So today I remembered that there is already a character that is canonically named Annie. This doesn't affect the story at all but still...

Whoops.

Out of pure spite, I stayed up until midday.

Turns out I was mildly annoyed. Actually watching the protest wouldn't do anything, but I just… felt like it. Every time I peeked outside, people were marching and swinging their crudely-drawn signs like their lives depended on it. My apartment building happened to be right next to the planned path, it seemed.

Down there, I saw everything from a simple octopus crossed out to… very colorful swearing in, like, every language on the planet.

I fell back onto my bed again. Over the months, I had gotten used to the sounds of cars and their beeping, but all the shouting was too distracting for me to get any meaningful rest. I had to busy myself with my phone. It wasn't like I was planning on sleeping, anyway.

This thing wasn't a thing back underground. Or at least, that's what it felt like. Almost every one of its functions was new to me. But the most intriguing was the one that let me see what people post about themselves online. I, of course, hadn't even considered doing the same, but it was nonetheless amusing to watch.

People were putting the weirdest things online. I was uncomfortably close to seeing at least three major head injuries. They were all pretty young, too. Probably a result of their tendency to be overconfident.

I turned it off and stretched out my arms, yawning quietly. I pulled my white t-shirt back down. It almost reached my knees.

They were mocking my height, I swear.

I looked out the window again, and the crowd was thinning. The last of them were in sight. Up ahead, the corner they were turning led straight to the square, just as Annie had told me.

And out of nowhere, my half-awake mind gave me a stupid idea that was too good to ignore.

I shut my window, changed into my Deepsea clothes, and took My Octo Shot and ink tank from the nightstand. When I left my room, Jacob was reclining on the sofa. He had nothing better to do, apparently. Or just nothing to do.

I still wasn't splitting rent with him. There was no rent to split. I hadn't heard a word about it since Sharktown, and if I wasn't paying, I didn't want to make him.

Taking a deep breath, I went to the door to the hallway and opened it.

"Hold up," warned Jacob. He sat up and held his arm out. "Don't—"

"I know," I said. Before he could follow that up with anything else, I shut the door behind me and holstered the Octo Shot.

I wasn't planning to fire at the protesters—that was a surefire way to make things worse. Ah, maybe that was how Annie was thinking she'd do it.

Having used the actual front door instead of the window, I could exit through so many other ways. And the one I picked was the least normal.

The roof, of course.

I bounded up the stairs until I reached the top of the building. I peered over the edge, and all the protesters were out of sight.

There was no way I was super jumping anywhere near there, so I picked the next best travel method.

I jumped across the rooftops, of course.

I flew across the short gaps between buildings towards the square. Whenever I came to a road, it was never too wide, and there was always a building on the other side low enough for me to reach. A few times, I fired behind me for a little boost. Sure, it was unnecessary. But it was cool.

Soon enough, I caught up to the tail end of the assembly. The square wasn't far.

Down there, most of the parade were Inkling adults, some older, some younger. I saw some bringing their children, too.

They weren't… old enough to care, were they?

I landed on a building to the tower's right and lay down on the roof. The shiny, golden turtle statue was across from me, on the other side of the street. A few more of the tower screens had been replaced.

The biggest and most dense crowd I had ever seen was facing away from the tower. A few crates were together at the other end of the square with a podium sitting on them. Some really old Inkling wearing a suit and tie was standing behind it. He cleared his throat and walked up to the outdated microphone on the podium. The crowd quieted down.

"We are gathered here today to oppose the migration of Octarians into our peaceful society." His voice was a bit shaky, like the rest of him.

I held back a laugh. He couldn't have been serious. We are gathered here today? People still started speeches like that?

I could have kicked off my stupid idea at any moment, but if the guy was giving a speech, I had to crash it halfway.

The veteran took a raspy breath and kept going. "Years ago, when I fought in the Great Turf War, it was to protect Inklingkind against the menace that tried to take our land and our people," he coughed loudly, sending an unpleasant screech through the speakers dotting the square.

I kept listening, but eventually, I stopped hearing the words and registered nothing more than his tone. All I was really waiting for was for him to start yelling.

I caught sight of a tall Inkling who strolled into the square from behind the crates. He passed around them, looking around. As the veteran continued, the Inkling's eyes widened and he pursed his lips. Did he not hear about the protest?

He looked down and put his hood up, then, slouching, shuffled around the crowd to reach the rotunda on the tower's ground floor.

That guy wasn't too bad. Probably.

No Octoling would make it past that crowd the way he'd just done. Not that many dared to get anywhere near it.

Really, what was I doing?

I sighed and lay back down, this time on my back. The sun was… bright. I looked towards the horizon. In my humble opinion, clouds were better in the day than at night.

"And," said the veteran, "I watched as the Squidbeak Splatoon pushed them back!"

I got up at the rise in his voice. There it was.

I reached over the side of the building, grinning to myself, and moved to dive off the building.

He yelled something else, but the microphone didn't pick it up. I stopped myself. No, this wouldn't work anymore. I had to interrupt him, not a technical error.

I leaned closer, though that achieved nothing with me still being four stories away.

"Man, can you believe this guy?" said a young woman's voice. She was talking through the speakers, somehow. I had definitely heard this voice before, but this time, it wasn't from my obscure past. "What, are we saying they suck because of a war? The sea level's gone down, guys. We don't need to fight over it anymore."

Heads were turning frantically. They started mumbling between themselves again. Some started wandering. It amused me how easy it was to break up a crowd.

I gave up on my plan for the time. I wanted to see what she was doing here.

The man at the podium growled and shook his fist in the air. "Show yourself, Octoling scum! I fought you once, I can do it again!" What was with him, trying to play the hero and all? He looked like he'd collapse trying to lift a Splattershot.

"Alright, alright," said the voice again. "I'll 'show myself' if you want."

On the other corner of the square, perched on another rooftop, a motion caught my eye, and I found her. She was facing away, wearing a straw hat and a tattered cape, eerily similar to Agent 3's.

"But for the record," she fell backward off of the roof, backflipping and landing on the center of a crate. "I'm not an Octoling. Or scum."

She flung her hat off, toward the crowd, and Captain Rose smirked at the assembly.

She looked pretty much the same as she had the last time I had seen her, fighting with me in Sharktown. The captain still had that everlasting grin and side-swept, wavy hair. And purple eyes that looked tired at first glance but still held all the enthusiasm of a young child.

I wasn't expecting to see her here, of all places. Or anywhere, to be honest. Inkopolis was huge.

"Remember me?" she said through the newer, not-outdated microphone. "No? Come on, I'm still wearing the same suit and everything!"

The crowd quieted down, listening to the new girl that entered the scene as if the whole thing were a play. She was wearing one of the many Hero Suits, as she'd said. Functionally, it was basically armor, but it looked like just a yellow sweater with oversized boots. The headset was gone, though.

"Oh, yeah, let him talk," she said. "I don't wanna make this too one-sided, alright?"

Something clicked, then the veteran's mic was on again. There was a light rustle as he, dumbfounded, turned to her. Was someone else with her, out of sight?

But more importantly, she'd just turned this speech into a debate. Everything in me was silently cheering her on.

"Who are you? Where are your parents?" said the veteran, pounding that same fist on the podium.

"You seriously don't know who I am…" Rose said it flatly with her eyes narrowing even more. She started walking in an arc around him. "Just… just look up the battle of Sharktown later and find the name 'Rose' It'll make me a lot more convincing, trust me."

The path she was walking reminded me of a predator sizing up its prey. Which, if things went well, would hopefully be an appropriate analogy.

"Look, we all have to live somewhere, right? I get war sucks, yeah, but if we'd lost, they'd be the ones saying we—"

"Get her off the stage!" The veteran was yelling again, pointing at Rose like she was the worst thing to ever grace his presence. And that wasn't a stage, that was a bunch of crates.

Rose laughed. "Scared to argue, huh?" She leaned in towards him and made herself look as cheery as possible. "You're really not as brave as you were before, huh?"

"You— You question me?" And the idiot took the bait. "Need I remind you who was behind the attack on Inkopolis? And who his army was made of?"

Really.

"I'll stop you right there." Rose held up her hand and stopped walking, standing to his direct left. "I've said this, like, five times already, but literally that entire army was brainwashed."

"But—"

"And the one guy behind it? That was one guy." Akash Octrope. That name was going in the history books. "Out of how many? Heck, we wouldn't have won at Sharktown if it weren't for the other Octolings."

So, after all, the captain hadn't turned it into a debate. She'd only claimed she had, I assumed, to keep the crowd silent. I wasn't complaining about that.

As the veteran opened his mouth, Rose started again. "Let's start with a big one. DJ Oc himself." She started wandering again, though this time, it was towards the crowd. "When he isn't taking care of a society that's literally falling apart, he isn't that bad of a guy. He's also the number one reason the tiny army that fought at Sharktown existed. And he personally saved one of my best friends from the attack on Inkopolis." She clicked her tongue and turned her eyes to the floor. Yeah, even with that, I'd agree that Octavio wasn't someone I'd like to associate with.

"Octavio—"

"Another one named Barry. Master strategist. He's why we won with the worst odds on the planet." She chuckled to herself, then gradually, her smile fell. She stopped in the very center of the stage, right in front of the veteran. The crowd was murmuring more loudly. More of this, then they'd lose it.

Rose looked upwards for a moment, then smiled again. "And another girl named Sky."

"What?" I mouthed to myself. That was me? There was nobody else it could have been. She… She remembered me?

"She's… one of the coolest people I've ever met."

"What?" Did I hear that correctly?

"First of all, she singlehandedly tutored, like, fifty other people, even though I think she was really shy,"

Was I that transparent? I thought I'd faked it well…

"She could hold her own against me, which, not to brag, is pretty impressive,"

Yes, I could, but I wasn't the one to take down Octrope! And where was all this praise coming from?

"She took down a giant robot that almost stopped the train going to Sharktown,"

That was a group effort! Someone else had the Rainmaker and kept shooting at it. All I did was kick a hole in its hull.

"And took on a bunch of the brainwashed guys alone and won without a scratch."

Why did she think so highly of me? Why was my face so warm?

"Remember to look me up later. Rose Jacqueline. With my background, I should be the one that hates them the most. But look at me. I don't." She took a deep breath and smirked at the crowd. "You know what? I think you're all just afraid. Afraid of people you don't know."

A thrown sign hit the stage, then a second. And many more came after. The veteran covered his head and hobbled to the back of the stage.

"Alright, I'm out," said the captain. She dropped the mic, and it bounced off of the crate as she jumped away.

I pulled myself towards the edge of the building. All my hopes to interrupt the speech had been dashed—not that I was complaining about why that was.

But there was nothing stopping me from doing what I came to do anyway.

I dove off the building and landed behind the crowd as it pushed forward. Any noise I might have made as I hit the ground was drowned out by their screeching.

I slipped into the rotunda and then the lobby in Deca Tower. I swiped my card to open up the elevator, then I paused. Something was missing.

The theatrics.

I turned, stepped back into the rotunda, then stomped on the floor. The noise grabbed the backline's attention. As they turned to look at me, taking a moment to process who I was, I swept my hair to the side and winked at them. My hair and my eyes—the signature Octoling features. "I got in!" I said. "Broadcast this next one live!" I whirled back around and dashed back into the lobby, jumping into the elevator just as it closed.

I didn't manage to catch whatever was happening on the other side of that door, but I couldn't imagine it was pleasant.

At the bottom, the elevator opened, and the smell of tryhard sweat was a lot more welcoming than it ever had been before.

I glanced at the lobby overview screen hanging from the ceiling. As I'd expected, the tower was nearly deserted. But there was one full lobby and another with three. Just enough.

I strolled to the second one, swiped my card, and pushed the door open.

"Yeah, I don't know why I still came in here," said one of them. "I should have thought, with all those people out there—"

"NightFall?" said another, the same hooded guy that I'd seen walk in earlier. The others turned to look at him, then at the screen in the corner, then at me. "But she's…"

I awkwardly smiled and waved at them. "You've heard of me?"

Somehow, the knowledge that I was rebelling against an entire protest gave me a burst of confidence.

He blinked at me. "How did you—"

"I jumped down. From the roof."

On the floor, the hole opened. I glanced at the screen. While I was talking, they'd matched us with the other lobby—which, this time, was not Masked Mayhem.

"G— Guys…" stuttered the guy with the hoodie. He put his palm on his forehead. "Oh man, this match is going to be legendary."

"Uh… thanks for the vote of confidence," I said. "Let's get in before they start tearing down the building."

Arowana Mall was a long stage that, at first glance, looked to hold territory for Chargers and Rollers—an odd combination. There was a lot of high ground, but at the same time, a lot of enclosed spaces.

That aside, either this was a very weird mall, or this specific part was designed solely for battle. I couldn't imagine many people shopping here.

Banners hung between billboards mounted on roofs. A blimp flew around… for some reason.

The ocean glistened to my left in the sunlight. This was only my second real match during the day, so I had to get used to natural light instead of the lampposts and such. I didn't think it'd make much of a difference, but it didn't hurt to be aware of it.

I glanced at the timer, far outside the stage's borders. My usual habit before a match wouldn't cut it. As it'd been said, this one would be legendary.

I turned around and faced the camera behind me. Looking directly into the lens, I again swept my hair aside and winked.

I was a proud Octoling. I felt… powerful. I was there, even with so many people blocking my way.

Me, the shy, stoic Octoling. I was doing this for Annie, for myself, for everyone else up here that needed it.

I knew that I had to make this next match my flashiest one yet.

So I did.

Holy crap, this chapter is a lot longer than I thought it would be.

Like, I had a clear beginning and end in mind, but I didn't think it would last this long.