SPLAToon: The BROTHERS and the OTHERS
PUNCH Break
The ground was perfectly flat and polished to a remarkable degree. The sun was extraordinary bright, painting the ground in bright hues of orange and yellow. The arena floor was spotless and shimmered with sunlight.
Two figures stood across from each other in the oval arena. Both of their tentacle-styles sprung up off their head and curled upwards with a brilliant blue sheen. Eyes shut underneath their red and green masks, chest and legs sandwiched between protective plating colored red and green, and their arms at their sides, they waited patiently.
The roar of the crowd behind them was but white noise to the two contenders. The heat of the sweltering sun was nothing but a few beads of sweat to them. All that mattered was their opponent. Hands clenched in fists inside of their red boxing gloves, their arms vibrated dangerously, as if demons thrived within.
A voice cut through their heads with a command. "ARMS!"
The two lifted their heads, opened their eyes, and watched the other's pupils spin with a vibrant brown. Their fans, numbering by the hundreds in mock gear, cried out in rejoice.
With that as their cue, the brothers threw their punches.
Sharq's trademark smile flashed upon his face. "Hah! You'll see how my hours of practice have finally paid off! Take this!"
In his right hand, the Inkling clenched a small remote controller, and thrust it forward as he held a similar controller at his side in his left. The strap on his arm tugged at his wrist as he threw the punch. On the television screen in front of him, his character's right arm seemed to unhinge with a spiralling string the only tether to his fist and body. It curved towards its target swiftly with a gust of wind accompanying the punch.
"I won't funking lose to you." Splin shouted, more-or-less towards the television, as he clicked a button with all the ferocity a fifteen year-old squid could muster. "Not here. Not now."
His character leapt to the side in a dodge. In a move of retaliation, he launched a punch, and hooked Sharq's character in the chest.
As if it had actually hit him, Sharq recoiled back sharply, almost towards their kitchen. "Ghhgh! Big words coming from the younger one. I see Master Armstrong has trained you well…"
Splin frowned and glanced at his brother. "Uh, who?"
"No matter!" Sharq shouted as he tilted the controllers in his left and right hand together. "You'll find that, I, Little Sharq, am fired up to the extreme!"
He tilted his controllers together. On the screen, Sharq's character braced himself with both of his arms, and a round shield of blue light materialized in front of his character.
Splin just glanced at his brother with a frown. "...How much practice did you get in with Ari?"
"An hour's worth!" Sharq smiled. "Then Ari's dad kicked us out!"
Splin glanced at Sharq's back. A dirt print of the underside of a boot was stamped on his shirt.
"What the shell did you do?" Splin narrowed his eyes, to which Sharq shrugged, and Splin sighed. "Whatever. At least now's a good time to-"
He thrust both his controllers forward. On command, both his character's arms extended and entrapped Sharq's avatar. It was not over however, no, for he received two attacks for the price of one! For just $299.99 he pulled Sharq's avatar from across the opposite side of the ring and dragged him in front of his own, and without lifting a finger his character punched up into his brother's character's chest.
"Yeah!" Splin pumped his fist up in the air. "Now for my FINISHING MOVE-"
He punched forward and smacked the television with his fist. All of a sudden, Splin froze, and retracted his arm from the television. The screen flashed and buzzed and screeched. Also Splin's hand had several shards of glass stuck in it.
"..." Splin rose his hand up to his eyes.
"...Ah...ha…" Sharq shivered and stared at his brother.
"...Guess I…" A hopeless smile grew on Splin's face. "...punched-out…" With that, the little brother's knees buckled, and he fainted.
Sharq caught him as he laid sprawled out. "No." He shook his brother frantically. "Splin, Splin, stay with me."
Splin's face continued to smile and his knuckles continued to bleed blue.
Panic evident on his own face, Sharq turned to the kitchen counter, fear on his mien and tears in his eyes. "Spring Man, I need help!"
Across from Sharq, sitting at one of the chairs, was a lean man wearing a red vest, red sneakers, and a red mask with spring-like cyan hair and ginormous punching gloves. A straw dangled from his mouth and a glass laid by its lonesome on the table.
Spring Man spit the straw out, wiped his mouth, and cleared his throat. "...Gotta bounce!"
The two conscious characters stared at each other. Tears threatened at Sharq's eyes. At this moment, Spring Man managed a toothy grin, then immediately punched towards the doors of the house. Swiftly, Spring Man dashed out of the house with his arms flailing and trailing behind him, leaving Sharq with an unconscious Splin.
Quickly picking out the glass shards, Sharq stared down at Splin, then back to his controllers.
With a gulp, he removed his wrist straps from the controllers, pushed them together, and began to rub.
"I hope this works." Sharq thought.
Spring Man, garbed with a mournful black vest, mask, sneakers, and punching gloves stood up tall on a hill. His hair was combed down, and now appeared slightly less bouncy. A cover of gray clouds blocked out the sky. The hills he stood on had wilted grass underneath his shoes. With a painful stare he glared down at the headstones that stood atop the hill.
"Here lies Splin Bate," The headstone read, with a time range mysteriously scratched out below the name, "He Punched-Out!"
The other headstone next to the other one read similarly, "Here lies Sharq Bate," It read with the dates chipped off, "Joycons don't work as defibrillators."
With a heavy heart, Spring Man sniffed, shut his eyes, and snapped his fingers in his glove. "Aw snap…"
"Uh…" A voice droned behind him.
All of a sudden, Spring Man turned around in shock, and was greeted to the sight of two spirits. Two very fleshy spirits. Splin stood with a bandage around his right hand while Sharq waved at him with a hand with burnt flesh.
"...Thanks for the demo, I guess." Splin spoke up.
Spring Man stared down at the smaller characters then smiled. "Yeah."
With that last word uttered out of his mouth, Spring Man stretched his arms into the sky. Like an angel ascending into heaven, he rocketed up into the sky at the speed of sound, efficiently leaving the planet as he broke the sound barrier.
"Well, all's well that ends well!" Sharq smiled, reached into his pockets with one hand, and retrieved a small container of blue. "I enjoyed my break." He unscrewed the top of the container, poured a glob of blue out from it, and rubbed it on his hands. "How about you Splin?"
"...My arms are sore." Splin muttered as he stretched.
Immediately as he did so, his arms snapped, and fell off from his body. The brothers stared as they began to roll away off the hills.
"...Eh." Splin shrugged slightly. "If I wasn't a squid that would be bad."
Sharq grinned. "Well, I'm never playing using motion controls ever again! C'mon, let's go home!"
Turning around one-hundred and eighty degrees, the two brothers took five steps towards their house, and entered through the empty door-frames.
AN: The moral of the story is that OW. ARMS broke my arms. I think I just have weak arms. Also seventy-third chapter. I think if this story actually manages to reach about one-hundred chapters, I might have to end it, or start another one just to keep this story from becoming too over-saturated. Or I'll just forget about it and only write Splat X rip-offs heh.
Also ARMS is basically just the Switch's Splatoon IP. It's new, multiplayer-online, has colorful characters, people fawning over the celebrity waifu, has Global Testfires/Testpunch dates, and is also something I like.
ARMS fanfiction never.
Also to anyone reading this I am sorry. After ARMS, Splatoon, and watching the Durty D livestream where I got noticed thrice, this whole chapter was written like a fever dream. More than normal I mean. Maybe I'll delete this chapter later but I don't have any chapters up that I can add as a back-up.
Oh well. Thanks write n wrong and Arrekusu for reviewing.
It's fine if you don't review that often write n wrong. That just makes the few reviews all the more special! I wouldn't be surprised you thought that about Aussie either. I haven't made it canon yet so...who knows? Besides me.
Arrekusu please take all the time you need. Quality can take time. ...At least anything to make it objectively better than this. I don't want to go on because I don't know any unique advice and I'm tired and probably other reasons. But mostly just time = quality.
Unless you're Duke Nukem.
Thanks for reading, this is Pizza's Turtle of Paisano Park, see you in ARMS.