"Ya weni marei mirekyarahire, Juri yu mirekerason, Kire hyari yoriherahe nyurahera, Nunnyura unera yurawera nyimerani"

The lights fade in, the battlefield awaits, the hero is nearby with her unmatchable traits.

The dust settles as the music plays, a lone Octoling stands, her weapon is raised.

The air grows cold as each believes they are the one, the time is now the battle is begun.

Agent Three leaps down from the platform she stood upon, pulling a splashdown canister off her belt and activating it as she superjumps into battle. Her lone opponent is a single Octoling, but one who looks just as determined as Agent Three ever was to achieve her goals. The Octoling knew better than to be within the radius of Agent Three's Splashdown, Three realizes she's dealing with more than a common soldier, this would truly be a showdown.

Kiaria raises her Octo Shot and charges Agent Three, firing ink all around to trap her so she can't just roll out of the way. She feels like she's done this before, but she shrugs that thought aside and charges in. Agent Three counters by throwing out an Autobomb and pulling an Inkjet canister off her belt, Eight knows she's only got a few seconds to make her move, and she does it! She manages to break Three's armor before she can activate the special, and the Inkling is forced to retreat and recover, superjumping back to the platform she stood atop before.

Kiaria quickly moves out of the way of the autobomb and just lets it explode harmlessly far from her, inking as much of the battleground as she can before Agent Three returns. It doesn't take long for Kiaria to sense Agent Three readying to rejoin the battle, and sure enough, a Splashdown is activated in the air above Kiaria, who's just barely able to roll out of the way of it. Three begins firing on Kiaria immediately, throwing out an autobomb as well to try and corner her. Kiaria throws out a bomb and uses the turf she's covered to swim away and escape while also refilling her ink tank. She remains mindful of the fact that Agent Three could spot her at any moment, so she's always ready to spring out and fire again.

Agent Three, now realizing that the Octoling is hiding in the ink, pulls out a Bubble Blower to try and force her out. But Kiaria was expecting this. She emerges from the ink from right behind Three, and fires on her before the Inkling is even able to react to the sudden change of control. Within microseconds, her armor is broken again and she's forced to retreat a second time. Kiaria doesn't celebrate, she knows this isn't over. Three seems just as determined as Kiaria to win, she knows she has to try something different if she wants to beat the Octoling. This time, she changes her tactic, no superjumping in. Instead she hacks the controls of the platform she's on and pulls tentamissile canisters off her belt, she can't get splatted if she's far enough away to not be shot at.

Two bombs later and Three is forced to retreat further to respawn again. How did she not see this coming? No matter, Agent Three has another ace up her sleeve. And by ace, I mean she has a near infinite supply of Splashdown canisters. She randomly superjumps around the battleground in an attempt to corner the Octoling and splat her. Kiaria knows the pressure is on now, Three is pulling out all the stops so she has to match the intensity.

Kiaria does her best to turf around her while keeping her ink tank filled, using what cover she can to avoid getting hit by the splashdown barrage that Agent Three is unleashing. She manages to avoid them, just barely though, and then once Agent Three is no longer jumping around the map, Kiaria goes in for the attack. But she got arrogant, she assumed she had this one in the bag and got sidelined by an autobomb, breaking her armor. Agent Three takes advantage of the fact that Kiaria is damaged, and fires a flurry of shots towards the Octoling, splatting her very shortly after the shots are fired.

Kiaria wakes up in a cold sweat with a soft but audible gasp. Her hands patting around her body as though she's not convinced she's all in one piece, she can even feel a familiar idle burn on her back. The air feels still and cool, but her body is far too warm for how cold the air is. She needs to calm down before she's able to properly process anything. She takes a couple deep breaths and calms her mind, but something is pulling at her. Slowly she turns her head and she sees it… the golden toothpick, just sitting on her nightstand… what could it mean? Was it related to her dream? Her dream had felt so real… it reminded her a lot of the hazy memory of fighting Agent Three the first time they'd faced off before she fell into Kamabo. But she doesn't remember Three having THAT many special attacks… maybe it's something more?

This isn't the first time Kiaria's had a nightmare like this, in fact she's had them ever since escaping Kamabo. But ever since finding that toothpick, they've been so much more vivid, no longer are they simple flashes of her past. No. Now they're detailed ordeals. They feel so much like reality. Typical dreams are a bit more weird and when you think back on them you NOTICE how weird they are, but these ones could almost be mistaken for an actual event. The only thing that keeps it from that is the fact that it doesn't fit in the timeline at all. Normally when Kiaria had a nightmare like that she'd get up and get something to drink like a glass of water or something in an attempt to clear her head, but something's different now. Something is drawing her to go back. Something is telling her she can win.

"Maybe… if I win… I won't have these nightmares anymore…" Kiaria says to herself softly before grabbing the toothpick off her nightstand and holding it close, she was sure that it would help her win somehow if she did this. It was now or never, she was going to finally understand why this thing was so important, or at the very least, defeat her inner demons. She lays her head back down and closes her eyes, she doesn't really even drift asleep, rather, the dream takes her. She can hear the opening notes of the Calamari Inkantation all over again.

Kiaria found she was having a little more difficulty with the bubbles than she anticipated, Three was being a little more slippery than before, rolling into the bubbles to avoid being shot. Kiaria has to wait out the first set of bubbles and wait until Three was bringing them out again. She waits, and her patience pays off, as when she charges in all she has to do was throw a splat bomb, it impacts the bubble that Three just made and, since it's an instant explosion, Three's armor is broken once again with just a couple extra shots.

"Just two more to go, c'mon Kiaria, you can do this!" Kiaria motivates herself and grips the handle of her Octo Shot a little tighter. She's figured out Three's pattern, she knows what she has to do… it's just a matter of doing it without getting too cocky. Three's attacks followed a very specific pattern, so all she has to do is follow that pattern. The main difficulty came from the random variables relating to where Three jumps into the battlefield. Fortunately this particular part of the pattern doesn't involve that. She feels the slight tug on her form as Tentamissiles lock onto her, and she knows it's go time.

She swims forwards through her ink, coming as close to the platform that Three stands on as she can and throwing a bomb up onto it. She then quickly dives into her ink to refill her tank as quickly as she can while swimming around a little bit to avoid getting hit by tentamissiles or stray autobombs, she has a limited amount of time before the damage of the first bomb wears off. Fortunately, Three decides it's a great idea to float her platform closer to the Octoling. Kiaria smirks as she leaps from the ink and yeets a Splat Bomb right at the Inkling agent, once again breaking her armor and forcing her to retreat.

Finally, it was time for the Splashdowns again, and this time, Kiaria was more than prepared. She inked a path for herself and was already in position when she noticed Agent Three ready to jump in. She Swims to one side of a power coupling cylinder, and Three's first splashdown lands on the other side of it. Then as Three leaps to try and repeat the splashdown, Kiaria swims to the side that Three was just on and once again, Three's Splashdown is met with nothing. Three has one final Splashdown before she has to recharge, so she tries one last time. Just like the last two times, Kiaria outmaneuvers her, and she's left with no choice but to fight her one on one.

Kiaria smirks, having thrown out a splat bomb to corner the inkling, she swims up fast and wastes no time firing on the Inkling agent, intent on winning the fight. Three doesn't just sit and take it of course, she fires back, causing the Octoling's armor to break first. But, Kiraria presses on. Just when it seems like Agent Three is about to take the win, when Kiaria is one shot away from exploding into ink, Kiaria fires a blast of ink right into the Inkling's face sending the Agent backwards with broken armor once more. She's won the fight!

Kiaria's dream fades, and then it shifts. She's back in the metro, central station to be specific. She doesn't remember how she got here. But she sees her locker, it's sitting open, and all that sits inside is the Golden Toothpick. She would question why her locker is here, since before it was buried deep inside of the facility, but she feels drawn to the object sitting in her locker so rather than ponder why it's here, she simply walks towards it. She leans down and picks up the Golden Toothpick, looking it over a couple times, and then pinning it into her ponytail with a smile. The fight is over, her inner hero has been defeated, she feels like the freshest Octoling ever! Then the Metro starts to fade, the world around her going dark, but Kiaria doesn't feel worried, in fact, she feels like this is a good thing. The start of a new chapter.

Slowly Kiaria wakes once again, it's still very late at night and she should still get more sleep. But, notably, the golden Toothpick is now lodged in her ponytail like it had been in her dream, and like how Alex had put it earlier. Kiaria giggles quietly to herself, she'll have to tell Alex that her dream self is a real jerk. But for now, she should really try and get some more sleep, so she pulls the toothpick out of her ponytail, then undoes the band holding her tentacles together, letting them fall free, setting both of these objects back on her nightstand.

Kiaria then turns and scoots a little closer to Alex, pulling her fiancee into a soft hug. Alex purrs quietly, it seems she really likes the embrace. That's good, because after that ordeal, Kiaria could use some happy cuddles with her wife-to-be. She knows they'll have a ton of their own challenges to face, but now their goal is to face whatever the world throws at them together, rather than on their own. No more getting captured and dragged into evil facilities bent on world domination. From now on, whatever happens, they do it together.