"C'mon, Marie! We've got a whole day ahead of us, so let's go!"
With a spring in her step and a different song in each of her three hearts, Callie rushed down the halls of the mansion, her tinted tentacles trailing behind her. The sun's rays beamed through the window, making tiny specks of dust twirl and sway in the shaft of light. The day was fresh, and matches were few and far between, so Callie was ready to seize the day.
Some distance behind her, Marie plodded along languidly behind her cousin. The sky was clear, its blue as vast and open as the sea, and the sun had only just fully crested over the mountains. The birds went about their daily business, gathering bits of grass and quarreling in the trees. The day was fresh, and there were very few scheduled matches that day, so Marie was ready to take it easy.
Callie slowed her pace to let Marie catch up. "I said, c'mooon, Marie," she said, tugging at her arm. "Let's goooo. Look! The world is our oyster!"
"I'm going, I'm going," yawned Marie. "Just, y'know… at my own pace. Slow and steady wins the race, after all."
"Yeah, but if you're slow and steady, all the faster people will have gotten there first!" Callie pressed her face against the window, eyes wide and sparkling. "It's just like Gramps says—" And here her smile widened playfully— "Carpe diem!"
"You go ahead and seize the carp if you want," murmured Marie. "I'm gonna seize some extra Z's."
"Aw, come on, that's boring." Callie's posture went limp. "You're really gonna sit inside and do nothing all day?"
Marie shrugged. "Well, why not? It's basically a free day today. It's not like anything weird is gonna happen."
"Are you serious?!"
Both girls jumped as the voice resounded through the corridor. It was a voice they recognized immediately, and it snapped Marie out of her lethargy in the blink of an eye. They'd heard Dr. Wright shouting like that very often as of late. The only question was, what, exactly, was he yelling about… this time?
Callie and Marie followed the sound, creeping closer as it grew louder, until they were standing in front of (to their shock) Master Hand's office. Dr. Wright's voice had since quietened, as if mindful of people that would try to eavesdrop. But the two of them could still hear him, now growing plaintive and exhausted. Marie felt a pang of sympathy in her chest.
"And it's been gone since… how long ago? When did you first notice?"
"Two weeks ago," came Master Hand's voice from inside. "I'd been expecting an invoice from the Silph Company, but when it never arrived, I checked the mail stream, and…" His shrug was almost audible.
"Great Scott," whispered Dr. Wright. "And you?"
"Um…" Now that was Nikki's voice. Callie and Marie moved in closer to listen. "Well, I thought that we were just going through a dry spell, so I didn't think too much of it…" She paused, and they could imagine her wringing her hands. "But then, we started receiving complaints about not getting any mail, and when Dr. Wright called me in…"
Nikki cut herself off just as her voice started to crack. Both the Inklings' hearts gave a painful twist.
"It's alright, Nikki," said Dr. Wright soothingly. (He was moreso trying to soothe his own frayed nerves, but the thought was there.) "We'll… we'll find it."
Callie turned to Marie. "'Find it'? Find what?" she whispered. "Nobody's been getting any mail?!" Marie put a finger to her lips, and gestured at the door.
"In the meantime," said Master Hand, "I'll see if I can't set up some kind of temporary connection, to get the mail flowing again. Perhaps I could add a correspondence section to the street markets…"
"Oh! Maybe dig up the old Alloys, and send them out as couriers?" suggested Dr. Wright.
"Mmm… no, it's too impractical," said Master Hand with a sigh. "We'd have to update both their programming and their framework, plus, without the map it provides, I'd have to open the rifts manually and wait for them to come back. On top of the sheer amount of worlds they'd have to travel to? No. No, it's just not feasible."
Silence fell. Callie and Marie exchanged a look, brows identically wrinkled. "If… if we don't get mail, how long will it take before people start freaking out?"
"Oh, it'll be fine," said Marie, trying more to convince herself that it would be fine. "Probably. Maybe."
"Yeah, but people are gonna miss packages and bills and stuff!" Callie's mouth was a straight line. "What's gonna happen then?"
Marie tapped her fingers together. "They'll… uh… it's—it's Master Hand. He'll figure something out."
"This is quite a predicament," said Master Hand. "I'm not sure if I'll be able to figure something out."
Callie and Marie pressed their ears up against the door. Dr. Wright's voice was hushed, like he was giving instructions on pain of death, or worse, on pain of scrubbing the third-floor bathroom. But what was he saying, exactly? They moved in closer, almost pressing into the door itself. But the conversation was still frustratingly muffled. Maybe just a bit closer… Closer…
So close, in fact, that they didn't realize the door was unlocked until they fell right through it.
Nikki's surprised yelp was certainly audible now, as was that of Dr. Wright as he leapt back almost a foot. Master Hand was much more subdued in his reaction, only his fingers twitching as Callie and Marie faceplanted onto the office floor.
"Buh—I—Guh—What are you doing here?" said Dr. Wright after he'd located his voice, shaken loose in his surprise. "Wait… You two weren't eavesdropping, were you?"
"…No," Callie lied, fidgeting on the spot. Marie considered telling him that she'd tried to stop her, and had to pull her away from the door, but thought better of it.
Master Hand tilted at the wrist to one side. "…Oh. Well, if you've come asking for a favor, I'm afraid you've come at a very inconvenient time."
"Why? What happened?" asked Marie, kind of knowing what happened already.
Master Hand sighed, his fingers slumping to rest on top of his desk. "Well… unfortunately, one of my personal creations has gone missing."
"Missing?" gasped Callie and Marie in unison. "What was it?"
"It was my mailing device," explained the hand, gesturing at a conspicuously empty space on his desk. "I called it the COPTR."
"The… copter?" asked Marie. "Like, to fly in?"
Master Hand tapped a finger in that empty spot. "No, no, it's an acronym. It stands for the Contraption for Otherworldly Postage Transmittal and Receival." His pointer finger rose declaratively, his voice filled with pride. "It's what we use to send out invitations to all fighters."
"Ohhh, I get it now," said Callie, nodding along. "And now it's gone missing?"
"Exactly," nodded Nikki. "You probably know this already, but that's kind of an emergency."
The Inklings fell silent. "But… why?" asked Marie. "Does it matter, at this point? I mean, you're not inviting any more… Definitely Late Challengers, so it can't be that bad, can it?"
"They're Decidedly Late Challengers, and it is that bad," said Master Hand, jabbing his desk with his finger. "The COPTR is the cornerstone of this world's postal system! It is the filter through which all correspondence must pass through!"
"Without that filter, nobody's going to be able to receive or send any mail!" added Nikki. "And anything sent here is just going to be floating in limbo!" Her breathing grew quick and shallow. "Bills won't be paid, packages will be sent back… Do you know what that leads to? Mass pandemonium! People won't be able to communicate! It'll be… it'll be…"
To Callie and Marie's distress, Nikki looked as though she might cry.
She did not, mercifully. Unmercifully, her face scrunched up and grew an alarming shade of red, and Dr. Wright stepped forward to rub her arms in a soothing manner.
Callie and Marie could only stand there, helplessly. They'd heard from Baito that the inner workings of the postal system (a subject that had literally bored Marie to sleep more than once) was one of Nikki's greatest passions, but they were woefully unprepared for this display. Marie tried to look anywhere but at Nikki's trembling form, while Callie shuffled from foot to foot.
Just as Marie was deciding on which words would be best to comfort Nikki, Callie said, "We'll find it for you!"
Nikki stopped shaking, looking up at Callie. "You will?"
"We will?" repeated Marie.
"Of course we will!" said Callie, giving her cousin a look. "We're aces at finding lost stuff! Or even lost people!"
Everyone was silent for a moment. "You're absolutely sure of this?" asked Dr. Wright. His face was still, but his eyes showed hope and caution in equal measure.
"Positive," Callie reaffirmed, standing a little straighter. She turned to Nikki. "Don't worry, Nikki, we'll find that helicopter before the day's done!"
"We will?" parroted Marie.
"It is not a—" Master Hand tapped his index finger on his desk. Then, he sighed, and said, "Well, if you're sure. At any rate, we'll need all the help we can get with this dilemma."
Callie nodded, smiling wide. "Don't worry, Master Hand!" she said, taking Marie by the wrist and shooting out the door. "The Squid Sisters are on the case!"
"…We are?!" said Marie, and the door closed behind her.
"Hmmmm… Now, if I were a mailing thing, where would I be…?"
Callie was walking through a corridor, a magnifying glass that she'd borrowed from a storage room held close to her face. She was crouched low to the ground, diligently scanning the floor in hopes of finding clues.
Marie was… far less diligent in her search, to say the least. "Callie."
The Inkling turned to her. "Yeah?"
"Why did you do that."
Callie blinked. "Do what?"
"Volunteer us to look for the…" Marie gestured with her hands. "…doohickey?"
"Because it's the right thing to do!" said Callie, getting up to her feet. "And did you see Nikki? She was gonna cry! How could you say no to that face?"
Marie thought about Nikki's face, comically fat tears welling up in her eyes, and decided to stop thinking about that. "…Okay, yeah, that's fair."
"So!" Callie clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "If we're gonna find that mailing thingy, we're gonna have to search this whole mansion. Leave no stone unturned!"
Their first stop was to stop by the lost-and-found, a sensible choice. But alas, the secretary running the room said that the only items submitted recently were a set of house keys, an empty seashell, and a spool of thread. That, and small bones that the secretary assured them were fake. Marie remained unconvinced.
They next thought to check the roof, because according to Callie, priceless items like these were always left on rooftops, perched precariously on the edge to provide a bit of extra drama. The only things perched on the roof were small birds.
The courtyard was their next stop. Callie figured that Crazy Hand might have accidentally tossed the COPTR outside. When it didn't turn up in any tree's branches, they thought to dig for it, because it might be buried underground. They left the courtyard an hour later, with dirt and mud on their skin and clothes, and no COPTR.
After that, the Squid Sisters trekked to the Pokémon Day Care, in hopes that Lydia and Myles had seen it. They hadn't, so they decided to simply ask the Pokémon themselves. They did not find the COPTR, but they did find a rather irritated Electrode, who proceeded to give the Inklings a… warm welcome that would have made Bomberman applaud.
Luckily for Callie and Marie, they landed in the infirmary, where the medical staff was quick to patch them up. Unluckily, none of them had seen the COPTR.
"Okay, I'm out of ideas," groaned Callie as she slumped onto a bench outside. "Where else would the mailing thingy be?"
Marie gave a little half-shrug, and immediately winced from the action. "Beats me." Her gaze traveled across the courtyard and over a nearby meadow before finally landing on… a dumpster, just below a window. "Hopefully not in the trash at this point, haha."
Callie followed her cousin's gaze and stared at the dumpster. Her face scrunched up in the way it did when she was deep in thought.
Marie saw the gears turning in her head and caught on immediately. "That—that was a joke. That was a joke—"
Callie's oval eyebrows were drawn together. "But, like, is it, though?"
"Yes! Oh, you thought someone would just throw it out?"
"…Maybe?"
…
…
"They'd…" Marie dragged a hand down her face. "They'd put it in recycling. Look, let's just ask Jeff. He's good with tech stuff, he'll know."
But their trek to Jeff's room proved fruitless, as once Jeff had answered the door after something metallic clattered to the ground from within, he explained that not only he had not seen the missing mailing device, he hadn't even known it had gone missing until he'd noticed the distinct lack of mail.
"I think I heard Snake talking about it," he said, scratching at his cheek. "Might wanna ask him."
It made sense to the Squid Sisters. Solid Snake was, as far as they knew, a secret-agent-slash-mercenary who collected confidential information and saved the world from giant robots while hiding in cardboard boxes. Or at least, so the books about him in the library had told them. English was not their second or third or tenth language, and the Inkling-language translations were clumsy, to say the least. As it stood, they'd lost the plot right around the mention of men named Raiden and Pliskin.
But that was beside the point. What mattered was that Snake probably had some information on where the COPTR was, and he'd find it before the day was done!
Snake did not know. In fact, just like Jeff, it was only by Callie and Marie asking him about it that he discovered the COPTR was missing at all.
"You gotta be kidding me," muttered Snake, scratching at his beard. "You're only telling me about this now?"
"We only just found out about it a couple hours ago," explained Callie. "What, are you expecting something?"
"I—" Snake abruptly looked away and cleared his throat, a sound like concrete in a blender. "It's, uh… I'll spare you the details. It's confidential. Love to help you, but… I'm a little…" He leaned back to glance at something inside his room. "…occupied right now."
"Oh." Callie couldn't keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Well, okay then."
Snake nodded and made to shut the door, but stopped just short of the threshold. Slowly, he reopened the door, eyebrows high on his face. "Hold on. You said the COPTR went missing?"
"…Well, yeah," said Marie. "That's why we're looking for it."
"Missing," Snake repeated, arms folded. "Missing from Master Hand's office."
"Yes," said Marie. "This has been—we told you about this when we got here."
Snake rubbed at his chin in thought. "Crazy Hand knows about this? …Wait, no, if it was him, they would've tracked it down by now." Scanning both ends of the hallway for anyone else, he scratched the back of his neck as a sigh like an old motorcycle escaped his lips. "Listen. Back when I first got here, I did a couple of… excursions, let's call 'em, around the place. Like, the gym, that cafe, Dedede's room."
"...Wait, wait, his room?" said Marie. "You snuck into other people's rooms?"
Snake waved away the insinuation. "I was collecting information. You'd be surprised what secrets he's got. My point is, I snuck into every place you could imagine here… but I couldn't get within ten feet of Master Hand's office without getting caught. That place is chock full of security measures that only get deactivated if either of the hands want them to. Or if he's physically inside."
"Okay," said Callie, slowly nodding. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, I don't think the COPTR just grew legs and walked away." Snake's voice dropped to a low whisper. "Someone stole it."
A breeze that had previously gone unnoticed came to a stop. Callie and Marie swallowed in unison. To level such an accusation was no small matter… and if the books they'd tried to read held any truth, he was probably right.
"Stole it?" asked Callie, speaking what was on both their minds. "You're positive?"
Snake could only shrug. "Call it a soldier's intuition." He glanced back at either end of the hallway. "Again, normally I'd help you, but…" Another furtive glance back into his room. "I've got my own fish to fry. And—" Here he leaned in conspiratorially— "If you ask me, so does whoever stole the COPTR."
He closed the door, leaving the Inklings with both those words and the smell of secondhand smoke to chew on.
With their only lead being Snake's word, the Squid Sisters had retired to their quarters to regroup and reflect. A cool autumn breeze blew through an open window, teasing at the curtains.
"Close that window, you're letting in a draft," said Marie.
"Jeez," said Callie, shutting the window with a soft thump. "You sound like my mom."
"It's chilly out. I can't focus in the cold." Marie turned back to her desk, massaging her temples. "Okay, so someone within this mansion probably stole that thing."
Callie hummed in thought. "But, like, who would want to steal it? And why?"
"We can go over the why later." Marie leaned back in her swivel chair and steepled her fingers. "As for who… Ganondorf… does he feel like he's… petty enough to steal a mailing thing?"
"Eh." Callie waved her hand. "He feels like a 'go big or go home' guy. Now, Bowser… ugh, that guy's got the 'evil mastermind' look down. He's like Octavio if he was a big turtle. If anyone's stolen it, it's probably him."
"Mmm." Marie scribbled on a piece of paper. "Oh, don't forget K. Rool. He feels like someone who'd want to tamper with the mail."
"Ooh!" Callie swam up to her cousin. "And Ridley! He'd probably try to sell it online or something!"
Marie bit the inside of her cheek. "…Would he, though? He feels more like a 'rip you apart after you're dead' guy."
"Yeah, that's fair," said Callie with a shrug. "…But you know who would try to sell it? Wario!"
"Oh, cod, no."
Callie's eyebrows drew together. "What? Look at him! He'd totally try to make some cash off it!"
"No, I mean, I'd rather eat a Splattershot than have to talk to him."
After roughly forty minutes of discussing the morals of most of the fighters and assistants, the girls had finally drafted a full list of suspects, ranging from 'probably a nice guy, deep down' to 'nudibranch-kickingly evil'. Fortunately, it was a decent list, if they said so themselves. Unfortunately, when taking into consideration their many, many misdeeds, several of the suspects had been deemed all too eager to strangle a scallop with their bare hands.
"Wow," whistled Marie. "There's a… there's a lot of bad guys here, aren't there."
"Yeah, but that means one of them has to have stolen it!" said Callie. "So, who are we asking first?"
Marie glanced over the list one more time. "Let's ask Bowser first. If nothing else, he'd probably get upset if we didn't suspect him."
"Great!" Callie gleefully clapped her hands. "And I've got just the idea for how to get results!"
"Okay!" Marie nodded. "And that plan would be?"
It was then that Callie's smile changed ever so slightly as she turned to look at her cousin. Her golden eyes were twinkling in the light, and her beak peeking out was rascally, in a way Marie hadn't seen since they were children, jumping out of a tree to launch an "aerial assault" on their grandfather, water balloons full to bursting. Marie suddenly felt very concerned.
"What's the plan, Callie?"
Callie had already taken Marie's hand and sped off down the hallway.
"Callie?!"
"Are you sure he's gonna come?"
"He'll be here. Trust me."
Callie and Marie were waiting in an old, abandoned storage room, cleared of most of the brooms and cleaning supplies that had taken up residence there. In their place was a desk, a single lamp illuminating a folder of documents placed just off center. The two of them had changed their outfits at Callie's behest—a pink beanie with matching cardigan and white shirt for Callie, and a green baseball cap with a matching jacket for Marie. Callie insisted that they were necessary to get all the right answers, but Marie had her doubts. Small doubts that she'd never say out loud after seeing how excited Callie looked, but doubts nonetheless.
"In fact," said Callie, adjusting her sunglasses that were very necessary to suit the mood, "I'll betcha he's gonna walk through that door riiight… now!"
No one entered.
"…Right now!"
Still, no one came in.
"…Now! Right now! Riiiight now!"
After the eighth time, the door opened to let Bowser squeeze his way inside. His eyes narrowed as he regarded the table, the folder, and the Squid Sisters before him. "What's this about?"
Marie nodded in greeting, and motioned for the Koopa to take a seat. Bowser rolled his eyes and sat down, the chair creaking under his weight. Neither Squid Sister missed the way his eyes lingered on the folder, or the way he quickly sat up straighter when he noticed they had noticed.
Time to start the interrogation.
Callie spoke first. "All right, Bowser, let's begin. Can you tell us where you've been?"
Bowser rolled his eyes. "I was in my room all day, engaging Junior with his horseplay."
Now it was Marie's turn to speak. "We're just trying to crack this case. Were you inside Master Hand's base?"
"After that, we ate rib roast! And then we waited for our post."
"The COPTR device is recently gone. Do you know about it?"
"Oh, come on! All your doubt is overblown. If I had stolen it, you'd have known. That mailing thing's not in my possession."
"Thank you, Bowser. No more questions!"
Once Bowser had left, Callie crossed his name off the list. "Okay, so it wasn't Bowser. Do you think we should ask Junior?"
Marie shook her head. "Nah. If we did, we'd have to bring in the rest of his little… posse." She turned to her cousin. "Are you sure this is gonna work?"
"Of course it will!" Callie's head was held high. "I saw something like this in a movie once!"
"I'm not so sure." Marie tilted her head to one side. "Singing has helped us before, but this feels a little different. Besides, this is a silent medium!"
"What?"
"…Uh." Marie coughed. "I mean, this is—this is reality. Look, let's just call in the next guy."
A few minutes later, King K. Rool stomped into the interrogation room and sat in the chair. "Don't worry," whispered Callie to Marie. "This is gonna be easy. Watch and learn!"
She strode over to the desk, reached down under it, and pulled out a bunch of bright yellow bananas. K. Rool's eyes narrowed (as much as the swollen eye could narrow), but he did not move an inch.
Callie was undeterred. "K. Rool, you've come at just the right time. Do you know about this crime?"
"I believe you have the wrong John Doe," sang K. Rool, idly examining his claws. "What I'm accused of, I do not know."
"The mail's gone missing from a break-in," explained Marie. "Tell us now and save your bacon."
"I haven't seen this missing loot. All I've swiped as of late is fruit."
"So you haven't seen the missing mail? Or perhaps you work on a grander…" Callie raised an eyebrow. "…scale?"
K. Rool slammed both hands on the table, making the lamp wobble dangerously. "Go drown in a lake, that's my suggestion!"
"Thank you, K. Rool. No more questions!"
After K. Rool left the room, slamming the door behind him, Callie rubbed at the sides of her head. "Well, that could've gone a lot better," she groaned.
"You gotta admit, the scale pun was kinda weak," said Marie, flipping through the rest of the files.
Callie shrugged. "Yeah… but you know what I think? I think one of us did it."
Marie put the folder down. "What?"
"You know." Callie gestured at the door. "One of the Assist Trophies. I think they did it."
"No, they didn't."
"Yes, they did, and we can pin it!"
"If they did, how did they do it?"
"If they didn't, how did they didn't?"
"If they didn't, then it's easy, 'cause they just plain didn't do it!"
"If they did it, then I knew it, but we've nothing that can prove iiiiiiiit!"
Callie's rather lovely high note was cut off by her coughing and clearing her throat. "Ahem! Boy, I hope I'm not out of practice."
Marie pinched the bridge of her nose. "…Fine, whatever. Skip the other suspects and call in the rest."
Roughly five minutes later, the first of the new suspects waddled inside and took a seat.
Marie cut straight to the point. "You're in here 'cause it's our belief that you can help us catch this thief."
"I didn't take this mailing device!" stammered Chef Kawasaki. "Please let me go, I'll burn my rice!"
"It'll be quick, a real cakewalk! All you've got to do…" Here Callie leaned in closer— "…is talk."
"I wasn't there when it was seized! I was busy rearranging my cheese!"
Callie looked over the trembling chef at her cousin. "This all seems a little bizarre."
"If you don't believe me, ask the star!" And right on cue, Starfy tottered in, drawn in by the upbeat tempo and promise of puppet capers. "Starfy stopped in then, he'll cooperate!"
"Little guy, are you willing to corroborate?"
Starfy took a deep breath… and then immediately froze up, for he did not know the rest of the words, let alone something that Kawasaki could follow up with a witty rhyme. "Um… uh… I…"
Seeing oncoming panic, Chef Kawasaki took on a much gentler tone as he said, "Calm down, Starfy, it's a routine inspection."
"Thank you, head chef, no more questions!" sang Callie and Marie in unison.
More and more assistants had lined up outside the room. The Squid Sisters were running out of both potential suspects and time.
"Alright, let's give this another go," said Marie to their next interviewee. "What do you know about the stolen… gizmo?"
"We didn't know there was a plan," said Blinky, flanked by the other three ghosts.
"Your accusation is far out, man!" accused Red, Ashley lingering behind him.
"The chances of me committing a crime," stated the Starman, sturdily standing as usual, "are less than point-zero-zero-nine."
The Klaptrap gnashed its jaws at the Squid Sisters, only stopping from lunging at them when Marie held its snout shut. A shame, too, for it had come up with a clever rhyme that would have made a certain witch applaud.
"To help with our investigation," called Callie, "could someone provide a full translation?"
Flies and Hand was more than happy to help, providing a fairly accurate (if a bit verbose) translation, entirely in pantomime, detailing the Klaptrap's endeavors that day, none of which involved the COPTR.
The Squid Sisters stared blankly at it. The glove sighed silently, and swapped out its flyswatter for a sign that read "It wasn't the Klaptrap". Then, after a moment, it flipped the sign over, revealing the words "It wasn't me, either".
The Burrowing Snagret provided very little assistance to the inspection. It burst through the ground and, seeing the lamp as potential prey, pecked at the lamp until the bulb burst, knocking itself out in the process. The Thwomp wasn't much help either, simply falling from the ceiling and slamming into the chair, splintering it into pieces. Both their names were quickly crossed off the list.
Sukapon stared at the Squid Sisters, and at their folder, and at the bits of broken chair. "Uh… you wanna hear my Gex impression?"
"Thank you, assistants," sighed Callie and Marie. "No more questions."
The Inklings retired to a booth at the far end of the room. Dark circles hung under their eye masks, and their tentacles hung limply.
"Okay, I'm ready to pack it in," admitted Callie. "They didn't."
"No, they didn't," agreed Marie.
"There's no way they did the crime," nodded Callie.
"They couldn't, they're too goofy."
"They're not criminal masterminds."
"We do not know who did it, but we know who didn't do it."
"So we know didn't do it," sang the Squid Sisters in unison, "yes, we know who didn't do iiiiiiiit!"
The climactic note successfully reached, Marie delivered the final verdict: "They're just incapable of being culpable!"
"Oooh, is this a musical number?" asked Sukapon, who had witnessed three seconds of their choreography. "Can I join?"
"Yeah, the—the song's over, dude," said an apologetic Callie.
Sukapon's disappointment was tangible, even from that distance.
With the investigation finished, the Squid Sisters found themselves… in roughly the same place they were at the beginning of the day. All they had to show for their work was a list of people that had no idea about the COPTR.
"Well, that's it," said Marie, closing the folder with a sad, soft thump. "All those suspects, and we're still no closer to finding the COPTR than when we started."
"And after that musical number, too!" Callie pouted. "Does this mean we'll have to go back to searching on our hands and knees again?"
"Looks like it." Seeing the look on Callie's face, Marie quickly added, "We're not dumpster-diving for it. It's been a long day."
Being out in the courtyard did nothing to improve their morale. The sky was gray and cloudy, with zero breaks for the sun to shine through. A brisk wind rustled the trees overhead, bringing with it promises of winter.
Callie shivered as she drew her coat tighter. It protected her from the chill, but something else left her ill at ease. Frustration pinched at her hearts, spreading out from her core to grit her beak and pull her shoulders down.
This theft of the COPTR… it wasn't like the theft of the Great Zapfish at all, was it? No, this felt… bigger, like something more was at stake here. Never mind the mail, what did this thief want with it, anyways? To steal from someone who seemed even above the voice from on high back home? The thought made her woozy from just thinking about it.
Snake's words flashed in her head. I've got my own fish to fry. And if you ask me, so does whoever stole the COPTR.
She turned to Marie, hoping to find an answer, or guidance, or anything that would help quell the awful feeling in her gut. All she saw was her cousin, staring at the ground as she walked, brows furrowed in deliberation.
"Marie."
Marie blinked. "Huh?"
"You're doing that thing again."
Marie bristled. "Wh—what thing?"
"Y'know. The thing." Callie did not elaborate. "Something's on your mind, right?"
Marie suppressed a flinch. Her cousin had always been frighteningly good at reading her like an open book, so her parents and grandfather had often said. But Callie was right. Something was on her mind, something that had been there since that morning.
"Y'know, something's been bothering me," she began. "Snake said someone stole the mailing thing. If we assume he's right, why do you think they would've?"
Callie tilted her head to one side, as though the answer would fall out of her ear. When nothing came out, she simply shrugged and said, "Dunno. I did say that someone might have sold it off, but…"
"…Don't you think someone would've held onto it a little longer?" finished Marie. "Like, you'd at least want multiples, right? Reverse-engineering?"
Callie nodded. "Yeah, you're right. It's not like someone would just steal it for the sake of stealing it, right?"
Silence reigned as they processed the weight of the words, and realized that yes, some people would steal a machine capable of sending mail between dimensions for a lark. Several names jumped straight to the forefront of their minds, and none of those names belonged to people they wanted to talk to even on a good day.
It was fortunate, then, that someone came along to distract them from such thoughts.
"Oh, hi, Zero."
Zero nodded in greeting, and looked between the two Inklings. "What's going on here?"
"Well, in case you haven't heard," sighed Marie, "the Contraption for Other… Omni… Master Hand's mailing thing is missing."
The Reploid raised an eyebrow. "Missing?"
Callie nodded. "We think someone stole it from Master Hand's office."
"Stole it?" The surprise in Zero's voice was audible, but his face remained stony. "But to do that, they'd have to bypass all those defenses."
"Yeah, Snake told us something similar."
"Hmmm…" Zero's mouth drew into a straight line. "If you ask me, I'd say that whoever stole it would have to be pretty skilled at infiltration. Like, incredibly skilled." He began to pace on the spot. "Not only smart enough to bypass the security measures, but skilled and stealthy enough to not get Master Hand—of all people—to notice."
"Wow," said Marie flatly. "That certainly makes things sound a lot easier for us."
Callie slapped her cousin on the arm. "Marie!"
"You know what I think?" Zero went on. "I think whoever did this probably isn't stealing for money. I think they stole for the thrill of stealing."
Both Squid Sisters exchanged a glance. "…Joker?" put forth Marie.
"No, not like Joker." Zero shook his head. "Like, stealing just to prove that they can steal from Master Hand."
Callie and Marie exchanged another glance. The list they'd constructed had mostly consisted of scoundrels, cutthroats that would step on the necks of innocents without a second thought. But this… this was something else. Who would steal from Master Hand just for sport, especially knowing the risks it involved? And if that was the case…
"…Where would that leave the COPTR?"
Zero thought for a moment. "I don't know. But if you're going to comb over the grounds again, I'd be happy to help you look."
A third glance between the two Inklings. The musical number had failed (a first for them), and rooting around in the courtyard again didn't sound particularly appealing. But as their grandfather had told them multiple times: "If at first you don't succeed, ink, ink again!"
Plus, Zero was looking at them so expectantly, and as Nikki had proven, Callie had a weakness for that.
"Worth a shot!"
From what Marie had heard, Zero was the type who longed for peace while also being unafraid to get his hands dirty. From what she read in the library before the headaches had set in (again, thanks to poor translation), he had a good head on his shoulders, capable of keeping calm and making responsible decisions where his partner X (or was it Axl? Marie couldn't remember) would waver or act without thinking.
Now, as she stood caked in dirt in the Pokémon Day Care and felt the back of her head begin to throb, Marie began to wonder how much of that was thanks to poor translation.
"Are you sure the COPTR is around here, Zero?" she asked as a Gogoat nosed at her palm.
Zero's head poked around from behind a robotic Pokémon with a disc-shaped body. "Yes, I'm positive."
"In the Pokémon Day Care?"
"...Yeah."
"How, though?" Marie stood up. "There's no clues! We haven't found a single lead. You just took us here and told us to start searching! What makes you so sure it's here?"
Zero only shrugged. "Call it a robot's intuition," he said, and promptly went back to digging.
"I—Buh—" Marie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, I—Callie, back me up here."
Callie, regrettably, was of very little help. "I dunno," she said, a small cocoon-like creature in her arms. "You know what they say, it's always the place you least expect. Isn't that right?" she cooed to the Pokémon. "It's always where you least expect it! Isn't it? Isn't it?"
Marie visibly deflated. "I—screw it, whatever." And she went back to searching.
The rest of the search went as both Squid Sisters expected and feared: quietly and fruitlessly. This time, they took care to avoid the Electrode, but still the COPTR remained undiscovered.
"Uh… Marie?"
It was not terribly cold out, but Marie's blood turned to ice in her veins. The way Callie called for her could only mean one thing: she'd found, at most, a third of the COPTR.
"Did you…" Marie tried to iron the creeping dread out of her voice. "Did you find it?"
"No…"
Oh. Well, then, what was it? And why did she sound so antsy about it? "Alright, let's see it, Cal."
"Look at this!" Something large was thrust into Marie's face, and she had to push it back to get a good look at it.
In Callie's hands was… a squid.
Well… it sure looked like a squid, as far as Callie and Marie could see. But this squid looked much different from the ones they were used to. For starters, its mantle was transparent, with bright yellow spots on the inside, the rest of its body being blue. Furthermore, its beak was visible, right between its eyes.
It was deeply, deeply unnerving to look at.
"What… is that?" asked Marie.
"I… I don't know," responded Callie. She held the alleged squid tremulously, as though holding a hot tea kettle by its spout. "It's a squid, right? Right?"
Marie backed away slightly, as though the supposed squid would spit poison at her if she stared at it for too long (which, considering where they were, was frighteningly plausible). "I think it is?" said Marie after a pause. "I hope it is."
The squid-shaped being floated out of Callie's grasp, still suspended in midair. It regarded the two for a painfully long moment.
"Um…"
The creature that was ostensibly a squid suddenly flipped upside-down. Callie leapt to hide behind Marie, who nearly fell over in her surprise. It floated up and away into the sky, still inverted, its lights flashing erratically.
…
…
Marie shuddered. "Cod, how can anyone stand to look at that thing?"
"Right?" Callie swallowed. "It was, like, almost a squid. Like, if someone tried to make a squid, but… made it wrong. Was it just stuck like that?"
"Probably," Marie shrugged. "And who knows why it turned upside-down like that? And the lights…"
"Mmm. Creepy as all shell."
The Squid Sisters watched as the cephalopod drifted off into the sky, dipping lower and lower until it disappeared behind a cluster of trees. A chill wind blew through their tentacles, carrying with it smells of rain-quenched soils and the evergreen foliage of the north.
…
…
"…We're not gonna find it here, are we?"
"Nope."
After bidding a more-than-awkward farewell to Zero and departing the Day Care, with yet still no COPTR in hand or tentacle, Callie and Marie were at a bit of a loss.
"We must've searched this place ten times over, and still nothing?! How?!"
Callie was pacing in a circle, jaw clenched, speaking through her beak. Her cousin lay on the bed beside her, brow furrowed in thought.
"I mean, I can't believe this. We went through the courtyard, the lost-and-found, the Wii Fit Studio—did we check the Trophy Shop already? …No, no, Baito would've found it already— maybe the infirmary?"
"Why would it be at the infirmary," came Marie's voice.
"I don't know! Maybe Dr. Mario would borrow it?"
"What for."
"To send medical bills! I don't know!"
Slowly, languidly, Marie rose from her horizontal position. "Callie."
"Or maybe it's at the Nookling Junction? Or someone took it to the auto repair place? But then—"
"Callie."
"…Maybe the Crazy Cap? But what would it be doing there? I dunno, I'm just spitballing here—" Callie's face suddenly went ashen. "Oh, no. What if—what if it did get thrown out and it's just stuck in the gap between dimensions, or whatever it's called? Or what if—"
"Callie!"
The Inkling's train of thought came to a halt as a hand came to rest on her shoulder. "Yeah?"
"Remember your mom's breathing exercises. In through the nose, out through the mouth."
Callie's shoulders slumped, but she did as she was told. She took a deep, steadying breath, in through the nose, and exhaled through the mouth. Slowly she began to rebalance and recenter and regain composure.
"In through the nose—"
"—Out through the mouth." There, she was feeling better already. In, out. Wow, this was really working. She'd have to do this more often.
"Now." Marie sat up a little straighter. "Let's take things slow. Fool's haste is no speed."
Callie cracked a grin. "Jeez, you sound like Gramps now."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Marie slid off the bed and marched over to a spare whiteboard. "Now then, is it really the end of the world if we don't find the COPTR today?"
"Ehh…" Callie tilted her head to one side. "According to Master Hand, it might be."
Marie waved the suggestion away. "Yeah, but you know how Master Hand is. Massive control freak."
"What about Nikki?"
Marie faltered a bit. "Well, she… that's her thing, so—Anyways, what's probably gonna happen is that people are gonna miss out on bills and stuff, like you said. And that's just a late fee, right? It's what, a hundred tentacoins? It can't be that bad, right?"
Callie frowned at the floor. "I dunno… you saw how worried Nikki was, right? Like, I'm not worried about the late fees so much as…" She fumbled for the right words. "As, what if Nikki has a stroke or something."
Marie stopped mid-answer. "She's… she's not gonna have a stroke. What I'm trying to say is, the people here, they have other fish to fry. Worst comes to worst, they'll probably set up a temporary thing while they try to find it. The mail will still be there! And Master Hand… he can do pretty much anything, right? He'll probably figure something out—"
Callie's hands slammed onto the drawer with such force and speed that Marie jumped and the nearby coat nearly toppled over, only being saved by a tentacle reaching out to steady it. Marie could only steady herself, clutching her chest to steady her breaths.
"…Callie?"
From what Marie could see of her face, Callie's eyes were wide and her jaw slack, like the weight of the world had just been dropped on her shoulders.
"Oh, my Cod," she whispered.
"'Oh, my Cod', what?" asked Marie, already not liking where this was going.
Slowly, Callie turned her still-drained-of-color face to her cousin. "It was Snake."
Marie blinked. "What?"
"It was Snake! Remember, he was the one who told us where to go!" Callie began to pace, the realization flowing forth as water would from a burst dam. "He 'had his own fish to fry', remember? And-and he said that it was too difficult to sneak in to get rid of any suspicions on him! It's all starting to make sense! He took it, and now he's gonna bring it to… to whoever put him up to it! Oh, jeez, what if he's been brainwashed? He might be in trouble!"
It was certainly starting to make sense to Marie, who was now starting to remember some of the finer details of those books she read, and who knew firsthand what it was like to witness a loved one be brainwashed and made to carry out someone else's wicked will. She got up and began to match pace with Callie. "Okay, so, if Snake took the COPTR… we're gonna…" She swallowed. "We're gonna table the brainwashing thing right now. And he didn't let us in his room because… Okay, first of all, how do you figure it was Snake who stole it?"
"It was the squid!" Callie gripped Marie's shoulders. "The weird squid I found at the Day Care! That's how I know!"
And down back to earth Marie came crashing. "The squid."
Callie nodded vigorously. "Yup!"
"The squid told you this."
"Yeah! Through those weird flashing lights on its head. I think it was trying to communicate that with me, and now I know!"
…
…
Now that the spike of adrenaline from the fear of brainwashing and missing mail was starting to subside, Marie's head was clear enough for her to mentally declare that maybe, just maybe, Callie was off her trolley.
"I think you're nuts," declared Marie. "But we've exhausted all our other options, so…"
"Exactly!" Callie's eyes were bright and sparkling. "So let's go, go, go!"
For the third time that day, Callie seized Marie's arm, and away they went, went, went.
"Snake! Open up!"
There was no response from the other side.
"Solid Snake! We know you're in there!"
Again, nothing.
"Let me try." Marie stepped in front of the door and cleared her throat. "Snake, we know you're in there. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. So, what's it gonna be?"
There was no sound, save for a soft click from inside.
Callie peeked over Marie's shoulder. "The hard way, then?"
"'S gonna have to be." Marie tapped the side of her face. There were probably air vents that led inside, but Snake, always so cagey, would probably be expecting that. Perhaps through the window? Or maybe…
"Okay, here's what we're gonna do," began Marie. "I'm gonna get my charger, and we're gonna ink the wall outside his window. Then we can sneak up, and either slip through the window, or get some recon on some escape chute he has hidden in there. 'Cause, y'know, he kinda feels like he'd be the type to have an escape chute in there. Y'get me?"
There was no response from Callie.
"…Uh, Callie?"
Still, nothing. Not even the sound of her breathing.
A thought occurred to Marie just then, a thought that she had often played off as a joke to her friends, but had never really considered up until that point. A thought that, given both her and her cousin's lives and histories, she really should have taken seriously.
Marie looked up and turned around just in time to jump out of the way of Callie, who was leaping at the door, fist raised and coated in a thick layer of ink.
"What the shell?!"
Once the dust had cleared, Callie performed a stylish, if unnecessary, combat roll, into Snake's room. Marie, who was still looking for her third heart after Callie's Splashdown had knocked it loose, chose to simply walk in, stepping around the bits of wood that once constituted a door.
"What in the—" Snake coughed, evidently not faring any better than Marie. "What are you doing?!"
"The jig's up, Snake," responded Callie, blowing on her knuckles. Amazingly, her white gloves were still immaculately clean. "Where's the COPTR?"
"The COPTR—" Snake dragged a hand down his face. "What are you talking about?"
Callie crossed her arms. "'Whoever stole the COPTR has bigger fish to fry.' That's what you said, right?"
Snake stared at the Inkling for a moment. Then, the penny dropped. "Oh, for the love of—you think I stole it?!"
"Well, why else would the superspy not help us?" Marie began to scan the room, looking under books strewn about and strange weapons. "Probably shifting the suspicions onto someone else so that he can do… whatever it is he's doing!"
Snake blinked slowly at them. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." It really wasn't, but they didn't need to know that.
"I don't know who put you up to this," continued Marie, "but whatever the big boss upstairs is paying you, it's not worth it!"
At this, Snake bristled. "What do you know about—"
Callie kneeled down in front of Snake, ink from her hand still dripping onto his sneaking suit. "Listen, Snake, it's gonna be okay. Blink twice if you've been brainwashed."
"Brainwashed?!" Snake's eyebrows shot up, his gravelly voice doing the same.
"Is it the bandana?" Callie peered at the accessory. "Oooh, I bet it's the bandana."
"It's not the—" Snake got up, awkwardly tugging at the piece of cloth around his head. "Alright, listen. I don't know what's gotten into you, but no, I have not been brainwashed, and no, I haven't stolen the COPTR." He attempted to wipe some of the stray ink from his shoulders, to no avail.
"Well, if you didn't take it," said a defiant Callie, "then what—" She strolled over to an otherwise nondescript cardboard box— "is under here?" She lifted up the box with one hand, at last revealing—
…Nothing, save for a thin layer of dust.
Behind her, Snake pinched the bridge of his nose.
"…Oh. W-Well, then!" Callie scanned the rest of the room, her eyes falling on a laptop at the far side. "Well, then why would you be expecting—" she crossed the room in three strides and read off the screen— "Why would you be expecting a shipment of seventeen pounds worth of… ranch-raised beef and potato dog food?"
It took a good three seconds until the penny dropped for Callie, at which point she blinked and said in a much smaller voice, "Wait, what?"
Snake crossed the room and shut the laptop, narrowly avoiding Callie's fingers. "Can a guy have some privacy in his life for once? For once?"
A heavy, uncomfortable silence settled on the room. "What are dogs?" asked Marie.
"They're—" Snake sighed, a sound like a paper shredder being fed a plastic bottle. "They're what Duck Hunt is."
"Ohhh," said the Squid Sisters in unison.
"Wait, isn't that a duck?" asked Callie.
"No, that's the bird," said Marie. "The dog is what the duck is riding."
"Oh, I thought that was a hunt."
"…A hunt?"
"Yeah, like Duck and Hunt. Like Banjo and Kazooie."
"Wait, is Banjo a dog?"
"Stop," said Snake suddenly, putting an end to any further taxonomy discussions. "I'm not currently brainwashed, I didn't steal the COPTR, and I'm certainly not being put up to any future or planned theft of any technology at this point in time. Are you happy now?"
Both Inklings shuffled awkwardly on the spot. Neither of them were willing to make eye contact.
"Are you going now?"
Slowly, sullenly, simultaneously, both Squid Sisters nodded.
The walk of shame out of Snake's room was a total of six feet, but it didn't make it any less degrading. Especially not with the gaze of the man in question on their backs.
Another thought occurred to Marie. "Wait, but do you know who—"
When she turned around, Snake was gone. The only trace of him was the cardboard box, now moved directly in front of the closet.
Marie walked back inside and lifted up the box. Snake wasn't under it, but there was something else.
"Oh, look at that. He really does have an escape chute in here."
Once the Squid Sisters had made it back outside, the grim reality of the situation began to set in. With no leads, no ideas, and not even a hint of where to go next, Callie and Marie were in quite dire straits, right back where they started. And so, they felt, was everyone else.
"Not gonna lie," said Marie, flopping onto a bench, "this is starting to look a little hopeless."
Callie sat next to her, her knees pulled in close to her chin. "So, that's it, then? We're just… stuck?"
"We're not stuck. We just need to find a different angle." Marie rubbed at her temples. Gramps had always said that what you may seek was always in the last place you look. It hadn't made much sense to her or Callie, but for some reason, it seemed especially relevant now.
And speaking of relevant… "Also, we totally coulda just swam under the door."
"Yeah, but that's no fun!"
Marie simply sighed and took in her surroundings. Simon Belmont was out and about, chatting with Ike about something or other. To her left, one of the Villagers was fishing in a pond, Banjo napping lazily by her side. To the right, Jeff was walking the Nintendog, who was sniffing at a pile of dirt under a tree.
Wait a minute… Marie recognized that pile of dirt. She recognized because she herself had made that pile of dirt, when she was digging for the COPTR in the courtyard. The very same courtyard that they were in right now.
Marie groaned. They really were right back where they started! Sometimes life really liked to mess with her. This entire ordeal was starting to sound like a detective story she read in high school.
She looked around a little more. There, out in the distance, was the dumpster she'd had to warn Callie off of jumping into.
Hopefully not in the trash at this point, haha…
"The last place you look, huh…"
…
…
…What the shell was she thinking? She was not about to go dumpster-diving for a machine she wasn't even sure was there!
Marie pinched her lips together. They weren't getting anywhere just sitting there. It was time to start taking this seriously. And if they didn't find it by the end of the day… it was time to start looking for an Agent 5.
"Hey, Callie, do you think—"
Callie was not there.
"C-Callie?"
Where did she go? Oh, there she was, making a beeline for the dumpster.
…
"Callie!"
Marie caught up to her just in time, seizing her wrist and preventing her from making a huge mistake. "Are you out of your mind?!" she hissed.
Callie held out her hands in a calming gesture. "Listen, we don't know—"
"No!"
"Come on! What if someone accidentally threw it out?"
"They wouldn't—who in their right mind—"
"It's a non-zero chance—"
"I don't care!"
"I've seen weirder things—"
"I! Don't! Care!"
Callie pouted and crossed her arms. "Do you have any better ideas?"
"I—" Marie looked pleadingly towards the sky. When no help came, she just buried her face in her hands and muttered, "Oh, my cod."
"I'm not hearing any other ideas, soooo…"
Marie took the chance to peek through her fingers. The only person around was Ike, facing away.
It's always the last place you look! said her grandfather in her head, mocking her.
Marie deflated. "Fine," she relented at last. "But, so help me, if you don't find it, I'm telling Gramps, and Pearl and Marina, and everyone in your contacts."
Callie nodded emphatically. "Here goes nothing!"
And she super jumped, headfirst, into the dumpster, a loud clattering sound heralding her landing.
Marie groaned again, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone she might know. Cod help her if Agent 3 saw this. A scrap of… something, she couldn't tell, flew out of the dumpster and conked her on the head. Oh, she was really gonna let this thief have it if she caught them. Forget the snowglobe. Try a lava lamp or a matchbox or something.
Just when she was considering climbing in and bodily hauling her cousin out, she heard Callie call out, "Hey, Marie!"
Marie spun around to see Callie, hoisting herself up on the edge of the dumpster. Thankfully, she wasn't completely filthy like she'd feared. In her hands, she held a small, red machine that vaguely resembled a printer.
"Is this it?"
"You found it! I can't believe it!"
Such were the words of praise and gratitude that Callie and Marie found heaped upon them, courtesy of Master Hand. The COPTR was now safely in his office, waiting to be reinstalled.
Callie, who had received a vigorous scrub-down ten minutes prior, smiled brightly, face flushed with victory. "Toldja we'd find it! I toooold you!"
Marie, who had ordered Callie get cleaned up despite her protests, only gave a half-smile, looked much less tired than she felt. "To be honest, I can't believe it, either."
Dr. Wright, who looked just as tired as Marie felt, was positively glowing with pride. "I don't know how you girls did it, but trust you to pull it off so quickly!"
For her part, Nikki was trying her best to keep it together, laughing shakily, before she dissolved into fresh, happy tears and pulled both Inklings into a hug. "You actually… I can't believe… Ohhh, I can't thank you enough…!"
It was only mildly uncomfortable for the Squid Sisters, not because Nikki was sobbing uncontrollably directly onto them, but because she was a full head shorter than them both, and she had to clamp her arms around their necks to tug them down.
"Awww, it's okay!" said Callie trying her best to reciprocate the hug. Again, Nikki was a head shorter than her, so Callie could only pat her on the head, not knowing if she could (or should) scoop her up and hug her like a plush toy. Marie, meanwhile, went for the more subdued back-pat.
Eventually, Nikki released her hold on the Inklings, pulling back and wiping her eyes underneath her glasses. "Oh, this is a weight off my shoulders, you have no idea."
"But how did you find it?" asked Dr. Wright. "Where was the COPTR?"
"Yes, do tell," said Master Hand. "I'd like to make sure something like this never happens again."
"Um," began Marie. She looked sideways at Callie. Evidently, she was as unwilling to share the truth of where the COPTR was as her cousin. "It was, uh… outside. Someone buried it."
"…Oh." Dr. Wright frowned. "Well, who would do that?"
Callie shrugged hammily, tilting to one side. "Beats me."
"At any rate," said Master Hand, tapping his desk for attention, "I think it's time to restart the mailstream. Heaven only knows how much is being held up…"
"What?" Marie's brows drew together. "It's been, like, a couple of hours. How much mail could there be?"
Master Hand plugged a wire into the back of the COPTR, making its seams glow a soft blue as the fans inside whirred to life. "Well, we're about to find out. This is going to be a very long couple of weeks." He tapped a few keys on the keyboard and waited.
A faint electronic chime sounded from the COPTR. In that moment, it felt like the whole room held its breath. The fans grew louder and louder, rattling the machine… and then, it suddenly stopped.
…
Callie crept closer to the COPTR, peering at it. "…Is that it? Does that mean it's working now—"
Without warning, a rush of envelopes big and small, packages and parcels of all shapes and sizes, boxes and baggage, luggage and loads upon loads upon loads of letters burst forth from a slot on the side of the COPTR. They scattered and fluttered into the air, piling onto the shelves and coating the floor, stacking and swarming the office up to their ankles, then up to their knees, then their waist, and then their shoulders. Poor Nikki had to cling to Master Hand's pinky finger to stay afloat. The mail fluttered down like the first snowfall of the winter, a bright, brisk blizzard of postal matters.
The COPTR sputtered, its ejecta completed. A single jewelry box was coughed forth as the finishing touch, conking Marie on the head.
…
"This… was a lot more than I expected."
Author's Notes: We're back, fresh as the fallen snow!
You might ask yourself, "Was this chapter written solely so that bit could be written?" To which I reply, "Yes."
Next time, the Squid Sisters will be going from detectives to delivery people!