"It's today?"

"Wait, you—" Something shuffled on her end. "You knew about the second protest but not when it was?"

"Yeah, that's weird, now that you mention it."

"How do you—" Eileen sighed into the receiver, and I wondered if she'd done it so loudly on purpose. "Forget it. The reason I called—do you want to spend the afternoon at my place? I'm not sure it's a good idea to be alone today, no matter how few of them there are."

"Hm?" I fell onto my bed. Where was this coming from? "You never brought this up for the first one." She'd told me that it was a thing, and that was about it. And now she wanted to stick together? "I'm not going to go out and crash it again."

"Yeah," Eileen said, "I know. But, like, can you blame me for wanting to keep an eye on the Piranha's new commander? Besides, they know who you are now."

"Not where I live…"

"Last time, you had Jacob living there, and you know what he can do."

Take a couple of Sanitized head-on, yeah. But if it were to come to people banging on my door, I knew I'd flee before fighting. These were civilians.

"You didn't know he was here last time," I said.

"I— Uh."

She just wanted to spend time with me, was that it? "Alright, alright…" I rolled off of the bed. "I'll be there in a bit."

It hadn't been too long since the last time I'd been in Eileen's apartment, but to say a lot had changed would have been an understatement.

First of all, the bed was gone. Moved to another room, likely. The pile of boxes it used to hide behind—actually, every box that was once unopened—was flattened and stacked in a corner. In its place, she had a bright coffee table, a rug, even a few new armchairs and a couch that I doubted could have come from the boxes.

And somehow, everything was more colorful. It was a wonder what opening the curtains could do.

"You redecorated," I remarked.

"Ah, yeah," Eileen laughed. "But it's not really redecorating. It's more… regular decorating."

"It's a lot more homelike than before." I glanced to my left. Her computer was the only thing that hadn't changed at all. "I could live here if you weren't already."

"Heh." She flashed her teeth at me in almost the same way Rose would. "Do I have a knack for interior design?"

"I'd say yes, but I haven't seen many interiors." I stepped inside and made a beeline for the closest armchair. "So what, we just sit here until it's over?"

"It's just the three of us now. You're right, it's unlikely anything will happen, but…" She averted her eyes. "I still want to be careful."

I fell backward into the chair. "You said there were three of us?"

"Yo, Sky."

I turned to a doorway that I hadn't been through, one I couldn't have seen from the entrance, and… there was Jacob.

"Oh," I said. "Hey. So you did move here."

"Yeah, I—" He stopped and stared at me. "I didn't tell you?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Ah, shoot." He slapped his palm against his forehead, almost comically. "Sorry about that. Guess I forgot."

"I mean, I assumed you were here. Since you said you were looking for your family."

"…Oh, yeah, I said that, huh?"

"I'm not getting in the way, am I?" I sat up and turned back to Eileen. "Since you two are brother and sister, and all…" Not only that, they were Octropes. A normal family name now, but it definitely wasn't in the past. Having me there, I thought, would have stunted any discussion. Or just plain made things awkward. "I could leave, if—"

"You're not in the way," Eileen said. She rushed to me and dropped her hands on the armrest. "Trust me, you're not."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jacob eyeing her. He went through the doorway and dropped onto a seat opposite mine.

"I…" Eileen withdrew. She and Jacob nodded at each other, and I sank further into the chair. "I'll keep an eye on the crowds," Eileen said, pulling her phone from her pocket. She made her way to the door Jacob had come from and then shut it behind her.

I blinked at the door. "I swear, she's different today."

"Yep." Jacob tilted his head to the side. He tapped the coffee table with his foot. "She didn't own anything like this underground."

That… was not what I meant, but this was intriguing too. "She didn't?"

"Nah. Only the 'necessities', and that's it. See the rug? Wouldn't be caught dead with it."

"Is that so…" Somehow, I wasn't surprised. The underground wasn't known for its style, but for Eileen to have exemplified that…

I held back a laugh at the thought of her as a typical Octoling commander. That was nothing like the Eileen I knew.

"But she's smiling a lot more now," he said. "What'd you do to her, Sky?"

"What did I do to her?" I shrugged. "A… Actually, I'm not sure it's me but more Inkopolis as a whole?"

"Look, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, don't get me wrong." Jacob crossed his legs and propped his feet up on the table. "But it's gotta be you, Sky. Eileen's hiding something from you. You know that?"

"I…" I put my hands on my lap and took a breath. "I do."

Oh boy, we really were talking about this.

She knew who I was. I was sure about that. But, for some reason, she wasn't saying anything.

"I can tell," Jacob said. "I've known her long enough. She acts different around you, Sky."

"Oh. Around me." I'd noticed the protest making her paranoid, but… I didn't have the chance to know what she was like without me around. If that really was the case, there was only one thing it could have been. "Have I told you about my name?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't think so."

"The short version is that I lost my memory six months ago, and I had to choose a new name. Recently, I settled on Sky. Since that time…" I trailed off and pursed my lips. "I can't explain it. But I think Eileen knows who I was before. I don't want to bring it up because…" I shook my head. "She's trying to change. If I just ask her like that…" I groaned into my palms. "But I think it's hard for her to see me going about my life without knowing anything about my past. So I've just… kind of tired to forget about it. Hope it all blows over."

I slumped back into the chair. Ugh. There it was. Everything I was feeling, said in the span of thirty seconds.

Jacob blinked at me. "Okay, hold it." He held up his hand. "You what? Lost your memory?"

"O— Oh." Yeah, I could see why he was hung up there. "I did. I don't remember anything from before six, almost seven months ago." Except for a select few memories, but those would have taken longer to explain.

"So you're telling me… You don't know who you were. She does."

"That's what I thought, yeah."

"She does?" Jacob stood up. "Nah, there's no way…"

"Do you know something?"

He shut his eyes and covered one with his hand. "No, I don't. I shouldn't say anything I don't have proof for."

What? Why couldn't he have said it anyway? It wasn't like it would have hurt.

Not him, too. Why was he trying to hide it from me?

I stood up, just as he did. "Could—"

"Funny story!" Eileen kicked the door open. It hadn't even been that long, but her eyes were wide, and she looked like she was about to collapse from exhaustion.

"Eileen?" I said.

She held up her phone. "Guess what I found?"

I squinted at it. A blurry image of the memorial Rose had taken me to. Not much of a crowd yet, but up the corner, there was an Octoling sitting on one of the rooftops surrounding it.

"That's him. Rocky."

"It is?" Jacob went to her to take a closer look. "Shoot, it is…"

"That's your brother?" I said. "What's he doing there?"

"Something stupid, I guarantee it. Why is he like this?" Eileen growled at the wall, and then frantically turned back to us. "Do either of you know where this is?"

I held up my hands. She was getting loud, and— "Wait, I actually do."

Luckily for us, the bench was not adjacent to whatever path most of the protesters were coming from, so it didn't take much to sneak up to the block behind the memorial and climb onto one of the buildings across the road.

I peered over the railing, just as I'd done at the last one. Except this time, Eileen and Jacob were behind me.

The crowd looked like it was finished gathering. There were only a few stragglers left down the road, and none of them would have added much to what was already there. It was hard to tell how it measured up to the Inkopolis Square protest. Sure, the crowd looked more dense, but this was a smaller area, especially with the huge tree in the middle.

The veteran from the last one wasn't there, as far as I could tell—this time, there was someone younger than him, but still a number of years older than me. He was in a corner, dressed much more sharply than the rest of them, so I assumed he was today's speaker. He moved as if to clear his throat, then walked behind the tree's leaves. I couldn't see him anymore.

"Good afternoon," someone said, amplified through some speakers I couldn't identify. That was that confirmed.

Eileen joined me by the railing, then so did Jacob a moment later.

"Find him?" she said.

"I'm looking, I'm looking."

I scanned the rooftops for any sign of life, but there was only the occasional bird. And then I checked behind us. He wasn't there. No luck in the crowd, either… of course.

All of the speaker's words were lost on me, whatever they were. I didn't have the time to worry about him. One more, they'd said. One more Octrope they hadn't yet found. And he was so close. I wanted to help them, however I could. I owed that much to them after they pulled me out of the self-isolation hole.

No, that wasn't the right way to put it—these two were my friends, and I didn't want them to go another day without their brother with them.

Motion caught my eye in the tree's leaves above. The buildings had stifled any wind, so it could only have been someone rustling it. And as I looked closer, I saw something balancing on one of the lower branches.

I pointed at it. "Is that him?"

Eileen leaned towards the tree and that dark speck. She stared at it, as if waiting to pounce. After a moment, she tensed, and before I had the time to react, she was in the air, jumping right to the tree.

"Eileen!" I called, reaching a hand towards her. "Ngh!" Jacob was already jumping after her. I glanced at the crowd again. None of them looked particularly threatening, but still, there were only three of us. And even worse than the danger—the typical reactions, all the attention this would get…

Eileen landed in the tree, and both she and the speck tumbled out of it.

"Eileen…" I said through clenched teeth. Inhaling sharply, I jumped after them. At the peak of my jump, I saw some in the crowd closest to the plot of dirt turning to them. And slowly, the rest were starting to notice. Exactly what Rose and I had wanted to avoid.

I landed, feet on the ground, right next to Jacob. He was crouching, eyes on the crowd toward a podium with the speaker behind it. Behind him, Eileen was kneeling on the dirt, hand pressed against someone's chest. And there he was, back pressed against a root. Rocky Octrope.

No. No, no, this was not good.

I kept my eyes up—Eileen was too occupied with Rocky, and it looked like Jacob was trying to keep himself low.

"Ah," I said, spinning around to address as many of them as I could, "sorry, we'll leave you guys alone." I hoped my accent wasn't too thick—even though it was nearly identical to that of a typical Inkopolis citizen. "Didn't mean to interrupt you."

"What were you planning?" Eileen said. "Do you know—"

"Eileen," I muttered, leaning toward her. "Shut up."

None of the closest ones seemed openly hostile—just confused.

One of them lifted a finger and pointed at me. "Hey, is that…"

"I know, I know," I said. I glanced at Eileen again. She hadn't lifted her head, much less stood. What was she thinking?

"Yo, Ei." Jacob grabbed her other arm. "Can't stay here."

I heard a thump from behind me, and by the time I had the chance to turn around, three more followed. Four people—all masked, all Inklings—stood behind me.

"Masked Mayhem?" someone said.

Masked Mayhem. Yep, that was them. I froze in place. Was this a good thing? They were unarmed, but they had presence. At least I was on good terms with Rose and Simon, but the other half, I'd never even met. Why were they here?

They rushed to form a circle around us, each one at the dirt's perimeter. All four turned outward, facing the crowd, and they stood there. No arms out, no weapons. Just stood.

"Sky!" one shouted over the growing commotion. There was Rose.

"Four, you know these people?" said another one with light hair.

Eileen turned to me, never moving her arm from Rocky's chest. "You know these people?" she murmured.

I… I did, in fact. Worse was they knew each other. And it was only a matter of time before one of the parties noticed.

"Um!" I whirled around. The light-haired one had her eyes firmly on Eileen, arms crossed. The crowd was getting louder. One of them shouted something.

Eileen whispered something to Rocky and Jacob, then gestured to me. I crouched to hear her. "We're jumping back to my place," she said, low enough so that only I could hear. "Nobody should be able to follow us." She gestured to Masked Mayhem. "We'll thank them later."

I nodded and shut my eyes. There it was—Eileen's apartment. A little far, but manageable for the four of us. Now, I just had to—

I looked up. Jacob was gone, a dot in the air, and Eileen was letting Rocky go. The one with the light hair hadn't moved. And Rose, to my side, was looking over her shoulder at me.

Even through the sunglasses, I thought, just for a moment, that I could see her eyes.

…No. I was done leaving this be.

"Go on," I said. "I'll catch up."

Eileen opened her mouth to say something but stopped. I mustered up the best smile I could, and Eileen sighed, her shoulders dropping. Rocky jumped away, and then Eileen followed.

I stood up, showed that same smile to Rose, and turned to the one with the light hair. I waved at her. "Hi. I'll answer your questions?"

"You of all people…" she said, in a tone that sounded amused rather than suspicious. She lowered her voice. "Gemini. You know me as Agent 2?"

I… did not. The agent part, yeah, the number, not so much.

"Three, Four," she said. "Stay here. Watch for anyone else. One and I are leaving."

"But—" Rose started.

"Trust me, Four. I won't do anything to her."

"I…" Rose groaned. "Fine."

Agent 2 laughed and shook her head. She nodded at another one of her allies, then stepped back to me. "Arowana's not too far. Think you can handle a jump there?"

This one… also ended up a little longer than I was expecting. I'm not even that familiar with how protests work.

So yeah, this is another chapter I've been planning for a very long time. I knew that I wanted this scene to reintroduce Rocky but still had to iron out the where, when, how they knew about it, etc.

Oh, and the next one is also one I've had plans for for a long time.