AN: Maybe it's not too late to retcon that last chapter. At least, I would say that, if this was uploaded a month earlier. Eh. Anyways, back to your regularly delayed Brothers.
Splatoon: The Brothers and Others
A Migration Vacation
As he sat silently at his kitchen table, Sharq glared down at the book face down on top of the furnishing dutifully. However, by dutifully, it meant he stared blankly. Also by blankly, mostly not at all, as he was lying face down with his face flat on the cover of the book. With a sigh, he lifted his head off of the cover, and finally stared at the title.
"Politics for Paralarvae" the front cover read in large white lettering. In a few seconds it was blotted out by Sharq's flat face as he slammed back onto it.
For quite some time, he laid still with his hand propped up on the table besides him motionlessly. Then, after a lengthy groan, he rose from the book. As he blinked, one could gauge that his eyes were uncharacteristically bloodshot, his hazel eyes cracked and split with jagged red lines. After what felt like an eon and a half, he pushed forward against the table and sat up straight in his seat. Straining to keep his eyes wide open, he glanced down at the table, flipped through the pages, and examined the paper closely.
"Ugh!" He slammed his face into a printed portrait of a well-dressed shrimp.
As his eyelids rested atop the suit-wearing crustacean, Sharq heard something scratch at the left. He lifted himself off the book, sat upright and stuffed the book down his pants pockets as best as he could. It jutted out of the side of his pants as discreetly as a nuclear bombshell. With a nervous glance, he turned to the side and peered towards the noise. He was subsequently relieved to see that it was only a haunted figurine on a platform.
Sharq stared at Ann-Gel as she stood across the table with the goofiest smile an Inkling could muster. "Hi Ann."
"Studying, Mr. President?" Ann-Gel asked while she shuffled across the table.
Sharq scratched his tentacles underneath the back of his cap. "Was it that obvious?"
"Yeah, but it's okay." Ann-Gel nodded to him. "Your secret's safe with me. Splin's still working on the Beakon on the roof."
As she said that the pair of them heard a thunderous clang. They also heard Splin cry out and shout a few select words to the heavens. Select words such as:
"Flip. Ship. DRIP! SON OF A SQUID, MOTHER OF KRAKENS, CRUSTY SEAN BOILING IN A BATHTUB-" Splin screamed horrible profanities for a solid minute, until he quieted, and eventually settled down to quiet grumbling under his breath.
Ann-Gel glanced towards the ceiling and sighed as the rhythmic clangs of metal returned. "At least he's not glued to his bed anymore." The amiibo glanced at Sharq as she started for the edge of the table. "I'll go check on him; hopefully his arms are still in place. Good luck with your studying!"
Sharq just waved at her as she hopped off of the table and fell to the floor with a clink. She continued to make noise as she hopped away, her pedestal dragging underneath her feet. Eventually she reached the stairs, and with quick stretch of her arms, she took it upon herself to scale each step with a tall hop each. As Ann-Gel climbed Mt. Staircase step by step, Sharq spun back to the desk, and retrieved his small book from his pockets.
Examining the title for a split second, Sharq sighed exasperatedly, and pushed the book away. "I'll come back to it later."
The Inkling shoved the book to the other end of the table then glanced around the house with squinted eyes. With a smile, he spied a familiar Krak-On Roller as it leaned motionlessly between the refrigerator and the wall in the corner of the kitchen. He hopped off of his stool and started to walk towards the weapon lodged in the corner by its lonesome. As he approached the fridge, he reached out and tugged on the roller. It jiggled slightly, but stayed stubbornly stuck in place.
"C'mon…" Sharq muttered and tugged on it again, holding the handle with both hands.
The roller remained between a wall and a hard place and refused to budge. With a frown, Sharq planted one of his feet on the fridge and ensured that the other was stuck on the floor. He grunted as he attempted to wrench the roller out of its spot. He strained and kicked on the fridge as forcibly as he could as he pulled. Sharq grinned as he felt the roller cover begin to free. With a laugh, he tugged again, and finally managed to push hard enough to achieve liftoff indoors.
"Ough!" He exclaimed as he felt the roller slide out between the wall and fridge. "Aagh!" He repeated louder when he slipped backwards with the roller between his arms.
Sharq succeeded in more ways than one, as both he and the roller out from the kitchen and rocketed towards the opposite wall. He gulped as he noticed the television out of the corner of his eyes and closed them shut. As he hit the wall just behind the television, Sharq groaned, but switched into squid form with the roller with him, and rubbed down the side of the wall to the floor until he found himself lodged between the dresser and the television.
His squid eyes blinked as he attempted to look around him. "Uh…"
Sharq wiggled in place fruitlessly, with nothing else in sight besides the wall, the floor, and his own tentacles in front of his face. With a grunt, he attempted to escape. He nudged forward and felt the weight of the dresser as well as the television shiver, not to mention the drop of sweat that trickle down his triangular head. Carefully, he continued to wriggle as carefully as possible, the furniture still relatively motionless in place. After a grueling minute, he managed to escape from the confines of the dresser and the house wall, and collapsed on the wooden floor, his tentacles sprawled out across the wood.
Shifting back into Inkling form standing straight up, he wiped sweat off of his brow. "Phew."
As the blue drop of sweat fell from his forehead to the back of the television, like a tree meeting an axe, the screen tipped over and dropped towards the floor.
"Ship!" Sharq's eyes grew three sizes as he chiefly leapt underneath the television and hefted it up with his squid body and tentacles, with all the grace and balance of gelatin being squished by a sandwich press.
As he struggled to hold the television up, he suddenly realized that there was another set of eyes still present in the room that happened to be staring at him. Slowly, and with a bright blue blush, he switched back to his humanoid Inkling form and lifted the television back on the dresser as Ann-Gel watched him with a bird's eye view.
"...Make that two things you're not telling Splin," Sharq called back to her with a nervous laugh.
Ann-Gel smiled again and clamped her own hand over her face, dragging her other hand in the shape of an O across her covered lips. With a smile of his own, Sharq dusted off the television and headed off and out the door. When the doors shut close behind him, Ann-Gel shot a quick glance at the book on the counter, and made a bee-line down the stairs. She approached the table soon enough and scaled it as expeditiously as she could manage.
Ann-Gel leapt on top of the counter, hobbled towards the informative book, and began to push it away and off the counter. "Sorry Sharq. This is for the greater good."
It made a clatter as it hit the floor. Ann-Gel sighed, wiped her head, and sat down guiltily.
Sharq's blue squid head graced the underside of a cloud and basked in its chill, soft feel. With a relieved sigh, as he tore through the clouds like a dark-blue arrow, he wrapped his tentacles behind his head. The sun rose behind him slowly, deliberately basking the world in light step by step, the colors of the city gradually lighting up.
While he careened through a wall-shaped cloud and created a Sharq-shaped hole, he glanced upwards towards the stratosphere while he flew. "I hope I land somewhere soft this time," Sharq thought to himself, "My head hurts thinking about the last time…"
Sharq turned away from the majesty of the sky back in the direction he soared. He squinted his eyes at the layers of white clouds and slowly switched back into his standard Inkling self as the clouds began to dissipate and shrink before his eyes. As it cleared, the sudden sight below him caused him to pop back into squid form in an instant, his eyes grown.
"Whoa, whoa," He hooted and braced his tentacles around his face, "What the heck?!"
Where the floor of Inkopolis Plaza had once been was now a layer of blue, blobby heads floated in a swarm. The ground, once black and gray with concrete and asphalt, was almost entirely blue. Sharq swivelled back around in mid-air and launched himself back the way he came.
At least he tried, then plummeted face-first into a sea of jellyfish.
"Ow! Jeez," Sharq exclaimed as he collided with the jellyfish, "...Huh?"
Sharq blinked and glanced around as the world spun about like a top. With a shake of his head, the universe righted itself, and he pushed himself up onto his feet. Upon standing, he heard a squish from beneath his Banana Basics, and flinched at the noise. He peeked downwards and noticed the ground was much livelier than he would have expected. And with more eyes than he would have expected as well.
"Eep!" He yelped and swiftly hopped off of the flattened jellyfish stuck to the floor.
Sharq swiveled about the plaza. None of the other jellyfish crowded in an ocean of themselves seemed to notice, or care for that matter, that one of their friends had been absolutely flattened by the squid meteorite crouched down, and began to peel the unfortunate passerby off of the floor.
"Are you okay?" Sharq prodded the jellyfish with his hand.
"Blrbabalr." The jellyfish blinked dizzily.
Sharq stared at it straight in the face. "...Um."
The jellyfish blinked straight back. "Blub."
"...Okay. Sorry!" Sharq apologized and set the smaller sea creature down gently back into the mess.
As if nothing had happened, the jellyfish waved at him as if it were a casual meeting, then turned and merged back into the collective jellyfish sea. With a sigh of relief as he turned towards the tower, Sharq yelped again as he surveyed the plaza.
Other Inklings sprouted like multicolored weeds out from the blue turf. Sharq spotted one Inkling girl push the jellyfish to her side with a roller as she forged a path to the plaza. The clear line of asphalt behind her soon vanished under the heads of the blues, but it seemed as though the Inkling was successful in her journey to the tower. Another Inkling had the bright idea of switching into a squid and swimming underneath the lot of them. For the most part it appeared as though it was smooth sailing for her.
"AAAGHAGHAGHAHFAGDHDGHDSSSSSsssssss." Was the resounding sound of the poor soul as she passed under a particularly frilly orange jellyfish.
Sharq flinched at the scream, but continued to look upon the scene regardless of the steam now rising from underneath the startled orange jellyfish. In the far corner of the plaza next to a set of yellow trash cans and a vending machine, a handful of jellyfish continued to slip and disappear, and not unlike a whirlpool a series of jellyfish continued to slip through a manhole and far away. None of the others seemed to care either.
To his right, in a familiar discreet alleyway tucked away, he could spy a spiky urchin trying his darndest to keep the masses from crowding the plaza. Through the pristine glass of the Booyah Base stores most of the other shopkeepers gaped on in dread as they continued to block the entrances. All except for one.
"Thanks to the shopping! Come for visiting again soon!" Sharq heard a charismatically bubbly voice bid farewell.
Sharq turned, or at least tried to, as the masses of jellyfish began to bunch about him. With a frown, Sharq shut his eyes tight, and switched into squid form as the towers of jellyfish that stacked around him toppled over. Before he could get the chance to hit the ground, he was swept up by a wave of jellyfish, and yelped as he was carried about the plaza. Again, Sharq shut his eyes, and restrained himself from the dizzy sensation the ride settled upon him.
Luckily for him, it appeared that the tsunami of jellyfish had tired of lugging the Inkling around, and collectively the jellyfish wave settled down at the front of Jelly Fresh. Face down in the pavement, Sharq lifted his head up slowly, and his eyes widened at the shopkeeper whom stood in front of him.
"Ah! A squiddy customer! Hello!" Jelonzo noted and extended his tentacle to Sharq.
Sharq gladly obliged and took the squishy appendage in his hand. "Hi Jelonzo."
"Ah." Jelonzo reeled him out of the sea of jellyfish and spun Sharq back towards the jellyfish. "It is a wonderful time for jellyfish, no?"
"...Yeah." Sharq squinted at the store owner. "...Is it a holiday or something? " He frowned.
"Ah, a holiday, a holiday…" Jelonzo beamed up at him. "Not just a freebie day! It is a rare jellyfish tradition, but still, the goodest of good traditions! My brethren, high in numbers, visit this part of the world every one or so!"
"One or so what?" Sharq tilted his head.
"Eh." Jelonzo shrugged his shoulders. "A long one."
Though confused, Sharq blinked, and shook his head. "So, what's this about? It wouldn't happpen to be… The Jellyfish Excavation of-"
An Inkling screamed as more flashes of electrical sparks emanated from the crowd. A tall pink jellyfish blushed, or more accurately, switched into a crimson color. It stepped away from an unfortunate female Inkling, charred to a crisp and covered with stings, the poor girl groaning.
"-maybe?" Sharq finished with a glance towards the crowd.
Jelonzo studied Sharq's face for a moment and his eyes lit up. "You have been doing the reading of our history, yes? Almost correct!" Jelonzo chided him much to Sharq's embarrassment. "Actually, this was the Jellyfish Escape of-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The screams of the Inkling echoed in a garbled mess, as if they echoed through an electric fan.
Jelonzo and Sharq stared at the Inkling for a moment until the shopkeeper smiled again and turned to Sharq. "It is a grand day, yes! Every once upon a time in a few...years, perhaps, jellyfish, green, pink, blue, they flock to the Inkopolis like a… A…" He blinked cluelessly. "What is the word for lots of seagulls?"
"A flock?" Sharq added with a blink.
"Strike!" Jelonzo's eyes lit up. "From across the big blue world they flock like birds! You have the brain space of a jellyfish, certainly!"
"Thanks?" Sharq said as he stared straight through Jelonzo's head.
"SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE," Cried the Inkling girl from the crowd, "OH COD MY GEAR IS ON FIRE!"
Jelonzo spun towards the crowd and clapped his tentacles together. "Yes, yes, I agree. Very high quality fabrics-"
It was then that a flame literally burned into existence. The middle of the plaza, where the Inkling girl laid, had somehow burst into flames. Next to the bonfire, a guilty-looking orange jellyfish slinked away through the crowd of blue away from the scene of the crime.
Jelonzo whistled, and his entire jelly body wriggled as a result. "Sounds like Mrs. Opportunity doing knocking on my sales door, yes? Haha! Happy Annual Jelly Migration Day!"
With that, Jelonzo jiggled from head to tentacle, clapped two of his tentacles together, and dived into the sea of his people headfirst. Sharq watched wordlessly as Jelonzo disappeared into the crowd, then reappeared far off in the mob while he hefted an extremely toasty squid out and up above his head. He took the time in between the rescue to glance back at Sharq, wave with one of his free tentacles, then sink back into the stream of jellies, his new potential customer sailing above the crowd above him.
"Annual?" Sharq frowned and glanced towards Inkopolis Tower. "Haven't seen so many of them in Inkopolis before."
As with every other inch of the plaza that could be stood on, the tower also happened to host a flood of jellyfish, the top observation deck of the plaza practically filled to the brim with blue blobs who soaked in the view with thousand light-year stares out into the blue; namely, both the sky and the ground. With a scowl, Sharq pinched his nose, and dived into the sea of jellyfish headfirst.
The world seemed much more blue from within the crowd. Inkopolis Plaza looked like it was submerged even from Sharq's view from underneath. Through the transparent tentacles, the tops of the jellies' heads looked as though they glistened with glitter in the morning sun. With grunts of effort, Sharq swam through the jellyfish, his humanoid Inkling arms pushing back the soft blobs as he travelled. Every once in awhile he would have to stand up on the asphalt, survey the ocean in front of him, and continue on.
Few alternately colored jellyfish perched in his way as dangerous mines. Though difficult, he twisted to the side as an orange jellyfish rolled by, and ducked low to the ground as a strange pink one floated above.
After a few minutes, Sharq managed to crawl out of horde of jellyfish, and sat exhausted in front of Inkopolis Tower. "Phew… Made it."
As he approached the tower and walked up the ramp with a grin now present on his face, the automatic doors opened and a deluge of jellyfish poured out from within. His eyes widened in shock moments before he was rushed by the tsunami inside.
"No," He muttered as a jellyfish barreled into him, and yelped as he was shoved back into the ocean, "NOOOOOOOOO!"
Five seconds later Sharq found himself back on the opposite side of the plaza pressed up against the barrier wall. If there were any storm clouds in the sky today they would have only made the sea metaphor perfect. The waves of jellyfish rolled up and down across the plaza floor and a waterfall of them spilled from the Battle Dojo catwalk. The glass walls of the Booyah Base shuddered as the jellies smacked into them.
Sharq slid back down towards the ground in his squid form and sighed. "So much for a break."
Carefully he made his way back towards the tower, precariously navigating through the swaying crowd, making small grunts as his little tentacles pushed forward. The wave motions only aggravated him as he tried as hard as he could to make it towards the tower in front of him. Unlike the last time, however, the sheer density of the jellyfish was thick and hindered his further progress.
Sharq also found it was difficult to breathe in jellyfish.
Swiftly jetting up to the surface, he leapt out and gasped in, "Fwah!" With a scowl he sat upon the jellyfish like a throne and gazed at the plaza. "Hmm."
His eyes lit up. All of a sudden, Sharq glanced down, and stared at the jellyfish underneath him. Their white eyes stared back at him unendingly; however, other than the ambiguous blank gazes, they did not seem to make any gesture of discomfort towards him. They continued to socialize, making noises like water drops and gelatin which squished together, all while Sharq lied across them like an ornate water bed.
One of the jellyfish in the plaza underneath Sharq's head lit up in a fluorescent yellow as he shouted, "Aha!"
Carefully, he began to slide across the tops of the jellyfish in squid form, all while they rolled around underneath him absentmindedly. Despite the rocking beneath him, he continued to crawl across the ocean of jellies, the tower but a few meters ahead. He beamed, and triumphantly laughed.
"Alright!" Sharq exclaimed as he bumped into a tall jellyfish.
For a brief moment all was calm. The soft flesh of the jellyfish felt smooth to the touch, plush and harmless. A second passed, and Sharq felt for that one second as if he were lying in his bed. A flash of light beamed across his vision before all of a sudden, the ground was above him ,the sky was below him, and everything burnt. With naught a movement but a twitch in his face, out of the corner of Sharq's eyes, he spied a tall yellow jellyfish scamper away out of sight.
Though paralyzed on the floor, Sharq grinned, or at least tried to, as his mouth only managed to contort in some gruesome attempt at one towards the tower. "F-Finally." A few seconds passed, then Sharq felt his muscles loosen, and he slumped on the ground flat. "Bleh."
With the tower now directly in front of him as well as his body no longer paralyzed, Sharq stood up, shook his head swiftly, and smiled again as he stepped forward into the tower. The doors swivelled open in a flash, and with a quick, cursory glance to the interior of the tower, Sharq walked inside.
The walls within the tower buzzed to life and emanated light from the blackness as he entered. A noise whiffed past, and the light of day was snuffed out by the dark room of the tower. As it seemed pitch black, a sudden catalogue of colorful options in labeled bubbles beamed outwards towards Sharq's face. As he raised his finger up by his face, he pointed outwards towards one of the colorful options, and felt his body grow lighter.
As his Inkling form began to dissipate away into droplets of ink, he smiled. "Things are finally looking up!"
"Ah ship." The other Inkling gripped his cheeks in exasperation. "I don't want to have to deal with three minutes of this."
"...Whuh?" Sharq blinked and stared ahead.
Sharq stood upon his team's blue spawn point and gazed out upon Piranha Pit in disbelief. At least, the top layer obscuring it anyways. Where there was once ground, there were now jellyfish. The floor was almost invisible, as a thick layer of blue jellies now crowded the depot's surfaces. Even the spawn itself, from the outside of the spawn point to the stretches of the surrounding areas, was absolutely covered in jellies.
They crowded around the spawn pad in a ring, their blue blob heads squished against the protective barrier about the spawn. A few grumbled as they pushed against it, and Sharq could only watch as they crowded around.
He turned, only to stare at a cluster of jellyfish absentmindedly standing on one of the treadmills on the floor in front of him. As the jellyfish stared at the sky atop the conveyor belts, they did not seem to notice or care that they were being dragged under the floor, and were subsequently squished with mechanical creaks popping from the floor soon after. A few moments passed, then through the few visible cracks within the jellyfish layer, Sharq saw smoke rise from where the conveyor belt sat still.
"Ugh." The other Inkling rested his hand on his forehead tiredly as he shook his head. "You ever see something as bad as this?"
"Well… Once!" Sharq eyes lit up. "There was that one time when snails covered the plaza."
"Did they?" The other Inkling adjusted his Splash Goggles, which then snuggly snapped to his face. "...Must've missed that day."
"It happened!" Sharq turned and frowned at his teammate.
The other Inkling upon the spawn pad stared at him blankly. His orange eyes stared unconvincingly towards Sharq through the Splash Goggles. His Rain Boots were crossed together underneath his Baby Blue Jelly shirt dotted with tiny two-dimensional jellyfish.
"Uhhhhh-huuuuuh." He sighed, shook his head, and rested his hand upon the flat jellyfish. "We're still stuck here for three minutes until the match's time is up."
"Stuck? It can't be that bad." Sharq crossed his arms as he leaned over the side. "We could… Make something work? I have my Roller, after all-"
Sharq reached at his back. He reached again, and again, then suddenly his face paled.
"You forgot your weapon?" The other Inkling arched an eyebrow.
"Ship!" Sharq clamped his hands to his face. "It must still be stuck at home between the wall and the T.V.!"
The other Inkling smirked. "Really? Eh, won't matter whether you have it or not."
A puzzled look dawned upon Sharq's face. "What does that mean?"
With a sigh, the other Inkling raised his weapon up to his face. His Splatterscope's scope glinted in the sunlight as he aimed the gun out towards the sea of jellies. He leaned slightly over the spawn, shut one eye while the other peered through the scope, and reached for the trigger. A swift stream of ink shot out of the slim barrel and into the crowd. The blast hit a jellyfish standing atop the ruined conveyor belt in its shirt, and the surprised blue jellie fell back into the crowd of his peers on its back.
As he witnessed the attack, Sharq eyes nearly popped out of his face. "Hey!"
"Don't worry, he's fine." The other Inkling lowered his Splatterscope down by his side.
On the surface of the sea of blue jellies was a solitary jellyfish. His shirt was coated with a blue splotch of ink and his eyes continued to stare up, almost as if in a completely painless trance.
Sharq turned to his teammate with a frown. "What was the point of that?"
"See any ink here," The other Inkling inquired as he nudged his arm towards the floor, "On the floor."
Sharq frowned again, a clueless stare present on his face similar to the jellyfish besides them. With a roll of his eyes, the other Inkling kicked the barrel of his Splatterscope upright to face the front of the spawn.
"Oh boy." Sharq sighed, and sat down flat on the circular puddle of blue ink.
"Look carefully this time." The other Inkling clicked the Splatterscope's trigger repeatedly at the floor. "Watch the ink."
"Don't hurt them!" Sharq suddenly stood up.
The other Inkling shook his head and placed one hand on his shoulder, pushing Sharq back down as he fired. "Relax. I couldn't even if I tried."
The weak shots sounded off with small puffs as if the gun was a can of air freshener. Bursts of blue shot out, only to drop down to the floor weakly, down towards the jellyfish. Upon impact, Sharq gasped, and watched the ink disappear instantly as they washed off the blue crowns.
"What the-!?" He reached up and rubbed his eyelids rapidly.
Sharq blinked again and again at the jellyfish. They continued to crowd the lower floor and gaze about absentmindedly as if nothing had ever happened. Aghast, Sharq slowly turned to the other Inkling, his mouth agape.
The other Inkling simply shrugged and lowered his weapon. "I don't really get it myself." Both Inklings gawked at the crowd of jellyfish. "But I don't think we could do anything to them. Even if we wanted to."
"So then… Huh?" Sharq managed to lift his jaw up from the floor. "Where did the ink go?"
"No idea. All I know that it's like shooting out of bounds." The other Inkling shook his head. "It doesn't count. Doesn't get you any points, doesn't help toward specials, nothing."
"Then what do we do?" Sharq asked with a tilt of his head.
"It's already been about a few seconds." The other Inkling remarked as he lowered his weapon and began to sit. "Probably two minutes tops."
"What? So we just have to sit here and wait for the match to end? Can't we just dive in or something?" Sharq inquired as he crossed his arms.
He felt the other Inkling nudge him in the side with his elbow. "Already tried. They're trying too."
Sharq squinted his eyes and leaned outwards. Several metal platforms and diagonal conveyor belts stood between their starting positions.
"Here." He lifted the scope of his weapon in front of Sharq's face.
"I… Uh…" Sharq squinted harder. "I can't see, sorry. The thing over there is in the way."
With a scowl, the other Inkling glanced over at the conveyor belts, then to the right. "Unless you can speak jellyfish, I don't think there's much I can do to make it better."
With a sigh, Sharq quickly pressed his face up to the scope. The enhanced view from the scope extended somewhat past the structures in on the rival team across the map through a narrow corner of free space. From his view, Sharq noticed a full set of four orange Inklings upon their spawn point clustered close together. They nudged the jellyfish at their spawn; one poked at the jellyfish crowd with the tip of his Inkbrush. One of the orange Inklings seemed to have gotten restless, and with the form of a professional swimmer, dove into the jellyfish crowd. A few seconds later, an orange ghost floated back up to the spawn point, and a pouting orange Inkling materialized from the ink.
"They're stuck in spawn too." Sharq frowned as he peered through the scope. "...Wait, you mean-"
"Yeah, you get it now?" The other Inkling scowled. "This has been going on for hours now. No one can play."
Sharq set the weapon down and handed it back to his teammate who simply nodded in gratitude. The two Inklings, both effectively immobilized, simply crouched down and sat on the circle of ink. They continued to watch the jellyfish bumble about, the blobby tourists enthralled by the pit. A few other jellyfish donning construction hats were spotted in the crowd, the official workers clearly annoyed by the sheer number of other jellyfish. Even the jellyfish themselves struggled to move among the crowd, a few pushed out too far, and ended up making a splash as they launched themselves into the ocean.
"...How long do you think they'll stay here?"
"Huh?" Sharq glanced to his right.
The other Inkling stared back with an exasperated face. "You think they'll leave tomorrow?"
"...Probably not." Sharq rubbed the back of his neck.
"Guess that was too much to ask for… How do you know?" The other Inkling cocked an eyebrow curiously.
Sharq crossed his arms. "I read about something like that in a book before."
"Really?" His teammate perked up. "What did it say?"
"It was just history and politics." Sharq shrugged his shoulders. "Basically, there was this thing called the Great Jellyfish Escape of… Of…"
The other Inkling stared at him for quite a while as he stuttered. The jellyfish around the spawn's shield seemed to recline on the floor.
"Okay, so I can't remember the year, but it was a thing," Sharq spoke, "During the Great Turf War, the jellyfish weren't really allied with anyone. There might have been some jellyfish who could have been with the Inklings, but mostly they were neutral during the early parts of the war."
"...Alright, so what?" The other Inkling inquired.
"So basically, one day the Inklings came across a band of jellyfish crossing the same place where a battle was scheduled to take place." Sharq leaned back and rested his head on a jellyfish like a pillow.
"'Scheduled'?" The other Inkling smirked, did the same, and reclined onto a jellyfish sitting nearby.
"Or… Planned? I don't know. But basically the Inklings helped the jellyfish out, and when the jellyfish settled down somewhere safe, they wanted to go visit us for helping them, and every year they visit somewhere the Inklings live as is tradition." Sharq explained with his arms crossed behind his back.
"...So how long are they going to stay?" The other Inkling asked.
"This is sorta like a vacation for them…" Sharq stated with a frown, "Maybe a week at the most?"
"...No, that can't be true," His teammate muttered, "Could it be?"
The two of them peered at each other for a moment. The jellyfish they relaxed on continued to stare around the stage in awe as if the last minute or two was the most excitement they had ever had.
"No! Holy shell, that's terrible!" The other Inkling grasped his head in horror. "One whole week of this?!"
He gestured to the jellyfish the two had laid their heads on. The jellyfish blinked, turned around, and waved at the two of them happily. Sharq could only wave back, but was then suddenly gripped by the front of his shirt, and looked back at his now crazed teammate as he shook him back and forth.
"I was almost at level fifty, man!" His tentacles vibrated angrily. "The new plaza is going to be opened any day now and I still haven't gotten the stupid captain hat everyone else has!"
"Wait, what? New plaza- Ugh, world spinning, put me down," Sharq rambled on dizzily as he was shaken to and fro.
He was dropped back into the ink quickly enough. As his teammate stood fuming, Sharq's squid head rose from the ink, and wobbled in a circle. The chirps of birds seemed to hover around his head for quite some time as he laid in a daze. He shook his head quickly, and the sounds disappeared, his squid pupils shrunken.
"Oh no. How am I gonna get paid now?" Sharq rose up from the ink back into his Inkling form.
The other Inkling huffed. "Man, forget getting paid, we'll get paid even if we throw ourselves into the water each match, but our experience will definitely suffer."
As they spoke, a sudden sound cut through the match, and a whistle pierced the otherwise stagnant match. Rows of heads turned towards the center of the arena as the sound echoed throughout the pit.
"Oh thank Cod," Sharq's teammate sighed in relief, "It's finally over."
The whistle was not the only sound to cut through the inaction. A yowl rang out from across the map, and everyone present snapped to the middle of Piranha Pit yet again, or in the jellyfishes' cases, stared more diligently.
The sound of panting gradually filled the air. Upon the crest of the conveyor belts, a black paw shot up into the sky, much to the audible shock of the Inklings. As they gasped in horror, a sizable, ragged Judd climbed atop and stood at the peak, his white fur now singed and his eyes uncharacteristically wide.
"Meeeeugh. (The… winner…)" Judd blinked and wobbled back and forth.
"Huh?" Sharq and his teammate turned to each other, stared at the jellyfish, then turned back towards Judd.
"(The winner… The winner is…)" The referee stuttered, looked up, then oohed upwards at the sky. "MewhehahahaHA! (What a purr-ty cloud! HehahahaHA!)"
Judd's loony arms swung back and forth as he guffawed at the sky. He spun around once, twice, and on the third spin, fell over onto his back with a squeak noise as if he were a plush toy. The entire arena watched on in silence at the collapsed cat. The Inklings were paralyzed with shock scribbled all over their faces. Sharq and his teammate stood hunched with their jaws dangled over the floor.
"...Um." Sharq placed his hands under his chin, then on his head, and clamped his mouth back closed. "So who won?"
"The Turf Wars are cancelled?!"
Unfortunately, the whole of Inkopolis Plaza continued to be flooded with jellyfish up at the waist. As Sharq and his new acquaintance stood in front of Inkopolis Tower, they both gazed worriedly at Judd as he sat atop a small blue pillar. Underneath them, jellyfish continued to flock about mindlessly, with cameras and phones that would bob out of the layer of jellies every now and again.
Judd had plenty of bandages stuck to his fur as he laid, wide awake, and his expression fierce and irritated. "Hiss. (I can't judge under these conditions. Sorry boys, but my paws are tied.)"
"Really?" Sharq frowned and crossed his arms. "Isn't there like a team for this or something? Like an official one responsible for the... Rules... Or something?"
"One week," The other Inkling whispered with a shake of his head as he stared down at the jellyfish, "One whole week."
Judd shook his head with a scowl. "Nya. (Nah. The organizers left Inkopolis Plaza a while ago in search of new turf to purr-vide their services. Ever hear of Inkopolis Square?)"
"The new place, right? For Turf Wars and stuff?" Sharq snapped his fingers. "Yeah, I've heard of that."
"(It's been two years,)" Judd huffed, "(And if there's anything I know about you Inklings, you're trend-setters and follow popularity like moths with lamps. This place was going to get old eventually.)"
Sharq sighed and glanced around the plaza. "I guess... But wouldn't we get an update for that or something?" He turned upwards and peered at a large television screen to the right of the tower atop the Squid Sisters Studio. "Like y'know, from Callie and Marie?
Judd's jowls shifted uncomfortably. "Meeeeee… ow. (About that… You know Inkopolis News is… Well, over?)"
"Huh?" Sharq arched an eyebrow. "It's over?"
Judd nodded, then lifted himself up, and stood over his purple pillow. He took the pillow, tilted it on its side, and revealed a small black television remote underneath. As Sharq watched curiously, Judd picked up the remote and pointed it up towards the screen, then tapped a button.
As the screen buzzed to life, Judd turned to Sharq and spoke, "Mew. (I usually watch when the plaza's empty.)"
Sharq nodded slowly, then turned back towards the screen. It buzzed to life, and color filled the rectangle, which revealed an error screen. Judd clicked the remote a few times, and the screen flashed multiple times as a result. The screen seemed to be a blur, the two watched, but Sharq could not make out a single clear image from the barrage of colors. He glanced over at Judd for a split second, and stepped back, as a reflection of thousands upon thousands of different hues and tints flashed in his golden irises.
Judd finally clicked another button, and the television shut off, with that he turned to Sharq. "Mew? Meeeow. (You didn't get any of that, did you? The point is, no community of Inklings wants to hang around a dying hotspot for long. And with all of these jellyfish, the plaza's been practically deserted.)"
Judd and Sharq suddenly glanced down at the floor.
"(...Barely an Inkling around.)" Judd shrugged as he curled up into a ball.
"So… Wait." Sharq spun his finger in a circle. "Then even if these jellyfish weren't here-"
"Aaaagh!" A scream reverberated throughout the plaza.
Judd and Sharq frowned and spun towards the crowd of jellyfish. Both of them squinted at the herd, but found no identifiable individuals in the crowd who might have screamed. While they surveyed the area, the sound of heavy panting began to catch their attention.
Sharq frowned and glanced at Judd, who arched a furry brow back at him. "Meow. (That's not me.)"
Before he could say anything, Sharq felt a pair of hands grips his back, and was spun around to face a stern Inkling with his Splash Goggles now removed and his orange eyes piercing Sharq's own. "One whole week of this?! No Turf Wars at ALL? You can't be serious, no!"
"Uh," Sharq coughed and attempted to smile, "Well, I mean, it's not a year at-"
"No!" The other Inkling slammed his hands on the sides of his head. "Oh, Cod, this is a nightmare! Screw that!"
"Huh?" Sharq scratched underneath his cap.
The grip on Sharq's shoulders only grew in severity. "I've been disconnected from over one-hundred matches. I've lost at least thousands more. All my teammates wanted to do was party. SQUID PARTY." The other Inkling began to shake him back and forth. "I've had to deal with at least THREE hackers, and you won't believe what shell I had to suffer through in Ranked-"
"Please stop." Sharq requested dizzily.
As soon as he said so, Sharq yelped as he was tossed to the side. There was a sharp cat yowl and a crash sound equivalent to a car's explosion.
"Oh! Why Cod, ugh," The other Inkling cried out to the sky as he kneeled down in the jellyfish. "Can't something go RIGHT for once without something stupid coming up and ruining everything?!"
Sharq laughed in a delusional daze as he stared up at the sky absentmindedly. Dislodged from his pillar, Judd clung to Sharq's Takoroka Mesh, and shooed away any jellyfish who happened to edge too close.
The other Inkling sighed, trudged over through the jellyfish, and took a seat by the pillar. "...Sorry."
"Whuh?" Sharq blinked, then shook his head, the stars rotating around his crown gradually began to fade "Hold on..."
"It's just that… You know… Turf Wars are supposed to be fun, right?" He wrapped his arms together over his knees. "Why do I have to deal with all this? I should just be able to jump in."
Sharq's eyes rolled as he clutched his head with one hand. "Everything's mixed up."
"Exactly," The other Inkling huffed, "The one day I think things are going to go normal-"
Sharq blinked, and for a brief second, turned to his teammate. His eyes widened at his brother as he lounged in the pool of jellyfish, his trademark look of worry and indifference mixed together on his face.
Splin turned to Sharq with a scowl. "And now we're stuck with this now. Cod." He blinked and looked down at the jellyfish. "This is a problem, huh Sharq? Normally I'd probably go nuts and start complaining or something, but the thing is, I'm not here to do that."
Sharq's eyes were about as wide as dinner plates as he stared at Splin as he laid with his arms crossed behind his head.
Splin smirked, leaned on a jellyfish, and yawned once. "But since I've got my hands full… What are you going to do, Sharq? How're you gonna play in Turf Wars now? We need to pay for food somehow, bro."
Immediately, Sharq reached down at his shirt, and rubbed the white fabric against his eyes back and forth rapidly. He reopened his eyes, blinked once, twice, then a dozen more times before he finally reopened them fully. Sharq's teammate sat in the jellyfish pool, laid on his back, with his Splash Goggles wrapped about his forehead and his eyes tiredly pointed skywards.
Sharq began to sweat. "Oh no. I've caught what Splin has."
Or you have a really active imagination.
Sharq's ears perked up and his mouth suddenly curled into a smile. "Voice!"
The other Inkling frowned on his bed of jellyfish, but continued to stare up at the sky aimlessly. Sharq stood up, and in the process, knocked over a handful of jellyfish like bowling pins. The scattered, and a series of them fell over on their sides, the flashes and clicks of phones and cameras setting off filling the plaza with ruckus.
"Where have you been?" Sharq scowled with his hands on his hips. "It felt like months!"
Yeah.
The jellyfish continued to lay on their sides rather calmly despite having been tipped as if they were cattle of the sea. Sharq's teammate turned his head slowly to Judd; the cat simply shrugged and laid his head down to rest.
"...Okay then. What were you saying?" Sharq asked again.
The sound of shouts, laughs, and a cacophony of other raucous noise buzzed in Sharq's ears. Sharq looked from side to side in absolute confusion. Given that the jellyfish on the ground were too busy being motionless, he highly doubted both the credibility of them as the noise as well as his own sanity.
"...What is going on?" Sharq finally asked up towards the sky.
Well, I was going to direct you in the right direction, like an OMNIPOTENT NARRATOR SHOULD BE ABLE TO, but it seems as though I have company.
As the voice's words echoed in Sharq's head, so did the sound of furniture toppling and absolute buffoonery. Sharq furrowed his brow as his ears tilted, vague words being yelled and spun about by background voices.
"Friends of yours?" Sharq's eyes lit up in curiosity.
I'll see you later, Sharq.
"Wait!" Sharq reached up at the sky for a moment, only for the noises to stop, much to his disappointment. "Aw."
"Um…"
Sharq's hearts nearly skipped a beat (or three) as he spun around. Much to his disappointment, he found that the other voice came from his teammate as he laid on the ground, his eyes low and his mouth pursed in concern.
He raised a finger into the air and pointed. "Do you need any… Help?"
Sharq smiled and shook his head. "I'm fine, thanks." He glanced over towards the left of the tower. "I guess I'll just have to figure things out as I go."
"I dunno if that's a safe option." His teammate frowned.
Sharq stared over at the Booyah Base. A majority of the doors were still shut in place and firmly closed. He surveyed the scene, and managed to find one glass door was open among the four different stores. A stream of jellyfish continued to revolve in and out of the doors in a long line. With a smile, Sharq strolled across the jelly-field, and into the store, lifting his legs carefully over each jellyfish.
"Yes, yes, very quality fabrics, you can be assured, these fabrics are the very dictionary word of quality," Jelonzo announced.
A collection of different shirts on coat hangers were lifted up in the air; they dangled on Jelonzo's tentacles and swung back and forth. Jelonzo looked eagerly at each and every one of the jellyfish present in his store currently standing in front of him. They continued to stand and blink at him.
"...Erm, uh, with prices low to match the quality! Er, that is to say, good price!" Jelonzo chuckled nervously.
Each and everyone of the jellyfish retrieved a cell phone from their shirts. They aimed it towards Jelonzo, tapped the screen, and a flash of light erupted from each device. A few seconds later, Jelonzo's eyes vision cleared up to reveal a crowd of disinterested jellyfish slink out of his store.
"Ohhh…" Jelonzo lowered his shirts. "Well… Come back whenever! ...If you have money..." He turned around with sunken shoulders.
"Um, Jelonzo?"
The jellyfish shopkeeper perked up suddenly and turned around at the speed of sound, which caused a few of his shirts to fly off around the store. "Yes?!"
Sharq stood there and wobbled back and forth with his arms behind his back. "Uh… Can I ask you a question?"
Jelonzo seemed to brighten up, which at night might have made him look much more festive. "Yes? What would you like your brain to absorb?"
"...Well… It's about the migration." Sharq spoke up.
"...Migration?" Jelonzo's tentacles began to sink to the floor, when suddenly he spun around and crossed two of his appendages together stubbornly. "No. No more migration talk. Unless you purchase any good quality clothes, make like birds and go away. I'm busy."
"C'mon… Please?" Sharq smiled sweetly.
Jelonzo stayed silent with his arms crossed. He began to tap his tentacles on the floors and hum a tune as Sharq continued to stand and watch.
"...I have a few coins with me," Sharq spoke up slowly, "Could I maybe buy 'migration talk'?"
Jelonzo reached up with one tentacle and adjusted his cap. "No talk."
Sharq's shoulders began to sink as well and his smile began to waver. "...Not even a little?"
"...Not unless you buy quality shirts." Jelonzo turned somewhat, an eagerness in his eyes.
Sharq smiled and reached into his shorts' pockets. "Thank you so much."
Jelonzo shook his head and turned around. "Very quick. Very quick, Jelonzo is very busy. I find good shirt, you talk, okay?"
"Oh, um, right." Sharq pumped his fist in the air. "Well… For starters…"
AN: I was planning on writing Aussie's backstory, work on other spin-offs, or continue Aquatic Instinct's story and characters, but quite a few things have happened recently that have made it difficult to write. Also some crossover nonsense that I have yet to really figure out on whether or not it actually affects the Chi segment of this story I've wanted to finish. Regardless, it is nice to be back. Have a miniature Sharq arc for the time being.
Thanks Darkstar248 and Anon 2000 for reviewing.
Darkstar248, I always appreciate the input, but how I decide to spend my time washing my appliances is my business, and I am proud of shiny toasters, thank you.
Two, to be frank, I don't know about you anons going wild and helping me write. Heck, most of the discussion was Three and I laughing over stupid nonsense while eating ice cream together. You're welcome to come over and help me with it sometimes, but I think we should all show a little more restraint.
Thanks for reading, this is ThePizzaLovingTurtle, remember to get capacitive styli for drawing in Splatoon 2!