GO!
Michael and his team rushed out of their spawn point. Michael could see the enemy team on the other side of the map, rushing out of their spawn just as quick. Angela dashed to the lower area, her path being mimicked by a roller on the opposite side. Once they landed on the platform the roller made an immediate path towards Angela. She ran backwards, distancing herself from him while shooting in his direction. As he got closer Angela's shots hit more and more, piling up until the roller got splattered, leaving his weapon on the ground. Angela proceeded to cover up the rest of the platform and advanced forward.
Michael followed Randy and Shelly in their path towards the tower in the distance, shooting his ink in their path. He eventually got ahead of them, covering the ground in ink for them to get around quickly. He covered as many walls as possible, and even splatted a few enemies. The Michael and Randy got to the tower, with Shelly staying behind to find a good sniping spot. Michael inked the tower letting Randy swim to the top. Michael hadn't noticed the enemy team coming their way, and he would've been splatted if not for Randy. He had revved up his Splatling and shot a continuous array of ink at them, splatting nearly the entire team, all the while laughing maniacally. Satisfied with his work he unrevved his Splatling, only to find out he had missed one enemy who surfaced behind him. Just before being splattered the enemy was shot and splattered by a well-aimed sniper shot by Shelly.
"Boom, headshot…" Shelly whispered to herself.
Michael smiled at his teammate's work. They seemed to have the map on lockdown.
Randy called down to him "Oi, Mike! You should go help Angela. Shelly and I got this place secured."
Michael nodded and rushed to go find Angela.
He found her in a fight with the same roller from earlier. He seemed to be more aggressively swinging his roller at her, trying to flick his ink and splat her. He was too far away for Michael to get directly but maybe if he…
That's when it clicked. Michael grabbed a bomb and filled it with ink, he then chucked it at the wall. It ricocheted off and landed right into the roller's head, detonating and splatting him. Michael himself was surprised that it had actually worked and started laughing hysterically.
"Th-That was- That had absolutely NO business working at all!" Michael said while trying to talk coherently in his fit of laughs.
Even Angela herself couldn't keep herself from laughing. "That guy got absolutely decimated. Oh man, ain't no way he's gonna live that down."
Michael wiped a tear from his eye when he stopped laughing. Right as the match had ended. The black and white cat, Judd, came to announce the results. He did a small dance as the results were calculated and finally raised the flag of purple, the winning team.
"Meow! (The purple team wins at a stunning 86.9% of the map covered!)" Judd exclaimed.
Angela and her team cheered at their victory. She high fived Michael, who was equally happy to win his first match.
"Meow. (Here's everyone's money for this match. Good luck on your next match.)" Judd said as he handed small sacks of money to each person on the map.
While they headed back to the lobby to get back to Inkopolis Angela made small talk with Michael.
"Hey, Mikey, how'd you do that thing with the bomb? Here I was thinkin' you were new. Where'd you learn to do that?"
"Oh, well, uh. I guess you could say I've had practice."
"Hey, that's a good enough answer fer me."
Michael was grateful that she didn't press any further. He didn't know why but he didn't really want to share that he was the hero of Inkopolis. It was nice to know that there were some people who didn't recognize him. He didn't want to ruin it by parading around that he stopped the Octarians.
His thoughts were interrupted by a pat on the back from Randy.
"Hey man, nice work for your first match. You did pretty good. Right, Shelly?"
"Yeah." Shelly said quietly.
"Well, uh, thanks guys. To be honest I didn't expect to win that match."
"Yeah, thatsa normal feelin' most newbies have when they go into their first match. You get yer confidence built up the more you battle. Speakin' of which, whaddya guys think about ol' Mikey here joining us?"
"Hey I'm cool with it. He showed some nice performance today. Besides, we could use a fourth team member so we can finally go into those squad battles. Once Mike gets to level 10, that is."
"Shelly?"
Shelly was silent for a bit, almost as if the question didn't register at first. Angela was about to ask again when Shelly spoke up.
"I'd like for Michael to join us."
"Well, I guess it's decided. Mikey, yer with us now!" Angela said as she held her hand out to Michael. "Welcome to the team!"
Michael was a bit surprised at the rapid development. He was so happy to be accepted into a group on his first day of battling. He took Angela's hand into his own and shook.
"Thank you guys. Thank you so much."
"C'mon now, we've all got got a place for us to stay, it's not the best but it's nice either way."
The team left the arena, their hair turning back to their original colors, the purple ink disappearing as they went back home.