Snapshots of an Unplanned Life

Callie has her first day of filming next week, and between that and Marie's radio show, they're going to get busy again. She needs to memorize her lines, but it's too nice to stay indoors. She sets up shop outside Crusty Sean's food truck instead, sipping from a special-charge shake and listening to the music around her.

She only looks up from her script to watch Off The Hook's newest splatfest announcement. Pulp VS No Pulp orange juice? Well, every news career has to have a few duds. Wonder what side Marie'll be on. She should just choose the same side as Mar, and the two of them can do every battle together. Maybe, if Mar doesn't have an opinion, Four will. Or Three; they have a debriefing tomorrow, after Three and Gramps have slept enough. And whoever that 'Agent 8' they recruited is.

Callie's phone dings. She checks her texts: Marie. Show's done. You okay?

Working on memorizing.

Okay alone? Four'll meet Gramps tomorrow. She's kinda freaked.

Meet me for Seanwiches at 6.

Fresh. See ya.

Well, that's taken care of. Poor Four; whenever Callie sees her in Octo Canyon, the girl snaps to attention like a soldier in a bad movie. She's trying so hard to be a Good Agent and is so obviously nervous it crosses into adorable. She must be fretting herself sick.

Callie takes another sip and finds herself sucking the last drops of shake through her straw. This is a travesty, clearly. Callie digs in her pocket and sorts through her tickets: she must have another special-charge shake som—aha!

As Callie gets to her feet, she hears someone speak in Octarian.

Her feet freeze.

Callie takes a deep breath, in, then out. Focus. No one's been within arm's reach of her, and certainly not close enough to put shades on her, since the last time she listened to Calamari Inkantation. But the sound of someone speaking Octarian continues, so she takes another breath. Octarian food tastes bad. If she gets—she glances at her tickets—a crusty seanwich, it's about lunch time anyway, then she can eat that and know immediately if she's okay. And she is.

Yeah, she is.

There's only one person ahead of her in line, so Callie has her Seanwich in moments. She raises the bandana tied around her face for one delicious, delicious bite and hears it again: Octarian. “I just wish I wasn't alone.”

Callies ears perk, and she looks around. Is someone crying?

The square is busy as always, with squids walking around in fresh fashions and showing off moves. A few jells skateboard nearby. Sitting on the ground in the corner made by construction barriers, behind Sean's food truck, is a girl. She sits hugging her legs, her forehead on her knees. Her orange tentacles squirm in ways Callie hasn't seen before.

Callie leaves her food on her table and walks over to the girl. As she does, she hears again, clearer, “At least I was never scared with those stupid shades.”

Okay, no.

Callie plops on the ground right next to the girl and throws an arm around her shoulders; she stiffens. “Hiya,” Callie says. Inklish, as a test.

The girl doesn't raise her head. “H-hello,” she stutters.

“My name's Aori. What's yours?”

Another pause. Then, “Maple.” She doesn't raise her head. “Um, I want no person. You, uh, not me know.”

Okay, very remedial Inklish skills. Callie switches languages. “The whole point of introducing myself was so I could know you, you silly pancake,” Callie says, and the girl's head shoots off her knees, her eyes wide, tentacles straightening on the ends in shock. “Have you been in Inkopolis long?”

The girl sniffs and wipes her eyes. Now that she's uncurled a little, Callie can see all she's wearing is a splatfest t-shirt (she chose team Donnie) over Octarian armor. “I got this shirt my first week,” she says, “though I'm not completely sure what it stands for. I just wanted to support something Marina supported. Marina made it here, and maybe, if I get a chance to talk to her, I could, too.”

Callie's hearts ache. Does Octavio even realize what he's done? Sure, Callie wore the shades for a few months, and it tore her apart—almost destroyed her relationship with Marie, ruined her self confidence in ways she's still putting back together, left doubts in her mind that may never go away. But his own people, who wear hypnogoggles and hypnoshades for who-knows-HOW much of their lives... they've left them behind, they can finally know what is and isn't real, and they've been crippled.

Callie can't solve every problem.

But she can solve this one.

“When did you last eat?”

The girl blushes. “I get food from the, uh, unwanted waste barrels in the evenings.”

Yeah, that's about what Callie expected. “Want a Crusty Seanwich? My treat.” Callie squeezes the girl around the shoulders, then lets go and stands up. “And I know a place you could go and stay the night, with some other Octarians who left. Not Marina. If you wanna.”

The girl looks up at her, tears glistening on her cheeks, her mouth trembling.

Callie offers down a hand.

She takes it.

Notes:

Now that everything is said and done... let's consider the hypnoshades for a minute. There were a lot, a LOT, of things people noticed and commented on, and I wound up explaining the logic and reasoning behind things in more than one comment, but let's make it official. Half the fic came down to answering a very few questions, as thoroughly as possible.
Why did the Octarians squidnap Callie instead of permasplatting her? Once they had her, how would they keep her under control? Why Callie?
They kidnapped Callie because, in their world, music has power; Calamari Inkantation can give inklings extra energy, pump them up, and break brainwashing. Both of DJ Octavio's boss fights involve music. So the odds are good that Octarian music is supposed to do similar things to Octarians (and/or keep them under control); having a trained singer could only make their music more powerful.
To keep her under control... well, that's the purpose of hypnoshades. And I'd already explored hypnoshades, in their most basic form, in Unlived Life. So this was a chance to really dive in.
Throughout Callie's fic, what you see most is me answering those questions... and, as a result, breaking Callie. Some of those questions had answers that are, apparently, only obvious to me (come ON, people! Performers get gifts all the time! How the shell am I the first person to have Callie receive the hypnoshades as a present?) while others were eagerly dreaded as a 'this has to happen' moment.
How did Callie get hypnoshades? An anonymous fan gift one splatfest. How do they work so well? When Callie puts them on the first time, besides a flash of light, they don't seem to be doing anything. In all likelihood, they feature a camera, used to record the area around the wearer, ambient noise/conversation, and so forth. It makes perfect sense as a feature for hypnoshades given to those in enemy territory, as it would enable Octarians to map at least part of Inkopolis. It would also allow the Octarians monitoring Callie's hypnoshades (I doubt they monitor every pair of hypnoshades closely, but the pairs sent to Inkopolis would have round-the-clock shifts) to *see* and *hear* everything around Callie. Make necessary adjustments on the fly.
How did the Octarians know where DJ Octavio was to free him? Callie knew. Callie wore the shades there; Gramps took them off her face in the goodbye scene. Octavio likely recognized the shades, as in Undivided life, not long after, he stops complaining when Callie shows up and appears to be reading her script over her shoulder (he's mumbling very quietly while leaning very close).
Why Callie? No idea. But we know Callie wears shades as an agent disguise. Callie likes sunglasses. Does Marie? No clue. But it's easy to make it so Marie just doesn't wear shades much and Callie does all the time. It's bad luck it was Callie. It's very good luck it's not both of them. It could have been: Callie found the pair they gave Marie, lost under the couch in chapter 34. But without both of them under Octarian control, there was always a chance Marie would notice something wrong. Calamari Inkantation is strongest when sung by two trained singers, harmonizing in their personal arrangement; Octarians couldn't risk that. They needed to drive Callie and Marie apart, and do so without Marie noticing. You all saw how they accomplished *that*. Doing it gradually made it easier for Callie to write off as stress, because if all of it happened at once, Callie'd likely had a complete mental breakdown and everything would've been noticed.
Once they had Callie manipulated right, and they knew where DJ Octavio was, they could do many things. Use her to break him out and circumvent the alarm system (I was so pleased how many of you caught that). That happened well before the actual Zapfish Kidnapping/her disappearance for several reasons. In summary: DJ Octavio was needed to plan the kidnapping. Having Callie disappear early would get Marie's guard up about the zapfish. Also, after the zapfish disappeared/got stolen *once* (including all the smaller ones) security was higher on the electrical companies (as covered in Unexamined Life). Callie knew when Marie would be out of town... and therefore, when the defenses would be lowest.
A LOT of thought went into every detail here. I'm sorry about the tattoo. I'm so sorry. I tried so hard to do it in a non-traumatic way... but none of them worked. But we got through it.
And Callie is okay.
Or she will be.
I have more to say, but... well...
You'll see a thing on Tuesday.
Or, if you're seeing this far in the future: I'm glad you enjoyed all this. Please review, even if it's been years, because I promise, I'll still like seeing them.

Notes:

If you read the whole thing and haven't yet, please leave a comment! I love reading them, and people in Discords with me can tell you I regularly go in and go 'wait, I'm still getting reviews from people, how is this happening, this thing hasn't updated in MONTHS' and find it highly amused how surprised and flattered I am.
Speaking of Discord, at least one person in mine has threatened to, and I quote, 'beat you into growing bigger.' Therefore, if you are feeling inclined to discuss splatoon fics, Sly Cooper fics, games in general, or ridiculousness, leave a comment so I can invite you over. Just remember, while you're there, to treat others the way Callie would treat them. (full disclosure: I love having awesome people to talk to! And recently we reached 70 members, which seems to be a scarily big server. But no matter how big it gets, I am still going to pretend it is a tiny cozy community, because everyone there is kind and awesome and wonderful or they get shoved out the door very quickly.)

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