Thanks for the reviews! Sorry about the formatting issues I had with the first chapter, I'm still learning how this site works. I think I have enough of it figured out that it shouldn't happen again, but sorry if it does in the future. Anyway, here's the next chapter! This one's my take on how the character creation would work if Splatoon 2 were not a video game.
"Hey, Dane, we're here!" Hana shook him out of his slight daze.
"Huh, what? Oh, sorry, I guess I must've fallen asleep a little," Dane replied. The train had started to slow and eventually came to a stop in front of a small grey building which had a big neon-lit orange sign above it that read "The Road to Inkopolis Square.
"Here, come on," Hana led him out the train doors, which had opened a few moments earlier. They stepped onto a light grey cement landing that left a few meters before the building. Upon their further inspection of the building, it had two doorways separated by a thin wall that didn't seem like it was made out of the same material as the other walls of it, more of a curtain it seemed. Above the section on the right, there was a blue neon sign that said "Male"and above the door on the left was a pink neon sign which said "female".
"I guess we go into our own doorways?" Dane suggested to Hana.
"Seems like it," Hana agreed and walked over to the left. Dane followed suit and walked to the right. When he stepped inside he found a terminal that said "Pick a skin tone," and on it's screen it showed seven different possible skin tones in a darkening gradient going from left to right. He noticed a mat in front of it that had two footprints - directing him to stand there, he assumed. He decided that he was going to try a more pale skin tone and selected the one on the far left. The screen directed him to stand on the mat, which he did, and a small device on top of the screen scanned him with a matrix of green lasers. After a few moments, he noticed his skin had shifted to the lighter color. He glanced over his hands and arms. Not bad, he deemed, and a metal door opened next t the terminal.
He stepped through to find a similar terminal that asked him to pick an eye color. Similar to the skin tone screen, there were some swatches representing his choices, 12 he counted. 12? That's a lot more than in the Plaza, he noted. He was fine with his current cyan color, so he selected it again. Another small matrix scanner beamed across his eyes, but nothing happened and another door opened. The new room was a bit larger than the other ones he had been passed and had a chair with a robotic apparatus on the ceiling above it. The chair had a mirror and the selection screen in front of it on the wall. "How do you like your hair?" words on the screen asked him and showed four different blank squid heads, each filled in on top with different green hairstyles. I didn't know they allowed that here... Dane mused to himself with eyes a little wider than usual in surprise. Everyone had to have either the tied up tentacles or the two long ones on either side in Inkopolis Plaza.
He mulled over his options a few times each, but his eyes always stuck to the second one, which had two rows of three equal length tentacles each. He sat in the chair and tapped the 2nd squid - a few times he had to because the screen had been worn down in that spot. Must be a popular style, he guessed. The robotic apparatus on the ceiling procured six small arms which reached down, gently grabbed each of the tentacles on his head and lifted them up so they were even in length. A seventh arm appeared from the device, which was carrying scissors, promptly cut short all of his held-up tentacles and began to arrange them like in the pattern he selected. After a few moments, the arms released him and retracted into the ceiling. He glanced at himself in the mirror, smiled, and said out loud, "Damn, I look good." An additional door appeared, which he went through routinely.
Through the door was another room, which Dane thought was getting old at this point, but he continued walking anyways. This one quite simply had four bins, three with what looked like shorts or other such leg-wear, and one that was filled half with Splattershot Juniors and half with Ink Tanks. He looked at the three bins first, each of which was labeled with an image of their contents. The first bin seemed to just be regular shorts, not unlike his current ones. The second bin had the same shorts as before, but now there were tights underneath them. The third container had pants that seemed to go down to the wearer's knee and were tied off at that point. He decided to grab a pair of the shorts and tights and changed into them quickly. Closest thing to pants they'll probably ever give me, he thought.
That left one more bin. Stepping over, Dane picked up a Splattershot Junior and Ink Tank, hooked them up to each other, and pulled his arms through the straps. Looking at himself in the floor length mirror on the wall, he was struck by a sudden feeling of nostalgia. Only a little more than two years ago, he had been in this exact same situation - he really was starting all over again. On the far wall he saw a red button which was labeled "TO TUTORIAL AREA." Naturally, the first thing he did, as should be done with all red buttons, was press it without even reading the other notes around it or considering possible consequences.
Fortunately, all it did was open a door to outside the building. Dane stepped out and squinted for a moment because of the bright sunlight. He considered just running ahead through what would be the tutorial section, but he decided it would be better to wait for Hana; she had done the same for him, after all. He scanned around his surroundings and deduced he was in some kind of wide alleyway that extended into a... construction site? He couldn't see much farther from his current vantage point.
After waiting for a full minute and a half, Hana's door finally opened and she walked out, just as he did.
"Who's the late squid now?" he teased. She had changed her appearance kind of drastically compared to when she came in. Her tentacles only reached her shoulders now and her skin was one or two shades darker. She had also opted to wear a kind of short maroon-colored skirt over her shorts.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she said with some exasperation. "I was trying to decide what eye color I wanted. So many choices..."
"Aren't your eyes the same color as before?" Dane noticed.
"Um... Uh..." Hana fumbled for what to say because she knew he was right. "Hey! Let's go over there!" She pointed to the downward sloping path ahead of them and ran ahead. Dane sighed and followed her. As they reached a small landing, a corny voice that sounded very prerecorded came on over a set of overhead loudspeakers.
"Think you're too cool for school? Well it's time to prove it in battle!" the voice greeted them. "You're looking a little green though. Let's start with the basics!" Two green balloons appeared in front of them. Dane and Hana were both confused at first.
"They... they know we've done this before right?" Dane asked her, almost a little offended that they would think he needed a tutorial.
"Must be for kids just starting out, I guess," she replied. "Hey, why do you look so bummed out? It's just a tutorial."
"I know, I know, but I've really just been wanting to get to the Square already," he explained. "All this waiting and planning and we're sitting here getting taunted with freaking balloons!" He pointed at them with his Splattershot for emphasis.
"Hmm... well how about this? Let's just skip it!" Hana suggested and Dane stood up straighter in attention. "We already know how this works and it's just slowing us down. Whaddaya say?" Dane's eyes had lit up at this point and he was smiling like he was getting away with murder.
"I thought you'd never ask," he said decidedly and flipped the safety lock to 'off' and started inking himself a path forward. Hana followed suit.
And so, they skipped the tutorial, ignoring every one of the corny voice's messages unless they were directly related to getting to the top. They mostly used a repetitive pattern of shooting and then swimming through what they shot as squids. Only when the messages said,"Climb on up - you're almost to Inkopolis Square!" did they pause their motions. They had come to an overlook with a small circular puddle of green ink that was rippling. Beyond it they saw a city skyline and some more construction work.
"Alright-that's enough warming up. Turn into a squid to Super Jump!" The voice told them again.
"Normally, I'd offer ladies first, but-" he said with a mischievous grin on his face. "-There's no way I'm letting you get there first."
"Fine by me, I just hope it's everything we've made it out to be," Hana stepped aside so he could launch.
"It will be, I'm sure of it!" Dane assured her proudly.
"Alright, see you there!" she smiled as he turned into a squid over the launchpad and pushed off against it with all of his tentacles. It gave way slightly and snapped back into place launching him out and to the left slightly, straight towards the skyline and away from the past into a new future that would be everything they had both been dreaming of.