Hello and welcome to the longest chapter I've ever written, being about four thousand words long.

The way it was looking, I was forming a rivalry with Masked Mayhem's Dualies main. Whenever we locked eyes—or, I assumed that was the case, what with their sunglasses and all—it always turned into an intense fight for those extra few seconds on the battlefield. And today, it seemed it would happen on Moray Towers.

Moray Towers was, in my humble opinion, not the best Tower Control stage. It all depended on who had the good Charger.

And in this case, it was Masked Mayhem.

I eyed Dualies, standing ready on the tower as it chugged along its line. I kicked off the wall, launching myself forward as I fell straight for them.

With a flurry of shots, I splatted Dualies midair and landed in the little splash of ink I'd made. But as soon as I did, the Roller came out of nowhere and flattened me.

Yay.

Someone else took Dualies' place, and the tower kept sliding up and closer to its goal. Another swam up the nearby wall, and as they leaped out of it, opened fire, catching both Eileen and Jacob in the volley.

And with that, they won. A knockout. Again.

Unsurprised, I jumped to the spawn point. Turning back around, I saw four squid-shaped silhouettes in the distance, all flying away in the same direction.

Masked Mayhem had just left the battlefield instead of returning to the lobby. Though it wasn't like they had to return. It didn't matter where they were—the system already had the match results.

As far as I knew, they still had a perfect win streak. The best advantage they had was what I assumed was communication. They didn't talk or anything mid-battle. No, it was like they always knew what the others were thinking.

It couldn't have been headsets. Their ears were all bare, and that was illegal, anyway.

I climbed out of the hole in the floor back into… probably the cleanest lobby in the building. But that wasn't saying much. There were still weird clumps of dirt in the corners and extra spray paint on the walls.

"There's no way…" Eileen said Over by the door, she had one hand on her head and a wide-eyed look. She met my eyes. "Do you get this feeling like you've fought them before?"

Before saying anything, I shot a glance at Jacob. He looked just as confused as I was, so no, this wasn't an Octrope thing.

Eileen dropped her hand back down. "N— No, forget it. It's nothing."

As much as I wanted to press the issue—this one seemed safe, anyway—I didn't exactly have the time. It was five minutes to midnight.

"I'm done for tonight," I said. "There's this… thing I have to go to."

Yeah, that didn't sound suspicious at all.

"Bye," Jacob muttered. He hadn't turned away from Eileen, who was trying her best to look natural. It wasn't working. She was fidgeting, and it wasn't subtle.

I held back a grin and backed out of the lobby.

Eileen. That was really Eileen in there…

From the bench, the stars were pretty much the same as they had been the night before. Not as good as from the forest, but a lot better than the square.

The jewel of the sky—the moon—was full. And the next day, it would be smaller again. There had to have been a reason for that, and yet I didn't know what it was. There was a mystery behind it, and not knowing the answer only gave it another layer of beauty.

I looked down at the ocean. The reflection of everything was there, too, but it wavered in the ripples. I had to concede that the sea was nice, too, but it couldn't compare to the static image above me. I smiled at the sky.

I checked the time again. Rose was running late. Somehow, I wasn't surprised. She hadn't struck me as the most punctual individual. Sighing, I fell onto the bench.

That thing Eileen had said earlier, about having fought Masked Mayhem before—why had it taken her this many matches to notice?

And now that she'd made me think about it, I thought the same. But only about Dualies. There was something familiar about their fighting style, about the fondness for kicking off walls.

A boat's horn caught my attention. Far to my right, sailing parallel to shore, was a small, run-down ship. There was a bent satellite on the back, and several patches needed repainting. The weirdest part was that it had the Grizzco logo on it, stamped on what was left of the torn umbrella propped up by its cabin.

The horn sounded again, and it swayed to one side. When it righted itself again, it kept going.

That was Rose, wasn't it?

As the boat chugged right next to the bench, it dropped an anchor on its far side and came to a stop in front of me. Another piece of the umbrella fell off and rode the breeze out to the open sea.

A door on its near side slammed open, and former Captain Rose rushed out.

She jerked her head to the sky. "Yes, it's clear!" Then she looked down at me standing blank-faced in front of her. "Uh, I mean, ta-da!" Rose jumped to the front of the boat and held her arms out as if she were presenting it to me as a gift.

I stared at her. She wasn't moving. "I'm not… sure what you're trying to do," I admitted.

"Get in the boat. Please," she chirped. Whatever she was planning, she was excited about it.

I could appreciate seeing the ocean, but that didn't mean I liked being on it. Even after half a year, I couldn't shake the memory of the murder statue and its corpse blasters. I was lucky the dawn made an impression on me before it did.

"Sorry about the really bad ship," Rose said. She was in front of the controls, facing away from me. "But One and Two wouldn't let me use their yacht, and this is the best thing I own."

"O— Okay," I said. I shifted my weight. The backseat wasn't very comfortable, and I couldn't distract myself by looking outside. "There isn't anything dangerous about this, is there?"

"Nope!" she sang. "Captain Jaqueline has it all under control!"

I stared at her. Hadn't she just said—

"Wait, no. I'm not a captain. Please don't start calling me captain."

Yeah. That. "Understood…"

It was hard to believe I'd once tried to cut ties with the NSS. My life had been crazy, even ignoring everything that might have happened before the six-month cutoff. And the reason? The NSS. The first substantial thing I could remember was fighting an NSS member. Then I spent weeks trapped in a subway with the NSS, apparently saved the world, then… for the most part, the next few months were pretty normal.

Then the attack on Inkopolis happened, then Sharktown… all with the NSS there. And then Annie became Eileen… because Agent 4 said her name.

And now, I was sitting in the back of a boat piloted by none other than Rose.

Cutting ties to the NSS wasn't a thing I did actively. But in any case, it looked like I'd failed.

At least I knew Rose in some context that wasn't her odd vigilante job. I didn't mind spending time with her. She and Agent 4, as she'd demonstrated, were different people. Metaphorically, of course.

I fumbled around and pulled the communicator out of my pocket. I wanted to tell her I used to be Agent 8, if only to take it off her mind. But it would've been odd to say it right then.

"Wanna know how I got this rust bucket of a boat?" Rose chimed.

Rust bucket. How reassuring.

She hit another button and spun around in her own seat. Her hair whipped the air and rested by the left side of her silhouette. The boat kept moving forward, as far as I could tell. I was almost positive she was breaking some water safety law… or something. "Sure," I murmured.

"Yeah, so one day the captain—not me, alright?—asked me, One, and Two to raid Grizzco, 'cause at the time, that Akash dude was stealing their eggs. So basically we all went in, pretended to be there for a shift, but then… I guess he planted someone there, since he took all of us to some tiny island and attacked us using this ship right here."

Her hands were flying everywhere as she created hand signals for everything she was saying. I tried to keep myself from laughing. Though I couldn't see her, the sole light was on the controls in front of her. She could see me just fine.

"So eventually, Two Splashdown'ed the deck and broke every weapon on it.

Grizzco never tried to salvage this, and all of the normal boat stuff still works, so it's kind of mine now. I use it from time to time."

She wasn't very good at keeping the Rose–Agent 4 split, I noticed. "How often do you mean by 'time to time?'"

She whirled back around, and her hair returned to her right. "…This is my second time using it. The first being the time we got back to shore after Two ripped everything apart." She let out some nervous laughter. "I'm glad I'm not alone. Thanks for coming with me."

So… why was it again that she wanted to come out here? "You couldn't bring this… Two?"

"No! No… It has to be you. I… um… You'll see."

I hoped I would see, because she was being uncharacteristically cryptic. "We're not anywhere dangerous, are we?"

"Nope. The Salmonids are in the other direction. And on the off chance something else is after us…" She pulled something out of her pocket, but I couldn't see what it was. "I mean, I can at least tell the rest of the team about it. Ah, this is just something I use to get in touch with them."

Well. That simplified things.

"A— And I promise, there's nothing out there with any grudge against me. That I know of… but still. The only thing that could attack out here is the Piranha, but it's been missing since Sharktown, and its pilot—"

"Sorry," I murmured through the speaker on my communicator. "I have one, too."

Rose tensed in front of me. She'd just heard my voice, again, but from inside her pocket. She fumbled around, and another light shone from behind her. I could barely make out a white "8" on a black background.

"Y— You're Eight!?" she yelped. "That's been bugging me for ages!"

"Not anymore," I blurted. "I left." Or rather, I was never in it in the first place. But that was easier to explain. "Your captain just gave me that name. I'm not… Eight… or whatever."

"Okay!" she continued, turning to me again. Her hair rested on her opposite shoulder. "But still! That was you the whole time! Three said… Three never told me that part! So if you're… were Eight, then… actually, this doesn't change much, does it? There's no Five, or Six, or Seven…"

She was right on that one. It really did not change much. All it meant was that she could talk freely about NSS business to me, but she'd already been doing that without any hesitation.

"It was only a title," I said. "I got rid of it later. He really likes to say 'Agent'."

"Tell me about it," Rose sighed. I did not tell her about it.

I left the room in silence and kept to myself so she could process that whole thing. Not that there was much to process.

The more I got to know her, the more I found myself appreciating her. Rose kept her strange positive attitude, even with her semi-confidential occupation. And I wouldn't have been surprised to find out that her presence fired up the troops to last so long at Sharktown.

"Alright, I think this is far enough," Rose said. She looked over her shoulder, and her pink hair whipped the air yet again. "Just to be clear, you named yourself, yeah?"

Weird way to put it, but it was true. "Yes?"

"Perfect," she said. "Give me a sec."

I felt something change. I couldn't see it, but the boat was slowing down.

"Sorry," Rose said again. "This thing stops really weirdly."

I could only trust her on that one. It wasn't like I had anything to compare it to.

"Alright, give me another second." She shut off all the lights on the boat. I suspected even more that she was breaking a law.

Rose hopped off of her seat and left the cabin through a side door, closing it behind her. For a moment, I could hear the gentle breeze and the waves crashing against the hull.

The ocean didn't exist underground. Neither did wind.

The side door opened again, and Rose peeked her head in. "Close your eyes," she whispered.

I humored her and shut my eyes. Her hand wrapped around my own and led me outside.

As I crossed the doorframe, the wind brushed against my face. The waves got louder, and the gentle tipping of the boat seemed a bit less gentle. But with her leading me, I felt fine.

Slowly, she pulled me somewhere else. Just like the day before, Rose was leading me by the hand, but this time, there was no rush.

The air felt fresh out here, cool as it wrapped around me. This was in an open area, I could tell. No walls, no buildings, no shore.

"You're already facing up," she whispered. Anything louder would have felt wrong, as if it would have broken the serenity of the open air. "But it's fine. Look up."

I swayed with the ship. The breeze weakened, grew a bit quieter, and the lapping of the waves, a bit louder.

I don't know what I was doing, why I was hesitating. I don't know what I expected. I don't know what I was supposed to expect. Why, at midnight, had I let her take me to the middle of the ocean? It was obvious she had brought me here to look at the sky, but it just… I don't know. I needed to feel ready. I wasn't sure how it would look. What would change? Would it look at all similar to what I knew the night sky to be?

Facing down at the deck, I opened my eyes a crack. Rose was standing next to me, weight on one leg. She was facing forward herself. Perhaps she didn't even know I wasn't staring upward with her. One more time, I took a breath.

And when I looked up, the sky seemed to look back.

I don't blame anybody for keeping me—the old me—from this. I knew that, if the old me were to look at the sky just as I was doing then, she would have felt the same way.

But the old me never knew that if she were to look up on the surface, this is what she would have seen. I don't think anyone did. Any Octoling, that is. Only the elites could travel to the surface at night, but even then, it was rare, and they were nowhere near the ocean.

I wondered if Eileen knew how pretty it looked from here, with the open air and the waves. She must have felt the same way I did, right? To see the sky, after never having lived without a ceiling above her.

Everything around me seemed to fall away, even myself. And when one moment became the next, all that was left was a pair of eyes and the distant glimmer of stars.

There were more of them. Stars. There were stars everywhere. The brightest stars that were always there, and smaller, dimmer stars scattered between them.

And the colors…

There was a wide streak of purples across it all, like a scar, an odd cut or tear in the sky. What was that? Why was it never there before? I couldn't tell if it was just a mass of stars, or some strange illusion, or something else entirely. That dark fade, full of tiny, distant lights.

I didn't know what I was feeling, looking at it all. It wasn't happiness, fear, anything I could identify. Awe, maybe. Just awe. I stood there in silence, alone but content.

This, I could tell, was completely new.

I realized I was holding my breath, out of fear that the slightest touch would shatter the image forever. Reality rebuilt itself around me. I was still standing on the deck, the boat was still rocking, Rose was next to me. I slowly exhaled.

"Is it always like this?" I asked Rose, still in a whisper. "Out here…"

Rose turned to me, but I couldn't bring myself to tear my eyes away from the night. "Pretty much," she said. "But not only here. It's the lights. Without any other lights around, this is what you'd see."

I didn't know that, but I couldn't understand her answer. My mind was too busy to give it any thought. I could only breathe out in response.

"Recently, I found some ancient human records underground." She laughed to herself. "Nobody's ever found something like this before. They somehow lasted this long, and there was audio with it, too. It's all saved on Three's computer."

I nodded.

"So what it is is a bunch of patterns in the stars. The humans saw them and then wrote them down," she said, barely louder than the wind. "Sit down, let me show you something."

I didn't want to sit down. That would have taken me ever so slightly farther from the sky.

But no, that was nothing, I told myself. It was no distance at all.

I took a step back on the deck, kneeled, then sat. Rose was already down, one hand behind her propping her up and the other idle on her lap. She was facing the other direction, away from the scar, so I turned around to face the same way.

With her free hand, she grabbed my shoulder and pulled us together until my cheek was pressed against hers. I pulled my hair away.

"See that really bright one there?" she whispered, pointing at a star. It was so bright, I found it just as she said it. "The humans called that one Polaris... or the North Star." She traced her finger away from it in a curved motion, stopping for a short moment whenever she hit another. And suddenly, she stopped. "They called that shape Ursa Minor," she finished.

Polaris. Ursa Minor.

The names were foreign, but the way they sounded was too familiar to ignore. The thought slipped away before I could pursue it.

Rose laughed again. "Congratulations, you're one of the six people on the planet to know that. Here, turn around. I'll show you another one," she let go of me, letting me spin around with her.

This was not what I had envisioned this outing to end up like. But to say I was enjoying it would have been an understatement. Tracing the stars was a different way of looking up. It was more methodical, more focused. It gave each one its own meaning. For once in my life, I found myself only looking at one part of the sky at a time. Before then, I'd always darted between stars or clouds, or let go of my focus to look at it all at once.

Again, Rose brought us together, and I pulled my hair the other way.

"That big red one, they called it Antares." It was near the scar, a red dot whole worlds away. "This one's got a bit more to it. There's one claw here…" She drew another path with her finger, going to one star, then another, and then one more. "And another here…" She did it again, also from the red star. Antares, was it?

"And then a tail," Rose continued. From Antares, she traced a shape that hooked into the scar. "That one's called…" She trailed off. For a moment, she pulled her hand back. The finger she was using to paint the path curled in. "It's called… Scorpius. Sometimes, Scorpio."

Antares, I thought. Scorpio…

That was enough for me to tear myself away from the stars and stare at Rose. Still, I couldn't see her, only her faint outline. She wasn't even looking at me. "Scorpio…"

"Y'know. I guess that was their word for 'scorpion,' right?" Her voice, as quiet as it was, still told me what she was hiding.

I was one of the six people to know these few things, right? The four from the NSS, their captain, and me.

And Scorpio…

"Is that you?" I said. Why I needed to ask, I didn't know. "Dualies?"

"Is that what you call me? Dualies? It's Scorpio." We still weren't getting any louder than a whisper. "Two claws?" She held up finger guns in both of her hands. "Get it?"

So Eileen was right. She had fought them before.

And I had fought Rose before, or Scorpio, or Agent 4, whatever it was. In the underground camp after the attack on Inkopolis, we dueled more than once.

Rose was Scorpio—and by extension, the NSS was Masked Mayhem. The revelation didn't surprise me as much as it really should have. It wasn't the first secret identity I'd found out, and really, this one was the least impactful.

"You really like to kick off walls," I said.

"It works, doesn't it?" Even in the darkness, I could tell she was flashing one of her signature smiles. "It's going to become a big thing one day, mark my words."

"I'll find a counter to that eventually…"

"Don't you want me to point out more of these?" Rose said. Because of course she was changing the subject. And yet I still agreed.

Gemini, Leo, Taurus.

And Scorpio.

Which one was Gemini? It wasn't Agent 3—I knew he tended to use basic guns and their offshoots. I believed that one was Leo.

Gemini was the Charger, and Taurus was the Roller. One of them was Agent 1, the other Agent 2, but as for which was which…

But they weren't here, so they didn't matter. Scorpio wasn't here, either. Just me and Rose, staring at the stars.

"That one's called Ursa Major," she whispered. That one was really complex.

I wondered if humans had ever seen something like me up there. It was incredible, that the stars I was seeing were the same stars they did. And now, even if it was only slight, it was connecting them to me, living so many thousands of years later. It was connecting me to the girl sitting next to me, living in the same time and in the same place.

And it was connecting every single Octoling on the surface. Me, Marina, Jacob, even Eileen.

It was a beautiful thought.

"Sky," I whispered, so quietly that even she couldn't hear. "My name is Sky." Nothing else felt right.

Remember that chapter with the protest that ended up being longer than I anticipated? Yeah, so this chapter is that, but even more so.

Makes sense, since I've wanted to write this one for ages.

But can you guys believe I've never actually seen the night sky without any light pollution? And I still tried to write about it? I need to get on that sometime.

Anyway, one last thing. Another hiatus... sorry.

I need to get on my other story's rewriting and get the future plot straightened out for this one. Don't know how long this hiatus is gonna last...

But I'll be back, I promise.

haha two years later and I still haven't seen the night sky in full. But I still think, whenever this story is done, this will remain one of the highlight chapters. I really like this one.