Chapter Text
Nathaniel Kurtzberg couldn’t help but feel nervous about moving to the city. He had lived in Calamari County his whole life and was perfectly happy there, in relative peace and quiet, expecting to go on living there for the rest of his life without anything unusual or surprising happening to him. But everything had changed two years ago when his school friends Mireille and Aurore won the Youth Folk-Singing Contest.
The two of them teamed up to form a pop duo called the Squid Sisters (despite actually being cousins) and were immediately picked up by an agency in Inkopolis, where they shortly moved to. Now they were famous, and annoyingly this meant that Nath’s parents constantly pressured him to do something similar.
He didn’t want to be a singer, that was for sure. He would rather make a name for himself in some other kind of art, like painting. But his parents simply didn’t see things the same way. They were always reminding him that there was no future for him out here in the countryside, and that if he wanted to get anywhere in life then he should move to the city, just like Mireille and Aurore had done. Now, finally sick of their constant pestering, he’d packed his bags and taken the first train to Inkopolis.
It was just after midday when he arrived. Mireille and Aurore were waiting for him at the station. Plenty of adoring fans were waiting nearby too and waving at them, and they occasionally waved back and signed the odd autograph. As soon as they saw Nathaniel they ran over towards him, looking excited.
“Welcome to Inkopolis!” Mireille said, pulling him off the train and hugging him. “It’s been so long since we last saw you! How’s everyone back home? They all good? Has the weather been alright? Do you know anyone else here? You’re going to try battling, right?”
“Jeez, Mireille, let him breathe.” Aurore pushed her cousin aside and then shook Nath’s hand. “It’s good to see you again. Please ignore Mireille, she’s had too much chocolate and won’t shut up.”
“Hey, you had lots of chocolate too!”
“But at least I’m not going to use that as an excuse to bombard poor Nath with nonsense the second he’s arrived, am I?” She cleared her throat. “Anyway Nath, you’re here for battling, aren’t you? That’s why every fresh inkling moves to Inkopolis.”
“I’ve never tried a battle before,” Nath mumbled. “But my parents said it was either that or singing, so…”
“I see. Well don’t worry, Mireille and I can easily get you started. Here, come with us.”
The Squid Sisters led Nath out of the train station and towards what looked like an empty urban yard, graffiti and old posters covering the walls. Aurore handed him a green, box-like ink gun.
“This is a Splattershot Jr.,” she said. “It’s a Shooter type weapon. Basically, you press the trigger and it shoots out ink. It’s a pretty good beginner weapon since it’s easy to get used to and it’s pretty versatile. Decent fire rate and ink consumption. Why don’t you try it out?”
Nath held up the weapon and tentatively pulled the trigger. It immediately blasted out spurts of bright red ink all over the floor in front of him.
“Nice job!” Mireille said, bobbing up and down. “Since you’re just a beginner here you’re not going to need to do much more than that, since they won’t let you do anything other than Turf Wars until you’re more experienced. But this is pretty good!”
“What exactly do you do in a Turf War?” Nath asked. He knew of Turf Wars, of course. The most famous inkling sport in the world. But he had never participated in one before. Usually he preferred to stay out of combat if he could.
“You try to cover the ground in as much of your ink as possible within the time limit. The enemy team will also be inking ground, in a different colour, so you have to make sure you do more! And try not to get splatted!”
He gulped. “Splatted?”
“Yeah, like… dying. Don’t die.”
“You can die in battles?!”
“Of course you can!”
Aurore rolled her eyes. “Mireille, don’t be dramatic. It’s not really death, Nathaniel, it’s more like a temporary setback. Do you want me to show you? Look, I’ll splat you right now.”
She pulled out a long, thin, black and green sniper rifle and pointed it right at him. There was a whistling noise as the weapon charged up, then it hit him with a painful gob of ink that felt like it knocked him right out of his body. He was so stunned he couldn’t move for a few seconds, only feeling as if he was floating up into the air with no control over where he was going. Within another few seconds he was back to normal, standing in front of Aurore and Mireille as if nothing had happened.
“And that’s what it’s like to be splatted. Though if you were splatted in an actual battle you’d actually respawn back at your team’s base.”
Nath nodded.
“So stay out of enemy fire as much as you can. You’ll know because the enemy team will be using a different colour ink to you. Stay out of contact with it. Of course, if an enemy is nearby, you could always use your own weapon to splat them before they can get you, but don’t worry about it too much. Turf Wars are about inking turf, not killing people.”
“You know how to revert to squid form, right?” Mireille asked. “Like, you can turn into a squid, can’t you?”
“Yep,” Nath said. He demonstrated by quickly transforming into a little red squid, then back into humanoid form.
“Good work! I know most people can do it by this age but some people still struggle sometimes. Anyway, when you’re in squid form, you can swim through your own ink really fast. Wanna try it?”
Nath turned back into a squid and slithered along the ground through the red ink that he had shot out of his Splattershot Jr. a minute ago. Sure enough, he did travel very fast – much faster than he could have run in his humanoid form.
“Awesome!” Mireille said once he had returned to humanoid form. “You can do that during battle to move around really fast or hide from enemies so they can’t see you!”
“You can Super Jump too, right?” Aurore asked him.
“Yes,” he replied. It was easy – turn into squid form, then launch yourself high up into the air to land somewhere else.
“Good. In battle you can Super Jump to your teammates to reach them quicker. Though be careful, because enemies will be able to see where you’re going to land and they might splat you as soon as you get there.”
“Tell him about Subs and Specials!” Mireille said, shaking Aurore’s shoulder.
“Alright, fine, get off me! Okay Nathaniel, now with your Splattershot Jr., which is your Main Weapon, you also get two other weapons: a Sub Weapon and a Special Weapon. You can use your Sub whenever you want but it uses up a lot of ink and you might have to turn back into squid form to refill you ink tank for a while. As for your Special Weapon, that has to be charged up before you can use it. You do that by inking turf.”
“The Splattershot Jr.’s Sub Weapon is the Splat Bomb!” Mireille said. “Basically it’s just an ink bomb and you throw it, and in a few seconds it explodes. You should totally try it!”
Nath reached into the weapon pocket and pulled out what looked like a little pyramid filled with ink. He flung it away from him where it landed on the ground, sliding a little before settling. After a few seconds it exploded and coated the ground around it with ink.
“Good work! You can always throw those at enemies to splat them or just get them to go away from you. And your Special Weapon is even cooler! It’s the Bubbler!”
“It’s not that cool,” Aurore huffed. “It’s just a shield that surrounds you and protects you for a few seconds against enemy attacks. You can pass it onto your teammates too if you come into contact with them. But it doesn’t last long and you can still be pushed around, so I don’t get how it’s that great.”
“Of course it’s great! Anyway yeah, I think we’ve taught you everything you need to know to do a Turf War. We’ll take you to Inkopolis Plaza and there you can go to the Tower and enter your first match – how exciting! And just in time, too, since me and Aurore will have to go do the battle stage announcements soon. Come on!”
“But wait!” Nath said. “I just want to know something… what’s the point of all this? These matches inking turf and all that, isn’t it just for fun? How do people make a living from it? Or get famous from it?”
“You’ll earn money from winning matches, duh! And once you’re good enough to start Ranked Battles, you can easily become famous by being one of the best players in history!”
Right. That sounded somewhat… superficial.
“Okay, cool,” he said. “Thanks for showing me all this.”
“It’s no problem! Now let’s go to Inkopolis Plaza and get you started on some actual matches!”
Inkopolis Plaza was filled with inklings, jellyfish, a large television screen, a shopping mall area called “Booyah Base”, and of course the great Inkopolis Tower, stretching up into the sky.
“We’ve got to go now but our studio’s just upstairs so come and talk to us if you need to!” Mireille said before dashing off.
“Go to the lobby in Inkopolis Tower and get started – good luck!” Aurore added, then followed her cousin away into the crowd of inklings.
Nath looked around, feeling a little overwhelmed. Everyone else here seemed so… well… fresh, as people said these days. All hanging out with their friends, laughing and having a good time, wearing cool clothes, carrying cool weapons, knowing exactly what they were doing…
It was the kind of life he had always wanted but never really fit into. But then again, that had been back home in the countryside, where everything was different. Maybe here he could make a new start for himself and actually be the kind of person he wanted to be.
Clutching his Splattershot Jr. in his arms tightly, he headed into Inkopolis Tower through the automatic doors. The lobby was split into sections where people were milling about, waiting for the next battles to start. Nath headed towards the sign saying “Turf War”, not really sure what to do next.
“Hi there!”
The person next to him had spoken to him – ugh, a stranger. Nath hated talking to strangers. He wasn’t even a fan of talking in general. It made him feel nervous. He turned to see that the person who had spoken to him was a cute little inkling girl with short, yellow tentacle hair, wearing a frilly pink dress and carrying what looked like an oversized paint roller.
“Hi,” he said back.
“Are you new?” the inkling girl asked, her voice rather high-pitched. “It’s just that you’re looking a little lost!”
“Yeah, I’m new. Just arrived here today.”
“Well then, welcome! My name is Rose. What’s your name?”
“Nathaniel, but you can call me Nath for short.”
“Nice to meet you!”
Nath tried not to roll his eyes. Small talk was the worst. It was just saying the same things over and over again with no real feeling behind them – what was the point of that?
“Anyway,” Rose continued, “I’m sure you’ll like Turf Wars, they’re really fun. They’re the least aggressive out of all battle types, which is why they’re my favourite! In fact I don’t actually battle that often. I feel like I’m not competitive enough compared to everyone else. But it’s okay because the most important thing is to have fun, right?”
“Yep,” Nath said, putting on a fake smile.
“Good! I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun together!”
The bell sounded for the next battle to start. Thank goodness, since Nath was not feeling in the mood for dealing with the sickly sweetness of a person like Rose for much longer. He followed her onto a launchpad, where he was given a map and linked up to the computer system that would help him track his score and his teammates, then he Super Jumped to the battle location.
The battle stage was called “Urchin Underpass”, located under a highway bridge just as its name suggested. Nath had a quick check of the map but it was far too complicated to memorize properly right now. He turned and had a look at his teammates, standing on the spawn point along with him. They had a range of odd weapons that he had never seen before. Through the linked-up computer system Nath could see that Rose’s weapon was called a “Carbon Roller Deco”, whatever that was.
“Is your weapon better than a Splattershot Jr.?” he asked her.
“Nah, all weapons are good. It just depends how you play! I personally don’t really like shooting so I go with Rollers, and anyway the objective in Turf Wars is inking as much as possible, not attacking, so you can use whatever you want!”
He remembered how Aurore had called the Splattershot Jr. a beginner weapon. Clearly it wasn’t something he should stick with for long.
“Where can I buy new weapons?” he asked.
“Ammo Knights back at Booyah Base sells weapons,” Rose replied, “though Tikki might not want to sell you more weapons until you have more experience. She’s like that.”
The computer system notified that the opposing team was now assembling too, at their own spawn point on the other side of the battle stage. Nath checked the map and had a look at what sort of team they were facing.
“Uh oh,” Rose muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
She hastily put a smile back on her face. “Nothing! Just… try your best and have fun!” Her smile fell slightly as she glanced back at the opponents on the map.
“Seriously Rose, what’s wrong? Is it these opponents? Are they really good or something?”
“Well… Adrien’s fine, I suppose, but the other three… we don’t call them the Slaughter Squad for nothing…”
Slaughter Squad? Wasn’t a name like that overkill? Surely they couldn’t be that bad. Nath took another look at the map to get some more details.
Kim: Aerospray MG
Max: E-Litre 3K Scope
Alix: Aerospray RG
Their weapons didn’t look like much. Two weak airbrushes and an old fuel pump – that was nothing compared to a gun, right? Rose was probably exaggerating. Of course someone as bubbly and innocent as her would be intimidated by a bunch of inklings much fresher than her.
He was about to mention something about it when the signal played for the match to begin. His teammates immediately began spreading out from the base, inking all the turf they could get at. The ink colour of their team was a bright orange, and from the looks of the map, the enemy’s ink colour was light blue.
Not really knowing where to go, Nath followed Rose down the slope in front of them, trying to shoot ink onto all the turf that she missed. Her Carbon Roller Deco was rolling along the ground at a much quicker speed than he could run with his heavy gun. He had to keep dipping into squid form and swimming along the ground to keep up with her.
The first few seconds of the match weren’t so bad. Nath realized that, quite annoyingly, his points counter did not go up at all when inking walls, so clearly only the ground counted as “turf”. He also realized that the Splattershot Jr. was rather messy, spraying ink all over the place no matter where he pointed it. The lack of accuracy was probably going to come back to bite him at some point, he could just tell. At least for now it was helping him get a few points.
He followed Rose through a strange grate that could be surpassed by swimming straight through it in squid form, heading towards the centre of the battle arena in order to cover it in orange. That was when the trouble began.
There was an ominous whooshing noise somewhere overhead. The shadow of a target appeared on the ground just beside him. Rose quickly pulled him aside and as far away as possible – just in time, as a huge tornado of blue ink suddenly landed in the area, only narrowly missing them.
“That was an Inkstrike – a Special Weapon,” Rose said quickly, before running back and throwing her Roller down onto all the newly blue turf to make it orange again.
A Special Weapon? Already? How could someone have charged up their Special so fast? Nath looked at his metre to see that he wasn’t even close to using his Special yet. In any case he followed Rose back into the area and started inking turf again.
He was startled by a weird siren sound. Turning around he saw that there was an enemy device on the ground that was rapidly approaching him, leaving a trail of blue ink behind it. He backed up as quick as he could – but not fast enough. The device hit him and exploded, splatting him to pieces.
Ouch… being splatted still hurt a bit. Hopefully he would get used to that. While he was waiting for his body to reform he could still access the computer. It told him that he had been hit by a Seeker, which had been sent by Kim. It must have been his Sub Weapon.
Within a few seconds Nath had respawned back at his home base, far away from all the action. All the turf around here was already inked in a bright layer of orange. It would take a while to swim all the way to somewhere that hadn’t been inked yet – but wait, he could Super Jump to his teammates, right? He opened up the map and launched himself into a Super Jump towards Rose.
Oh no – that had been a mistake. While high up in the air he could see that Rose had just been splatted, and he was descending rapidly towards an enemy who was watching him with glee, already shooting at the spot where he was about to land. Sure enough, as soon as he reached the ground he was hit with at least 5 shots in the space of a second, enough to splat him again before he could even take a single step. Or before he could even get a look at his opponent.
Waiting to respawn again, he saw that this time he had been splatted by Alix and her Aerospray RG. But surely, surely a simple airbrush couldn’t be that good at splatting people? Nath knew a thing or two about art brushes and he knew that airbrushes were weak. But then again, the Aerospray fire rate seemed to be so high, so much higher than his own weapon. Maybe that made all the difference. In any case, it looked like she had already inked enough turf to have charged up her Inkstrike again.
Once he had respawned he took a quick look at the map but couldn’t make sense of where any of his teammates were. He wasn’t even sure which one was Rose, and he didn’t have time to stop and check – every second counted. The map showed that the enemy team had already claimed the centre of the arena in huge swathes of blue ink, and were fast moving in on Nath’s home base. There was no time to waste.
Compressing himself back into squid form, he surged forwards through what was left of the orange ink towards where the sounds of battling were. Before he even reached anyone he was suddenly splatted again, rather violently, by what looked like a mini twister of blue ink that had zoomed towards him so fast there was no way he could have moved aside in time. The computer screen told him that it was Kim using his Inkzooka, a Special Weapon. In fact he was still using it, and from the looks of it, it could travel straight through walls. Great.
Respawning once again, Nath decided perhaps a new tactic was in order. While the enemies had rushed ahead, there was no one protecting all the blue turf they had already inked near their own base right at the start of the match. Perhaps if he could sneak through one of the side alleys, he could reach it without being spotted and actually be able to ink it back to orange without being attacked.
He transformed into a squid and set off immediately. Urchin Underpass did indeed have a few sneaky routes down the sides of the arena where he wouldn’t attract any attention. In fact, this was working! The sounds of battling were quietly fading away as he got further away from them. And there – yes! There was fresh, unguarded blue ink just up ahead! Perfect!
Nath jumped up into humanoid form and started shooting orange ink. Points, at last!
But wait… what was this laser line pointing right at him? He looked up and followed it to see Max perched way off in the distance, aiming his E-Litre 3K Scope right at him. Pfff, that was alright, there was no way he would be able to reach–
Except he did. Nath was splatted in one shot.
No way. That was just unfair. How could Max’s weapon have such great range? And be powerful enough to splat someone in one go from all the way over there?
By the time Nath respawned, he could directly see that Kim and Alix were nearing his team’s home base. He swam ahead in squid form and tried to go around the side of them but they spotted him and started shooting at him. Thank goodness their weapons were short-ranged and weak or he’d be dead again already.
He remembered his Sub Weapon, the Splat Bomb, and threw one towards them. Unfortunately his aim was slightly off and it didn’t go far enough, exploding well away from them. The next thing he knew, he had suddenly been splatted again – this time by a hidden Ink Mine from Alix.
This was getting tedious. As soon as he respawned again he simply charged forwards as fearlessly as he could, firing ink in every direction. His weapon had better range and damage stats than theirs, right? In that case maybe running headfirst into battle might work better than trying to sneak around.
But no – Max splatted him with his E-Litre 3K Scope again, from so far away it was hard to even see him. It was so unfair!
When Nath respawned for the sixth time, he could tell it was hopeless. The map was almost entirely covered in blotches of light blue, with the odd specks of orange here and there, though those were rapidly disappearing. The other team had now reached Nath’s home base and were waiting there, ready to begin shooting at people if they tried to leave it. Even Adrien was here now. He was holding a Krak-On Splat Roller and looking somewhat apologetic about his rough teammates.
Well, at least standing in the home base circle gave Nath some protection. He stayed put and started firing ink in every direction he could, trying to aim for his opponents. The Splattershot Jr.’s accuracy was too low for him to be able to splat anyone though.
One by one his teammates were splatted and respawned back on the home base, deciding to stay there rather than risk stepping off it and being immediately splatted again. Rose thwacked her Carbon Roller Deco on the ground over and over, splashing ink everywhere.
It wasn’t good enough. The other team were too good at dodging, too speedy to hit, and for the most part they stayed out of range and kept themselves safe. Any time one of Nath’s teammates dared venture out of the home base circle, they were immediately converged on and splatted.
Gee… no wonder those three were called the Slaughter Squad…
“I’ve charged up my Special Weapon!” Rose said to Nath, hard to hear over the sound of weapons firing everywhere. “It’s Bomb Rush with Seekers – I’ll send as many Seekers at them as I can within the few seconds my Special is active, so get ready to use that to your advantage!”
Sure enough, she unleashed a torrent of Seekers along the ground. They began chasing down the enemy team members, though it didn’t look like they actually managed to splat anyone. At least they had driven the enemies back – enough for Nath to finally be able to leave the base and begin inking turf properly again.
Or so he thought.
Max, up on his sniper perch and well out of harm’s way, splatted Nath before he had even taken two steps.
It was hopeless. With only 10 seconds remaining, there was no way they could win now. Not a chance. The best thing Nath could do after respawning again was to stand on the home base, firing ink around him and trying to charge up his Special metre enough that he would be able to use the Bubbler before time ran out. That might give him and his teammates enough protection to not lose quite so badly.
But he couldn’t charge it up quick enough. The match ended, and all the players were Super Jumped to the centre of the arena by the computer system, ready to find out the results.
It was no contest whatsoever. Nath looked at the map to see that it was pretty much all blue, except for a tiny smudge of orange around his team’s home base. Yeah, they had lost. By a lot.
A tiny black cat-like creature appeared in the centre of the arena, between the two teams. He yawned and took a look at a map himself.
“Alright, here are the results,” he muttered, sounding sleepy. “The orange team inked 6.3% of the total available turf that can be inked, and the blue team inked 88.7%. Blue team wins. Yay.” He half-heartedly waved a little flag in their direction. “Now get out of here before the next match begins. Oh wait, it’s stage changeover time. So leave if you want, or stay here while the ink evaporates, whatever. I’m going back to sleep.”
He disappeared again. How was he doing that? Was it some kind of Super Jump? Anyway, weren’t mammals extinct? How was there a cat here? Who even was this guy?
It didn’t matter anyway. Nath had lost his first match. In fact, he had lost it very, very badly. Looking at everyone’s point scores on the computer system, he hadn’t even done well for a beginner. Only 140p? That was nothing! And the Aerosprays had got in the 2300p range! (Though that did include a 1000p bonus for winning, so it had been more like 1300p.)
The Slaughter Squad were already celebrating their win. Even though they had already started walking away they were so loud that they could easily be heard. Adrien had been left behind and he was watching them, looking a little uneasy.
“You only got more than me because you’ve got Inkstrike, that doesn’t count!”
“Oh shut up Kim, you know I’m better than you…”
“Well I splatted more people so there!”
“Actually Max splatted the most people, so why don’t you try out-snipering him next time? Or are you not good enough to be a sniper?”
“I could totally beat Max!”
Their voices finally faded away. Nath looked at the ground, ashamed at his easy defeat. And perhaps it was more than shame. Was it…
Jealousy?
He had never had a “squad” like that, so to speak. Those three were killers. The best of the best. Intimidating, terrifying, striking fear into the hearts of their opponents. That was the freshest kind of inkling that anyone could ever hope to be. What would it take to be part of a squad like that? Or to be part of their squad, right along with them? He had always dreamed of being respected, popular, not on the fringes of squid society like he always was. But he was just… too shy…
His thoughts were interrupted by Rose.
“You did well for your first try!” she gushed, giving him a double thumbs up.
“No I didn’t,” he muttered. “And anyway, we lost.”
“That’s okay, not everything is about winning. You’ll still have earned some money, I’m sure! Though not everything is about money either!”
“Is every battle as difficult as that?”
“No, not at all. You were just unlucky to end up battling against Turf War legends on your first match. You won’t be against them every time, I’m sure. They do Ranked Battles sometimes too, so they’ll be busy with that and you’ll get easier opponents here! Or, of course, you could be lucky like Adrien and end up on their team with them…”
That didn’t sound like much fun either. Adrien had barely got to do anything. It was like he had been an outsider on his own team, and that was not what Nath wanted. Nath had felt like an outsider for far too much of his life.
“I need a better weapon,” he said finally. “Did you say Ammo Knights sells weapons? Where is that?”
“It’s at Booyah Base back at Inkopolis Plaza, but I don’t think Tikki would think you’re ready for–”
“Thanks.”
Without waiting to listen any longer, he headed away and Super Jumped back to the Plaza.
The weapons shop, Ammo Knights, was small and cosy. Inside was a strange bug-like creature who seemed to know a lot about weapons for someone who didn’t even look like she could lift one.
“Hello, my name is Tikki!” she said as soon as Nath walked in. “Are you new here? You look like it!”
He looked new, did he? Clearly he wasn’t fresh enough yet.
“Can I buy some new weapons?” he asked. “My friends gave me this Splattershot Jr. but I don’t think it’s very good…”
Tikki frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Well… I just lost my first Turf War really badly because the others had way better weapons. Stuff with a high fire rate.”
“Weapons with high fire rates often have low damage, range and accuracy. Their weapons aren’t necessarily better than yours, they’re just better at using them. That’s all. You can easily be a brilliant player using a Splattershot Jr.”
She sounded like a teacher! Just try hard and you will succeed, no matter what… ugh. No.
“I don’t think it suits me,” he said. “I want something more powerful.”
“Weapons that do more damage usually have a lower fire rate, though. So which do you want? A high fire rate or high damage?”
“Um… I don’t know.”
“Exactly. You’re a newbie here, and the Splattershot Jr. is the perfect weapon to get you to learn the ropes. Come back once you’ve got a bit more battling experience and then I’ll show you some new weapons, alright? And have a think about what sort of weapon would suit you. Do some research.”
“Okay, thanks,” he said. She really was sounding like a teacher now, and it was starting to annoy him. “I guess I’ll go do some more battles then… and hope the Slaughter Squad aren’t my opponents again…”
Tikki chuckled. “Oh, so you were against them, were you? I wouldn’t judge a Splattershot Jr. based on that. You’re a newbie so you’re always going to lose, it’s nothing to do with your weapon. But trust me – those three can be beaten, and they can be beaten with a Splattershot Jr.”
“What? But they have Aerosprays, and a sniper…”
“I stand by what I said. It’s the player who wins a match, not the weapon. If Splattershot Jr. is someone’s favourite weapon and they know how to use it to the best of its capabilities, that’s infinitely better than a newbie messing around with an Aerospray or an E-Litre.”
“But–”
“Trust me,” she said firmly. “Go get some more experience. Then come back and tell me exactly what kind of weapon you’re looking for.”
He sighed. “Alright, thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure. See you soon, and good luck in your future battles!”
That had been far from ideal. Turning around, Nath headed towards the exit of the shop, looking at the ground. His floppy red tentacle fringe fell over the top of his face and he didn’t bother to move it aside again – until he walked straight into someone who was just coming through the door.
“Oh sorry – I didn’t see you there!”
He looked up to see a fresh-looking inkling girl standing in front of him, her bouncy black tentacles tied into pigtails somewhat like Aurore’s. She was pretty… very pretty…
“Oh, um, sorry,” Nath mumbled, stepping aside.
“Are you new?” the girl asked.
Oh no, she could tell too?
“Yep.”
“Welcome to Inkopolis!” she said, beaming at him in a way that made his heart jump a few beats. “I’m Marinette. What’s your name?”
“Nathaniel.”
“Cool! Well, I’ll see you around, right? Let me know if you want to do some practice battles or something!”
“Yeah… see you…”
He let his fringe fall back over his face and walked off as quick as he could, his face heating up too much.
Marinette… that was a nice name. Maybe he would take up her offer of practice battles. If he could psych himself up enough to speak to her again, that was.