"Half this stuff's encrypted," Annie concluded, "and the other half's stuff we already know."

From where I was sitting, off to one side on one of those spinning chairs, I couldn't make anything out on her computer—I just let her sum up each file for me. But I didn't have much of a reason to care about any of what she'd said. Most of them were reports about the attack on Inkopolis, and the rest were things like population statistics or outdated weapon blueprints—nothing that rang a bell.

Though, this was my first chance to get a good look at Annie.

I spun around in my seat. She looked older than I did, taller than I was but still with a weak presence. Her hair was purple, just like mine, but just a bit shorter.

"Remind me why you copied everything in there?" I said. I had my own reasons to see what she'd found, but I didn't know hers.

"Why not?" She turned off her monitor and unplugged the flash drive. It clattered onto the desk. "There must've been so much in there worth seeing. Just need to decrypt the rest of them, and who knows what's in there?"

"Mm-hmm." I hummed. I pushed against the nearest wall and spun around.

Annie's apartment was nothing grand. It was about the size of mine, but almost everything she owned was still in a box. Other than the monitor, all other light sources happened to be blocked.

"You don't get it, huh." Annie gently stopped the chair with her hand. "That 'maintenance' should be over now. Want to try again?"

"Sure," I said. I slipped on my ink tank and grabbed my weapon. "I'll see you at the square."

It was odd, I thought—all it had taken to close the gap between us was a flash drive and an ink tank. And a near-miss with the authorities. I wondered what they were doing back there.

Inkopolis Square was brighter than I'd expected.

Judging by the sky's color, it was about early morning. Did it really take us that long to see all those files? No, it didn't feel like that long… Did it?

There weren't as many people as there were the day before. And still, none of them were funneling into the tower. I looked down and rushed inside, finding that balance between too quick and too slow.

I stepped in, turned back, then pulled my card out of my pocket. Wow, that photo really did look like a bird…

"Nice pic. It looks just like you."

I whirled around, and my hand brushed the Octo Shot's grip. Then I relaxed—it was just Annie. "That was fast," I said. "And nice outfit." White shirt, gray jacket, shorts. It seemed her fashion sense was ahead of mine. Not that I was setting a high bar.

"Thanks." Her eyes narrowed at my card. "You're not really three years old, are you?"

Ah. Shoot. My birthday was on there.

"No," I said, stuffing the card back into my pocket. "I threw a bunch of fake information at the machine in there."

"Then what's your actual birthday?"

"I—" I looked away. "Uh. I don't know."

Annie stared at me. "You... Don't know?"

"—That is to say I was... orphaned." I kept my face straight and looked her in the eyes again.

Annie's shoulders relaxed. "Oh. I— Is that a sensitive topic?"

"No, not really." But it was dangerously close to a topic that was. I unholstered my Octo Shot and hastily pointed at the elevator. "Ready?"

I surfaced to find myself at the top of some really tall building. This stage, Moray Towers, was… very vertical.

"Should we even be here anymore?" someone said. "Like, it's Masked Mayhem over there."

"And who would they be?" Annie said. I had the same question.

The other guy set his Slosher on the spawn point and sat on it. "It's a team of super good players that appeared last night. Their win rate so far is perfect."

All of the opposing team members had had their faces entirely covered with black-framed sunglasses and white face masks, if the lobby photos were to be trusted. Leo, Scorpio, Gemini, and Taurus were their names. I couldn't say what those meant, though.

Nevertheless, I smirked. This was a good change of pace. But really, they appeared last night? In sunglasses?

I looked at my hair again. Blue. This didn't fit me at all, either.

Three seconds left, or so said the other screen sitting on another building beside the stage.

I stepped back and kicked off the ground, and just as the speakers clapped, I left the Spawn Point.

Aiming to the right, I fired as I leaped off the first and second ledges. On the third, I pulled away and hid behind cover. The coast seemed clear, so I went right to a ramp that would take me to the center.

Right after leaving my cover, a red laser hit my chest. All while shooting a path for myself, I spun my body to avoid the incoming stream of ink.

I even surprised myself, sometimes.

At the bottom of the ramp, I jumped behind an oddly-placed thin wall. That Charger was a problem. Any Charger would be a problem. The way it's set up, this place was their home territory.

The Charger turned to someone else, so I kept up my advance to the right. I blindly shot at the ground. From the other side, another one was fast approaching—the Dualies. As soon as I noticed, I swam up the ramp and took the high ground. Dualies dodged my first few shots and tried to swim up the platform, but then I jumped off, firing backward at the wall they were on and hearing the telltale sound of a clean splat.

The laser hit me again, but I dove behind a block before the shot could hit me. That was even closer—whoever this was was a good shot.

After covering the pink floor that Dualies left, I swam up the ramp again, chasing after that Charger. Even if it was only for a few seconds, any time without them out on the map was precious.

I dropped a bomb to my left and then fired a path up the wall to the Charger's perch. I climbed up and jumped out of the wall, lobbing another Splat Bomb behind them and firing with the other hand.

They didn't last long.

The upwards ramp seemed clear—I covered the area and then made my way up. At the next level, though, Dualies was there to meet me. I left another bomb at my feet and leaped off, swinging my firing hand in an arc around me.

I landed to see Annie a distance away, pressed behind cover and shooting the ground at the dead center of the stage. She didn't notice another one charging at her—I saved her with a quick volley.

"Wha—" Annie started, keeping the trigger down. "When did you get here?"

"Just now," I said. "And you're welcome. Let's go."

"You're pretty good," Annie said. We both came to an unspoken agreement to head up the wall to the enemy's side again. "I saw those dodges earlier. You sure this is your first— Uh, second match?"

"I'm level one," I said flatly. "And isn't it yours, too?" Given that she wasn't Marina, she must have gotten to the city fairly recently.

"…I guess," Annie said. "But not my first time with a weapon."

For the rest of the time, we stuck together. For the most part, at least.

The distant speakers played another sound, this one coinciding with the 30-second display on the screen.

It wasn't looking good for us.

Not wasting any time, I jumped to an inaptly named Squid Beakon near the center and triggered an Inkjet with the button on the handle of my weapon.

I immediately fired at the Charger again—someone I'd had to keep tabs on the whole match—and leaned to the side, once again completely dodging an incoming shot.

I flew up the ramps, invading their side once again. After covering as much ground as I could, the Inkjet expired and launched me right back to where I started.

Then, anticlimactically, I was splatted by Dualies camping my spot.

Because of course that happened.

One look at the top-down stage view, and it was pretty obvious we'd lost.

42.6% to 57.2%. That… didn't add up to 100. But those were odd names for the teams. Good Guys and Bad Guys? Was it always like this?

"Well, dang," said one of the guys I didn't know. "Closest match so far. They completely destroy, normally."

The screen shifted to… something else. Looked like a leaderboard. It said I'd covered exactly 1991p… Whatever that meant. It was the highest on the board, beating even Masked Mayhem's individual scores. Four of me would have won, but the two guys I didn't know kinda dragged down the team, both under a thousand. But Annie was fine at 1599p, though. Not that I'd say any of that out loud.

"Who coached you?" Annie said, excited. What, was she fangirling over me? "No way that was your first time."

"M... Myself?" I said. I didn't know the real answer to that question. I mean, I guess it was true. I knew everything about my skill from Deepsea. I awkwardly tried to look away and avoid her starry eyes. "Welp, I haven't gotten any sleep since yesterday." I realized the fact as I said it. Somehow, I felt even more tired. "See you tomorrow… maybe."

Nobody moved as I left the lobby. Even the other two—they'd heard me too. I could guarantee we were all thinking the same thing.

I did that without sleep?

Hello and welcome to like the only action scene in the whole story (it gets better from here I promise).