Chapter 3: 15-14-5
After the message fades away, I am treated to the location where the singleplayer campaign is going to take place in. A large modern city of some kind with japanese-inspired structures and buildings as far as the eye can see. I didn't get enough time to inspect the rest of the view for the city as the camera pans to where the train where my character, Callie and Marie are in.
"Hey, Sam and Marie! Look!" Callie looks at the window showing the Calamari City as I hear her let out a squeal of excitement in game. Looking at Marie, I see her staring at the window as well, nodding at the sights and having a half-smile on her as I talk to the Gamepad.
"Beautiful city, I must admit." I say, to which Marie and Callie turn to look at me with happy looks on their expressions. "Of course it's beautiful, Sam! This is where me and Callie were born and raised before our careers took off!" Marie exclaims as a voice over the intercom is heard after a few seconds of waiting.
"This is the conductor of the train speaking! We're arriving shortly to the Calamari City in just a few seconds. We really do hope that you'll have a fun week with your family and friends during this 7-day long storm!" The man on the other end says, as the inklings around the Squid Sisters and my character get up from their seats and begin walking to the train's exit as the train begins slowing down.
"Are you ready, Sam?" Marie says to my character, and I respond to her question with my Gamepad. "Yep! Let's go!" I move my inkling to where the other inklings are, and see that the train has just arrived to the station now. The doors soon open after waiting for a while, all of the inklings proceed walk out of the train casually while some of them rush over to their families and friends that they'll be staying over. I never expected Nintendo to actually make the world of Splatoon come alive and be so realistic with the inklings being happy to see their families and friends, despite the weird glitches and distortions I encountered earlier at the beginning of this campaign. I proceed to move my inkling to where my luggage is while the Squid Sisters follow me. Another interesting design choice, as I enjoy the company of the two. Once my inkling arrives to his luggage along with the duo, a small cutscene plays out as I sit back and watch it play out.
"I know I've said this so many times already, but I can't wait to see how gramps and Octavio are doing!" She grabs her luggage, the other Squid Sister being shown smiling happily while holding her dark-green colored luggage. "Now, now, Callie. No need to get TOO excited, alright? Let's just take a casual walk to where Cuttlefish is, and politely introduce ourselves without throwing ourselves into his arms!" After the cutscene is over, I move my inkling to the exit as the loading screen appears. Didn't take too long to load, only about 5 or 10 seconds as I'm treated to the Calamari City for the first time. Looking at the Gamepad, I see that it's showing a map of the singleplayer campaign with several icons on the button that shows an icon of Cap'n Cuttlefish, a lobby icon and Battle Dojo, and several icons to the left showing the gears and item stores that I can buy.
Everything else except for the "Equip" "Map" "Gear" "Stages" "Options" and Cap'n Cuttlefish icons are grayed out, so I pressed the latter in order to advance the story, interested in how things will turn out. The screen fades to black as the squid spins around, and another loading screen appears. Only lasted for about 5 seconds, before I am transported to where Cuttlefish lives. I am treated to a nice-looking two-story house with a porch and front lawn as I move my character up to the house. Before I enter the house, I look around the surroundings of my inkling, and see some houses. All looking similar to Cuttlefish's house, as I turn my inkling to face the Squid Sisters, both of them looking excited as they look at the door.
"Ready to see your grandfather, you two?" I say to the microphone, to which Callie responds by hopping and fist pumping the air in excitement while Marie smiles and nods as I move my inkling to the door and press the B button as a cutscene play out. My character knocks the door, backing away as the Squid Sisters walk in front of him. I soon hear the door opening, and out comes the captain of the inklings himself, Cap'n Cuttlefish. His model looks the same, except that he isn't wearing dirty, ragged robes anymore, but instead wearing a dark blue military captain's outfit. He lets out a heartfelt laugh upon seeing his granddaughters as I sit back and watch the cutscene play out, smiling at how the characters' personalities have become even better than they were in Octo Valley.
"Callie and Marie! It's so good to see you two here! How much I've missed you both!" The captain hugs the two, while the Squid Sisters respond by hugging their grandfather back as they all share a moment of laughter together before letting go off of each other as Callie and Marie turn to look at my inkling and look back at Cuttlefish. "Hey, gramps? I think we've brought someone here that you might know!" She and Marie back away, revealing my inkling to the captain as he lets out a chuckle, and nods at him with a smile.
"I remember you clearly, boy! You're Agent 3, aren't you?" He asks me, as I chuckle to myself and talk to the Gamepad. "Of course I am! The one who is level 26 on this game, and beat Octo Val-" Big mistake. Big mistake right there, as the world began glitching and distorting again after forgetting about not mentioning anything about "games" or anything else that the characters wouldn't understand. A string of numbers start flickering on the screen, to which if my memory was correct, it said: "19-15-15-14". This was epileptic-inducing, because of the numbers on the screen constantly flickering like a television showing only static and white noise, until something grabbed my attention on the screen. Marie wasn't even distorting or glitching. She was just looking at me with a frown, looking disappointed at me.
"You know what to do, Sam. However, there is something I need to request." She says, as the numbers stop flickering on the screen and the models of the characters except for mine and Marie begin to bend and distort. "I can sense something dreadful and evil coming soon, so I'd stop mentioning anything that will glitch this world out. Please, Sam..." Her voice changes again to that female human voice from earlier, and this time, not only does her voice change, but her eyes do as well once she opens them. What usually were golden pupils with a cross inside of them, has now become cartoony human-looking eyes with blue irises around her pupils. It looked as though they were in between realistic looking and cartoonish, which made me feel a bit uneasy about playing this. I let out a sigh, before I said something that caused the world to stop glitching out and having Marie's eyes turn back to normal.
"Of course I am! Didn't I help you try to save the Great Zapfish from Octavio two-three months ago, or something?" I say to the Gamepad as everything returned back to normal like usual. And like usual, Callie and Cuttlefish seem to not even remember what just happened with the glitches and distortions as they looked just as happy before.
"Indeed I do, Agent 3! Speaking of Octavio, why don't you three come inside, and say hello to my friend?" He lets out a laugh, as he and Callie walk inside. Before Marie steps inside, she turns to look at my inkling and nod as she proceeds to go inside the house. I was about to move my inkling inside, only for him to move inside by himself before I could touch the joystick. "Must be a part of the cutscene." I thought to myself, as I just sat and watched it play out. I won't go into details of how the house looked from the inside, since I only wanted to focus on the important parts of this singleplayer campaign, but it looked finely decorated with pictures, rugs, and neat blue-painted walls. Upon entering what appears to be the living room, I see Octavio, still in his snow globe as the Squid Sisters walk over to the octarian and tap his glass while bearing grins on them.
"Hey, Octavio! You enjoying your time in that precious little snowglobe?" She says teasingly, to which the red octopus only responds with a growl as he continues looking away from the Squid Sister. "Wow, someone seems to be in a bad mood..." The Squid Sister walks away from Octavio and back to her grandfather as I simply stare at the octarian. I still remember how the final boss in the Octo Valley singleplayer campaign was, and still have fond memories of it as I move my inkling toward him.
"Heya, Octavio. What's up?" I say to the microphone, only to be responded with the same growl from him as he gave Callie. I see Cuttlefish walking up to my inkling and looking at the octarian whom has his back turned on all of the characters.
"Octavio isn't really in a good mood, ever since the zapfish incident happened. I'd suggest leaving the poor lad alone for a while, and go check the rooms you three will be staying at for this week." He points to the stairs leading up to the second floor, as the cutscene ends. I begin moving my inkling once more while the Squid Sisters follow my character upstairs to an arrow pointing to the bedroom. I decide not to ask the two about it, afraid that the glitches will return as I press the corresponding button in order to open the door.
Once inside the bedroom, the Squid Sisters place their luggage on the ground, letting out yawns afterward as they hop onto their beds and relax. I turn the camera to face toward them as I see Marie lets out a long sigh, before she looks at me and says something to me.
"Hey, Sam? What are you planning to do now?" She asks, resting her head on her pillow as I respond to her question. "I'm probably going to be exploring the house for a bit. After that, I'll see what I can do." I move my inkling to the door, and open it as I hear shuffling moments behind my inkling, and turn the camera around to see Marie resting and sleeping. I quietly close the door behind my character, and begin exploring the house. Before I could do that, though, an objective on the top screen appeared, stating the following: "Find a bubbler in the basement.".
I wanted to explore the rest of the house being going down to the basement, so I went through the corridors. Three rooms to the right corridor having a bathroom, a laundry room and a play room of some kind which didn't really interest me that much at the time, as I went down the left corridor. Nothing really interesting there, except for a security room and attic. Both were locked, so I was disappointed as I just did as the game asked me to. I moved my inkling to where the basement is, and moved him down the stairs. It was too dark to see, so I turned on a nearby light switch as the room brightened up. On some of the shelves, I noticed some Inkzookas, armor pieces, splat bombs and many other weapons until I looked at where the arrow was pointing at. A metal ball with a small button on it. A small cutscene plays out with my character pressing the ball's button, and soon, a bubbler appears around him. What interests me, is that he still has that same smile on him. Ever since I started playing this new update, my character han't even changed his facial expression, just bearing the smile on him. I shrug it off as the cutscene ends, and I'm then given a new objective: "Complete 5 Turf Wars in order to advance to Day 2".
Believe me, I was just as confused as you are right now when I saw this objective. I was thinking at the time: "What the hell do Turf Wars have to do with a rainstorm?", and to be blunt, it didn't make sense. Of course, being the naive idiot I was at the time and didn't know what I was actually getting into, I followed the objective's orders, and followed the arrow pointing back to the bedroom where Callie and Marie are. Entering it again, I was told by the game to tell the Squid Sisters that I was going to go do some Turf Wars, and so I did.
"Hey, Callie and Marie?" I call to them, to which they turn to look at me, opening their eyes as they let out small yawns. "Yeah, Sam?" She asks, sounding tired as I continue talking to her with the microphone. "You mind if I go do some Turf Wars?" I wait for a response, and she responds with just confusion as she tilts her head. She looks toward the window, and I see that it has started raining. "Sam... it's raining outside. You can't go, because you'll be splatted if you do so..." She proceeds to fall onto her pillow, completely tired as I move my inkling downstairs and to where the door is. Before opening it, I could hear rain outside of the door, as my inkling grabs the handle and opens it by himself without any inputs from the buttons. I am soon treated to the outside of the house, seeing rain pouring down from the sky as my inkling eagerly seems to wait a response from me. I nod to myself, and press the "Lobby" icon on my Gamepad as I am taken to the lobby menu. I picked the Regular Battle icon, to which it had an arrow pointed at as a way to make it important.
I won't go into too many details of what the maps will be, if I won or lost, or how the battles were, since that would just waste too much of your time. So I'll make each battle as short as possible.
Round 1: Calamari Heights, Turf Wars.
The location was set in some grassy mountain-like area with trees, rivers flowing below us along with two iron bridges on each side where our teams are. Several spires were too tall to jump onto and blocked the way, so the walls had to be painted in order to go get through the spires. What grabbed my interest, was that there weren't even any signs of any dark grey clouds around the map, considering that the Rainstorm seemed to be in effect as I saw before leaving Cuttlefish's house.
My "team" won with ease, but that's because of the same thing that happened earlier with previous matches. I splat the enemy team, and they didn't respawn. And when they tried to fight back by trying to splat my inkling, it didn't seem to affect him as he just charged through the enemy ink without any signs of slowing down whatsoever. After splatting all 4 enemy inklings, my team was gone as well, and I won the round easily all by myself. This seemed to be a reoccurring theme, since this happened as early as before this singleplayer campaign even started. I shrugged this off, as I began the next map.
Round 2: Deep Sea Caverns, Tower Control.
For those of you whom aren't level 10 yet, let me give a brief description of what you have to do in Tower Control. Get to the center of the map where the tower is, defend it until it reaches the enemy base, and don't let the enemy move the tower to your base.
This was a gorgeous looking map, and I wished that I could play this once more, since I had lots of fun despite the events that have happened recently. The map consisted of going through some underground mines while riding mine carts to where the tower is with shiny, sparkling crystals and gems scattered everywhere. The best part of this map, was that there were small shortcuts you could take, albeit somewhat risky, since your inkling could fall down and get splatted, but it would greatly help your team. Nothing seemed to go wrong in this round, since when I splat the enemies, they actually respawn. It was such a relief for me to actually be playing against people that don't just quit upon being splatted, but I noticed that my inkling wasn't being affected by the enemy ink at all. I continued blasting and supporting my teammates, until I reached the enemy base with my team.
However, I saw that my teammates have all been splatted and aren't respawning as the enemy team arrived, ready to splat my inkling. I was about to fight them, despite the outcome being obvious, until my game started glitching out as the models and world began distorting and bending. I heard the sounds of inklings being splatted and letting out painful cries, as I just sat and watched the distortions and glitches going on. After the glitching is over, I saw that the enemy team has been splatted completely with no significant damage to my inkling at all. What used to be blue-colored inklings standing in front of my inkling have been reduced to splatters of ink as I just moved the tower to the enemy base and won. I was confused as to what happened, and began wondering if I should even be playing this new update. I was overwhelmed with curiosity, and just wanted to see what would happen after I finished the remaining 3 rounds.
Round 3: Temple of Squidtankhamun, Rainmaker.
Yes, even I got the map's reference and had a chuckle at it's name. And even I appreciate the effort of the developers for making this map, since it fit with the egyptian style. Even though it felt out of place for a game like Splatoon, it's honestly be up there with the Deep Sea Caverns map, as I loved the amount of details it has. Sphinxes with inkling heads, pyramids, pillars and ruins are all present in the map as my new team and enemy team spawned into the map. I noticed that my inkling looked even happier than before, which made me feel both a bit uncomfortable and happy at the same time as the round was about to start.
Going through the map and painting the ruins around my inkling, I noticed that some of the floor and walls couldn't be inked, so I let one of the others just step on it out of curiosity. Once an inkling steps on the pressure plate, the floor below them opens into a hole as they fall down and are splatted. I just quickly charge through the map, trying to avoid the various traps around the areas until I see the Rainmaker's shield being shot at by the other team. One of them charges up her Splat Charger, as I move my inkling out of the way and begin using my roller. I see the orb containing the Rainmaker shatter as one of the enemy inklings grab it and begin running away while two others stay behind and attempt to defend the Rainmaker carrier. I was barely able to splat both of the enemy inklings and nearly getting splatted myself, seeing as how the screen was surrounded by ink. I quickly got into my team color's ink, and waited for the ink around the screen to go away as I began chasing the enemy team down with my character.
They weren't too far away, though, as I looked down on the Gamepad and saw that they were just around the corner to the right and turned to face them as I splatted them with ease. I didn't realize this until now, but after splatting them, their ghosts don't appear after they were defeated. I grabbed the Rainmaker, and went back to my team's spawn in order to win the game, only to see something weird once I arrived there. As I walked up the sandstone stairs up to the spawn, I noticed that my team has just stood there, having done nothing for the entire match while I myself have annihilated the enemy team. I thought that the players have just joined the game before the match even started, and just decided to help them get their experience points as I walked into my spawn territory and won the round with no enemies behind me to try and stop me.
Round 4: 19-21-23-19-8-5-5 1-9-18-19-8-9-16, 6-9-14-4 13-5
That's what I could remember from one of my screenshots that I looked at, because I was just confused to the point that I had to take one with my camera. Unfortunately, the image has been corrupted, and any attempts to try to upload it to deviantART, imgur or Lightshot have been proved a failure since the image would just get taken down for some reason by the moderators and admins. I haven't been able to decipher the numbers yet, but this was where things started to get... weird.
Recommended Music: Kevin Macleod - Aftermath
As the fourth round began, I noticed that I was all by myself, none of my teammates were on the match and have... let's just say, disconnected, since their icons were glitching like crazy along with the enemy team's. That's not the weirdest part of this round. What was the weirdest part, is what I was treated to. Suw-Shee Airship from earlier, except that everything seems to have taken a rusted and broken-down look as I looked outside, only to see nothing but darkness outside.
Unlike the normal version, in which the song was upbeat and catchy, the song that played here was something that just felt too out of place for a kid's game like this. It sounded like something out of a horror game, as I just moved my inkling through the broken-down airship, not even knowing the objective that I was supposed to do. I was afraid of something that would just pop out of the corner and give me a heart attack. The map just felt too empty and lifeless, as I began shivering in fear of what will happen soon. "What happened to the game?" I wondered to myself, as I arrived to the enemy base, only to see a peculiar sight. A lone inkling that's nothing but a pitch black color. I was anticipating for a scare, and of course, it looked up at me. Now, I know what you're thinking what I will say at this point. Hyper realistic blood, human eyes, and all that. But no, you're all wrong on that. It had white glowing eyes, and it looked as though it smiling at me with white glowing lips. I was about to turn around, until I heard a voice come directly out of my microphone that caused me to throw my Gamepad onto my blanket at first in fear.
"Follow me." The voice said, as it just walked past my inkling, and turned to look at me as I nervously picked the Gamepad back up. I was about to throw it away again, until the voice said something else. "Don't be scared of me, Sam. I can show you a way out of here." It said, walking toward where the rusted looking platform is. Of course, all I could see down there, was just a pitch black void as I heard the shadowy inkling speak to me again in a calm and relaxed voice.
"Jump down. You'll find what you need down there." It said, as I proceeded to ask it if I could trust it. It didn't respond to me, as I just sighed and hopped down into the dark abyss below my inkling. My inkling wasn't being splatted, he just continuously falls down until the entire screen is black as a new set of text popped up.
Round FDMNBHCD, 20-8-1-14-11 25-15-21
Again, I couldn't decipher the numbers, as I was just treated to the next map the game sent me to. A forest that's been burned down. The Forest of Jellyfish that I played through after playing through the Suw-Shee Airship, except that everything was silent. Everything except for the trees were in ashes or have been burned down as I moved my inkling, following the shadowy figure as it instructs me with the same "Follow me." voice from the microphone. I wasn't scared or pissing my pants in fear, I was just confused and found this awkward as I just proceeded to follow the inkling. I also should note, that my inkling was walking as if he was in walking on enemy turf, slowing him down as I kept walking. About 2 minutes of walking later, I soon arrived to the center of the map, seeing something strange and glitching with the shadowy inkling standing behind it.
"What is this?" I asked the shadow, to which it replied with the same calm and relaxed voice. "Your way out of here, Sam. I'm only helping you find your way out of here." It says to me as it smiles at me politely. I let out a sigh, and smiled myself, thinking that it was a benevolent entity of some kind as I walked up to the glitched object, looking a bit confused at it.
"Don't be scared, Sam. This object here will take you back to the game you know and love." It continued smiling happily at me, as I let out a sigh, and touched the object, believing everything that this creature told me like the idiot I was. What I thought was going to be the way out, ended with me feeling the Gamepad violently vibrate as I saw the entity continue smiling at me. Not out of concern or happiness, but out of malice and evil this time as he still spoke in the same voice.
"There's no need to worry, Sam. With both of us in control together, we shall dominate this world together as one." It quietly chuckled at me as the screen faded into a complete white color afterward.
I thought the game has crashed after staring at the white screen for about 30 seconds, until it faded to my inkling standing in front of Cap'n Cuttlefish's house with rain falling from the dark sky along with the moon shining in the background. Nothing except for the sound of rain is heard, as I moved my inkling to the house and opened it. The rooms still had some light in them, and I could hear a feminine voice humming a familiar song. The Calamari Inkantation used for the final battle against Octavio in Octo Valley. I moved my inkling up the stairs to where the source of the voice was, and opened the door to the bathroom. I saw Callie having recently taken a shower for herself, as she dries her hair while continuing the hum the song.
"Hey, Callie!" I said to the microphone, grabbing the attention of the Squid Sister as she waved happily at me, holding the tentacle dryer in her one hand.
"Oh, hey Sam! How did the Turf Wars go!" She asked happily to me, as I was about to say something. But something else happened instead. I could hear my own voice come out of my inkling as he closed the door behind him, having the same smile as the shadowy inkling that I met before.
"Oh, nothing much... I was just doing some Turf Wars, and it was so fun splatting other inklings and turfing their territory!" My character says happily, as Callie chuckles with a hint of nervousness in her voice.
"You know, you've been gone for like... three or four hours? Where have you been?" She asked me, as I tried to say something again, but my inkling talked over me again with my own voice. "As I said, I was just doing some Turf Wars. Had a few... run-ins while trying to come back here." I could see him put one of his hands in his pocket, as I could see Callie look even more nervous as I hear her chuckle.
"A-alright, then! Can you please leave this room, since I'm currently drying my hair?" She asks politely despite stuttering her words, as my inkling character locks the door behind him. I widened my eyes as soon as I saw him pull out a roller and looking at the Squid Sister with a smirk on him.
Recommended Music: Undertale - In My Way
Callie placed the hair dryer on the sink, looking visibly afraid as she slowly backs away from my inkling while trying to laugh, only to let out whimpering sounds as she stares at my inkling.
"H-hey! Nice r-roller you have there! You wanted t-to show it off for me?" Her happy tone is completely gone, replaced with fear and nervousness as I could see my inkling slowly step toward her without any input from my Gamepad. I tried pressing the HOME button on the bottom of the Gamepad, only to see the HOME icon in the corner crossed over as I just saw the events unfold before me. I told my inkling to knock it off through the microphone, raising my voice in an attempt to stop these events happening. But it just ignored me completely as it inched closer to Callie.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? I ORDER YOU TO GET AWAY FROM HER!" I screamed at the microphone loudly, only to be met with a quiet chuckle from my character as I see Callie in a fetal position, whimpering in fear as she looks up with one of her eyes closed and sweat dropping from her forehead. I don't know what my character was going to do, as I just saw him stand above Callie, staring her down with the same smile while holding his roller as darkness conceals his face.
"S-Sam... please don't splat me..." I could start hearing her cry softly out of fear. Of course I wouldn't splat her and just spare her immediately, but someone else wanted to splat her. Just before I wanted to scream something to the microphone and tell my character to stop, I saw my inkling ready his roller as Callie lets out a bloodcurdling scream for help as my character swings his roller at her.
Recommended to stop the music
Thankfully, I was spared from seeing Callie being splatted, but I jumped in shock as a loud white noise filled my room while my television shows nothing but static. I ran up to the Wii U, and pressed the power button for as long as I could before it finally stopped. Nothing except for silence fills the room as I just stare at the television in shock, not knowing what has just happened as I just shake in fear. No way in hell could Callie have died. I wanted so badly to turn the game back on, but as I did, a notification just popped up after I booted my Wii U back up.
"Come back tomorrow, partner." That was the only thing it said. I simply pressed the "OK" button, and the Wii U just shut itself off afterward. Needless to say, I just stayed in my bedroom for the entire night with my door locked and my lights turned all the way up along with not getting any sleep whatsoever. I even covered my blinds and my web camera on my computer, in case if someone was stalking me, which I had a feeling though as if someone is doing so. As of the time I'm writing this, it's now 3:46 AM in the morning, and I still can't get any god damn sleep at all. God, please help me... what have I done?
Author's Note: Been a while since I have written a chapter with about 5000+ words on it. Believe me, this was difficult to write.
Anyways, seems like we'll just have to find out what happened to Callie in the next chapter, huh? As for now, I'm going to be writing Chapter 25 for the normal version of The Rainstorm. Honestly, I don't want this version of The Rainstorm to be as long, and hope to get it done by 10 chapters. Of course, there will be at least 2 endings for this version, and one of them will affect the real ending for the Rainstorm. =)
Until then, see you all in Chapter 4! =)