Splatoon: The Brothers and the Others
Mosey On, Moxie
Tension in the air was thick. Each and every Octarian present were as tense as if war was ready to erupt around them, none of them daring to speak up. Sweat collected and heated on foreheads. Eyes darted back and forth at lightspeed. Throats were cleared, frogs in them were swallowed, and the number of people hunching over in their seats put high school students to shame.
Aussie's head sunk low. Her tentacles were unfurled and fell from her head, trickling over her ears and past her shoulders. Across from her sat Yurin, cross-legged on a chair, and next to her was Tai. Yurin had a pleased look on her face, seemingly unaware of the looks Tai and a few of the other Octarians were giving her.
"Hmm? What's up with you guys? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Callie piped up, propping herself up on the table.
Naturally, that meant that the brainwashed idol was going to be the first to speak up. Callie, for lack of a better term, was at the very least distracting enough for everyone to focus on something other than the drama. The black, flashy, stylish shades she adorned were flashing LED symbols at the rest of the crowd, almost mesmerizing to the others as it was to her.
"Alright, um, so I feel like I missed a few things?" Tai stated, flashing her octo-lashes before screaming, "What the shell? Why?"
The ginormous table of assorted Octarians all turned to Octavio for an answer. The DJ, caught absentmindedly spinning his records, paused and glared back at them. Seeing as he was the center of attention, he stopped rubbing the records and shook his head solemnly.
"I couldn't keep it a secret forever," Octavio explained, crossing his tentacles.
"What? Hypnotizing women to add to your army? We've known," Tai explained, still staring at Yurin with a sour look.
Octavio's made a face at her. "Not that I meant HER! And not in THAT way."
Everyone turned to Callie. At the moment, she seemed utterly fascinated by the table. Either that or she was sitting up half-asleep. No one could tell since her eyes were obscured by the hypnoshades.
"Oh, um, hey!" Callie waved back to the Octarians, "Don't mind me! I'm just looking."
Callie went back to staring down at the table.
"Like I asked, 'Why'?" Tai repeated, motioning with her hand towards Callie.
"You guys wouldn't consider some sparkles for this?" Callie spoke up absentmindedly, patting the table.
Octavio huffed out a sigh so heavy it could've collapsed the table. "We've come at an impasse with the Inklings. We've also started to lose room-"
"Yeah, yeah, why am I getting Aussie's job? I don't want- It's AUSSIE's job! I don't wanna yell at people all day!" Tai snapped before he could finish.
"Because this table would look totes adorbs with a little glitter glue. Maybe like to the sides of the table…" Callie wondered aloud while she inspected the table.
"Need I remind you, commander?" Yurin piped up raising her hand, much to Tai's dismay, "I was the one who suggested you get promoted in the first place."
Tai paused, turned in her seat, and stared Yurin down. Yurin's eyes darted from her to Octavio, to the other higher-ups, to Callie with her mouth wide open, then back to Tai whose hands were practically at her throat. Yurin fell backward in her seat, which fell backward onto the floor while Tai made an attempt at strangling her.
"What the SHELL!" Tai screamed, "What do you mean, 'promoted'? This is your fault?"
Yurin responded by kicking Tai off of her. "Hey! Is that any way to thank me?"
Tai hissed at her on all fours like a cat. Yurin's freaked out face proved the perfect distraction as a giant robotic hand sneakily hovered behind her and picked her up. Tai struggled, making other animal noises and scratching at the metal. The fist hovered up and down wobbly, barely scratching the table below. Tai found herself then staring into the face of a very, very tired Octavio. He looked like he was going to fall over any second.
Octavio sighed. "It's only been minutes. You're doin' your king proud, commander."
"And you!" Tai shoved her finger at him. "Don't call me commander!"
Octavio gave a shrug, dropping Tai on the table like a sack of potatoes. Unlike a sack of potatoes, she yipped when she fell on the table.
"Owie!"
"Trust me, this was one of the last things- Nah, the very last thing I wanted to do with you," Octavio grumbled, pointing a tentacle at her accusingly, "Shell, I protested to this!"
"Sucking up won't help you now!"
"Hey, for a while I thought you were the one stalling the mission! How does anyone take months to scout out old buildings?"
"It wasn't even that long!"
The congregation began murmuring. The voices blended together, but "several months" was thrown out a lot during the conversation.
Yurin scratched the back of her head. "Chi and Aussie had to tell your mom you were dead, so…"
"Oh, so I guess we should've just called from the giant chasm pit with all the psycho Octarians stuck in it that had no signal. Yeah, my bad, I'll be sure to remind Aussie next time we get trapped down there," Tai rattled on, "Y'know, the COMMANDER who was right there! And another thing, of all the people to send, why would you send Chi? Of all the people, the girl who my mom has top three on her 'most likely to get her bass whooped' list?"
"Isn't she your only other friend?" An Octarian sitting at the table spoke up.
Tai narrowed her eyes. Strolling across the table, she picked up a clipboard from an Octotrooper writing diligently in the corner, much to his dismay. Raising it, she flung the clipboard. It sailed across the table, decking the Octarian on the noggin, much to his dismay and unconsciousness. Spinning back around on the table, she made a face at Octavio and raised her arms in a threatening stance.
"Tai, let me level with you for a second," Octavio said, yawning, "I'm none too happy about seeing you in any position of power."
"Wow, racist."
"That's literally got nothing to relate to what I said at all," Octavio shook his head, "But the point is, I didn't choose you for this leadership role."
"Then who did? Whose bass do I have to kick for this?" Tai asked, preemptively aiming her fist at a disgruntled Yurin, who began shaking her head in response.
"Mine," said Aussie, crossing her arms.
"Hu-whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?" Tai hu-whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaed, turning in her direction.
Aussie stared at her dead on, red eyes staring Tai down. In her hands, she held her Octoling Goggles. The two, high-ranking seaweed strands on the goggles were coated with grime and dust. Carefully, Aussie picked each one out one at a time, then laid her goggles on the table. Scowling down at her hands, she eventually looked back up to Tai.
Tai shook her head. "No."
Aussie opened her eyes, wide and clear. Without hesitation, she pushed down on the table and lifted herself up upon it, holding the seaweed in her hands gently as she walked upon the desk. Yurin, having composed herself, smiled. Octavio just sighed, letting himself and the giant robo-hands hovering settle back on the floor. All the while, Tai's face was frozen in a mixture of shock and frustration.
"I've been the commander of our Splatoon for only a few years," Aussie explained without a hint of hesitation in her voice.
Tai's eye twitched. "No. Don't do this to me."
"Recent events have made me question my position, my qualifications, my abilities to be the leader my comrades need, not just in war," Aussie stopped briefly, then looked dead on through Tai, "But in a regular routine. Day to day life. Making sure that no one…"
Aussie glanced at the other Octarians.
"Resorts to drastic measures. I couldn't-"
"Yeah, you can't. Don't put this on me. Anyone else? Lee! Ova? ...Sebastian?" Tai called desperately, scanning the room.
Nobody responded. There was a brief cough amidst the council.
"I couldn't complete a mission. A scouting mission, no less, without getting knocked out by- What did you say it was again?" Aussie asked, turning to Tai.
For the first time, Tai was genuinely intimidated by her crimson glare. "Um, a piece of the ceiling dislodged and…"
Tai bit her tongue. Aussie's dismayed expression said all she needed for both of them. Something was off about her, and Tai didn't know what. But she did know one thing.
She blew it and both of them were paying the price.
Aussie began speaking again, but Tai wasn't listening. She was too busy, thinking, wondering just how much this would get worse.
The rusted, disgusting pipes of the Inkopolis sewage system irked Ari. There was naught a trace of any actual "sewage", but the pipe underneath Inkopolis Plaza was somehow had more litter than the ground above them. Or was it just the space inside the pipe making it so claustrophobic? Mayhaps this is actually the way things are to be. A barrier, made so that only the most trash-tolerable can squirm through.
Ew, wait, ew. Oh, ship! Oh, that's- GUH!
"Oh, COD!" Ari screamed as he spat tiny tentacle stubs from his mouth, "Why is there so much HAIR in here!"
Ari sputtered relentlessly, and when he was done with that, he took his hand and wiped the gunk off on the nearby pipe interior. Whatever was in this dark, dank pipe, Ari found it increasingly less attractive than his initial adventure entailed. Trash of all shapes and sizes, from soda cans to old weapons were stacked in the pipe. The past few minutes went by like hours as Ari climbed over shattered glass, old wrappers, leftover sandwiches from three years ago, and other things found in landfills.
There was no way it could get any worse. This was the peak. At least, Ari thought so, except it sounded more like:
"This is the suckiest place I've ever had the displeasure of wading through and if it were a person, I'd smack 'em into the floor and steamroll the floor.."
Fortunately, Ari was a kind, sane person who kept silent even in the face of this adversity. With that in mind, he crawled through the disgusting, horrible, putrid-
"Ugh! Kindly stop, voice!" Ari screeched.
Yeah?
Ari looked up, scowl ready, but when he came face to face with a piece of chewed gum, he stopped. He began crawling again, visibly more unnerved.
"As if my loneliness wasn't enough, I won't have this figment of my imagination torment my everlasting being!" Ari sighed heavily, so much so that some of the dust from the pipe flew into his mouth.
Oh, is that so?
After coughing up a storm, he continued. "What paltry, simple narration too! Is my psyche damaged from lack of social contact? Is my mind's grace slipping from my fingers?"
Are you crazy? Is that it?
"I just asked- Ugh!" Ari tried to throw his hands up in a dramatic exasperated move, but again, low ceiling and gum, "Just ugh! Of course, rival gets the floating text box, but the ability I get is TERRIBLE ADVICE MAN."
A now wary Ari peeled the gum off of his name-rhyming hands then tossed it over his shoulder. Shivering in revulsion, our hero continued on, hands and knees coated in the worst Inkopolis had to offer. And it just stuck. To his clothes and his skin. He'd regret it later when the clothes came out of the wash, wet, still covered in garbage.
"For the love of Cod, stop!" Ari cried out.
"Chi! Chi!"
Sitting straight up in her bed, she scanned the room. Mai was awake too to her left, stretching her arms. Her bed was a fiasco, and a clear sign of a good afternoon's sleep. Some of the sheets spilled off the bed onto the floor, and the pillow she slept in had a crater where her head laid. Chi pivoted her head, training her ears on what arose her from her slumber.
Finding nothing other than Mai, Chi blinked, lowered herself back under the sheets, and rested her head sideways on the pillow, away from Mai, falling asleep with Tai's face practically nose-to-nose with hers.
Her first reaction was to slug her with the pillow.
"Blugh," Tai muttered through the pillow.
"Stop doing that!" Chi protested, dropping the pillow.
"Yeah, I'll file it in the complaint department." Tai gestured to the corner of the room.
Chi's vision gravitated to that corner and frowned. That corner had a trash bin in it, filled with tissues and bloodied bandages.
"What do you want, Tai?" Chi spoke in a half-sigh, half-ask sort of manner.
The face Tai responded with just made Chi drum up more questions. "Okay, so uh…"
"What the shell did they do to you?" Mai questioned while she clutched to her bedsheets, face paled.
Then, it hit her. While focusing on Tai's face, Chi's eyes drifted again. First, her tentacles. Almost unconsciously, Chi grabbed at Tai's hair. The vivid violet in Tai's tentacles was dull and grayer than usual. Chi looked back at Tai's face. There were lines around her eyes and a sudden air to her that made it seem like she had been deprived of sleep, but out of nowhere. The goggles normally strewn haphazardly around Tai's neck was also strangely polished and shiny.
But the kicker, the be-all-end-all of Tai's strange new appearance were the two wavy, green, dry antennae strapped to her goggles.
"You got promoted!" Chi screeched in horror, backing up in her bed only to hit the pillows.
Tai's face seemed to rapidly age at that statement. Her cheeks thinned and the bags around her eyes sagged even more. "That's not even the worst part. Aussie's gone, and-"
"They KRILLED Aussie!" Chi shouted, gripping the sides of her bed.
Pain shot through Chi's abdomen. A violent coughing fit gripped her, Chi struggling to breathe for even a second while her throat was scraped with the reverberations. Tai reached around and began to pat her on the back, though that only resulted in Chi keeling over more. Tai set her hand by her side.
After a few hard-on-her-throat moments, Chi managed to start breathing in air instead of choking it out. "What! Why? How? Is? This? Possible!"
"It's going to be alright," Tai stated in a disconcerting robotic tone, "Aussie's still good."
"That sounds like something Aussie would say!" Chi whispered, gently massaging her throat, "What did they do? Fuse you together? Oh Cod, Aussie…"
Tai rolled her eyes, much to Chi's relief. "Jeez dude, get a grip! She literally just pawned her job off on me! She's not dead, and I don't even think we can do that."
Chi's next sigh was the metaphysical representation of relief. Tai's face, on the other hand, was more like annoyed than anything else.
Chi, quick to respond, looked at Tai and explained, "You're scaring me. What did they DO to you?"
"Y'see this?" Tai snapped, taking off the Octoling Goggles from her neck and shoving it towards Chi. She ripped the seaweed from the goggles and clenched them in her hand. "I have like five hundred different things I need to do now that I have this."
Chi blinked, inspecting Tai from head to toe. "Did they put like an electric collar on you? Do you need to work every five seconds?"
"No."
"What's stopping you from not working then?" Chi asked, "Besides this, which I know you're not-"
"Because I...have to."
Chi sat and stared for a good long while. She had to make sure of something. Swiftly applying her fingers to her side, she gave herself a pinch and yowled. Pain so hot, it felt like Chi had clamped herself with a set of magma-coated prongs. Unfortunately, Chi was awake.
"Okay, can we put aside the fact that I'm in charge now and talk about this?" Tai asked frantically, pulling Callie out from under the bed.
"Hi!" Callie waved to Chi.
Chi wanted to scream again, but she didn't want to risk another body-wracking pain experience. "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii?" she added meekly.
Chi glanced down at Callie's attire, noting the shorter vest and the flashy shades. "Nice tattoo?"
"Oh, hey! Somebody noticed!" Callie piped up with a peppy simper that made her dimples look chipper. "Isn't it fresh?"
"Oh Cod, the fact I heard that in my mind makes me feel so much worse," Tai complained.
"Yeah, that was rough," Mai added as she fell back on the bed.
Chi looked around, looking about as confused as everyone who's read up to this point. "Where does it come from, anyway?"
"Pretty sure Splin and Sharq had some weird brain disease they passed on," Tai grumbled, "But yeah, so, what do I do with her?"
"How should I know?" Chi stopped herself mid-thought, then suddenly smirked. A devious thought had just popped into her head.
Politely turning in her bed, sitting straight up, Chi winked at Tai, then leaned back in her bed with her arms crossed behind her head. Dumbfounded, Tai stood slack-jawed in front of Chi while Mai watched, silently wishing for a bucket of popcorn. Tai waited, and waited, and waited some more while Chi smirked. The whole situation felt backward to Tai, and quite frankly, it was kinda creepy how backward it was.
"How should I know, commander?" Chi shrugged, managing a wink.
Tai's jaw finally loosened when it hit the floor. "No."
Jackpot. Something surged through Chi as she sang her next line, keeping it up with the most ungraceful grin.
"You're the commander now, so you should know what to do with the Squid Sister! It's a cinch!" Chi explained, coy smile present.
"Now you too?" Tai's eye twitched, "Does everyone just hate me today?"
"I don't!" Callie spoke up by the bedside, practically hopping up and down in place, "You seem neato."
"You'll do great!" Mai shouted from across the room with a thumbs-up, failing to hide the grin she shared with Chi, "Chop chop, get moving Tai!"
"I…" Tai looked helplessly to Chi. "But-"
"I can't get up from this bed without my stomach feeling twisted. But 'sorry', I guess," Chi answered with a "harumph".
Tai's arms slumped by her side. "Yeah...yeah...right. No, okay, I get it."
Tai took Callie by her hand and began to drag her away. The seaweed and goggles felt heavier on her neck as she left. Chi's own body seemed to weigh more too, and she collapsed on the bed, still watching as Tai left the room. Her entire being felt stressed both physically and emotionally, with her wounds feeling as sore as they could possibly be.
"Sorry," Tai murmured as she walked out, before putting on her Octoling Goggles.
Now that, Chi decided, was horrifying.
"It was nice meeting you, whoever you are!" Callie called out to the room before getting yanked away.
Chi waited until the two were out of sight, going as far as training her ears for any footsteps. Nothing. With that, Chi stretched her arms and yawned.
And then she jumped out of bed.
"Where are you going?" Mai asked, leaning off the side of the bed, but whether or not she actually cared was difficult to distinguish.
Chi winced. Looking down, she realized that she was hardly in peak condition to walk. Just standing felt like she was just snapped in half. The absence of any Octoling Armor save for a shirt and shorts would definitely be odd for an Octoling to walk out with (unless you were Tai) and the bandages running across her body seemed to just barely hold her together.
Chi turned around chiefly, her face dead serious. "Honestly? I don't know what I'm doing, but-"
"That's all I needed to hear," Mai smiled politely, then flopped down head-first on top of her pillow, "Go get 'em champ."
Chi was speechless, until she remembered whose mom she was talking to. Managing a smile, she gave a curt nod, then sped off in the opposite direction of where Tai was headed.
Something was up with her friends, and she wasn't going to sit by and bleed while they suffered.
Tai dashed down the hall with Callie forced to keep up after her. Instantly, Tai caught the attention of every Octarian standing in the hall. Most, if not all, were equally as terrified as Chi at the sight of her. She was like some sort of abomination. Some sort of sick paradox that the world allowed. Tai moved on, detesting the two green targets that stretched out from her goggles, wishing she could rip them off.
But she was the commander now, and she had to act like it. Even though she hated it.
Tai felt someone tap on her shoulder. She turned her head to Callie, now breathless with boots scuffed and legs wobbling. "So, where are we going?"
She forgot. Tai pursed her lips and leaned on the wall. Like a child, Callie imitated her, leaning sideways on the wall while she looked to Tai for where they would adventure next. In truth, after being appointed commander, Tai never really stopped to think about this whole scheme. Where WAS she going?
"Outside," she decided on a whim.
"Ooh!" Callie chimed in before being whisked away yet again.
The manhole cover on the other side had only one advantage over Inkopolis. The air in Octo Valley smelled better. That was it.
Ari shivered. The trash tunnel may have been mortifying, but throughout the unfortunate trek through grime, he reminded himself that he'd eventually be in the real world again. Ten napkins, twenty-thousand crumbs and a blockage of broken weapons later, he made it to Octo Valley.
Now his teeth couldn't stop chattering. Either he had caught a cold from the air or the trash, but Octo Valley was cold. His Varsity Jacket provided a shallow layer of warmth over his otherwise chilly frame. Wind bombarded him with a frigid chill, turning an otherwise cool environment into a cold mountain landscape that gave winter days in Inkopolis a run for their money.
Still, our valiant hero was not to be deterred by the event! Taking one small step after another, he approached Captain Cuttlefish's shack adjacent to the manhole, which was only fifty percent more dilapidated than it was the last time he had seen it. With no one else with him, Ari huddled heroically into the sheet metal and the old cloths wrung up over the shack for warmth.
"...Narrator, might I just add something imperative?" Ari spoke up.
What?
"So far, the day's been atrociously average at best and disgusting at worst," Ari explained, flicking away goop that was as vivid as it was unsanitary.
Yeah?
"You must see that my adventure so far isn't so much of an adventure as it is a slough."
Uh-huh.
"..."
And your point is?
"My point?" Ari asked the sky, standing up, "My point is that this is an absolute trainwreck, what I'm doing. It sucks. It's pitiable, it's miserable, it's terrible," Ari rambled on, pacing back and forth irritably, "Whose to say that Tai will be delighted to see me?"
Ari hat tipped over, shading his eyes as he leaned back on Cap'n's shack, "I haven't seen her in eons. Are we even really dating?"
I dunno, you tell me.
"Am I a bad suitor? No…" Ari decided, shaking his head, "She must be busy. Woman of her caliber, she's probably off, doing something daring."
"Oh, hey! Tai, look! It's an Inkling!"
Ari nearly jumped out of his skin. Whirling around, any amount of melancholy he had was shaken off like it was nothing. Flashing a grandiose grin, he turned, and almost dropped on the floor.
There she was. Beautiful, wonderful, brimming with an air of exhaustion so beautiful in how...uh…how...
Well, Tai was at least beautiful in how she was here, in spite of her worn down she looked. Ari's eyes sparkled in delight, while he, transfixed, stood completely still. Tai yawned and leaned on a nearby tree, absentmindedly checking the palms of her hands for anything new.
Callie popped up in between the two, somehow pulling both of them close together in spite of the fact they were several feet away. "Do you two know each other? You're looking at each other funny."
Ari's face lit up. "Aha, well, I do definitely find Miss Tai's lovely face very-"
Hold on a minute.
Ari paused in the middle of his flirt and gawked at Callie. Callie? Yes. There she was. No mistaking her. Pink clothes, the shape of her figure, the hair, the- She had a tattoo. Ari's face wrinkled in puzzlement, and he found himself gawking at Tai, albeit for a different reason this time.
"Alright, time to go," Tai excused herself, attempting to drag Callie away.
"Hold on, hold on!" Callie protested, waving her arms, "Don't let me get in the way of love!"
Flattered, Ari pointed his nose up at the sky and placed his hands on his sides. "...Ah, I see you're a romantic as well, Callie!"
"Totally! How long have you two been together?" Callie gushed.
"Uh…"
Callie's smile dropped. "Oh…" Quickly turning to Tai, she whispered, "I can see why you'd wanna...y'know, ZIP."
Ari's ego deflated by about ten points that day. Ignoring the comment, he marched up to Tai with a genuine pleading face. "Tai, I came here for you- Scratch that," he took Tai's hands in his own much to everyone's surprise, "For us."
"Ohhhhh!" Callie squealed, "Already? He's going for it?"
Tai simply sighed. "It's not your fault, dude."
Ari gasped in horror, jumping back slightly. Tai huffed. They were going to have to stop doing things for the sake of acting scared.
"Gasp!" Callie said.
"What happened! Is something wrong?" Ari asked.
Offended, Tai wheeled about, stepped right up to Ari, and practically shoved her face right at his. "I screwed up. Y'happy? I said it," she crossed her arms and shouted up into the air, "I screwed it up for everybody, alright! There! I said it!"
Ari pressed one of his hands against his chest. "Tai, I never realized-"
"I screwed up with Chi, Aussie's gone, and I'm going to get her if it's the last mistake I make!" Tai stated affirmative, paused a second, then felt the seaweed on her goggles, "Even though I don't really know why, oh Cod I am going crazy."
Ari's hearts sank. "Oh. ...Nothing about me?"
Tai whirled to Ari, taking him by the arm. "C'mon, idiot! We gotta make a move before...I dunno, Aussie moves to a janitor...position or...something! I'll figure out why I'm so upset about this later, but we gotta go!"
Ari's face flushed in orange. "Yes! Of course! To victory and uh…"
Tai had no patience for enlightening, thoughtful narration using words longer than eight letters. Her grip on Ari's arm was a vice grip that would make a crab blush, but Ari didn't mind. He was lost in the moment. Her immediate course of action, her sudden drive, and a hint of sass. Ari was convinced.
This was definitely love he was feeling. Definitely.
Ari was so ecstatic, hardly minding that he was collecting dirt on his clothes as he was dragged across the ground while Tai dashed like a madman, creating a cloud in the wake of her run.
Callie coughed and hacked as she struggled to keep up, "Gak! Hey! Wait for me!"
Meanwhile, in Octavio's Funky Halls:
"Man, that sure was some meeting, huh?" one Octotrooper stated, lounging on his mobile platform vehicle.
"Yeah, a lot of things were said," another Octoball on the floor added, looking up at the Octotrooper in earnest.
The two conversing were so lost in the riveting story, neither noticed the small, bluish-violet octopus spying from around the corner. Chi, small and hidden behind the wall watched, silent and steady, with two of her tentacles stuck to the wall while the other two laid on the floor. Seconds passed as she trained her hearing further down the hall, scanning for anything that she could glean relating to Aussie, Tai, or anything.
"I got kinda hungry though. Do you know they're selling burgers in the rec room in the new base?"
"New base?" Chi arched her eyebrow.
"Did you say...burgers?"
"Yeah."
"What's a burger?"
"It's a food."
"Like takoyaki?"
"...Yeah, I guess? But it's not like takoyaki."
"What is it like?"
"Like meat but in bread."
"Yeah, takoyaki!"
"But, no, the bread- Hold on, there's no meat in takoyaki!"
"...Yes?"
"Octopus isn't even meat."
"Not that kind of takoyaki! I don't eat that stuff."
"Point still stands, there's no meat in takoyaki."
"What's meat then?"
"Y'know, like red stuff."
"I've never seen red meat before."
"From like cattle."
"...What?"
"Cattle."
"I know what you said. What is 'cattle'? Is it like-"
The two Octarians paused. "Do you hear that? Sounds like…"
Both Octarians jolted up in place. A noise echoed throughout the halls. Something low and intimidating, like a motor, had started. The noise continued, and by the sounds of it, the source was close. Silently, the Octotrooper pointed his tentacle down the hall. The Octoball gave a solemn nod. The Octoball rolled away, leaving a trail of purple, while the Octotrooper started up his platform, also leaving behind a trail of purple. They both paused, stopping just before the corner of the hall. The Octotrooper flashed a turret cannon from his platform and swung around the corner.
"Oh, hey Chi!" The Octotrooper piped up.
"Snnnk-wha?" Chi woke up.
The Octoball rolled in front of her and waved with the pointed part of its body. "Are you feeling any better?"
"Man, I don't even know why we were so worried! It's just Chi!" The Octotrooper laughed.
"Uh, yeah," Chi spoke up, covering her bandages.
"That reminds me, you weren't at the meeting about Commander Aussie demoting herself and leaving, giving her title to Tai, and how we're all moving to Octo Canyon for stealing the Great Zapfish again, and also how Yurin's apparently the co-commander since Tai's out escorting Callie to Octo Canyon via the inter-valley-to-canyon kettles that have been set up, were you?" The Octoball asked, "The kettles that we're all going to go to pretty soon, by the way, also. Y'know, for the whole Octo Canyon thing. Want me to fill you in?"
"...Who's Yurin?" Chi questioned, puzzled.
"She's a rising superstar in the Octarians, surpassing even Aussie in how fast she's climbed the ranks in another Octarian division, with a lot of experience as dictated by her file that she showed everyone, and she just showed out of the blue! Almost immediately after you returned, too!" The Octotrooper filled in.
"Oh, okay. I'm good," Chi assured them flatly.
"Alright! See ya later!" They spoke up cheerily before rolling away.
As they moved away, the turret cannon on the front of the Octotrooper's platform aimed itself at the ground and started spewing fuchsia ink. The two merrily traveled down the hall, leaving behind two blotched trails behind them as they went. Chi paused for a moment to gather all the thoughts in her head, standing very slowly as she reverted into Octoling form.
"Right. I'm going to need some help," Chi decided, breaking into a run.
Her run became a fall as she tripped over the trail of ink. She groaned into the floor, not from pain, but just because she was feeling ridiculous.
AN: Man, plot just sorta happens when I actually decide it to. Probably should do that more often.
Thanks write n wrong and RealCoolDude for reviewing.
Astute observations as always, write n wrong.
Not exactly a college guy, but I appreciate that you're still sorta invested in the story, RealCoolDude.
Thanks for reading, this is ThePizzaLovingTurtle, see you real soon, I'm sure. Definitely.