Chapter description:

My Inkling has got back to playing Splatoon with me, taking me through Octo Expansion in my new Octoling body... and while he's at it, giving me a taste of just how I made him feel whenever I was terrible at playing the game.

I don't think I'm ever going to get used to being splatted. At least now I've had that experience, he's playing properly. All I have to worry about now is how many attempts he'll need to take me through the escape phase...

Disclaimers:
Splatoon is owned by Nintendo
My Inkling, who's named himself Spike, is my own OC.

After only a few matches in turf wars, my Inkling returned to controlling me. I'd been watching the interesting undersea views as the metro rattled along, sometimes stopping at what were clearly passenger-only stations, but the moment he returned to me, I was instantly teleported back to the last car, where Captain Cuttlefish waited.

"OK, let's start testing," I heard him say as he made me open the CQ-80 and navigate to the only available station, A05 - Fake Plastic Station. "With all the testing, you'd think this was Aperture Science or something."

I couldn't reply, of course. All I could do was watch and think as I was taken along for the ride in my own body, even if I had been turned first into an Inkling, and then further into an Octoling. I wondered why he'd sounded so against turning himself into one - it did feel different, but not by much.

Fake Plastic Station didn't feel too hard, as his work in turf wars meant he was able to take out the Sanitised Octolings fairly easily. From there he moved me on to A06, Bounce with Me Station.

As I collected the Blaster and Splat Bombs from the turnstile, my Inkling spoke up again. "Now I'm going to make you understand what I had to go through," he told me. "And so you have some idea of what it's like…"

Had I been able to speak, I would have protested as he took me to an edge and, I kid you not, literally made me jump off. Which failed the test, causing a balloon on my back to explode and splat me.

I've since learned that getting splatted outside Deepsea Metro isn't so unpleasant as it was every time it happened to me, deliberate or not. Even so, it was painful and extremely disorienting.

"Now that's over with, I'm going to play properly - but I'm also going to see to it that you understand how terrifying it can be to have a bad player."

I wish he hadn't. I'm forever grateful that physics in the game world allow for changing direction mid-jump, because there were far too many close-calls for my comfort - whether it was an edge or one of the Ink Sticks.

To make matters worse, once he finally made me complete it, he took me next to A04, Roll Out Station. Which has a time limit. And he made me sit right at the end as the timer ticked ever closer to zero, before completing the test almost at the last moment.

You know those trust-building exercises where you have to trust that your friends, co-workers or whoever else you're with will catch you when you fall? I had to do one once, and was afraid I wasn't even going to fall the right way. It's like that, except instead of it being your health on the line, it's your life. Sort of. At least I respawned after getting splatted.

I was taken through the rest of A-Line before he finally gave me a break, returning to controlling his own avatar while leaving me to curl up in a corner and try to recover from the experience.

"I think now you've got some idea of just what you put me through every time you made another attempt," he said. "I'm going to do some more turf wars to keep my hand in - it's definitely different on this side of the controls, and I think you'll appreciate my keeping my skills polished."

"After that, I absolutely agree!" I said fervently. "Don't you ever pull a stunt like that with me again! I might respawn, but I really don't want to go through that again - especially what you did on that time-limited mission!"

"I'm glad you understand now. I think I'm only going to do one line at a time, and give you a break between each line. It should give me some time to grind up for the gear I want. Not many Inklings get the chance to choose their own outfit and weapon."

"You already know what you want?"

"Jaden, you've owned the game for several years, and when you haven't been playing I have every opportunity to spectate matches," he said in a pained tone. "And despite not being able to shop there, Sheldon at least let me test out weapons on his firing range to get a feel for them."

"I… didn't think of that. I guess there's no chance of me seeing what you get until after I get out of here, huh?"

"Even if I go back into my Inkling body, I can't exactly come down there," he reminded me. "The only Inkling you'll see down there besides Cuttlefish is Agent 3, and even then that's only when you escape."

"So when I do escape, and I get to Inkopolis… will you change me into you?"

"No. I'll come in and pay you a visit. I'll keep you as the Octoling, though you'll get to use the gear I'll have accumulated by then. The only time you'll borrow my body is for Octo Canyon, since there's no playable Octolings allowed there."

"Wait, you're not doing that?"

"I'm saving it for you. Originally, I wanted to turn you into an Inkling - not one that was a copy of me, I mean. I was going to take you through it, then turn you into an Octoling for this. The magic I used to bring you in and let me out was limited though, and only allowed for a short grace period. Like I said, there can't be two of me. So I had to turn you into an Octoling."

We talked for a bit longer before he took a break from the game entirely, leaving me on my own. It seemed I would only be able to hear him, and he'd only be aware of me, while actually playing the game itself.

It gave me more time to recover mentally from what I'd gone through, as well as a chance to appreciate Deepsea Metro some more. It's an interesting place, to say the least, but eventually it becomes rather routine.

A large part of this is because there's eventually only so much to see along the lines, even though there are a few lines that are passenger-only - which of course, I could disembark at, but wasn't permitted through the turnstiles to leave the platform.

I also discovered that the turnstiles at test stations wouldn't even respond to me if I hadn't cleared an adjacent station, or rather one that he'd cleared with me. The ones that had been cleared were still functional… but C.Q. Cumber informed me that there was a technical fault preventing me from using them. How convenient.

Despite being trapped as an Octoling, and knowing what would happen to me if I failed a test or its requirements, I would have liked the opportunity to try my hand at a test with my first-person perspective. Maybe once I'd got to the surface, there would be a way to do something similar, but that would have to wait.

Over the next few days, I was taken through each line in order - though my Inkling, who chose to name himself Spike, would periodically return to Inkopolis in order to ensure he hadn't taken too much of a toll on me.

It was a little touch of care that made a huge difference. Some of those lines are more challenging than others, and the 'Match the Shape' missions in particular stressed me out, especially after the first time where he got me splatted several times by making mistakes - mistakes that I could plainly see, no less.

I also took the time to do something you absolutely cannot do in game, which was get to know the regulars on the train. Iso Padre's interest wasn't limited to mem cakes, taking great interest in what I could tell him of humanity. I had to feign amnesia about exactly how I knew, of course.

As an experiment, I went against Spike's earlier advice not to try telling anyone what had happened to me with one of the less frequent passengers. Needless to say, suggesting that I was a human turned into an Octoling only got me a strange look and the suggestion that I needed my head looking at, because of course humans were long extinct.

Captain Cuttlefish by contrast wasn't quite as chatty, since thanks to Pearl he was learning about rap. Not my sort of thing really, but I kept that quiet so I didn't discourage him. Not that it mattered too much, since Spike progressing me through the story would see the captain similarly progress.

Marina also managed to hack the CQ-80 so that I could join in on chats, which gave me the chance to get to know the two of them as well, even if it was remotely. They're… certainly unique personalities. Naturally this didn't affect the chats unlocked by game progress, but once again feigning amnesia allowed me to learn a great deal.

It also allowed Marina to figure me out and find out that I wasn't being entirely truthful. I made a couple of slip-ups when trying to keep my story consistent, so Marina set up a channel between just the two of us to confront me.

I had to come clean and explain the truth. She was, understandably, sceptical, but also promised to look around to see if she could find out where Spike had got hold of the magic he'd used.

Pearl, on the other hand, happily helped me settle a curiosity of my own, and investigated the metro station in Inkopolis Square, where Spike had turned me into an Octoling. She brought back pictures showing that it was in fact a fully operational metro station - but also that the lines that connected to Deepsea Metro had been deliberately blocked off.

Presumably, once I got out of here, those blockages would disappear and the train could stop at Inkopolis Station. It would explain how Captain Cuttlefish got safely back into the metro afterwards, as well as how other Agent 8's would return.

Now I just had to hope that Spike's skills on the outside of the Switch are up to the task of completing all the tests - or at least the ones necessary to get the 'thangs' and get me out, despite his insistence that I was going to do all the test stations.