Slowly coming to, I could feel a sharp pain in my nose and winced. Groaning softly, I slowly sat up and rubbed my eyes away their sleepiness, opening them up and looking around to find myself still on the floor of the living room. Tenderly touching the bridge of my nose, I could feel the texture of bandages, most likely placed upon it by my dickhead, caring sister. I tilted my head back and sighed through my nostrils, recalling the events that occurred before I passed the fuck out.

'Lesee, I thought, Alyssa was a piece of shit, game console started going wild, glowing white light, screaming….

I jolted back to my senses, remembering exactly how I got knocked out in the first place. Looking back at the spot where I saw the inkling before I blacked out, I was alerted to find that in its place was empty carpet, but some weird purple and pink stains lingered where the inkling once laid.

"Looking for someone?" I heard Alyssa say, the girl herself coming down the stairs. I turned my head slowly to look at her as she descended. She had changed her outfit, going from her 'fashionable' clothing to sweatpants and a loose, oversized shirt. Looking closer I could see purple and pink marks alike to the ones on the carpet upon her garbs.

"Uh, yeah. Where's the little squid dude?" I asked slowly, never imagining those words to ever come out of my mouth in my life.

"Our little 'guest' is in the guest bedroom," she snorted at her terrible humor, "He stirred awake a little after I carried him upstairs and put up a fight, but he went right back out as soon as his head hit the pillow on the bed."

I raised my brows, "He? How do you know it's a he?"

Alyssa pointed to her navy blue hair and cheered in a small singsong voice, "Ponytaaaail." She then walked over to me, examining the bandages on my nose, "I wasn't really sure on how to patch up your already ugly face, but the bleeding stopped so I'm guessing I did something right."

I rolled my eyes, jokingly pushing her away before standing up. I stretched my arms and rolled my neck a few times, before looking around with half lidded eyes, "Have you seen my glasses anywhere? I forgot to put them on when I was running late for the school bus this morning."

My sister folded her arms, scoffing, before reluctantly jabbing her hand in her pocket and handing me my glasses, "I was going to put up a scheme to make you have to earn these from me, but with our current 'situation' I was unable to carry it out, so props to you for buying a weird ass Wii U, bro."

I huffed, putting on the spectacles without a retaliation to say. Instead, I changed the subject. "Speaking of situations, where did all those marks come from?" I asked, pointing to her very purple and pink-splattered shirt and sweatpants. Then I looked up and and could accurately note the big pink stain on her cheek.

Alyssa shrugged her shoulders, proceeding to turn around and head towards the kitchen, "The little guy had a whole bunch of injuries on his arms and legs, and when I went to clean him up he woke up and started freaking out and snagged me in the face once," she grabbed a rag from inside one of the drawers, "I don't really know what was up with him, but he seemed terrified. Anyway, the cuts he had were all oozing purple shit, very goopy. The weird thing about it was that the cuts were across his ankles and his wrists, and they went all around each limb, as if he had cuffs on or something."

I furrowed my brow in concern and tilted my head slightly, "So you're saying he could have purple blood or an infection of some sorts? But then again, how do you get cuts all around each of your limbs like that? That doesn't make much sense if cuffs were involved, unless they were spiked and dug into his skin or something."

Alyssa stepped over to the sink, turning the faucet and dampening the rag in cool water, "No, his blood isn't purple, surprisingly. Turns out his blood is his ink color, which I imagine is pretty confusing in his world. A pretty, red-ish pink. I could tell that was his blood color when I saw it mixed in with the purple." She squeezed the rag to let the loose water out, "From what I can tell there might've been some sort of cuffs around him, but the wounds on his wrists and ankles weren't from spike punctures."

I tapped a finger to my chin, "So why was there purple shit coming from his wounds? Is it an infection of some sort, then?" I then pointed to the wet rag she was holding, "Also, why are you getting a cold rag? What the hell kinda heist are you planning this time?"

My sister shook her head, "No. I think it actually might be Octarian ink. Y'know how purple the ink they use is? It was the same hue when I examined him. I managed to clean out most of it with a small amount of water but there's still a little left," she then rolled her eyes and hit me in the face with the rag, causing a small spike in pain in my nose, "And no, you shitbag. The rag is for the inkling, he's running a bit of a fever."

"Octarian in-What the hell kind of stupid inkling would wander their way into Octo Valley and into Octo territo…." I trailed off, realizing that the inkling we were dealing with wasn't just any common squid kid, but Agent 3, the main avatar.

"Oh my god," I whispered under my breath, slowly adjusting my glasses. Okay, great. We don't have a normal inkling in our situation, of course not. We just had to get Agent 3, the S+ ninety-nine ranked squid I had fought so hard to get to. This couldn't end well. Shaking my head, I focused on another thing she had said.

"Okay, how sick is he?"

At this she furrowed her brow, her hands making careful gestures as she thought out her sentences, "He's actually breathing pretty shallowly, the little dude also had cheeks that seemed a little too flushed to be healthy," she took a breath, "His temperature measured out to be a hundred 'n five. Sweat was practically pouring down his face, Will. He might be just going through a tough illness he needs to get through his system, or something that could be deadly to an inkling. I'd suggest we call an ambulance but...y'know, with the whole 'species not from our world' thing."

"Wow, okay um, wow. Way to make the situation sound like someone's dying, 'Lyss." I halfheartedly joked, prompting Alyssa to punch me in the arm with a small laugh. Glad I helped make the situation less upsetting, even if the outcome could be grave.

"I'm gonna go up and put the rag on his forehead, you should be useful and get a glass of water in case he wakes up." She instructed with a small grin on her face, heading out of the kitchen doorway.

I decided to make the smarter decision and grabbed a thermal water bottle instead, filling it up using the dispenser on the fridge door and twisting the top shut. I tilted it upside down to make sure it was water tight and then set on my way upstairs.

When I got to the guest room, I could see the inkling on the bed clearly. Sure enough, the guy was knocked out with his head on the pillow. I was in awe to see that it was the exact inkling I remembered playing as just yesterday when the game was working properly. I didn't care enough about the customization options to choose a specific look so I just went with whatever.

The top of his head was wrapped with a bandage, a large section of pink seeping through. I grimaced, guessing the impact of his not-so-graceful landing must've caused that. His tan skin on his cheeks was flushed a deep red-ish pink, too vibrant and noticeable to be considered healthy. Beads of sweat were dotted across his forehead, slipping down to the sheets resting below him. The mask around his eyes made it hard to see his eyelids, but looking closer I could see they were tightly shut. His mouth was open and producing a soft and slightly pitiful panting noise, the three fangs that all inklings had were visible, white as a marshmallow. Looking over the inkling, I guessed that he was around five feet tall at most.

I looked over his clothing next, all he had on was a black, long sleeved shirt and presumably the body suit he wore underneath it. Glancing at his wrists and ankles, I could see gauze wrapped around them, a small hint of pink peeking through it as well. Looking over one side of the bed, I could see a small chair with a pile of the inkling's clothes, the hero suit gear with his shoes.

"Hmmm."

"AH-Shit!" I jumped out of my skin at the sound of Alyssa humming, not even noticing that she was standing right on the other side of the bed. She snickered at my reaction but used a hand gesture to remind me to keep it down.

"I was gonna go ahead and put the rag on him but I think the black shirt and bodysuit might be making him too hot." She whispered to me, juggling the damp rag in her hands.

"What do you want me to do? I'm not stripping him, that's weird." I muttered, awkwardly shoving my hands into my pockets.

My sister scoffed, "Please, stripping him should be the least of your concerns. Either way, I don't think the extra layers are gonna be doing him any good, so we'll have to get them off."

I gave her a strange look, "...Even the bodysuit? What if he's goin' commando? I swear to God I will up and leave this house if I catch my eye on any sort of squid dick."

"Oh my God. I'm 'boutta up and smack you, this poor little guy's running a fever and you're worried about seeing a little more than what you'd like so you're willing to potentially let him overheat? Really?"

"Okay, well, you don't have to make me seem selfish simply because I don't wanna see a squid dick." I hissed, "They could -I dunno- look weird."

Alyssa groaned, "Who cares about the dick? We just gotta take his fucking clothes off so he doesn't get in an even worse condition! Can you at least help me get the shirt off without disrupting the bandages too much?"

"If I-"

"You won't see a fucking dick if you're just taking off the shirt you ignorant fucking sour lemon." She snapped, clearly not fucking around.

I flinched at Alyssa's tone, understanding that if I said something else smart she could potentially pick me up and throw me out the guest bedroom window. Literally.

Huffing through my nose, I stepped closer to the inkling and gently grabbed the bottom of his black shirt, slowly beginning to pull it over his head. I watched as my sister put the damp rag on the edge of the bed and then followed my footsteps on the other side of it, the both of us working together to get the shirt off of him without waking him up.

We had just gotten his tentacles through when suddenly he blinked awake, seeming to be extremely drowsy. My breath hitched and I looked up at Alyssa, who was staring back at me with wide eyes. Together we both sat in tense silence and watched as the inkling looked around with squinted eyes, at one point them focusing on me for around ten seconds, before he yawned and nestled himself into the pillows surrounding his body, going right back to sleep.

After a solid minute of him going back to sleep, we both exhaled in relief and continued our work, finally pulling the shirt off his body. The change wasn't instantaneous, though I could tell that without the shirt the inkling was gonna be less hot.

"Okay, okay. That wasn't disastrous. That could've been a lot worse." My sister reassured, though it seemed more directed at herself than me.

"Thank. Fucking. God." I wheezed, the stress of the situation had made my anxiety go straight through the roof. "I'm so fucking glad he was half asleep, it would've sucked to have him wake up to two total strangers stripping off his shirt."

"Well, we're more than strangers. To him, anyway. We're like...martians." Alyssa murmured, glancing over the inkling and trying to find where the zipper of his body suit was.

I watched her try to find it after a moment and then quickly spoke up, "We're less like martians and more like an odd alien race that tried to take on a similar form to him but always somehow came off a little off anyway." Then, after a moment, "Also, his zipper may be on his back."

Alyssa huffed and crossed her arms, "Yeah, you're right. It probably is. It'd be a waste of effort to try and unzip it without him waking up. Also, what the genuine fuck, Will?"

I quickly tried to defend myself, "Y'know! Like those cartoons! With the aliens that'd come and be all like 'hey hey we wanna make peace 'n shit' and they'd say that they took on forms to look like us with their advanced ass technology or something."

My sister rolled her eyes and then picked up the rag from the edge of the bed and gently laid it on top of the inkling's forehead. Giving him another look, I could tell that he was definitely feeling better after removing the shirt and putting the wet rag on his head. His breathing had calmed down and he looked like he was in a pretty deep sleep.

After a moment of the two of us looking at him, Alyssa groaned and rubbed her cheeks with her hands, dragging them down her face.

"I'm gonna have to change his fucking bandageees…" She whined, "He might wake up if I try to change his bandageees…."

I snorted, "Worst case scenario is that he'll wake up and scream for like, ten seconds. I highly doubt a tiny dude like him would be able to cause significant damage to you."

My sister rubbed the back of her neck in an awkward manner, "Maybe. I dunno, I just feel like that while inklings may look defenseless and weak, they may actually be pretty hardy? I mean, who knows what they evolved to do when in a situation involving predator and prey."

"You take a long look at our rising generation and tell me how threatening they are, and then check back with me later."

Alyssa laughed, adjusting her glasses, "Okay, yeah, I getcha. Inklings probably would just be on their phones and can probably only do as much as we can. Besides that whole shapeshiftin' thing of course."

…

"You are gonna be right beside me in case he wakes up while I'm changing his bandages, right?"

I chose that moment to look into my sister's brown eyes, open my mouth as if I were to say something, and then immediately darted out of the room and into my own to avoid my sibling's wrath. I could hear her charging after me so as soon as I got into my bedroom I slammed the door shut, hearing the thump of my sister colliding with it.

"Fuck you too!" I heard my sister screech from the other side of the door as I held it shut.

I'm a good older brother, I promise.

Don't believe him, he's a terrible older brother. Click to see what happens next! ;3c