Splatoon 3: Mammalian Madness
Chapter 3: Strange Encounter in the Crater
Okay, it should really go without saying that the search for Scraps wasn't so easy...because it wasn't. There was a good lesson for us to learn: Smallfrys are fast and pretty slippery. We would find Scraps trying to eat something and spit it back out before rushing off in search of something edible. The longest he ever stayed still was about ten seconds, but that was only because he found some leftovers in a garbage can.
"Man..." Otto panted. "That...hah...fish likes to eat..."
"No kidding..." I said just as tiredly. "Think we can catch him now...?"
Scraps hopped out of the can and took off again.
"That's a 'no'," we sighed in unison before running after him. Funny enough, Scraps seemed to be having a blast on his improvised tour of Splatsville because I could've sworn I saw him smiling for most of this chase. (At least someone was enjoying this...)
Eventually, he stopped and sniffed the air. His eyes somehow grew even wider before turning around and staring in our direction.
"Uh...why is he looking at us like that?" Otto asked.
"I'm not sure," I admitted. "But I hope it's not us he's looking at with those hungry eyes..."
Suddenly, Scraps excitedly jumped up a few times while liking his lips and made a beeline towards us. Otto and I tried to scoop him up, but he slipped right through our hands and swept our legs out from under us.
"Ow..." Otto groaned. "Well, at least it wasn't us he was after..."
"Yeah, but-" I began before taking notice of where he was going. "Wait...where is he going?"
He was charging towards what looked like a circular manhole grate in the ground. He started jumping on top of it as if he was trying to open it.
"Hey, hey, get away from that!" Otto called out as we hurried to catch him. His yelling fell on deaf ears (if he had any) because Scraps' determination made him do something crazy. He somehow managed to dive into one of the grate's holes and squeeze himself through it.
Otto and I gasped as we reached the manhole...and just missed catching him as he slipped through it. We heard his cry echo as he fell further and further. Then, it got quiet. The two of us stood there in shock for a few seconds processing what just happened. Finally, Otto decided to break the silence.
"Well...what now?" he asked.
"What?" I asked.
"We've sat here in a stupor long enough, and our pet Smallfry just fell down a mystery grate. So what do we do?"
"How would I know?"
"Just wondering if you had an idea."
"Just one: asking 'what do you think we should do?'"
"Well, I think we should go down there and follow him and see if he's okay."
I blinked at him.
"Right, okay," I began. "I understand your idea, and as your friend, I respect it. However, I have just a few tiny issues with it."
"Which are...?" Otto asked raising an eyebrow.
"One, we have no idea where this thing goes. Two, as far as we know, this is a one-way trip. Three, I'm pretty sure doing this is probably really illegal. And four, I've heard rumors of a creepy old dude who pokes his head out of here, and I am NOT prepared for that if it turns out to be true."
"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm..." Otto hummed while nodding. "All excellent points, Izzy. Though, could I make a counterpoint?"
"If you can." He then pointed behind us.
"Notice the carnage caused by our little buddy and the potentially angry faces glaring at us because of that."
I thought about it for a second. While I hated to admit it, the guy made sense...and also made me realize at that moment that I really didn't want to look back at the mess left behind us.
"You win..." I sighed. "Let's go get him."
"Ladies first."
I successfully resisted the urge to push him in first and simply glared at him before changing into my swim form and slipping through the grate. Whatever happened next, I hoped it wouldn't be too big of a problem...
Naturally, there was a problem immediately. It became pretty obvious after a few seconds of falling that something was up with this grate. I thought that it would just land us in a sewer or some dark underground tunnel, but it went on much longer than I thought.
After a bit of falling as well as some unexpected twists and turns through a pipe, Otto and I wound up landing in a mound of sand with the sun beaming down right on us.
"What a ride..." I said while slowly sitting up and brushing sand off me.
"Where-blech-are we?" Otto asked as spat out some sand and he helped me up. "The desert?"
"Actually..."
Shielding my eyes from the sun, I took in our surroundings. We were in a hole in the desert with metal platforms reaching further down into it. I realized where we were instantly.
"Otto, I...I think we're in the Crater."
"Whoa..." he said in awe.
I really thought this would've been a simple fall under the city. Nope. Instead, somehow, in a kind of method that I have yet to really figure out how it worked, that grate sent us to the Crater. It was exactly what it sounded like: a massive crater out in the desert that never had a clear origin. I knew we were there because there was a large structure sticking out of the sand near it. It looked like an upside down tower.
The Crater was interesting for a lot of people, especially treasure hunters/scrap collectors since a lot of junk wound up around here. Otto and I made plans to visit it one day ourselves, but I guess that day came sooner than we expected.
"How'd we even get out here?" Otto asked as he looked around. "We're, like...miles away from the city right now. And we got here in, what, twenty seconds?!"
"Don't ask me, dude," I said. "I didn't design that pipe. Do you see Scraps anywhere?"
"WAH!" we heard a short distance from us.
"Uh, found him?" Otto said.
We followed the shouting which was coming from a cabin nearby. An old man with a white beard wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and blue shorts was sitting down on a folding chair by a table, and Scraps was contentedly eating some sort of food by his feet. The man looked like he had just been spooked.
"Where'd you come from, little fella?" the man exclaimed with a small chuckle.
"There he is!" I shouted as we came over to them. I carefully but quickly picked Scraps up, and he didn't even seem to notice as I did.
"I take it this hungry little guy belongs to you?" the old man asked.
"Yes, sir..." I sighed. "And I am so sorry. He just got away from us for a second."
"Us?" Otto muttered. "You were the one watching him..."
"You are not helping!"
"Hehe, don't worry, there's no harm done," the man said calmly. "Well, except for the couple of crabby cakes he's munching away on."
Scraps chuckled with his cheeks full, and I glared at him.
"Scraps!" I scolded. "I know you've got a big appetite, but stealing food is bad!"
For once, he looked a little ashamed as he gulped his food down. (As he should've been.)
"Aw, don't be too hard on him," the old man said gently. "I got plenty more cooking up in the oven now. Just thought I'd have a little snack before getting back to work."
"Work?" Otto repeated. "Hold on, who are you anyway?"
"I should be asking you whippersnappers that question first."
"Oh, uh, right," I said. "I'm Izzy, and you've kinda already met our new little buddy, Scraps."
"And I'm Otto," Otto said. "Nice to meet you, Mister...?"
"Craig Cuttlefish at your service," the old man said while extending a handshake. We both shook it. "Now, you got me curious. What are a couple of young squid and octo kids doing with a Smallfry anyhow? Salmonids of any size can be dangerous if you don't know how to deal with them."
"We found him out in the desert while scrap collecting earlier today," I said. "He sorta ate some of our lunches, and after we fed him, he started liking us."
"We went to go deal with some things for a minute, and Scraps decided to run off," Otto continued. "Then he went down a sewer grate and wound up here, so we followed him."
"Ah, so that's how that all happened," Mr. Cuttlefish said. "Scrap collecting, eh? Oh, wait a minute, you must a couple of those junk scavengers from Splatsville I've been hearing about."
"We prefer the term 'treasure hunters,'" Otto commented.
"Really?" Mr. Cuttlefish said skeptically.
"It just...sounds a little cooler..." I said, slightly embarrassed.
This still earned us an amused eye roll and laugh from the old man.
"Hang on," Otto said, "what's an old-timer like you doing here in the Crater anyway?"
"Hey, now, bucko, who're you calling an 'old-timer'?" the man said. "I may be getting on in years, but I still got a spring in my step."
"S-Sorry, Otto's just a bit blunt," I quickly said while shooting him a look. Otto shrugged nonchalantly.
"Well, if you need to know," Mr. Cuttlefish continued. "I'm out here doing my own job."
"Which is...?" I asked.
"Ex-captain and current senior advisor to the New Squidbeak Splatoon!" He then gave a peace sign salute. Otto and I simply looked at each other, possibly wondering if the other heard that correctly, too.
"The what?!" we said in unison.
"Ah, you kids wouldn't know. Essentially, it's mine and that group's job to make sure that Zapfish don't go missing."
"Zapfish...?" I mumbled. Then, I remembered something. "Oh, right! I heard about that somewhere, I think."
"You did?" Otto asked. "Wait, heard about what?"
"Zapfish going missing. It was some time ago, but it happened in Inkopolis. There were a couple of incidents where the Great Zapfish that powers the place along with a few smaller ones went missing for a while. Then, they mysteriously came back some time later."
"Oh ho ho, you certainly follow your news," Mr. Cuttlefish commented.
"Yeah...but it can't be all true, can it?"
"Ohhh, believe me, it is. I should know; I was there."
"Really?!" we asked in disbelief.
"Well," the old man continued, "I was there for the first incident anyway. Got squidnapped and everything, too. I got a little sidelined when it went missing the second time, but my agents had it covered."
"How'd they go missing in the first place?" Otto asked.
"The Octarians!" Mr. Cuttlefish bellowed.
"Octarians?" we repeated.
"A certain octopus race that fought Inklings way back in the day."
"Octopus race?" Otto asked. "Hold on, I'm an octopus, too. How come I've never heard about them?"
"Maybe they're a different species from you, Otto," I suggested.
"Indeed," Mr. Cuttlefish said while stroking his beard. "I don't recall Octarians specifically being in the Splatlands area too much before unless they decided to move there at some point and I never knew."
"Hooray, I'm not a bad guy by association!" Otto cheered dryly. I only rolled my eyes while Scraps and the ex-captain giggled a bit.
"Still, though, we got word that some may have arrived here looking for some mischief to cause. And there were a few sightings of their leader lurking about."
"Oh, then...maybe we shouldn't stay?" I said.
"Good thinking. You kids better head home just to be safe. Oh, and, uh, don't go telling anyone you saw me or that we had this conversation. Don't want the enemy to catch on, you see."
"Uh, sure..." Otto said confusedly.
"Plus," I added, "we really need to see if we can fix any damage from Scraps' little rampage earlier."
"Oh, right. Well, Mr. Cuttlefish, it's been an odd pleasure learning about all of this, but we gotta go. If we see some weird activity, we'll let you know."
"Well, good, I appreciate that," Mr. Cuttlefish said, taken aback just a bit. Frankly, I didn't blame him. Otto surprised me by saying that, too.
He, Scraps, and I bid the old man a polite farewell and left through a return pipe that took us back to Splatsville. (It was clearly labeled "back to Splatsville." Go figure.)
When we got back into the city, we appeared from another grate in an alley. It seemed like a decent spot to pop up if you didn't want to be noticed, which for us, was very helpful.
"Well..." Otto began. "That was weird..."
"No kidding," I said. "I'm surprised you said we'd keep an eye out."
"I only said that so he wouldn't try to keep us longer and convince he's telling the truth. I didn't believe a word that guy said."
"I knew you didn't. Do you think he might've been out in the sun for too long? What he said didn't seem all that...uh..."
"True? Believable? Sensical? Realistic?"
"I was gonna say 'sane,' but those work, too, I guess."
"He definitely seemed convinced that he knew what he was talking about, but come on, really? A race of octopi who stole the Zapfish in the city? Sounds like a tv show or video game plot to me."
"I know, right? Still, that whole Zapfish disappearance thing did happen over there. There were pictures and everything. I wonder what actually happened with those incidents..."
"Hey, if, for whatever reason, the Great Zapfish here somehow disappears, then we might get lucky and find out. But, seriously, what are the odds of that ever happening?"
I felt a seriously bad chill ripple throughout my body when he asked that. It was a rhetorical question, sure, but it was enough to make me physically shudder like somebody just scratched their nails on a chalkboard.
"Y-Yeah..." I said uneasily. "What are the odds...?"
"So...what's the debt amount we have to pay again?" Otto asked.
"Dude, I don't even wanna say the number again...let's just hope there's not more we need to add to it."
"Ouch...good idea. We should also probably keep our heads low for a while, too, in case people are looking two people and a Smallfry."
"Ugh...come on, we have a LOT of battles to get through to pay off this debt."
"Right...thanks, a lot Scraps..."
Scraps simply shrugged with a little sheepish grin. For a cute little Salmonid, he sure made a big ruckus. I really gotta remember to keep him well-fed from now on.
AN: Welp, looks like these three are gonna be busy for a while. Until then, I'll see you all in the next chapter...where we'll most likely be accompanying a certain familiar Inkling.