Chapter Text
BlueSky - Yesterday, 11:08 AM
Your shit’s ready, except the fan’s on the fritz. Need to fix it.
Come pick it up at the usual spot tomorrow or on any other Thursday.
I’ll show you how to set it up.
CurlyFrie - Today, 1:24 PM
k thx b there 30 min
“You text like my grandma!” Frye shouted across the Alley as she and Shiver stepped in.
Unlike most days, the place was basically empty— a far cry from the usual hype and violence that’s intentionally present. The only other person was an octoling, who was recognizable even at a distance because of their mask and massive ponytail.
“You text like you’re not even allowed to be in turf war yet!” The counter pseudo-insult came flying across as Azure beckoned the two closer to them.
Instead of the usual buffet on the table next to them, there were a pair of commissioned weapons. One of them was a splatana wiper, and the other was a tri-stringer.
“They look… normal.” Shiver noted, approaching the tri-stringer.
“His specialty. You wouldn’t know from lookin’ at ‘em but these babies—” Azure unholstered their splatana stampers “—weigh fifteen pounds each.” They flourished their splatanas, spinning them in their hands.
“E-each?!” Shiver looked at the stampers, temporarily losing their composure. “How do you even swing those with one hand?!”
“Eh, practice, training, being an Octarian escapee, et cetera.” Holstering their weapons, Azure faux-extravagantly presented the weapons on the table. “Anyway, have a look. Normally J’d be bringin’ you through this but he’s on maintenance duty for the next like… two months, so I’m here instead.”
Picking up the tri-stringer, Shiver plucked at the string as the bow attached itself to their ink tank. They requested an easier pull, among other things, but it’d be basically impossible to tell until they used it. It was a little heavier than a normal tri-stringer, especially at the bolts, but it wasn’t enough to actively impede actually using it or carrying it around for a while.
Next to them, Frye immediately picked up her splatana and gave it a few swings before it made a connection to her tank. It was light, fast, and its secrets well hidden. She looked over at Azure with a sheepish expression.
“So… How do I make it do the thing?” Frye jiggled the sword in her hands, the construction holding strong from the force.
“You asked for two different things and J added a third, so which one do you want to learn first?” Azure asked while they pulled out a scrap of paper from one of their pockets.
“Let’s go with the stabby one!” Frye held the splatana close to her right, ready to stab.
“Alright, there should be a button right under your… which hand’s on top? Right? Right thumb.” Azure pulls out their own splatana and mirrors the motion on their left to demonstrate.
“Okay, so I press that?”
“Hold it, then thrust.”
Frye snorted.
“Alright, alright, so hold it and stab.” Azure rolls their eyes. “Oh! Blade down. Inks your path.” They point the chain on their ‘sword’ vertically to emphasize their point.
“Got it.” Frye adjusted the splatana, and attempted the move.
Frye was sent forward faster than she expected, flying forward and tumbling over herself at the end of the dash. Hearing Azure approaching behind her, Frye stood back up and readied her splatana again.
“Oh, good, you’re trying again.” Azure breathed a sigh of relief as they lifted their chainsaw-suction-sword off the ground.
“Well, duh , nobody’s a master the first time.” Frye got into stabbing position again.
“I wish it was duh. A lot of people blame the weapon when they can’t perform. Bastards… Anyway, try again.” Azure nodded, signaling Frye to make another attempt.
Now expecting the speed, the dash this time didn’t end in Frye falling, but she was close as she stumbled a few steps after it ended.
“Think I’m getting the hang of it!” Frye cheered at her own accomplishment of not falling over.
“You did it twice.” Shiver noted, aiming at various imaginary targets and making sounds with their mouth to represent breaking them as they pantomime using their new bow.
“I’m getting the hang of it!” Frye repeated semi-defiantly.
Azure chuckled as they rolled back. Holstering their splatana and walking the rest of the short distance to Shiver as they barked at Frye.
“Hey, keep practicing! I’ll teach Shiver about their mods.” Azure reached the table and pointed at the bow in Shiver’s hands.
“So, this thing should operate like a usual stringer, lighter string pull like you asked. But if you want to turn on high power, you turn this bolt to the right.” Azure pointed out the top bolt which had a small red dot on the back of it.
Twisting the bolt clockwise, Shiver charged a shot fairly quickly and let it loose into the arena to the side, noting to themself that the fired bolts travel faster, farther, and explode more forcefully. They made a wicked smile as they let loose a few more, and realized the powered up shots used way more ink than usual.
“Also, J had a bit of a feature-creep-moment on this thing too and added something else.” Azure pointed out the bottom bolt, which had a blue dot. “If you’ve got special, you can click that to the right to use it on this instead and convert it to a single ultra-bolt. Basically a booyah bomb.”
“Huh. Nice.” Shiver fired off a few more shots, gauging how far the bolts were flung while avoiding hitting Frye. The powered up range was nearly on par with something like the Hydra. “How powerful are these?”
“Explosion or impact?” Azure peeked down at the notes they were given.
“Both, I guess?”
“Well, impact only takes one bolt to take someone down and the explosives are pretty much just a splat bomb.” Azure waves Frye down after seeing her used to the dash now.
“Up to spec. Good.” Shiver raises the bow and slings it over their shoulder.
“Of course it’s good, J made it.” Azure thought for a second. “Well, you also dropped fifty grand on it.”
“Fifty grand on wha— oh right the weapons.” Frye was in a spot she was not in a second ago, startling Shiver into yelping. “Sorry! Sorry, this thing just goes fast!”
“It nyooms?” Shiver raised an eyebrow after gaining their composure.
“Uh, s-sure. It nyooms.” Frye wasn’t entirely sure if that word was made up, but knowing Shiver...
“Ready to learn the other two moves?” Azure offered, taking a split second to peek back at the notes they were given.
Shiver sat back as Azure brought Frye through one of the other two moves, totally focusing on the moves themselves and not how good their girlfriend looked doing the moves.
The move looked like it was a massive uppercut that uses the same motion as the charged vertical slash that officials teach. Except you jump, there’s a small explosion, and you end up thirty-ish feet in the air. A landing that Frye couldn’t mess up due to all the stuff she goes through on the regular, and nailed with poise that lasted about half a second before she got all giddy about the new move.
“THAT WAS SICK!” Frye threw her hands into the air. “Feels like a comic protagonist!”
“Didn’t you literally title your commission ‘comic sword’?” Azure pointed out.
“Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. Better name than the ‘fwoosh fans’.” Frye giggled as Shiver pulled a face.
“Hey! Leave my fwoosh fans alone! They’re leagues better than whatever other weapons we’re getting!” Shiver pouted, crossing their arms.
“A special commission that’s taking J a bunch of time, mind you.” Azure noted. “Also I don’t get why you’re going with ‘fwoosh’, ‘pshew’ works way better for what it does.”
“It’s a game of mental fortitude! Weapon names have been consistent with what they do for far too long!”
“(oh cod there’s two of them)” Despite the exasperation, Frye was enjoying herself. “Soo… should I practice?”
“Go for it.” Azure nodded a go-ahead, and Frye had lift-off.
During her practice, Frye noticed that she could keep doing it in the air, though it was hard to do and varied with how fast and which way she swung. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do it forever due to ink costs and came crashing back down, nailing a three-point landing.
“If the third is anything like the other two, I wanna know now!” Frye swam up to the other two from the field of ink she made.
“Actually, no, it’s a defensive technique.” Azure patted one of their splatanas. “Mine don’t have it since they don’t need to do it. Made of metal and all.”
“Aw, boring…” Frye pouted. “I’m not really into defense…”
“It’s a defensive technique that leads directly into offense.” Azure phrased the move in a way that would intrigue Frye. It worked.
“I’m listening…” Frye raised an eyebrow, glancing down at the splatana.
“It’s a parry, there’s a button near here-ish,” Azure points out the spot on their own splatana, “that sprays out some ink that also blocks other ink. Anything hits it during that, some science bullshit that went over my head turns it into ink for yourself. Can do that against bombs too.” Azure tossed a burst bomb at Frye at a fairly slow speed, letting her focus on nailing the parry. She failed the parry, taking a direct hit to the chest by the bomb.
“Ow! Could’ve at least let me figure it out on this thing first.” Frye dove into her own ink to wash Azure’s away.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry!” Azure prepped another burst bomb as Frye fiddled with the splatana, figuring out the parry.
Once she had it figured out, she nodded at Azure and they threw the burst bomb. Frye readied the sword from fighting stance to parry stance fairly quickly and pressed the button just before the burst bomb hit, consuming the bomb and refunding the ink used for the parry.
“Oh. Oh. ” Frye’s eyes went wide as she realized the implications. “Does this work on Chargers too?”
“Yeah. Basically anything ink-based.” Azure shrugged. “So, basically everything.”
“Should give us an edge against raiders.” Shiver lowers their bow from practicing their shots. “Not enough to take them all on, but we can handle ambushes way better.”
“Raiders? Y’all are okay out there?” Azure looked worried.
“Oh, part of our real job.” Frye set her hands behind her head. “When you’re lootin’ the wastelands you’ve gotta keep watch for real bad squids. Or octopi.”
“Octopuses.” Shiver corrected.
“Octopodes.” Azure also corrected, at roughly the same time.
The brief confusion between the three of them caused a pause. Suddenly, they all started to talk over each other for a while, arguing why their version of plural octopus was correct.