The four friends were already positioned at their respawn pad, Nary wielding her always reliable splattershot, Levin with a Custom Splattershot Jr, Shara was charged with inking the most amount of turf with her Dynamo roller, and you could say that Nayls was the most exaggerated one, wielding a heavy splatling and an inkstrike.
"Alright, two battles left, after that we're up, are you all ready?" asked Levin looking at his team.
"Ready!" said Nary determined.
"I was born ready!" followed Nayls, spinning the multiple barrels of his Slasher.
"Let's get this over with" ended Shara with a bored look.
A great number of inklings had gathered to spectate the match, not to mention that said event was being commented by the squid sisters themselves, situated in a cabin where they could see the whole scenario.
"Welcome everyone to another exciting Turf War tourney!" presented Callie excitedly, earning a big number of cheers by the public.
"Today we'll see many big teams going up against each other" said Marie in a much calmer tone than her cousin, although receiving the same number of cheers from the public.
"And above all the confrontation of two of the best teams yet, and we'll see which one of them stands above the other! So hold on to your tentacles, because this is going to be the freshest fight you'll ever see in your entire lives!" exclaimed Callie, only for the first match to start shortly after.
After almost two hours trying to make an opening on the enormous door, They had finally made a hole big enough to enter.
But it seemed that the scientist was not entirely wrong since most of the door wasn't rusted enough to even make a dent on it.
"Alright, the guards will go in first, and we will follow after them closely" said Binz while everyone was readying up to enter the giant vault.
With their weapons at the ready, the guards slowly entered one after the other, turning on their flashlights since the interior of the vault was in complete darkness.
"Do you see anything?" asked one of the scientists, peeking his head through the hole from which the guards had made their way through.
"Not much, but it seems there's nothing to worry about, just dirt and dust" replied one of the guards, followed by the scientists joining the guards inside the vault.
"Wow, it's so much bigger on the inside" said a female scientist, shining her flashlight as far as the light could reach.
The inside of the vault was filled with wooden crates with letters that the scientists had already seen, but could not comprehend entirely, they also saw objects that were very similar to the ones to the ones the inklings already had in their city, as well as others that they have never seen.
They also saw vehicles very similar yet very different to the ones they had.
As the scientists looked around and investigated their surroundings, as well as taking notes of what they discovered. They didn't seem to take notice of a big pod with several tubes and wires connected to it, as well as a glass panel that didn't allow to properly look at its interior since it was almost entirely covered by ice.
"Hey everyone, come look at this, I think I found something!" said the same scientist that commented about how big the vault was. Gaining everyone's attention.
"What did you find Jenny?" asked Binz while approaching the young scientist near the pod.
"I think there's something inside" said Jenny, climbing on top of the pod to look through its window. "I can't take a good look at it; it's covered in ice." She continued bringing her head closer to the window in an attempt to take a better look at the pod's interior.
"Let me look at it, Jenny" said Binz as he also climbed on top of the pod, while Jenny climbed down.
"Do you see anything Doctor?" asked Jenny while Binz brought his head closer to the window, putting his hands around it to take a better look inside.
"I think... it's a someone... rather than a something..." said Binz now with a mildly accelerated pulse, due to the excitement of having an idea of what it could be.
After hearing that, everyone present was silent and with their eyes wide open, before starting to argue between them.
"Q-quick! We have to find a way to open that pod!" said one of the scientists, somewhat nervous and altered.
"That could be risky! Who knows what might happen if we open this pod improperly" replied Binz while climbing down said object.
"Do you any other brilliant idea, Dr. Binz?" asked another scientist mockingly.
"At least I gave some ideas, what have you done, Jason?" replied the now annoyed Binz due to the mockery from his companion.
"Like your great idea to open the door of this vault?" Asked another scientist, joining the discussion.
"Alright that's enough, everyone! We didn't come here just to fight" added a female scientist, in an attempt to stop the fight.
And as everyone focused on arguing, the young inkling Jenny was the only one focused on inspecting the pod, until she ended up finding a pair of levers besides it, a little higher than normal, at least from an inkling's point of view, but not enough for her to be unable to reach them.
"Could these be...?" Asked Jenny to herself while looking at the pair of switches, with the one positioned at the bottom being dark blue and the one positioned at the top being bright green.
For a moment Jenny turned to look at the group of scientists, still arguing about what they should do.
But seeing that they weren't paying attention to her, and her curiosity taking the best of her at the moment, she decided to try to see if the levers still worked.
"It's been a really long time, this thing must have stopped working long ago" said Jenny, putting her hands on the green lever, which would be 'the easiest to move.'
Jenny made an effort to try and move the lever, but it seemed that due to the passage of time, this one had gathered some rust in it.
Using the weight of her body, Jenny once again tried to move it, obtaining the same result.
Even then the squid girl didn't give up, putting a foot on the pod, Jenny once again tried to pull the lever, using both of her arms, her body weight, and her foot as additional force.
Forcing her eyes shut and showing her teeth due to the efforts of the young inkling, the lever finally gave in, making a dry squeak as it was being lowered, until hearing a loud *CLAK* sound, as well as the blue lever going up as the green one went down.
Nevertheless, seeing that nothing had happened, the young inkling could only sigh and shake her head.
"I knew it" commented Jenny, somewhat disappointed, not noticing that Binz was approaching her, attracted by the sound heard before.
"Jenny, what are you doing?" asked Binz with a frown, making the squid girl gasp in surprise.
"Oh, h-have you found a way to open this, D-Doctor?" asked Jenny trying to feign innocence and giving him a forced smile.
"What were you doing, Jenny?" Asked Binz once again, now with a more serious tone.
"M-me...? Nothing, just t-thinking on how to open this" replied Jenny, now even more nervous.
"Jenny... You know you're terrible at lying, right?" Asked Binz, still keeping a serious face.
The squid girl couldn't help but sigh in surrender, seeing that Binz had seen through her lie.
"Jenny, what in the world were you thinking playing with these things without knowing what might happen!?" Asked Binz clearly annoyed.
"I-I know, but we wouldn't know if we-..." Jenny tried to defend herself, before being interrupted by Binz.
"Look, don't try to explain anything and go back with-...!" tried to say Binz, but they were both interrupted by the abrupt sound of the pod turning on, making everyone turn their attention to it.
The interior of the pod was filled with light, while the ice around the window started to melt, revealing its content.
On the other hand, every inkling was impressed, but also scared as they stepped back.
After a few seconds, the pod turned itself off, but not before an unfamiliar voice spoke in a language the inklings couldn't understand.
"REANIMATION PROCESS COMPLETE" followed by the edges of the pod lid starting to decompress, letting the cold air escape, and forming some sort of mist, immediately afterwards, the lid slowly was slowly lifted from the pod.
Everyone slowly started to gather around the now opening pod in front of them, including Binz and Jenny.
Which after it opened some more, every inkling around couldn't give credit to what they were seeing, with even one of the scientists passing out on the spot.
"J-jenny?" asked Binz without taking his eyes off of the pod.
"Y-yeah?" she replied, also being unable to take her eyes off of it.
"You've earned a r-raise..." announced Binz, putting a hand on the inkling's shoulder.
"Y-yay" replied Jenny, slightly raising her hands, still staring at the pod.
[Turf war arena, Urchin Underpass, three hours after the pod's discovery]
The SquidFire and Ink Spitters teams were just about to battle, just waiting for it to start.
"Alright everyone, remember, Nayls, You'll be on the front line with your Slasher, while Nary and me cover you from the high ground, and Shara, you'll take advantage of our distraction to ambush them from behind" said Levin towards his team, which had decided to change their ink color to orange for this match.
"Hehe, this is gonna be soooo easy" said Nayls while his big sister put her hand on her face and shook her head.
Just after that, the four inklings changed to their squid form and entered a respawn platform, later they reappeared on another one inside the map where they were going to battle. Returning to their humanoid forms.
"And now, our last two teams have finally arrived at Urchin Underpass!" announced Callie holding a microphone, along with her calmer cousin.
"Both teams may be rookies but they're pretty good don't you think, Callie?" said Marie towards her excited cousin.
"But of course! And they just so happen to be my favorite teams, this battle will decide who's the better team!" said Callie without being able to contain her excitement.
"Callie, you're acting like a little kid" said Marie towards her cousin with her eyes half closed.
"Hmph...! Party pooper..." replied Callie crossing her arms and taking a more serious pose.
Meanwhile on the arena, SquidFire had already taken their positions to fight the enemy team.
"Are you ready Nayls? Asked Levin, looking at him from a tall column.
"Ha! I was born rea-" just before Nayls could finish his sentence, he was instantly splatted by a charger shot from the enemy team, leaving nothing but a puddle of blue ink where Nayls was standing moments before.
"I've been wanting to crush someone's confidence like that for a while now" said the squid girl that splatted Nayls, covering herself from Nary and Levin's shots shortly after.
"Levin let's go after her before the others arrive!" said Nary, pointing out how the other members of the enemy team were rapidly approaching.
"Bad idea, let's just forget the plan and-" Levin wasn't able to finish his sentence, seeing as the same enemy inkling was aiming at him.
"OH CRAB!" exclaimed Levin while dropping to the floor covering his head, nearly avoiding the blue inkling's charger shot.
But before Levin could recover, the inkling took advantage by turning into her squid form and swimming through the ink path her weapon had left on the floor.
But the moment she reached Levin's location and turned back into her humanoid form, the squid boy was nowhere to be seen, instead, a splat bomb was the only thing she found in front of her.
The bomb blew up before she could even react, leaving a puddle of ink in the same style as Nayls, just that the ink's color was orange now.
"You may have caught Nayls off guard, but I won't fall for something like that!" Said Levin coming out of a nearby ink puddle, turning into his humanoid form.
"Guys I'm here! Sorry, I let my guard down" Said Nayls approaching the other three friends.
"It's alright, I suppose we'll just forget about the plan and do it the old-fashioned way" said Nary, making Nayls a little confused.
"And that'd be...?" Asked Nayls.
"Just shoot at the enemy and ink everything you can" replied Levin as he started to shoot, followed by Nary and Nayls.
[Inkopolis' lab]
[One hour after the pod's discovery]
Every single scientist was gathered in front of a door, trying to look inside a room through its window.
"I just can't believe it; we're all part of this great discovery and he just won't let us study that creature!" exclaimed one of the scientists, shoving another out of the way, trying to look through the window.
"And Binz locked himself inside to study it alone too" said a female scientist trying to do the same thing as the aforementioned inkling.
But before they could keep complaining, Binz suddenly opened the door, making every scientist fall into the room.
"You lot really have to learn some patience" commented Binz, looking at his coworkers on the floor.
"We thought you had left us out" said Jenny, standing up along the rest of the science team.
"I would never do such a thing, even less so to the people who helped me find this specimen" replied Binz, giving everyone a slight smile.
"Why did you kick us all out of the room then?" asked Jenny once again.
"I had to make some preparations and needed to be alone to finish them faster" replied Binz towards everyone to clear their doubts.
Meanwhile one of the scientists tilted his head to look at the ancient one lying on top of a stretcher and couldn't help but shudder as he noticed that the creature's chest moved up and down, letting everyone know that he was breathing.
"D-Doctor...? Is... is it...!?" tried to say the inkling while pointing at the creature.
"Alive? Well, it brings me great pleasure to tell you... Yes, it is" replied Binz with an even wider smile, while every inkling present in the room decided to get closer to the ancient one.
"A few things I could discover, is that they're very tall, one point eighty-five meters, almost double the height of an inkling, with a musculature more noticeable than that of our species, and there's something else that fascinates me a little..." Said Binz holding his chin.
(T/N: 1.85 meters is roughly 6'1" feet, meaning that inklings in this story may be about 1 meter tall, or 3'3" feet)
"And what is that, Doctor?" asked one of his coworkers.
"Its body feels warm to the touch, something very odd if you ask me, since every being we know of feels fresh or cool to the touch" said Binz still pondering.
"Doctor... Sorry for asking but... Why is it naked? Couldn't you at least... P-put a blanket on its inferior... Part?" asked Jenny with a heavy blush, while other female inklings tried not to look at a certain exposed part on the ancient one.
"What do you mean why? How else would we know that they reproduce like us? Not to mention that we also couldn't find a patient gown in its size" said Binz turning to look at Jenny.
"Well because..." Jenny tried to say while turning to look at her female coworkers, some of them blushing even more than her and trying to look somewhere else.
"Oh... Right... Sorry ladies, I guess that it is embarrassing... To some degree" Said the now slightly embarrassed Binz, taking a white blanket and covering the young human's inferior zone.
"Doctor, By the way, aren't you worried that it could wake up?" asked another scientist.
"I wouldn't worry about that, this ancient one has been frozen for so long that the fact her started to breathe is just the first phase of its awakening, but I'm sure that it would take at least a week until that happens" Explained Binz while his coworkers in front of him opened their eyes wide open in shock and stood still, completely petrified.
"Alright, alright, I know I'm not the best at giving an argument, but you don't need to react like that" said Binz, proud of himself.
"I-it's not that D-Doctor... L-look" Jenny was the only one who could form a sentence, while pointing behind Binz with a shaky hand, reacting the same was as everyone else the moment he turned around.
"M-my cod..." was the only thing he said while everyone looked at the human, who was sitting on the stretcher with his head hanging low...
[POV: Ancient one/Human]
I didn't know where I was, I didn't know what had happened. My vision was blurry, and my head wouldn't stop spinning.
I slowly put one of my hands on it while I closed my eyes, in that instant I realized I was sitting on something soft.
I once again opened my eyes and lowered my head a little, only to see that I was sitting on a stretcher, but... Wasn't I in a cryosleep pod?
I clumsily changed position to sit on the edge of the stretcher and looked in front of me. I could see what appeared to be a group of people, but since my vision was blurry, I couldn't distinguish more than just their figure. Judging by their height, they're probably kids, looks like I woke up later than everyone else.
"Hey kids... Why don't you look for an adult and tell them I woke up?" I said shaking my head, in an attempt to clear my vision.
But the response I got from those 'kids' left me very confused,
"Bri'us krui'uiur!" I heard one of them say with a bubbly sounding voice, almost as if they were gurgling, which left me even more confused.
I put my sight back on them, now with my vision somewhat clear, but what I saw almost left me petrified, what I had in front of me weren't children, they were some humanoid creatures I have never seen.
"WHAT THE-!?" I tried to say as I backed away from them, only to fall off the stretcher, and rapidly recover, ending up with my back against a wall.
Now with my vision fully recovered, I could well see their features, they were short, barely reaching above my chest I think, their heads were slightly bigger than normal, with some sort of mask around their eyes and pointy ears, but the weirdest thing about them was their 'hair' if you could even call it that, since they looked more like... Tentacles.
Apparently one of them notices my shock, I think the oldest one, since he had something on his face that looked like a beard, followed by seeing how he whispered something to another one of them.
Out of the corner of my eye I instantly saw how she, or at least that's what I wanted to think, took something out of her coat pocket, just to hide it behind her back right after, and started to move away from the group.
The oldest one of them approached me a little, while calmly talking to me in a language I couldn't understand at all, still having that bubble or gurgle I heard.
I already knew what they were planning. "I'll distracting him while you go from behind and sedate him" as if I was an animal.
I decided to play along for the moment, taking a step forward while 'surreptitiously' looking out of the corner of my eye at how the other creature was slowly stepping closer to me, with her arms still behind her back.
"Oh come on, a starving man is sneakier than that thing" I thought while hearing what the old creature had to tell me.
"I can't understand a thing you're saying" I said shaking my head, to which he made a frown, letting both of us know that we couldn't understand each other.
On the other hand, I could feel the other creature now behind me, and putting on a grin, I kept talking to the old man.
"But did you really think I would fall for that?" I said still grinning, which looked suspicious to him. For my part I turned my eyes to where her friend was, who was right about to sedate me, the old man took notice of this and yelled at her friend to warn her. But it was too late.
Just before she injected me with a pistol model syringe, I grabbed her wrist, earning a scream of surprise from her, and before anyone could do anything, I threw her towards the group, making everyone fall down like bowling pins, taking advantage of having everyone on the floor, I jumped over them and left the room before running away, not without first grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around my waist, I wasn't going out naked.
[POV: Third person]
Binz slowly recovered while looking at the place where the ancient one had left.
"He knew... He knew all along..." said Binz still baffled that the human used his own strategy against him.
"Doctor! are you alright!? We heard a commotion coming from here" said a guard approaching the science team along with other three guards.
"That's not the issue right now! We have to stop him-!" The sound of a window being shattered was heard before Binz could finish his sentence.
Everyone ran towards the source of the sound, only to see a broken window at the end of a hallway.
"What just happened!?" asked one of the guards.
"Some kind of octoling or thing just ran past us and left through that window" said one of the witnesses of the event.
"Before he escapes..." said Binz finishing what he said earlier.
In an alley now a considerable distance away from the building he had escaped from, the young human found himself panting after running as far as he could.
"At least... that window wasn't so high..." he said while recovering his breath, putting one hand on a wall and the other on his knee.
"Alright let's see... I'm alone in some kind of city full of humanoid creatures, without knowing what kind of future this is, and only a blanket to cover my jewels... Mmm... Yup, couldn't be any better" he said sarcastically while making sure nobody watched him.
Noticing that nobody was nearby, he cautiously started moving from cover to cover, keeping an eye on his surroundings to not be seen by anyone.
Hiding behind mailboxes, alleys, and dumpsters.
Finally getting to a fairly clear area.
"Fuck, if only I knew where I'm even standing" complained the human, watching out for anyone.
But some big cheers not too far from him caught his attention, as well as his curiosity.
"Are they celebrating something?" he asked himself.
He would've preferred avoiding a place full of those creatures, but the curiosity of getting to know more about them took the best of him.
"Maybe I'll learn how to communicate with them..." he ended up saying, followed by making his way to the source of the cheering.
It didn't take him long to reach the area, since he could see that it was a very big place, but unfortunately, the place he wanted to go to was blocked by a tall fence.
But that didn't stop the human, seeing that there was no other way in, he silently climbed the fence to avoid being heard by anyone.
Once on top, he went down the other side until a certain point, dropping down shortly after.
It was a curious sight for him when he took a look around, seeing that a great part of the walls and the floor were covered in what he thought was orange and blue paint.
"Ahh... Shit" complained the human as he saw that he stepped onto that paint, almost making him slip.
He started to walk around inspecting everything around him, until a few meters away, he could see how several balls and torrents of paint were flying everywhere, but there were some obstacles that blocked his view.
"Need to go higher" he commented while looking at one of the tallest places in the area, and after doing some parkour, he finally climbed up top, almost falling down in the process.
Now on top, he could finally see what was going on, two groups of inklings battled against each other with what the human thought to be paintball guns, painting everywhere they shot at.
Now back to the squid sisters.
Callie kept on energetically commenting about the battle, while Marie now had a bored look on her face, resting her cheek on one of her hands.
Until she looked at a random place for a second, followed by opening her eyes wide and standing up from her seat.
"Marie look! Both teams are about to launch their inkstrikes at the same time!" exclaimed Callie trying to get her cousin's attention.
But since she didn't reply to her, the black tentacled girl turned to look at her cousin.
"Uhh... Marie?" Callie once again called her relative, but in the same way as before, she didn't say a word, instead she reached behind her seat and took out another charger, this one being black with green stripes.
"Marie, what are you doing!? We can't use our weapons on someone else's turf war!" said Callie surprised at the other's behavior.
Marie didn't pay any mind to what Callie was saying, at the same time, she put a foot on top of a desk and aimed at her target, while the black tentacled idol tried to stop her.
Marie didn't doubt for a second, and shot a potent jet of green ink, which the human avoided jumping from the platform he was standing on, not caring if people saw him.
Unfortunately for the brown-haired human, he fell right in the middle of the battle zone, making every inkling stop what they were doing and look at him in surprise, followed by them looking up after remembering something and running away as fast as they could, the only one remaining being a very confused human.
"What the-" he asked while looking up in the same way the humanoid creatures did, and seeing the reason why the inklings ran away, since the two inkstrikes were heading straight towards him.
"This is gonna hurt..." he commented right before two giant torrents of blue and orange ink covered the area.
On the other hand, Levin and his team left their cover to look at the aftermath, only to be left with his jaw on the floor after he saw what had happened, and it wasn't just him and his teammates, Whater's team, the audience and even the Squid Sisters had the same reaction.
The creature leaned down on one knee, completely unharmed, while his whole body was covered in blue and orange ink from head to toe.
But what happened next left everyone even more shocked, he had slowly started to stand up. Two inkstrikes had fallen right onto him and he wasn't splatted.
The creature could only finish straightening up, looking up and then down, while his whole body was still dripping with ink, his face being covered up to the point where it looked like he didn't have a mouth. This was followed by the human turning his attention towards the SquidFire team.
"I've had enough of this..." declared the human, frowning into a menacing look.
Translator's thought corner: I really hope these translations are better than the ones generated automatically, otherwise I'm killing mys- nah, but if you have any comments or suggestions on how to make them better feel free to do so, I'd really appreciate it.