards, save for two just above his eyes which has skewered a brown ten-gallon cowboy hat into place perched on top of his quills. To complete the bizarre image, he was strapped into some kind of mechanical exoskeleton with more belts than necessary, and carried in his hands was an ornately decorated double neck electric guitar with what was unmistakably a flamethrower nozzle attached between the necks of the guitar.
"What in the…" Chris mouthed.
"Wow. You really cannot get any more cliché than that." Cobalt said, equally baffled.
"And here I thought Katelyn was outrageous." Mei-Lin finished, stepping backwards in shock.
"OH, Y'ALL ARRIVED!" The urchin shouted, "I'm so happy, it's been too long since playmates showed up in my humble abode. But where are my manners, let me introduce myself! I am Tetanus 'Destruction' Shadowflare, master guitarist, grand serpent of Rl'yeh, dreadlord of-"
"Okay, I'm going to have to stop you right there." Chris interrupted, barely concealing an involuntary cringe. "We get the picture. Can you let us pass? We are on an important mission."
"But I haven't even finished my introduction!" Tetanus replied in anguish. "I even have a tragic backstory that y'all oughta weep buckets fer-"
"We don't have time to play with you, or listen to your backstory!" Cobalt interjected again, "Let us pass, or we'll make you!"
"Umm…Cobalt, are you certain about this?" Mei-Lin said worriedly, "I don't want to fight anyone…"
"Course I'm certain! Feels like all we've been doing the last few hours was running! I'm tired of running away from this madman, let's kick his ass!" With that said, Cobalt took out his weapons, and twirled them in his hands.
"I hate to say it, but I think Cobalt's right." Chris pulled out his Dual Squelcher and did a quick weapons check. "Only way forward is through this guy. Mei-Lin…I told you to pack that Splattershot Jr, you still know how to use it, right?"
Mei-Lin hesitated, and wordlessly rifled through the contents of her backpack, extracting the Splattershot Jr in question. She held it in her hands, her expression uneasy.
"I…" She said with a strained voice. "I think so."
"THEN IT'S SETTTLED THEN!" Tetanus cackled loudly, raising a leg on his exoskeleton, the inklings bracing themselves. "Just for y'all, I'll skip the introductions, and go straight to the main event! LET'S DANCE! YEEEEEHAW!"
Tetanus slammed the leg down hard onto the steel floor, and along the four walls the steel paneling began to shudder before extending out, forming a large second floor border. With a leap, Tetanus propelled himself onto the foothold, and readied his guitar.
"Let us begin with the first event!" He shouted. "OOOOOOOH TIIIIIINY! COME ON OUT, BUDDY!"
"What the-" Cobalt began, but he was interrupted when a tremor shook the entire room, causing Cobalt to stagger and making Chris and Mei-Lin fall over. To the inkling's further disbelief, from the opening Tetanus burst himself out of came what has to be the most gargantuan Super Sea Snail they ever laid eyes upon, at least twice as tall as the average inkling and with black and red paint coated over the snail's usual shiny shell, and with four rocket boosters strapped to its sides to complete the outrageous picture. The massive sea snail landed onto the steel floor with a resounding crash, staring at the group with menacing beady black eyes, before opening its mouth and letting out a…
"Meep."
"…what." Chris simply said. Cobalt and Mei-Lin simply stared, at a total loss for words.
"Meet Tiny!" Tetanus yelled from the distance. "Ta keep it concise, Tiny's ma bestest friend! But enough about that. TINY, GIMME A RHYTHM!"
The rocket boosters strapped to the gargantuan Sea Snail began to rev up, and Tiny began to angle down, aiming at the inklings. Cobalt's eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen.
"SCATTER!" He yelled, leaping to the side and firing a stream of ink before him. Chris quickly grabbed Mei-Lin by the arm and dragged her the other way, just as the rocket boosters erupted with blue flame and propelled the Super Sea Snail right at them.
"MEEP MEEP!" the creature growled, ramming into the metallic wall behind where the team was standing earlier with a resounding crash. Flattening ever so slightly from the impact, the creature ricocheted itself and propelled itself right towards where Cobalt was running.
"Why me?!" the masked inkling cried, switching into squid form and diving right into the ink trail he left, the massive snail passing harmlessly over him but causing him to be swept out of his ink from the snail's slipstream, the ink evaporating quickly from the afterburner propelling it.
The creature crashed onto another wall, and propelled itself right at Chris and Mei-Lin, the former promptly following Cobalt's example and firing a trail of sky blue onto the floor, diving into the ink with Mei-Lin following suit. Bouncing off yet another wall, Tiny swerved from its charge and aimed for Cobalt who was busy inking as much ground as possible with his weapon, the inkling quickly diving into the ink to dodge the incoming ram.
The process repeated a few times, the sound of hardened shell colliding with steel echoing all over the room. The urchin listened to the banging noises with his eyes closed and his head bobbing, seemingly absorbed into his own world. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, and he leered.
"That's it… THAT'S IT!" Tetanus snarled, "I'm feeling the rhythm! Let's rock!" He gave his electric guitar a few experimental strums, and then began playing a chaotic solo on the guitar in accordance to the beat, headbanging as he did so.
"You can't be serious!" Cobalt shouted, as he was swept out of his own ink for the umpteenth time. But then, seemingly invigorated by the music, the supersized Sea Snail suddenly rocketed much faster than before, catching Cobalt off guard as it made a sharp U-turn and smashed into the inkling head on, splatting him instantly.
"COBALT!" Mei-Lin screamed, gazing at the spot where Cobalt was earlier in fear.
"He'll be fine!" Chris shouted, watching a squid ghost sail out of the room towards the respawn pad outside, "We'll need some way to avoid getting splatted ourselves, I doubt that respawn pad will last forever!" Turning, he realized that their backs were to the wall. As Tiny began to charge in their direction, he pointed his Dual Squelcher at the wall and shot a stream of ink up the steel paneling. The moment before the giant Sea Snail crashed into them, he quickly hopped into the ink with Mei-Lin in tow and swam up the wall, right as the creature collided with the wall and evaporated the ink beneath them.
Meanwhile, the respawn pad right outside of the bedlam occurring in the adjacent chamber whirred into activity, and sky blue liquid began to form into a humanoid shape, eventually coalescing into Cobalt's form before he staggered off of the pad in shock.
"Ugh… That wasn't very pleasant." He grumbled, before looking back at the pad and noticed a bar embedded on the side decrease by a third, the respawn pad flickering slightly as it did so. "And just when I thought it can't get any worse. Figures…"
The masked inkling prepared to sprint right back into battle, but then he heard footsteps emanating from the darkened tunnel behind him. Wheeling round, he saw someone he didn't expect to see rounding a corner.
"*cough cough* I didn't expect there to be so much dust… oh, Salty! I see light! We must be-"
Cobalt's eyes widened in surprise as what was unmistakably Katelyn's form stepped out into the brightened cave. As she also saw Cobalt staring straight at her, she stopped abruptly in her tracks, dropping the lantern she was holding with a clatter.
"KATELYN!" Cobalt shouted, causing the girl to jump in shock, "There you are! Where the hell have you been?!"
"Ah! H-hi Cobalt!" Katelyn replied, stammering slightly, "Erm… I was following you guys, and then I took a wrong turn, and um…"
"Save the explanation for later." Cobalt interrupted, running up to Katelyn, "Chris and Mei-Lin are in trouble. C'mon, use that respawn pad and follow me!"
"Mei-Lin's in trouble?! Wait, what's going-"
Without waiting for her to finish, Cobalt quickly grabbed Katelyn by the arm and swung her unceremoniously into the respawn pad. She emerged from the pad with her lavender tentacles dyed sky blue and looking at Cobalt with an adamant glower.
"Cobalt, what the heck was that for?!" Katelyn yelled, while a disoriented 'coo' emanated from underneath her bobble hat. Cobalt glanced briefly in puzzlement at Katelyn's hat before looking straight at her.
"I tell you not to make things more complicated than they already are, and you go and do exactly that. Let's just say we're now even in advance." Cobalt waved Katelyn towards the tunnel mouth where heavy metal and loud banging noises was echoing. "We're wasting time, let's go!" With that said, he sprinted with both weapons raised towards the tunnel.
"You really just do whatever you want, huh?" Katelyn said, unsheathing her Inkbrush and running after the masked inkling while inkling the floor before her.
"I can't hold on!"
"Hang on, Mei-Lin! Just a little longer!"
During Cobalt's absence, Chris and Mei-Lin were still hiding inside the stream of ink on the wall. Unable to see them, Tiny has now taken to repeatedly ramming the same wall they were on, presumably in an attempt to dislodge them from the wall.
Up on the steel border, Tetanus saw the gargantuan Sea Snail ramming the wall, and gave an amused smile.
"Havin' trouble there, buddy?!" He laughed, "'ere, lemme help with that!"
Hitting a button on his exoskeleton, Tetanus deployed a twin set of Hydra Splatling guns, revving them up before firing a black substance towards the wall. Chris squirmed in discomfort as he saw the substance strike the wall around them, oozing over the sky blue ink and shrinking their foothold.
"Is that… unrefined oil?!" He shouted in disgust. "Good thing this guy's aim is terrible…"
"DEATH FROM ABOVE!" Tetanus cackled madly, pressing another button and revealing to Chris's horror an entire bandolier of Inkstrike missiles attached to a launching device. With a shudder, the device launched a missile straight at them, with the two realizing they only have seconds to react.
"JUMP!" Chris cried, switching to inkling form and vaulting himself from the wall, but unfortunately for Mei-Lin she lacked the acrobatic ability to avoid the incoming missile and was promptly swept up by the resulting tornado of black oil. While Chris was immediately relieved that the substance hasn't splatted Mei-Lin unlike standard ink, the unfortunate inkling then landed onto the patch of oil left behind by the Inkstrike followed by the Splattershot Jr which fell onto the hard floor and fragmented from the impact, and discovered to his horror that the substance was sticky enough to pin down an inkling, which was undoubtedly troublesome when there was a massive sea snail charging round the room determined to mow them down.
"Mei-Lin, are you alright?!" Chris said, his tone nervous as he saw Tiny swerving to prepare for another charge.
But Mei-Lin didn't respond. By some reason or another, the sight of the black substance around her seemed to have triggered some manner of nervous breakdown. As she stared at her stained hands, a glint of madness seemed to flash across her eyes, and her pupils seemed to dilate as her eyes became unfocused. As she let out an anguished shriek, the fact a gigantic snail was rocketing towards her with the intent to splat the traumatized inkling seemed to have failed to occur to her.
"MEI-LIN! NOO!" Chris cried, reaching out a hand towards her.
"OH NO YOU FREAKING DON'T!"
To Chris's surprise, a blur jumped between Mei-Lin and Tiny, and a Bubbler shield formed around the blur and Mei-Lin, the sea snail colliding with the shield and sending it careening towards the wall. While the gigantic Sea Snail was reeling from the shock and stopped in its tracks with a dizzying look in its eyes, Chris realized that it was none other than Katelyn that had jumped between the inkling and the snail.
"K-Katelyn!" Mei-Lin spluttered, seemingly snapping out of her stupor.
"Heh…" Katelyn replied smiling, the shield fading around her as she collapsed onto the stained wall. "You really cannot take care of yourself, can't you?" It was then she realized the black substance had gummed her to the floor and wall. "Eww… what is this stuff? COBALT, get me out of here!"
"Good grief, why'd you run ahead of me? Hang in there, I'm coming!" a voice replied, and Cobalt was seen running towards Katelyn from the tunnel entrance. With a brief glance, he experimentally fired a short burst at her, and sighed in relief when the black substance oozed with ease from the overlapping puddle and freed Katelyn from the wall. Turning round, he then fired a blast at Mei-Lin which also untangled her from the oil slick.
"I… I owe you one, Cobalt." Mei-Lin said, as she struggled to get up from the floor, before Katelyn ran over to help her up. "And Katelyn… Thanks for saving my life."
"Anytime, friend." She replied. "But what was-"
It was then Katelyn noticed what she had barely stopped with her Bubbler shield.
"Woah. That is the biggest Super Sea Snail I've ever seen in my life."
"Coo?" Salty added, the muffled squeak emanating from her hat.
Still reeling from the shock, Chris then had an epiphany.
"Wait… that's it! It may be unusually large, but it is still a Super Sea Snail! If I remember correctly the exposed portion of the snail is extremely soft compared to the hard shell, and it can't take physical blows there very well! If Katelyn's Bubbler was enough to daze it, then-"
"Just get to the point!" Cobalt interrupted, as Tiny finally shook off its dizziness. While one of the rocket boosters on it seemed to have malfunctioned by the sudden stop, the other three were still operational and began to flare up, while in the distance Tetanus was preparing to fire another Inkstrike.
"Okay then." Chris replied with a slight tone of irritation. "Cobalt, do what we've always done in Turf Wars. Do the usual onto the sea snail's weak spot."
"Okay, now I'm interested." Cobalt chuckled, his eyes narrowing in anticipation while he twirled the Neo Sploosh-O-Matic in his right hand "But I need time to charge the special."
"That's where we come in. We'll be a distraction until your special is ready." Noticing the damaged Splattershot Jr on the floor next to Mei-Lin, he quickly unstrapped the New Squiffer from his back and tossed it at her, the confused inkling barely catching it in her arms. "I'll let you borrow it for now. Stay safe, alright?"
"W-Wait! I don't even know how to-" Mei-Lin began, but before she was able to voice her uncertainty Tiny sped up towards the group, causing them to flee in various directions. Due to the damaged rocket booster however the snail was moving significantly slower than before, and it was evident it was struggling to keep charging at a straight direction.
"Oy, buddy!" Tetanus yelled from the distance, "I don't remember ya bein' this slow before! Whatever, lemme help ya with that!" Hammering another button on his exoskeleton, the Inkstrike launcher trembled ominously before it started to target the scattered inklings and launched a rapid barrage of Inkstrike missiles at them randomly. The very walls of the makeshift arena began to tremble as multiple black tornadoes erupted all over the room, while Tiny pinballed off the walls in an attempt to run over the inklings.
"This certainly takes me back to some of my Tower Control sessions…" Cobalt grumbled, as he narrowly avoided another Inkstrike aimed at him. Using the gun in his right hand, he started to cover the oil slick left behind with his ink, while with his left he painted the path in front of him.
On the other side of the arena, Chris and Katelyn were fixated on distracting the oversized sea snail, while Mei-Lin was struggling to work out how to fire the Charger that was abruptly given to her.
"How do you fire this thing?!" Mei-Lin shouted over the whoosh of a nearby Inkstrike. She was pulling hard on the trigger of the weapon to no avail.
"Hold and release!" Katelyn shouted back, narrowly missing the giant sea snail barging straight at her. "Let go of the trigger!"
Noticing a beam of light being emitted from the Squiffer, Mei-Lin experimentally pointed at the charging Super Sea Snail now careening at Chris's direction, then released the trigger. A high velocity jet of sky-blue ink blasted out of the nozzle, missing the snail by a few meters and causing Mei-Lin to stumble from the recoil.
"That's it!" Chris yelled, rolling out of the way of another charge and started to paint the wall nearby. "Mei-Lin, just stay as far away from us as possible and paint us exit routes!"
"O-okay!" Mei-Lin replied, bracing herself.
There was a beeping noise, and Cobalt realized his special was fully charged as his tentacles began to shimmer and bubble.
"I'm ready!" Cobalt shouted, doing a sharp turn towards the group. "Chris, your turn!"
"Got it!" Chris replied, "Everyone, go for the snail's face!"
Turning towards Tiny, Chris pointed his Dual Squelcher straight at the charging snail, and fired a salvo straight at it before switching into squid form and swimming away through the stream Mei-Lin made earlier. The ink impacted the snail's eyes dead on, causing it to slow down ever so slightly as it attempted to shake the substance out of its eyes. With the snail slowed down, Katelyn swung her Inkbrush at random, painting the area around her until her tentacles began to bubble from the special's accumulation. Standing firm in front of Tiny, she activated her Bubbler as it ran into her shield head on, causing the creature to recoil again and stumble. Just to make sure the creature was incapacitated, Katelyn swung a few splotches at Tiny's face, the impact causing the Super Sea Snail to become even more disoriented. With an irritated "Meep", Tiny stopped completely in its track, preparing to do another charge. But not before Cobalt skidded to a stop in front of the snail's face.
"Checkmate!" he roared, activating his special and transforming into a Kraken, charging straight at the gigantic snail and impacting its face directly. As the creature stumbled backward, Cobalt repeatedly went after it and rammed its face again and again, until Cobalt's special ran out. With the creature still stumbling from the barrage, Cobalt pointed both his guns straight at Tiny's face, and squeezed the triggers for all its worth, a high pressure salvo of sky blue ink causing the snail to finally tip over. As his ink tank emitted a 'beep' to indicate a recharge, the gargantuan Super Sea Snail finally succumbed to the pressure and fainted with little spirals spinning in its eyes.
"Oh!" Tetanus exclaimed in surprise, watching the group of inklings gather around the KO'd Tiny. "Ya think that now ya knocked out my buddy y'all won? WELL IT'S ONLY THE BEGINNING!"
He hammered the Inkstrike barrage button again, but nothing happened. Looking to his right, he realized he finally exhausted his supply of Inkstrikes. The launcher itself couldn't take the stress of firing so many missiles in such a short time and promptly exploded, the scrapped weapon falling onto the floor with a loud *clang*.
"Well…" Tetanus cackled, "Good thing I bought meself some spare weapons!" Hammering another button, he deployed four Inkzookas, and started firing indiscriminately as he ran along the foothold.
"This guy doesn't give up, does he?" Cobalt groaned, dodging the tornado of black oil being propelled at his general direction.
"Well you know what they say about people this cliché." Chris shrugged, "They are many things, persistent being one of them."
The tornadoes being produced by the rapidly firing Inkzookas however weren't as fast the inklings expected, however. Possibly to the much more viscous nature of the oil compared to the ink, not only were they travelling slower they terminated earlier than they should. Seeing this, Tetanus narrowed his eyes in irritation.
"BOOORING!" He groaned loudly. "What say we… SPICE THINGS UP?! FLAMING TECHNIQUE: SHADOWFLARE!" Pointing his guitar/flamethrower at the firing Inkzookas, he simultaneously fired a burst of flame at the swirling tornadoes, igniting the oil and causing miniature firestorms to erupt towards the bewildered Inklings.
"This guy is utterly unbelievable!" Katelyn yelled, ducking into a stream of ink Mei-Lin fired and dodging a lethal fire wave.
"Well if the oil can't splat us before, it most certainly can now." Chris gulped. "We got to stop this guy before he cooks us all alive!"
"And just when the respawn pad was running off of limited power!" Cobalt shouted, ducking out of the way of another flaming tornado. "Oh by the way, I forgot to mention the respawn has only enough charge to resurrect two more inklings."
Chris stared at Cobalt with an exasperated expression, likely from Cobalt not bring up such a crucial detail earlier. "Okay, now we REALLY need to stop him. But how?!"
The flaming tornadoes were also having a side effect of also igniting the oil that's already splattered all over the arena. Slowly but surely, the entire arena began to rise in temperature as the entirety of the floor that was covered in oil was set ablaze.
"We can't go on like this!" Mei-Lin cried, struggling to fire her Squiffer over the sweltering heat. "Can we put out the fires or something?"
"It's risky, but it's worth a shot!" Chris yelled, randomly shooting everywhere onto areas set ablaze in an attempt to smother the inferno. While the ink evaporated quickly in contact with the flames, it was having some effect as part of the blazing fires began to reduce. Following his example, the inklings stuck together in a group, shooting ink around them to coat as much ignited oil by their own ink as possible. With the urchin introducing even more flaming Inkzooka blasts into the arena however, their efforts were proving to be somewhat counterproductive. It wasn't long before the inklings found themselves in a corner surrounded by flames.
"WHAHAHAHAHAA!" Tetanus laughed, pointing his Inkzookas and his modified guitar at our heroes. "This is the end for you! FINAL TECHNIQUE: HYPER-"
"No way am I getting splatted permanently to a badly named attack!" Katelyn interrupted, pulling out the Pressurized Special. Opening the can, a flood of energy poured out of it, enveloping Katelyn and causing her tentacles to bubble as if a special is ready. From her back, an Inkstrike missile materialized, and Katelyn prepared to fire the missile as she pulled out a targeting pad out of nowhere.
"Woah! Where'd you get that?!" Cobalt exclaimed, eyeing the missile. "We could give that urchin a taste of his own medicine with this!"
"My thoughts exactly." Katelyn replied, winking at Cobalt. "Oy, you walking talking cliché! Why not suck on THIS?!"
Prodding Tetanus's location on the targeting pad, Katelyn launched the Inkstrike missile straight towards the crazed urchin. Taken aback, Tetanus couldn't respond in time, and was subsequently swept up by the hurricane of sky-blue ink, and was thrown off his perch. The urchin landed onto the patch of ink left behind by the Inkstrike, and his exoskeleton shattered upon impact, sparks flying from the ruined machine.
"HAHAHA!" Tetanus laughed, getting up from the wreckage and staggering somewhat as the flames began to die down. "I never 'ad this much fun in a LOOOONG time! But if ya think I'd give up now, yer WRONG!"
"ARE YOU REALLY…" Cobalt spluttered, his vocabulary completely deserting him. "What else do you even have left?!"
"Veeeery simple! My own secret weapons!" Tetanus replied, showing his sharp teeth. "Behold…"
The urchin inexplicably pulled out two sharp machetes from out of nowhere, and brandished them at what he seemed to think was a cool pose.
"…MY MAGNIFICENT SWORDS!" He finished, before lobbing them straight at the group. "TAKE THIS!"
The inklings instinctively ducked, but the machetes sailed way off the mark and far over their heads. One sailed just outside the arena and embedded itself onto the floor, the other flew far away into the darkness, and landed on something soft with a sickening crunch.
"AAAAAAAAAARGH!" a distant voice cried out.
"Ooo, nice hat! How much does it cost?" another voice asked curiously.
"Ah, ya think ya have me beat NOW?!" Tetanus continued, "Well-"
"To put it bluntly, I think we managed to." Mei-Lin interjected. "Please, can you let us be?"
Tetanus cackled evilly, and sneered at the inklings. "Ohohoho! I DON'T THINK SO, I still got my SUPER secret weapons! BEHOLD-"
Out of nowhere, a familiar voice suddenly interrupted the urchin.
"Tetanus, that is quite enough."
AN: Good grief, this was hard to write. Between settling in with university, writer's block and general procrastination, this chapter was a hard one to get down with. I apologize to the readers looking forward to new chapters (all two of you, I imagine...).
On the actual chapter itself, I had to immerse myself in every manner of cringe imaginable to get this out. Listening to soundtracks from Metal Gear Rising, reading edgy writing from various sources, and thinking with the mindset of a 12 year old trying too hard to sound cool. It was difficult for me to not lose myself, I'll say that much.