Orion’s heart was racing as he tried his best to cover his teammates’ retreat. The enemy were trying to hound them, mainly from behind, but also trying to flank them and cut off their escape. This was somewhat easier when they weren’t under the effects of the energy waves, which had slowed down progress a lot. And it was making the retreat incredibly difficult. One wrong move, and the four of them would likely be all captured in swift succession.

That was, until Ethan leapt into the fray with his Hero Roller, splatting foes left and right and completely smashing the enemy’s offensive. Orion had seen the new Hero Suits in the prototype stage, but seeing Ethan in that slick new armour was totally awesome, and it almost distracted Orion from the task of helping fend off the remainder of the offensive.

Thankfully, the rest of the Splatoon were right behind Ethan, all in normal form and, together, the enemy simply couldn’t compete. The tide turned so drastically that the enemy were actively trying to retreat themselves, but were swiftly splatted.

“Nice to see you four made it,” Marie said as she and Callie handed out cans of new Hero Suits to Orion’s group. “Put these on, and Ciel will do the rest.”

Orion was able to open the can with his tentacles, thankfully, and as he felt a change in his body, he also felt a brief shock through his system that forced him back into normal form. He noticed the same happening to his teammates, who were also all wearing the new-style version of the upgraded Hero Suit. Ciel chimed in over the comms, “you’ll be stuck in bipedal form for now, but it’s better than being stuck in swim form. ”

“Considering the half-hour or so has been miserable, yeah, this is a massive improvement,” Liam said, looking himself over. “So these are the new Hero Suits, huh…?”

“Still as light as before, but they’re super spiffy!” Hinata giggled.

“We can use these to take the fight to the Octarians,” Axl grinned, spinning his Dualies in his hands, “what’re we waiting for?”

“Hold your horses, youngin’,” said the Cap’n, “we need to plan our attack, first. I suggest splitting into multiple teams to handle each of the Generals.”

“Scarface’s team are attacking us from behind, I don’t know how long the other bots can hold out,” said X, frowning.

“Agent 2 and I will help X and Zero send him packing, no problem,” Callie grinned. “Sorry, Ethan, but he’ll have to wait. You’re the only one who’s fully immune to Gate’s device right now, you need to be on the team shutting it down.”

“If I had to guess, Botos and his goons are guarding it so they don’t have to be on the front lines. Botos is a snivelling coward, I can handle him,” Ayane snorted.

Orion turned to Axl, “um… We could handle Ferham… Unless you wanna fight your dad…” He knew this was a sensitive subject for Axl, and wanted to be sure they weren’t going to be rushing into a fight Axl didn’t want.

Axl frowned, clenching his fists around the grips of his Dualies. “Nah, I can’t do that. Gotta face my old man and my brother sooner or later. Besides, I know how they fight.”

“I’ll handle Ferham. I want to prove to her how strong I’ve become,” Iris said, her grip tightening around Yamato’s handle. Orion felt something was a little off about her, but he set that aside for now.

“We should regroup back into our regular teams, then, otherwise we’ll be a bit off-balance in terms of weapon roles,” Karlene noted.

“Sounds like a good idea, having a Charger and a Splatling on the same team is a bit much,” Koji chuckled. “But there’s no guarantee we’ll be fighting whoever we’ll going after.”

“Red Alert and Ferham’s goons have slightly different uniforms that make them distinct. Based on where Red Alert’s people are attacking from, I think I have a pretty good idea of where Dad likely is,” Axl said.

“Alright, then, Agent 11’s team handles Red Alert, while Agent 9’s will go after Ferham. Agents 3 & 4 will assault the lab directly, take out Botos if he’s there, and shut down Gate’s device,” Marie said, “any objections?”

The response from the rest of the agents was unanimous. “No, ma’am!”

“Don’t call me ‘ma’am’,” Marie grumbled. “Alright, get moving, we don’t have all day.”

“Oh, one last thing,” said Ciel, as the Calamari Inkantation suddenly began sounding from speakers in all of their headsets, and yet immediately after the sound seemed a lot more muted. “No need for a dedicated set of speakers to bring to battle, now. The headsets automatically reduce the volume of the Inkantation coming to your ears, so you can focus on other sounds.”

“That’s useful. Hopefully some of the enemy will stand down rather than fight, but we can’t rely on that,” Zero said, “alright, you know what to do, everyone move!”

Everyone immediately split up. Orion followed Axl, Liam and Koji, covering them.

He tried not to think about the idea that he was about to meet his boyfriend’s dad. Who was also their enemy. This was gonna be super awkward.

❖

Iris was laser-focused on her goal. Ferham needed to brought down, as soon as possible. After being beaten before, her pride demanded that her honour be restored by beating her in single combat. She was confident she would win this time - she had the power she needed and wasn’t handicapped by Gate’s little toy anymore. Iris was immersed in a focus state, wielding Yamato with finesse and slicing through enemies like they were almost nothing, deftly dodging attacks with little conscious thought.

Ferham’s team had been moving to a position on one of the upper floors, likely to try and secure flanking routes. They were trying to set up defensive positions, but between Iris and the combined capabilities of her comrades, it was frankly a waste of time. The Octarian forces were just so weak. In what world did she ever consider them to be worthwhile comrades? Pathethic, the lot of them-

“Babe, you alright?”

During a lull in the action, Iris was snapped out of her thoughts by Artemis, looking up at her with concern. Iris blinked, having snapped out of whatever intense focus she had been immersed in. “Agent 5?”

“You’ve been way more intense than usual, you haven’t even been acknowledging our callouts,” Artemis said.

“You’re practically ignoring the enemy ink on the floor when going after enemies, too,” Karlene pointed out. “I mean it’s impressive how quickly you’re moving but I think you’re taking the new Hero Suit for granted too much.”

“Seriously, girl, you were looking pretty scary for a bit there,” Hinata nodded.

Iris tapped the side of her headset, bringing up a holographic heads-up-display in front of her face. Her suit had been drained of an alarming amount of energy. Now that she thought about it, her dodging wasn’t quite as deft or elegant as she thought, as if she had been imagining it.

She could feel a bubbling frustration about how slow and incapable she was. And she wasn’t sure it was even her frustration.

I need more power…

“Be careful, that sword is having an effect on your psyche,” Colonel warned her. “I’m not sure how, but there’s clearly a supernatural element to it, that’s without a doubt.”

Iris took a deep breath. “I’m okay now. I’m not sure what got into me.”

She sheathed Yamato, drawing her Octo Saber, but she still felt that foreign frustration. She’d have to block it out as much as she could until she could hand the sword off to someone else. It was a good blade, but it wasn’t suited for ink battling, certainly a weapon for a different age.

“Okay, just let us know if you’re not feeling well, okay?” Artemis smiled softly, putting a hand on Iris’ shoulder. Iris found it cute that Artemis had to reach up kinda high to do that.

“Don’t worry, I will,” Iris smiled back.

“Alright, break time’s over, let’s keep moving,” Karlene ordered.

Iris always found it amusing that, within their team, even when on the job, Karlene took charge of the squad despite both Artemis and Iris technically outranking her. Artemis had teased her about it before, but Karlene could be scary when she wanted to be, and it didn’t take long for Artemis to shut up about it.

They arrived on the upper floor and started fighting their way through more enemies, who seemed to be guarding the main operations room. Hinata smashed the door open with her Splatling. “Knock knock~!”

It was a large room, the walls lined with monitors and terminals. Ferham and a few elite Octolings had been monitoring the situation around the base when the door was opened, and turned around to see the four agents ready to fight.

“So the traitor and her friends come barging in like a bunch of barbarians,” Ferham snorted, seeming not at all surprised by this.

“Ferham, please, stand down,” Iris pleaded, gripping her saber tightly, “I will fight you if I must, but as a former comrade, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Ferham just stared back with contempt. “If I didn’t know those eyes, Colonel, I’d think you were a completely different person. Was the old you just an act?”

Iris sighed, channelling Colonel as she straightened up, her voice deepening a little, “in a way, it was, and yet it wasn’t, General. We’re not here to play games.”

“I have no interest in negotiating with a traitor,” Ferham snarled, whipping the floor and stretching said whip with her free hand, “especially to join our hated enemies who’ve been oppressing us for a century!”

“Okay, the feeling of betrayal I get but that last part is pure carp, most Inklings just forgot you guys even exist,” Karlene said. “You’re the ones with an oppressive society that your own people are fleeing from. You could’ve asked for help in good faith, at least, before trying to steal our Zapfish.”

Hinata nodded, “seriously, projection much?!”

“Iris left because she couldn’t be herself in Octarian society. She’s our friend, and we care for and love her because of who she is as a person! All you jerks cared about was her worth as a soldier,” Artemis declared, before kissing Iris on the cheek, briefly distracting her with pure happiness, “the only reason we’re not leaving you guys alone is because you keep planning to restart the Great Turf War!”

“And I’ll fight to the bitter end to protect the new life I’ve earned for myself and the friends I’ve made,” said Iris, “sorry, Ferham, but I can’t back down now. What I’m fighting for now is worth far more to me than what I was fighting for as an Octarian soldier.”

Ferham grit her teeth, as she and the elites with her prepared for combat. “Then we are at an impasse. Enough talk, have at you!”

As the command room exploded into combat and Iris clashed weapons with Ferham, one thing was on her mind - why wasn’t she being affected by the Inkantation? She couldn’t be immune to it… Could she?

❖

Axl couldn’t help but think of memories of his pre-teens as his group approached the door to the largest break room, where Red Alert had seemingly set up shop, considering that was where the bulk of their forces were coming from. He’d be meaningfully interacting with his father and brother for the first time in years.

There was a reason he had kept away from both of them if he could help it. He figured neither of them enjoyed his company all that much, if at all.

The six-year-old Axl’s gaze was transfixed on the gravestone.

- Teal Slade -
Mother and wife
honourable warrior
never forgotten.

He had never known his mother - she had died shortly after giving birth to him. He only knew what she looked like through photos and the portrait of her on the family’s shrine. She was so pretty. His dad always joked that Axl and Lumine got their good looks from her.

Red stood beside him, taking sips from a beer can. Lumine couldn’t come, he was away at boot camp.

“What was Mom like?” Axl asked.

Red took a deep sigh, taking another swig from his beer. “She was the most amazing woman I ever knew. She was strong. Stronger than me. And not just as a soldier, either. And, well… She was a better…” He paused, a last word dying on his breath that Axl didn’t hear. “I… Nevermind.”

The awkward silence hung in the air. Axl was too afraid to ask the questions he wanted to ask.

‘Would she still be here if I had never been born?’

After checking for traps, Axl used his shifting abilities to open the door, using an elongated hand. The team advanced carefully into the room. They wanted to avoid being ambushed.

The remaining members of Red Alert who weren’t still respawning were gathered on the other side of the room, weapons all pointed at the four agents. Lumine stood at the back, staring daggers at Axl.

And beside him, was Red, sitting in a chair, casually tapping his foot to the beat of the music filling the room, humming the tune. “So this is the Calamari Inkantation. I can see why Octavio calls it a ‘heavenly melody’.”

“Dad,” Axl said.

“Hey there, squirt. Gotta say, this isn’t how I expected you to do it, but sure you as shell put yourself out there,” Red chuckled, with a lazy wave.

“Brother,” Lumine said, his voice laced with venom, finger tapping the trigger of his Charger.

“Wow, your bro is a pretty-boy. Also he really seems to hate you,” Liam whispered.

“Yeah, I’ve known that since forever,” Axl whispered back.

Axl groaned as Lumine threw him against the wall, slumping to the ground. It hurt, but Axl was used to pain from training. He glared at his older brother, “what the shell is your problem?!”

“I don’t associate with weaklings like you,” Lumine said coldly.

Axl had called his brother out to a private spot at the barracks where they could talk in private. He had few chances to interact with his older brother, who had seemed awfully distant from him even when he was at home, and being drafted had not increased those opportunities. Considering his father and brother were the only family he knew about, and he felt like his father hated him deep down, he was hoping he could connect with Lumine.

“Weakling?! I’ve been getting similar marks you did at my age,” Axl said, getting back up on his feet. “My strength has nothing to do with it. You’re my brother, and yet we’ve barely hung out, like, ever. Dad’s absorbed in running Red Alert and drinking, and-”

“I don’t care one bit,” Lumine said. “You’re behind me when it comes to mastering your mimic abilities. If you want me to see you as being on my level, you need to shape up.”

“You’re just making excuses! Why do you really blow me off at every opportunity?” Axl snapped.

Lumine was silent for a moment, looking down at the ground. “You really want to know?”

“Yes!”

Lumine suddenly began shifting. Axl’s eyes widened as he realised that Lumine had taken the shape of their mother. The shock was enough for him to drop his guard long enough for Lumine to slam him into the wall again, hand around Axl’s neck, eyes wide and staring hatefully, “it’s because of you she’s gone. She made me happy, Axl. And you killed her just by being born.”

Axl choked, grabbing the hand and trying to pry Lumine’s fingers away, but they felt like a vice. “Bro… I couldn’t have-”

Lumine threw Axl against the wall again with renewed force, causing Axl to cough up blood. He returned to his normal form, standing over Axl, “stay away from me, brother. Unless you want me to kill you.”

“That wouldn’t bring Mom back,” Axl panted.

“No, it wouldn’t. But it’d rectify the cosmic mistake that is fact that you’re even alive to begin with.”

Red looked over the team, “so, I think you’re… Agent 7, right? I know the two boys are Agent 11 and Agent 12, but who’s the girl? I thought your little team was an all-boys thing.”

“It sort of is. This is Agent 5. He’s intersex,” snapped Axl, “and say a damn word about it and I will-”

“Is he your boyfriend, Axl?” Lumine’s words caused Axl to freeze. Lumine smirked at the apparent confirmation. “You’re being defensive of him and he’s sticking close to you for protection. It wasn’t hard to guess.”

A surge of ink shot over Lumine’s shoulder and into a wall. That was a warning shot.

“I-It doesn’t matter. He’s my friend,” Orion stammered, Charger pointed, “I don’t know what kind of problem you’ve got with him, but that won’t stop us from beating you.”

Lumine was briefly stunned, but a smile crept into his expression. “Sir, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll handle Axl’s busty-boy-toy. Brother is all yours, just leave a piece of him for me when you’re done with him.”

“Axl’s WHAT?!” Orion shivered. Axl instead was just pissed off - Lumine’s comment would probably only make Orion’s complexes over his body worse.

“Lumine… Ugh, fine,” Red sighed, getting up, “as you wish, son. Alright, Red Alert, you know the drill, you’ve been training for this, show these squid kids what yer made of.”

“Yes sir!” Said the other Octolings.

“Cute, they think it might actually be a fair fight,” Koji remarked.

“Let’s show these guys that they didn’t prepare enough to fight us,” Liam grinned.

“R-Roger,” Orion said, holding his trigger.

Axl spun his Dualies in his hands, and shot forward into the fray. “Let’s dance.”

❖

X was relived when he saw the five bots holding the line near the entrance, if barely. It had clearly been a chaotic, tense fight right up until he, Zero, Marie and Callie had got there.

Punk was down, and the other four were not faring much better. Enker panted, on his last legs, “we were told he was a Roller main. That’s not a roller.”

“So you’re X and Zero, huh?” said Scarface, who was adorned with a rather distinctive mask, but also yellow armor thicker and more advanced than the normal Octoling armour set. In his hand was a double-bladed beam lance rigged with ink sprayers. He was at the front of his team’s offensive line, backed up by multiple Octolings. “I’ve been looking forward to testing my mettle against you.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out where his armor and weapon had come from. Zero took up a stance with his beam saber, eyes narrowing, “I guess you guys have more of my old man’s tech to play around with than just the stuff Octavio used.”

“Your old ma-ah, I see, Dr. Wily, you mean,” Scarface said, “yes, we’ve been uncovering a lot of ancient human artefacts and technology, as you’ve no doubt noticed from previous missions. And a select few of us have been authorised to make use of them.”

X frowned, “I see…” He glanced at the other robots, “you four, take Punk and teleport out. We’ll handle this.”

Buster Rod G grit his teeth, but he put a hand on Punk, “yeah, it sucks but we’d just be getting in the way. Kick his ass, boss.”

“Indeed, finish the fight that we couldn’t, as much as it stings my pride to admit it,” Ballade said, as the five teleported out.

“Okay, now that those guys are outta the way… Scarface, we don’t have to fight,” Callie pleaded, activating her Hero Roller’s energy mode, “why are you still fighting for that creep Octavio? We know there’s a better way to resolve our problems!”

Scarface sighed, lowering his weapon. “Callie… You were our ally, if only for a short time, so you should understand to some degree, or at least, I hope you do. I have no grudge against the Inklings like the Emperor does, nor do I begrudge any Octoling who sought greener reefs. I understand why you and your comrades take up arms against us. However…” He took up a battle stance once more, “as a warrior from a long line of samurai who have served the Empire dutifully and with honour, I would be sacrificing too much to bear if I were to surrender. I fight to prevent my country from falling to ruin.”

“B-But-”

“Agent 1, we both know him well enough that he’s not gonna budge on this,” Marie said, preparing her Hero Charger, “let’s do this.”

X put his hand on his buster, with a nod, “I’m sorry, but… You leave us no choice!”

❖

Ethan and Ayane had ripped through the main line of defences leading to Gate’s laboratory. And judging by the uniforms, these was definitely Botos’ flunkies handling it. Botos wasn’t harmless, but he didn’t run the tightest of ships, either.

As they got closer to the main entrance to the lab, where the largest concentration of defences were set up, they heard Botos yelling at his subordinates. “What do you mean, it’s just two of them?!”

“He really needs to get a clue one of these days,” muttered Ayane as they stopped by a corner just before the lab doors.

Ethan peeked around the corner, not able to resist seeing what kind of panic Botos was in this time. Botos was floating around, being as irritable as usual when things weren’t going his way.

One of his subordinates stammered, “but it’s not just any two agents! It’s those two!”

“Those tw-oh, no, you don’t mean-”

“Hey, Botos,” Ethan grinned, choosing that time to step out into the open, Roller propped on his shoulder, “you’re looking as fat and useless as ever. Did you put on even more weight? You really should cut back on the junk food, dude.”

Botos spun towards Ethan - he swore Botos’ eyes nearly burst through his visor. “ETHAN?!”

“Sorry, Botos, you got the short straw this time,” Ayane said as she stepped out into the open, glaring at him. “If you hadn’t gone with guard duty, you would’ve been fighting the newbies.”

Botos looked like he was going to vacate his bowels right on the spot. “You too, Ayane?! Why aren’t you going after Ferham, or Red, or Scarface?!”

“They’re not the ones in the way of getting into that lab, you useless slab of fat,” Ayane said with a slight grin, pulling up her Charger. “I suggest you run with your tentacles between your legs, otherwise you’re in for a world of pain.”

One of Botos’ subordinates blinked, pointing out to one of their comrades, “hey, why are they discoloured on the sides of their heads?”

Oh, right, that. While the remnants of Tartar’s mind control goop were still visible, albeit to a lesser degree than before, Ethan often forgot it was there unless it was pointed out to him or he saw himself in a mirror. It was really just a stain, now, and according to Professor Gaudile, would eventually go away over time within a year or two.

“W-Well, don’t think you’ve got this in the bag! I came prepared!” Botos pulled out a can, opening it up, and activating Ink Armor, covering his entire team, “you’re done for! You can’t hurt us as long as-”

Ayane casually switched her Charger to energy mode and immediately splatted the Octoling next to Botos. Ethan noticed that she had permitted herself a wider smirk. “I’m sorry, you were saying? Ink Armor’s a bit blase when up against energy weapons, you know.”

Half of Botos’ team immediately fled, deserting their general in a fit of panic. Ethan could see that Botos was very much on the verge of shooting out bricks from his posterior. If there was one thing Ayane enjoyed, it was scaring the carp out of and bullying Botos. Because he quite frankly deserved every last bit of it.

“H-Hey now, that wasn’t the only thing I had up my sleeve!” Botos scrambled to turn on some kind of large device, which formed a spherical energy shield, just enough to cover him and a few others, “ah-hah! What do you think of THIS?!”

Ethan and Ayane just looked at each other. Ethan could tell from Ayane’s flat look that she wasn’t any more impressed than he was. She put a hand up to her headset, “what’s the likelihood of that shield only working one way?”

“Pretty unlikely,” said Ciel.

It didn’t take two seconds for Ethan to figure out what that meant. He grinned at Botos, “I’m betting that shield doesn’t let you shoot through it. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can’t even move through it. So basically unless you come out, you might as well not even be here, man.”

The colour faded from Botos’ face, which was also something Ethan couldn’t get enough satisfaction from. “N-No!”

“Also, I’m probably assuming my Charger can break through it with a few shots, but whatever,” Ayane snorted, “leave these bumbling idiots to me, Ethan, since half of them already ran away. You go shut down Gate’s machine.”

“Roger that!” Ethan grinned wider, as he rushed the enemy. “Alright, get outta my way!”

“Grr… I won’t let you get past me! GET THEM!” Botos snapped.

Ethan sincerely doubted he would make good on his declaration.

❖

Gate was not pleased. The Splatoon had managed to figure out some kind of temporary countermeasure to his weapon. He was scrambling to make adjustments in order to counteract what they had done. “I should’ve known Ciel and the other Octarian traitors would figure something out… That’s fine, that’s just good testing data I can use to-”

He heard something skittering across the floor behind him, and spun around, grabbing an Octo Shot, “who’s there?!”

Nothing in sight and no further sound perplexed him, but he sighed, turning back around, “I must be hearing things-”

The instant he heard something behind him, he spun around again. He caught sight of something slipping behind one of the nearby boxes - a small, black furry creature with a red scarf around its neck.

While he was initially quite puzzled, Gate decided this was not worth worrying about, turning back to the console. Whatever that little creature was, he could capture it later, after the Splatoon was dealt with.

Of course, he had accounted for the possibility that they might shut off his experiment. But he had a backup plan for dealing with them.

He checked a different screen, displaying the status of his masterpiece, still stored at the back of the lab and waiting to be deployed - an enormous, hulking black bipedal weapon of his own design. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but I suppose you may have to finish the job, my masterpiece…”