AN: Before we start, lemme just say, this chapter's "beast mode" phrase is based off of a real life experience, and by real life I mean a group of idiots (including me) decided to make this a thing in a TF2 Jailbreak server I frequent. Just in case you wonder how I came up with something this absurd.
The Bate Bros.
I'm Going Beast Mode!
"Sharq," Splin repeated, "We're gonna need a really clever plan for this one. I count over 12 Inklings already swimming in our spawn, and who knows how many more are allowed to swim in those treacherous orange inks."
As Splin said that, a myriad of orange squids bounced out of the ink, one following the other, making delicate splashes in the orange as they went. Sharq reached his hand out, and the squids reacted pretty poorly to that decision. Dynamo, Carbon, Krak-On, and Regular Rollers came bounding out of the ink, splashing Sharq's poor appendage in goop, splatting him. Respawning as a little squid ghost, Sharq came back into existence, gasping.
"...One little reach, ONE LITTLE REACH OUT." Sharq shook his brother by the shoulders. "IT WAS AWFUL!"
Splin rubbed his temples, stating, "Yeah, I was there."
"Dude, what do we do? Those things are trained to kill!" Sharq said hysterically.
"We, 'things' have names you know." Rising out of the ink, a Carbon Roller Inkling wearing a Sporty Bobble Hat, a Berry Ski Jacket, and a pair of Crazy Arrows, her skin light, and her eyes yellow. "Name's Zip, I'll be your hostess for tonight's activities."
"Uh. Pleased to meet you." Splin reached his hand out to shake her's, but quickly pulled his hand back in when the group of Rollers began assaulting the spawn point. "I take it you aren't willing to shake hands?"
"You got the name of the game Music Man!" A voice emanated from within the ink. A boy Inkling carrying a Krak-On Roller and donning a pair of Retro Specs, a Varsity Jacket, and a pair of Yellow Seahorses, his skin a light brown, and his eyes a bright orange, rose from the ink. "We've been hired to splat you and your buddy there if you take a single step outside! My name's Willie, you and your pal Shady over here don't got a chance!"
"Really?" Taking an experimental jump outside the protection of the spawn point, Splin gets completely REKT by the Rollers. Respawning back as a squid ghost, Splin's eyes blink, before he gets whisked back into the game as an Inkling. "Four we could take on by ourselves. Now, twelve…"
"Oh no, there's way more of us up ahead." Zip smiled. "Now, who's picking up the check?"
Sharq raised his hand slowly. Splin shook his head, prompting Sharq to lower his hand. "The match has hardly started, who knows, we might surprise you."
"YOU TWO HAVE 9 MINUTES LEFT!" Ari shouted, sending the twelve Inklings reeling slightly, Splin and Sharq still safely behind the barrier. That being said, the barrier started to grow less effective, causing the brothers to cringe at the noise.
"Ouch. Wish Loudmouth over there dialed back the volume a little." Willie stated, rubbing his ears.
"Why'd you guys even decide to pay for this challenge? Seems to me like you bit off more than you can chew." Zip asked.
Sharq shuffled behind the flag in squid form, pretending not to be seen. Splin replied, "Well, as dumb as an idea as it was…" Sharq cowered slightly. "I gotta try to earn SOME of Sharq's money back." Splin said confidently.
"...A-Actually, it was half of mine and half of yours." Sharq replied. Splin looked back at his brother and put his fist on his chin in thought. "Alright, now we really gotta try and get some of the money back. Sharq, we're leaving, we could probably make up the loss of money in about a couple day's worth of Turf Wars."
"What?! No way, we- I mean, I payed for it, so we should really try to get to covering ground. I think we can make it through!" Sharq exclaimed excitedly.
"..." Splin sat down, still in thought.
"Aw come on Splin! Even if we did lose,"
"Will lose." Zip said with a smirk.
"...We could do the Turf Wars thing like you said!" Sharq finished. Splin sighed, patting his brother on the back. "Sure. Next thing you'll tell me is that we can fix the hole in the ceiling with toothpaste and sticks." Sharq smiled. "Alright, how about this, at the last second, if we don't make it through, I'll go…" Sharq leaned into Splin's ear. "Beast. Mode." He whispered.
"Oh yeah, Beast Mode. No, I totally get it. You'll try to rush through, hopped up on a ton more energy than normal, and try to take out the entire enemy team, winning us the game, right?" Splin asked. Sharq nodded. "I can't see what could go wrong with that plan." Splin stood up. "Whelp, if we're gonna lose, now's the time I suppose." Adjusting his headphones, Splin turned the volume up a little, before saying, "Alright, let's go." As soon as he said that, all of the Rollers activated their various specials and aimed them at the spawn. "Oh." A crud load of projectiles and Krakens came flying towards the spawn, splatting the two as soon as they stepped out. Needless to say, it'd take them awhile to figure this one out.
"5 MINUTES LEFT!" Ari shouted. He and the other members of his squad were boredly sitting about, tapping on their phones or playing around with their weapons. Four minutes had already passed, and Splin and Sharq were just barely outside of the spawn. They managed to take the uppermost platforms, but the staircase leading down to the lower areas were occupied by orange Blasters and Splattershots, as well as the aforementioned Rollers. Any hype that the crowd watching had slowly diminished, children and parents left, news reporters went to find better news, and only a few diehard bystanders who were either really interested or had nothing else to do stayed.
"This isn't working. We gotta spice things up a little before my chance of fame goes awry!" Ari snapped his fingers. "I thought these scrubs were good at the game, like me! Guess that was just luck. They're really gonna have to bring it back if they want to get their gold!"
Looking up from her cell phone, Sari noticed something interesting. "You mean like that?"
Splin and Sharq were, no lie, getting completely decimated. Even though they kept splashing bucket loads after bucket loads of ink, and rapid firing 10,000 ink cartridges per minute, the oranges bounced back, dousing the ground and the brothers in deadly orange paint. You know, maybe if I had given them some sort of cool armor or something they wouldn't be dying every two seconds.
"BWAAAGH!"
Yeah, kinda like that.
Sharq respawned for like the 50th time this round. All Splin and Sharq had managed to do was bring the flag a couple steps farther, before the ground below them was stained with orange, and they had to repeat the process multiple times over. The flag reflected the battlefield, doused in orange and a couple stains of blue, a telltale sign of their efforts. They've pushed the Rollers out of the walkspace a few steps outside, but despite splatting eight of them, (and getting rolled over at least thrice over) they just kept coming back, with Blasters, Bamboozlers, and Burst Bombs, oh my!
You can tell I'm really tired right now.
"How do you think we feel?!" Splin cried out, as he was hit by a Kraken, sending him back to square one.
Zip yawned. "We've been at this for so long, I think it's time for you guys to give up." Splatting her, the brothers yelled, "Never!", until they were nuked by at least a couple Inkstrikes.
"Two minutes remaining!" Ari yelled.
Splin shook the ink off after he respawned, turning towards his brother, clutching the flag.
"Okay, Sharq, you got your Inkzooka ready?" Splin asked, clutching the Splatoon Wii U Gamepad. I mean, seriously. Those things are dead giveaways to what they're trying to reference, what other controller pad with a touch screen was that ridiculously big?
Sharq stared at the sky, still unaware of the fourth-wall's leniency towards the outside allusions. Splin waved his hand in front of Sharq's face. "There's almost no time left, we can't spend all day talking to the voice again!"
Sharq shook his head and took out his Inkzooka apologizing, "Whoops, sorry man. You got the Inkstrike missile?"
"Back up, they're planning something!" Zip yelled to the others orange Inklings. Willie nodded, and prepared his roller.
Splin patted his back, a missile appearing on his ink tank. "Alright, plant the flag on the Inkstrike, it's now or never." Sharq picked up the Rainmaker flag, and shoved it into the Inkstrike missile. They held it down, Sharq standing on the rocket, aiming his Inkzooka towards the front. "It's all or nothing!" Splin yelled, tapping the launch button. The rocket started off slowly, the Bates trying to keep the enemies at bay while the warhead charged. As soon as a Roller came near them, they immediately blasted them away. Staring worryingly at the missile, they wondered if the thing was fueled enough or if they were weighing it down. Their patience paid off, and the missile launched towards the enemy base, Splin and Sharq holding on for dear life. The enemy Inklings noticed, and quickly moved to retaliate. Sharq, however, was laughing hysterically, shouting, "I'M GOING BEAST MOOOOOODE!"
"One minute left!" Ari yelled. Some of the audience returned, curious as to how this trainwreck would end. What they didn't expect was two blue haired (Tentacled in this case?) Inklings riding on the back of a Inkstrike, slamming into the bottom of the Depot, where they were splatted by the ground.
But Inklings can't take fall damage so Splin and Sharq actually survived.
The crowd began watching with bated breath. (Pun not intended, well maybe) Despite making it to the foot of the enemy base, the brothers were still having trouble fending other Inklings off. It seemed as though the less skilled were placed in defensive positions, but the two of them still had trouble breaking through the wall of orange in front of them. The clock was down to measly 20 seconds left, and all they had managed to do was breach through the main spawn area down to the center paths. Currently, Sharq and Splin were blasting down other Inkling opponents, slowly advancing towards the enemy base. Orange Inklings began to charge towards the two, Sharq blasting them away with his Inkzooka.
"I think this is it Splin!" Sharq said, gunning down two Sploosh-o-matics, getting dangerously close to the flag. "You gotta admit though, it kinda worked for a second there!" The Splat-odometer on Sharq's Mini-Splating steadily grew in numbers.
"I suppose. We were so close!" Splin admitted, launching Burst Bombs at the Rollers on their flanks. Pausing, he tossed the Slosher in the air, spilling blue ink around the perimeter.
"10 seconds!" Ari exclaimed. The crowd began cheering in excitement.
"Hey," Splin said to Sharq, who turned around. "Wanna grab a bite at The Halibut when we're beaten?" Sharq chuckled, "If you're buying dude."
The brothers were almost to the foot of the wall leading up to the enemy's base, before two Rollers, identified as Zip and Willie by their attire, cut them off, just about to splat them, when the timer ran out and the whistles blew.
"Time's up! Let's see how close our challengers were…?" Ari said. Judd, who was apparently amongst the crowd, began to climb up to the Bluefin Depot through the bottom of the screen as usual, and held up a flag. "The Orange Team wins by a knockout." Judd said, before walking away, probably back to his bed.
"Whoo-hoo!" The entire Orange team celebrated, performing classic winning team poses, tossing the Roller players in the air, laughing and congratulating one another, and walking up the the north spawn point to earn their cash.
Splin simply shrugged on the losing team, Sharq shaking his head smiling.
"Alright Sharq, let's get going, I'm not look for apples like last night." Exhausted, Splin and Sharq turned into squids, and prepared to Super Jump to Inkopolis, until they were greeted by the two leaders of the Orange Team.
"So that's what Ari meant by, 'Weird strategy'!" Willie whistled. "You two were pretty close, good game my friends, good game!" Willie said, patting the two on the shoulders.
"Thanks man! You were pretty good too!" Sharq said, a huge grin on his face.
Zip raised her hand out for a handshake. Reluctantly, Splin reached out, grabbed her hand, and shook it, before taking a step back. "Relax man, I'm not gonna gun you down like last time. Not gonna lie, that last plan was pretty good, it probably could have worked. Anyways, I got my pay, and you guys… Uh, you tried? "
Splin smiled. "Thanks Zip."
"Hey, we never got your name, Music Man and Shadey, don't leave us in the dark!" Willie pouted slightly.
"Uh, name's Splin Bate."
"People call me Sharq, Sharq Bate!"
A snickering could be heard, and lo and behold, there was Ari, Sari, Rit and Bas, in the flesh, Ari looking pleased with himself. "Well, Splin and Sharq, thanks for the free gold! Guess that match you won against us the other day was a fluke!" The females giggled slightly, before striking another awesome pose. "Yeah!"
"You're welcome, good game." Splin stated simply. "Come on Sharq, we got a couple of burgers with our names on them!"
"Alright!" Sharq stretched his arms in the air. "I'm starving!" Sharq reached his hand out to Ari for a handshake.
This got Ari to stop smirking. "What?! You just lost 900,000 coins, how could you POSSIBLY walk away from that?!" Ari pushed Sharq's hand down, looking him straight in the eyes.
Sharq rubbed the back of his head, saying, "Well, at least it goes to the players who participated, right?" Ari looked around. The Orange Team was currently staring straight at him, eyeing the bag of gold he had. He backed up, getting closer and closer to the edge of the map.
"...You'll never take me alive!" Ari attempted to run, but was tripped up by Zip's leg. All of the Orange Team piled on him, trying to take the gold, coins flying and all. Sari peered at Splin and Sharq, mouthing, "Good game!", before she, Rit, and Bas went to assist their leader.
Splin and Sharq watched the carnage, before nodding, Super Jumping away towards Inkopolis, news reporters finishing their stories, families going back home, and Ari getting mobbed by the Inklings in orange, coins glimmering in the dusky air.
Splin and Sharq landed on the dog statue on top of Booyah Base, carefully rolling off as they landed on it. Despite doing this, they rolled right off, yelping and bouncing onto the sidewalk.
That's why we tech those.
"That wouldn't have worked in this situation!" Splin cried out.
"Oww…" Sharq groaned.
"psst! Hey, you two." The two brothers looked at the alleyway between the Squid Sisters Studio and the Battle Dojo. Oddly, it was bustling with activity. The brothers walked over, and pushed through a crowd of excited Inklings. Spyke was tapping his finger on the ground as usual, a rare smile on his face, surrounded by Super Sea Snails. "Appreciate it, mate. Been up to my head in these things since your close defeat."
Sharq looked away, embarrassed. Splin nodded.
"I don't normally do this, but I'd like you two to take one of these." Spyke tossed a Super Sea Snail at Sharq, he fumbled around with it before finally grasping it in his hands. Sharq's face lit up. "Cool, we have our own pet now!" Spyke waved them off. "Cheers, love." Splin and Sharq left, leaving Spyke to get showered in coins and Super Sea Snails by the excited crowd.
So, how's your day been?
Splin's head drooped. "You were there, you should know that we're beat."
Sharq yawned, his stomach protesting as well. "I just wanna get some food, maybe a little for this guy right here!" The Super Sea Snail under Sharq's arm shaked a little, its face lighting up.
What about your Splat-odometer?
Sharq took out his Mini-Splatling, the Splat-odometer still perched on the top. Reading the numbers, Sharq said, "I got ten splats!"
You know what THAT means!
A chorus of groans could be heard. "Mmph mmm mmph mmm?" A muffled voice could be heard saying(?).
You know it Pyro! Sharq's Strange Mini Splatling leveled up to Unremarkable!
The chorus of groans switched to sighing, before cheering and noisemakers could be heard in the background. "You're one step closer to manhood, privates!" A disciplined voice shouted. The crowd in another universe shuffled away, presumably to push a bomb cart off a hill or something.
"Well, that's great and all," Splin said, "But I'm just gonna get something to eat." Splin said, walking away from the plaza. Walking for a couple moments, soaking in the buildings and the slow caress of the darkness of dusk, the two stopped in their tracks. Spotting The Halibut burger joint up ahead, Splin motioned for Sharq to follow, and they ran towards the doors. Looking ahead, they noticed something that made their eyes widen and water, respectively. An employee was locking up for the night! They picked up the speed, running faster and faster towards their only way to get food. Upon reaching the main entrance, they leapt through the doors in squid form, crashing into a table, startling the employee. The Super Sea Snail landed on the table unharmed, a little dizzy.
She stared at the two brothers, who got up slowly. "May we get something to go please?" Splin smiled, rubbing the back of his neck. Sharq looked at her hopefully. She sighed, before unlocking the doors and walking up to the brothers, a notepad and pencil in her hand. "What'll you be having?"
AN Part 2: This is the longest chapter yet! I don't really think I did a very good job of detailing any huge fight scenes, so sorry if I let the hype out of the story. To clarify the Beast Mode, whenever there was one BLU left or the time was running out of that Jailbreak server, the last BLU or REDs would attempt to take out the other team, against all odds. Of course, half of the time, it doesn't go as well, usually getting close to victory, before something pops up and stops them from achieving true MLG status. Thanks once more to Anon360 and NSPFan for reviewing, as well as anyone following, favoriting, or simply viewing my story right now! Also, I was gonna have them do some dumb Gary Stu bullshrimp, (pls don't sue me for language) but of course a lot have people have already pulled it off before. So I opted for a slightly more, "realistic" course of actions. So as always, I hope you enjoyed this, this is ThePizzaLovingTurtle, I need to get me an Olimar amiibo before they run out! See you next time!