"What do you mean Museum d'Alfansino's queue is full!?"
Celia and Ethel have had a really long argument with Judd, asking questions like "Can't we just recon?" or "Can't we just have a one-minute turf war?"
Meanwhile, Orbee and Nanami sat quietly in one side of the lobby – and weren't really talking to each other. At least, before Orbee decided to talk to Nanami about something, in a somewhat serious tone.
"Nanami…" he called. "You're still new at Turf Wars… So try to follow–"
"Right… the rules." Nanami interrupted. Orbee stays silent again, flashing back to what he said yesterday. They were supposed to sabotage Nanami's skill, but he thought about it more.
"…just try to stick to them for a while. I don't know if you're ready to do Official Turf Wars by yourself."
"'Official Turf Wars'… Okay… Orbee." Nanami said quietly to Orbee. The silence returned between the two. "Do I even hate Orbee-kun now? I guess I should..."
"Hey." Celia called out, interrupting Nanami's thoughts. She and Ethel walked towards the two to inform them about an upcoming game. "Bad news is we're not playing Museum d'Alfonsino today."
"But," Ethel continued. "There is a few more space in the queue for Flounder Heights."
"Yeah, besides this is Nanami's first Turf War… right?" Celia faced Nanami.
"I guess…" Nanami said with slight disappointment.
"Whatever." Orbee muttered, once again straightening his 18K Aviators. Celia snickered a bit. Orbee glares at her and blushes. "C-come on. Let's just play."
"Good luck, Invisible Ink." Judd said, wishing the team good luck. The four walk into one of the green gates that read "Squad Turf Wars: Flounder Heights". The room was pretty small, consisting of a grated ceiling, a wall listing the slots of whoever will be matched up, another wall with their stats and vibe, and an ancient Wii U gamepad with the famous retro game Squid Jump on it. Soft gentle music played in the room.
"So what are we doing in here?" Nanami asks.
"The matchmaking system picks two random teams waiting in a queue for one stage, or both stages." Celia explained. She points to the wall with eight slots. Four of these were filled with her team members, and the name "Invisible Ink" above their four slots. Beside their names were their levels. Orbee was Level 48, Celia was Level 41, Ethel was Level 31, and Nanami was only Level 1. Below their team was another group of four empty slots, only reading "Searching…".
"What if we lose?" Nanami asked quietly.
"Well…"
Before Ethel could finish, a sound of what seemed like glass tiles interrupted her. The once empty slots were filled with four medium-leveled players – being around Level 10 to 20. The team name listed was "Ika Inkers". The sound of wind chimes played and the room started to move sideways.
"What's going on? Why are we moving?" Nanami asked, seemingly a bit worried.
"We've been matched. It begins." Celia replied. After a while, the grated ceiling turned into a lime green shade as the floor moves upward.
"Get down." Celia whispered to Nanami as she assumed her squid form along with the others. Before Nanami could question her, she could already feel the grating pushing onto her mint green tentacle-covered head and quickly followed. Their semi-liquid squid bodies penetrated through the lime grating, which in turn changed all their ink colors into lime green. The only way to distinguish their natural ink colors was through their tentacles' tips, which where a darker shade of what they usually were. The only exception was Ethel, whose ink was already lime, and thus her tips stayed black. After all of them fully permeated the grating, the platform came to a stop, when suddenly a torrent of lime green ink falls upon the team. Nanami, whose yellow eyes stood out in the dark of the lime ink, seemed to cuddle herself up as if trying to protect herself from certain death.
"You're perfectly fine, Nanami." Celia whispered. "Just swim up." Nanami immediately followed. The four now-lime squids swam up the pit of ink until they reached…
…a spawn point.
When the lime green ink that blurred their vision faded, Nanami's eyes were once again filled with wonder just like when she first saw Inkopolis. As she stayed in her squid form, she saw two huge apartments, connected by a bridge, just off the "balcony" the spawn was situated on. The subtle sound of cheering from spectator inklings, squids, and jellyfish from directly outside the map and inside the apartments can be heard.
"Greetings everyone." Judd greeted, appearing on a huge monitor just westward from their spawnpoint. The spectators remained silent before Judd announced – "Welcome to Flounder Heights!"
The loud sound of a guitar echoed through the stage as the countless spectators cheered on. A camera, shaped like a flying squid, started to fly around the map and capture a great view of the map. Everything was captured on the jumbotron. The camera came to a rest on a purple spawn point, where four squids of that color were resting.
"Today's teams are… the Ika Inkers!" Upon Judd's announcement, the four squids shifted into their humanoid forms. The spectators started cheering. There were three boys, and just one girl. Despite their "not-so-fresh" levels and looks, the team seemed pretty strong themselves – it consisted of a Jet Squelcher, a Range Blaster, and two new weapons that only Ethel knew. One of them looked like a Slosher, and the other looked like a modified fire hydrant.
"What are those?" Celia whispered, making Ethel snicker a bit. She was fond of ancient memes – and this was her only knowledge of anything related to the ancients.
"I kinda forgot to mention… That's the Hydra Splatling and–"
"THE HYDRA SPLATLING!?" Celia shouted.
"yeah… it's out. You were always a fan of information leaks from the Booyah Base." Celia gave a wink in agreement to Ethel. "Anyway, the other is the Slosher Deco."
"Hmm… new weapons…" Celia turned her eyes to Nanami for a while.
"and… Invisible Ink!"
Judd's announcement was a cue that told them to shift into their humanoid froms. The four squids followed just like the Ika Inkers, only Nanami was a bit delayed considering her little knowledge of "Official Turf Wars". Cheering came again, louder than the Ika Inkers' cheering. Invisible Ink was a bit famous considering how stealthy they are. Extremely ambient questions arose from the crowd, though. Something like…
"Who's that girl with the twintails?"
"Where's Hanz?" or
"That new kid looks really young…"
"Ready…"
A not-so-long silence came upon the map.
…
"GO!"
Chapter 6: My First Turf War
Judd's signal got both teams off their spawn. The eight started inking the ground around them. In Invisible Ink's corner…
Orbee gave a short glare at Nanami that meant "REMEMBER THE RULES" before carrying on. Nanami remembered immediately, and started to ink more of the base before following a path that Orbee made to the top of the west tower. As Orbee used a Kelp Splatterscope, he wasn't able to ink much of the huge chasm in front of the buildings, but he was able to create the path for his team. The two girls swam up the path, and Orbee threw a sprinkler on the small villa in the middle to take control of the valley before following the two.
"Cool…" Nanami said to herself as she watched it ink the ground from the slanted path she was inking herself. "I wish I had that. All I have is…" Nanami took out an empty Splat Bomb. "this…" She filled it with her lime ink from the ink tank attached to her shoulder and ink sac. Wait, why did she have that? It must've been added when she changed her ink color through the grating. The squid from does hide the gear and weapon, or anything in possession. Nanami threw it at the tower, but it was so weak it fell off the tower before exploding.
"Look out!" Celia's voice called out, before she voiced a short scream.
Before Nanami could react, she felt a brief burning sensation in her entire body, before blacking out. She wasn't able to move for five seconds, but she could somehow see a blurry vision of her body being carried back to spawn. She saw the male Slosher Deco-wielding foe sloshing his ink bucket over the ground around the elevated wall he stood on. After that time passed, Nanami woke up next to Celia in the lime spawn point. She kinda figured it out even if Celia and Ethel had the same eye color, due to the gear she wore.
"What… happened?" she asked, a bit worried and confused.
"You got splatted." Celia replied. "Well, no worries. It isn't lethal at all. Besides, you could just Super Jump back into the front lines. Like this!" Celia shifted into a squid form and within a second, she went flying towards Ethel's position.
"Oh, right! Super Jumping!" Nanami tried it herself – she turned into a squid, pumped all the energy into her tentacles, and went flying shortly. "I've never tried it befoooooOOOOOORE!"
"Wait!" Celia called out. "Get back, Nanami! It's not safe here!" Celia warned Nanami, who was already jumping aiming towards Celia.
"T-TOO LATE FOR THAAAAAAAT!" Nanami responded, still in panic from the enormous speed. A split second before she landed, she saw Celia Super Jump towards Orbee's position. "Nee-sa–"
…Nanami got splatted again immediately after landing by the Range Blaster-wielding female from the Ika Inkers. At least, that was what she "saw" when getting carried back. Five seconds later she respawned again.
"Ok… no Super Jumping to crowded places." Nanami mumbled to herself as Ethel respawned.
"Enemies can see you Super Jump because it leaves a marker. Not for me, though." Ethel elaborated before jumping back to Celia, only taking much longer. Nanami continued inking a few spots their team missed in spawn, before following Orbee's path. When she traveled through the valley, she noticed that Orbee's sprinkler has disappeared and there were a few spots of purple ink on the blanket of lime ink. Nanami decided to abandon her path and swam towards the purple spots. While she swam through the shallow ground of ink, she was unaware of the ripples she made in the ink, and the Jet Squelcher-wielder who was hiding in one of the purple splurges of ink, noticed this and within a few seconds he came out of hiding and splatted Nanami (again) from afar thanks to the Jet Squelcher's huge range.
While she was being carried back she "saw" Ethel splatting that foe, only to be splatted by him herself at the same time.
"Ugh… again!?" she mumbled to herself again. She shuddered when she said that. "Whoa… so this is what being salty is like." The jumbotron showed a map of Flounder Heights and the Ika Inkers were taking a lead.
"One minute left!"
When Judd called that out, the crowd started getting extra hyped.
"A-already!?" before Nanami could complain any more, she noticed the Slosher Deco started to claim turf right outside their spawn. Ethel respawned again right behind her.
"Jump to Celia! I'll take care of this guy myself, Nana-chan!" she instructed.
"But Ethel-ne–"
"Go! She's inking their base!"
Nanami seemed to have no choice but to follow her. She still had vertigo from Super Jumping, and when she landed next to Celia, she could see that Celia was already taking down the team with her Inkzooka.
"Nanami! I-ink the base!" Celia shouted.
"Whose base?"
"Ugh, their base! We're in their base, right!?" When Celia finished planting the common sense into her sister's mind, a lime sprinkler seemed to land behind her.
"Orbee-kun…?"
Suddenly a purple inkling, seemingly covered in so much lime ink, landed at his spawn to wash it off. Within a second after cleansing himself, he gave a somewhat eerie smile and shifted into a squid. Not just… any… squid…
"KRAKEEEEEEEEEEEN!"
"What? Kraken!?"
"Nanami! Retre–" Celia got cut short when the huge, dark purple squid jumped on her, slamming her and successfully splatted her in the process.
"Nee-san!" The kraken then noticed the frightened lime inkling, and charged at her. As a fear response, she attempted a Super Jump, and went flying just before getting slammed by the kraken. As she flew through the air, getting used to the vertigo, she saw the huge "squid" revert back into a humanoid.
When Nanami landed next to Orbee, she was immediately interrogated.
"Why jump to me!?" the infuriated male asked.
"Where should've I jumped, then!?"
"Spawn!"
"Quit arguing with the newbie." A masculine voce said, interrupting their short argument.
"Th-the… Hydra Splatling…" Nanami stuttered.
"Oh." The foe turned to Nanami. "So you've heard about it," he flicked her head. "newbie."
The Level 20 enemy started to spin the barrel of his splatling. "You are so de– OWW!"
A splat bomb hit him straight in the face, and he quickly swam away from it. He took a few damage, but still managed to get away a little unhurt. When it went off, Nanami's hair started to float and glow a bright mint green.
"What the Judd…?" she wondered in fear.
"That's nor–" Orbee was interrupted by a loud whistling sound. "Get back!"
Orbee took Nanami and got away from the Splat Bomb just in time, but fell off the tower in the process. Orbee shifted into a squid before landing in the lime ink at the bottom at the last second, while Nanami landed headfirst as a humanoid she would've cracked her neck if she had bones.
"G-good thing squids don't have bones…" Nanami mumbled to herself. "So I guess I won't get–"
Nanami was interrupted by the sound of the Hydra Splatling spinning in front of her face.
"ORBEE-KUUUUUUUUUUN! HELP!"
After Nanami's plea, a loud blaring guitar sound came, and visible sound waves appeared nearly killing the Hydra wielder, who fled again in a lucky escape. Nanami rushed over to Orbee's position.
"Click the light on your ink tank!" Orbee shouted in front of her face
"Wh-where… the li–"
"HURRY!" The Hydra Splatling spun its barrel one more time.
"10! 9!" The crowd started counting down.
"8! 7!"
The Hydra shout out a spray of ink at the two…
"6! 5!"
…
…covered in Bubblers.
"4! 3!"
"It's a good thing these shields spread!" Nanami bragged. She fired one last spray of ink, with a more stable and improved aim, and…
"2!"
"You… you just broke all my rules." Orbee muttered.
"Sorry…"
"1!"
"It doesn't matter anymore." Orbee smiled at Nanami. "Neither does…"
*TWEEEEET*
"…that."
The stage was covered in aqua barriers that look like police lines, with the word "GAME!" written all over them.
"Come on, let's see how horrible we all went." Orbee laughed, as he Super Jumped one more time to their spawn, along with Nanami. The two met up with Celia and Ethel.
"Nanami!"
"Nana-chan!"
The two relieved girls hugged Nanami.
"You were so awesome, Nanami!" Celia praised.
"N-not as awesome as you, nee-s-san…" Nanami responded, quite flattered. Orbee also started blushing.
"Come on, let's swim back down and see our loss."
The four swam down the lime spawn' this time the ink torrent led straight to the exit gates of the lobby. As they exited, their ink colors faded back to normal. Beside their gates were the Ika Inkers' gate, where they exited. They looked at a monitor showing a top-down view of Flounder Heights. It looked very messy, with spots of purple and lime ink scattered in every part of the stage. Judd, who was still in his room, tapped on his microphone to get both teams' attention.
"And the winner is…"
Judd does his usual dance, which weirded out Nanami a bit, before announcing the results of the match. A small bar at the bottom of his pedestal began filling up with purple and lime ink, and two pairs of numbers were listed, one on each side. The big white number consisted of a percentage, and a smaller black one consisting of how many ink was covered in total.
The winner is…
"Invisible Ink!"
Judd pointed a lime flag towards the right side, which was Invisible Ink's side. The meter stopped at 40.3% to 40.4% and 959p to 960p.
"We won!" Celia cheered, quite shocked.
"I did not expect that." Orbee nonchalantly reacted.
"GG, Ika Inkers!" Ethel said, walking towards them and congratulating them.
Nanami gave a smile.
Upon looking at the leaderboards, Nanami saw that she had two splats, not just one.
"It must've been the first splat bomb."
Back at the Plaza, Nanami sat alone at the bench on the southwest. Celia then came towards her, hiding something behind her back.
"Hey."
"Hey, nee-san."
"Splattershot Jr. a bit hard?"
"Not really, but…"
"Say no more." Celia took out a box with the Ammo Knights logo on it. "Open it."
Nanami took the cover off and in it was an Aerospray RG.
"…what's this?" Nanami asked.
"I figured it would be easier than the Jr., so… this is my RG… and I'm giving it to you."
Author's Notes
Wow, 2870 words! I spent so much time on this, with the turf war portion all done today!
Woo, I'm beat.
Thank you BoyJav for the invitation into Shared Universe, what do I do now?
Sigh… I hope it wasn't horrible.
11/30 Edit: I JUST REALIZED THAT I USED CUE INSTEAD OF QUEUE. UGH. Thanks boredguy108 for the reminder!
SLSL~
- o.O