The best part about writing for me is seeing how far I've come. I used to struggle to get anything long enough to be considered a chapter, but now I'm writing a lot more confidently.

It's in the small details.

That night, I woke to find myself still in my Deepsea clothing. Apparently, the me from six hours ago couldn't have bothered to change into a shirt. She'd just collapsed on the bed as soon as she got there.

Ugh. As pretty as the sun was, it was still unpleasantly hot. All that tryhard sweat belonged to me this time.

Groaning, I tossed my clothes into the laundry on the other side of the room, minus the heels, and threw on another huge t-shirt. Then collapsed on the bed again.

And soon enough, my phone went off. With my face buried in a pillow, I reached over to it, slapped the nightstand a few times, and, when I found it, turned it on. I squinted at the light. Annie was calling me.

I put it on speaker and set it back on the nightstand. "What?" I said flatly.

"You're insane." Not even a proper greeting. How polite of her.

"I know." I fell back down onto the mattress. "But I didn't make it worse, did I?" I said, knowing entirely well that I made it worse.

"…Not too much," Annie muttered. "What were the results? How much did you win by?"

"Twenty percent or so," I chuckled, rolling to my other side. "But I mean… I was just trying to stand out, though. You know?"

"You stood out enough as it was… That thing you did at the camera, that's going to become a gang sign, mark my words. And you were wearing all black. Oh yeah, and the whole species thing."

She got me there. Nobody would wear that type of thing in broad daylight.

And yeah, I was an Octoling. That too.

"How'd they take it?" I asked. I'd pulled a Masked Mayhem and fled the field after the battle instead of returning to the tower. Meaning I'd missed the other main event.

"Oh— It was incredible." She started laughing. "Somebody recorded the whole thing. Broadcast it live, you said, then it was live on the big screen on the tower.

"And none of them could do anything, so they all just stood there while you wrecked the other team! They freaked when you shot that bomb out of the air— Ah, I wish I could have been there."

I shut up and let her go on. As worried as she'd said she was about me earlier, she was taking this pretty lightly. Which, really, was how I wanted her to take it.

"And then, when you won, one guy pulled out a Splattershot and wrecked the stage. I… think he got arrested or something. Hold on, wanna go see it? I think it's still there."

"Sure," I agreed, shrugging to no one in particular. I glanced at the laundry, which was somehow done already. It was fast up here on the surface, like everything else. "Meet you there."

After putting on my one set of actual clothing and getting my Octo Shot replica, I used the door and not the window.

"Yo," said Jacob, just as I was about to leave. "Whatever you're doin', can you take me with ya? I got nothin' else to do."

I stopped and turned to him. He was lying on that couch again and… had a red hoodie that wasn't there before. What was it with hoodies up here? Why did everyone seem to have one? "Uh, sure?" I said. I'd hoped it would've just been me and Annie, but I supposed this wasn't a problem. "Just bring your weapon. It'll probably come to that…"

As I'd said, Jacob was unnaturally buff. And apparently tall. I hadn't noticed it before, since nearly everyone was taller than I was, but Jacob towered over everyone else in the square, even when slouching in his teen ways. He had a Blaster stuffed into his long hoodie pocket, the nozzle sticking out of one end.

Annie said someone had shot the stage apart. I was expecting a pile of wood in the middle, but what I got was a mess of broken planks littering the entire square. Going barefoot would have guaranteed splinters.

There was no way this was the work of only one guy.

Everyone circled around the remains of the crates, not even bothering to kick them to the side. Most were Inklings, but a few Octolings were there, and none were getting any weird looks. Jacob and I being two of them.

"The heck?" Jacob said, pulling his hood down. "What happened?"

"You didn't hear?" I said. So, somehow, he'd heard of the protest, but not the aftermath. "There's another friend coming. You can ask her." I had a feeling Annie would be delighted to tell the story again.

I weaved through the mess to reach the same group of outdoor tables I usually went to. Taking a chair, I dumped a large piece of wood off of it and brushed away the dust. Jacob split away and wandered to the other corner of the square to examine a plank of wood… for some reason. I guess he was still new to Inkopolis. He looked like a child that had just discovered his first toy… or something.

Suddenly, I felt like a mother. I didn't like it.

I sighed and leaned my head back. The sky was black. That was all. Nothing else was notable. Not even the moon was there.

Still, there was something wonderfully terrifying about how far it went. No screen walled off anything farther. It just kept going.

Annie landed on the jump point to my right, which was the only part of the square that had been swept clean. She was… wearing that golden toothball I gave her. It was somehow on her ear, but it looked more like it was glued to her head.

"I see you brought your Octo Shot," she said, approaching me with a smug look on her face. "It really is all you think about, huh?"

"And you brought your… Uh…" I didn't know what that was. It had a silvery sheen, made of what looked like a tangle of pipes. A canister with the Ammo Knights logo was mounted on it. Even if it were metal, it was a wonder it didn't break off.

"Aerospray," she said as she leaned on the table. "I only brought it because I knew you would. And don't tell me that's the only weapon you own."

It was, unless the real Octo Shot from the Sanitized counted. "…Maybe?" I mumbled.

"I gotcha, Miss Giant Robot-Slayer," she teased. "How about we trade for a game, then?" She placed her Aerospray on the table, then looked at me expectantly.

I sighed. "Fine." I went along with her game and took it for the Octo Shot. I was glad to see Annie had recovered from last night. She seemed a lot more playful and lighthearted than she usually was.

"Yo, Sky!" Jacob yelled from the other corner. A few people turned to him. "Why's the place trashed?"

I waved him over. Annie stared at him running to us and didn't say a word.

"Ask her," I pointed at Annie with my thumb. "She's seen the video, not me." I turned in my chair.

"You…" Annie said, still staring at him. She lifted a finger and pointed at him. "I… It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Ah. Okay.

This was tense. At least, for me it was.

In any case, I wasn't part of this. I nodded at Annie, stood up, and walked away. I didn't want to bother her when she was catching up.

There were a lot of people involved in the Octrope incident. It wasn't really surprising that many—particularly Octolings—were left separated from anyone they knew with no way to contact them. And the merger made it even more difficult, at least in that aspect.

But still, if I were right, Annie wasn't a typical Octoling.

Halfway to the rotunda, I looked back to not see them at the table. Or anywhere, actually. They must've gone behind one of the shops that were still closed.

Huh. So Jacob and Annie knew each other. What were the odds that I'd have met them separately?

Jacob, though, didn't give me the sense of familiarity that Annie did. Whatever that meant… I didn't know. Maybe she'd only met him long after deserting.

Well, whatever.

"Whoa, dudes, it's her!"

…Was what I heard immediately after stepping into the lobby.

The owner of that voice was an Inkling male with deep blue hair and a tank top. What was he doing, wearing that in this temperature?

Though I wasn't one to judge in that regard.

With him were two others. One was an Octoling girl in a cute sweater, smiling at me and standing by the wall. And the other was an annoyed-looking Inkling with… a schoolgirl uniform from one of the surface academies.

Fashion up here was broken, I swear. How was someone supposed to fight in that?

"It's Night—"

"Sorry about him," interrupted the schoolgirl. "He's annoying, but too good to kick from the team."

Tank top wasn't fazed at all.

"A team?" I went to the other wall, opposite the sweater girl, and gazed at the screen. "Do you have a go-to formation or something?"

"Win," said the sweater girl. "So, ah, no. It's hard to do that when you have only three people. But it works most of the time."

"But that's enough about us!" Tank top practically jumped out of his seat. He snapped his fingers. "Why're you named NightFall?"

So… this was an interview now?

Because that was the first thing that popped into my head. "Because I usually fight at night."

Sweater girl rolled her eyes and glared at tank top. "Shut up," she said. "We're starting."

The floor opened up. Tank top and schoolgirl fell in first. And as I brushed by the sweater girl, she whispered to me, in clear Octarian.

"Thank you."

I stopped, just before I stepped into the hole. I couldn't stop myself from smiling. Was I really that well-known?

I brushed my hair aside and winked at her.

The rulebook stated that each of the many stages represented Inkopolis, "be it a historical landmark, a place of cultural significance, or simply somewhere that people like to be."

And yet they had MakoMart, which was literally a regular supermarket.

Of course, the most interesting part of the stage was the center. This one seemed to be a risky one to be in—it was surrounded by high ground and had little cover to make up for it. So, rather than a place to be, it was a place to control.

The side paths were small but went straight to the other end of the map. Good flank entrances, but also obvious points to defend. Pushing deep into the enemy's side would be difficult, but rewarding.

And was everything in this city designed to be rotationally symmetric, or…?

The lights in here were not very good at getting across that it was night. Comparing it to the rulebook photos, it seemed as if it was always at this exact brightness, no matter the time of day. Or night.

Annie's Aerospray in my hand was cold. Ah, the beauty of pure metal.

I shut my eyes as the timer ticked down, and when the clap went off, I advanced.

About a minute in, I had discovered two things: One, this thing's accuracy was horrible. Two, this thing's range was horrible.

To some extent, it was made up for with a high fire rate, so it was probably a better fit for other people. I, though, played the assassin, not the ground coverer.

But that didn't make sense, because Annie didn't either.

Eventually, I pushed forward, climbing the enemy-side center wall. After reaching the top, I opened fire at the enemy there, miraculously hitting each of the five shots it took to splat them.

Both of my sides were clear, so I followed it up with a bomb straight for their side. It wasn't a normal one—it stuck to wherever it landed, had a larger radius, and took longer to go off. I didn't imagine it ever hitting anyone, but the area control it gave me was valuable nonetheless.

I started juggling the weapon between my hands, coating the area around me with a fresh coat of pink. An enemy with one of the heavy Rollers pushed forward on the other side path, so I jumped over there and fired from above, missing every shot as they kept pushing the weight to the other side.

Dang it, Annie.

From the back, sweater girl got them with a Splatling volley. I waved to her, and she brushed her own hair aside and gave me a wink. I held back a laugh.

Yep—that would definitely become a gang sign. A healthy alternative would be a general Octoling symbol, though that was hoping for too much.

When the clock hit a minute, I was lost. My typical plan was off the table. Remove opponents, cover ground, push forward. In that order.

But two of those three were not very easy with abysmal range and nonexistent accuracy. I was stuck with the "cover ground" part.

And when the timer hit zero, I took no pride in knowing that was my sloppiest game to date.

Being a master of all weapon classes, clearly, did not make one a master of all weapons.

"Shoot, that was close," said tank top. "Ah… we won, but, NightFall, is that—"

"Not my main weapon?" I finished. "I'm better with… you know."

Sweater girl returned to her place by the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. She turned her eyes downward. "You… wanna stay for another game?"

"Sor—" Wait.

I had to stop myself and take a moment to understand her. To her, I wasn't some random Octoling. I wasn't Sky, the girl who was always hiding. I was NightFall. This other name I used—it was also me.

I blinked at the floor. What had I done?

People knew who I was? People like her looked up to me?

This was the polar opposite of where I was six months… No, a few days ago.

It didn't feel right. I wasn't quite used to it just yet. But still… I felt happy.

"As much as I'd love to," I said, "I promised my friend I'd join up with her. And…" I shrugged. "I don't really want to use this weapon again, you know?"

"Oh…" She smiled faintly. "Well, then. Goodbye."

I furrowed my brow and put a hand on my hip. I couldn't leave her like this. "What's your name?" I said.

She looked up. "Kei."

"Kei," I echoed. I crossed the room to stand by her. She looked up at me, and I saw her eyes shining back at mine. "My name is Sky," I said. "I'll see you around."

As I turned to the door, I saw the schoolgirl pressing her hand over tank top's mouth. I pretended not to notice and left quietly.

I let out my breath when the door shut behind me. Kei… that was an Octoling name. I wondered how many people like her were out there. I was something special to her. Did I really deserve it? All I'd done was crash a shoddy protest that someone else already had.

Well, I was glad, at least, that she had found a pair of Inklings that readily accepted her.

"Yo."

My head shot up. That was Jacob's voice. And… there he was, at the end of the hallway, hands in his pockets. Was that always how he greeted people?

By his side, Annie stood with her arms crossed, Octo Shot hanging from her hand.

These two could have been anything from mild acquaintances to siblings to lovers. But it wasn't my place to ask.

At least, her desertion was a pretty big clue that, if she were associating with Jacob, he was nobody to be wary of.

"Hey," Annie said with a smirk. "Take this back." She tossed me my Octo Shot, and I swiped it out of the air. "I just thought it wouldn't suit you."

"You think of that now?" I dipped my head and narrowed my eyes, but she just laughed. I groaned.

"I'm sorry, you look so cute," Annie said. "I can't take you seriously like that."

"So you two know each other, or…?" Jacob pointed at me, then at Annie, then waved his fingers between us.

"We met a few days ago," I said. "But honestly? It feels like it's been longer than that."

"Yeah," Annie said, "it does. It…" Her smile fell. "…It really does." She shook her head and stepped toward me. "Never mind that. Come on, robot slayer," she said with a sly grin. "Our prey is waiting."

From one of my favorite chapters to write to my least. This one's practically a transition chapter to one of the major ones.

For next time.

Hey, so, after going back and tuning up this chapter, I think it's gotten way better. Particularly the way I handled Kei (who, actually, wasn't even named the first time around). And how did it get so long?