Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was an average Fresh Season afternoon in Inkopolis, and Anki Dory was on her way to a job interview.

The 19-year old was in her first year of college and BROKE. Like I mean absolutely fucking broke. She probably had like 20 bucks to her name at the moment. And unfortunately for her, she had to pay rent. She'd had a job last semester, working at a small restaurant near her school, but had gotten laid off due to something about her boss 'needing to find himself' and closing up shop (only to reopen a completely separate restaurant two weeks later).

Anki had been sick of foodservice anyway, and thought it was time to try something fresh. It was a long shot, but she used to babysit her younger siblings as a younger teen, and it had been easy enough, so today, she was interviewing at a preschool.

The problem was it was a ways away from Inkblot Art Academy and her apartment and therefore she had to take the Inkopolis metro. Usually this would be fine, but today the trip was going to be kinda fuckin wack.

It all started when this group of young inkfish boarded at downtown Inkopolis- There were about 3 of them, two inklings and an octoling, and not one of them looked like they could be older than 14. They ALL carried ink weapons and seemed to be kitted out with Turf War gear, suggesting they were heading home after a battle. This was a very common sight on the metro, and Anki, working on a sketch, didn't even notice anything was going on until a sudden splatter of neon pink ink hit the wall right next to her head, making her jump out of her seat.

YEAH SO THESE KIDS DECIDED IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE THEIR OWN TURF WAR ON THE TRAIN.

Anki rapidly ducked behind a nearby seat to assess what was happening. The octoling and one of the inklings were seemingly team hot pink, donning a Splattershot and Octobrush respectively, with the remaining inkling trying to take them down with neon green ink and what looked like a modified n-zap '85. Anki, having dark blue ink by default, would get splatted pretty quickly if she was hit by any of these shots, and it seemed most of the inkfish on the train car held the same sentiment, ducking behind seats or changing their ink color to match whichever team had the most ink coming their direction. Meanwhile, one or two inklings whipped out their OWN weapons and joined in the skirmish. The various other species on the train, while being (relatively) unaffected by inkfish ink, definitely didnt want to get covered in the stuff. There were a few jellyfish and anemones on the car who made a couple shouts of protest as they sought cover.

Anki panicked as she tried to make an escape from the ink flying everywhere. She had a job interview! She couldn't get splatted; she had NO idea where the nearest respawn point was and she sure as HELL wasn't gonna be late. As she dove behind a seat for cover on the far side of the car, she heard a shout from a security guard jellyfish who proceeded to chew the inkfish kids out for fighting on the train. Unfortunately for him, the train slowed to a halt, arriving at the next station, and the doors opened as usual.

“BECOME UNGOVERNABLE!!!” One of the inklings yelped as she super jumped out of the car and onto the station.

Next was the octoling, who super jumped out with a loud “BE GAY, DO CRIME!!!”.

Finally the third inkling, who was closest to the door in the first place, just ran out before whirling around and realizing they needed to make a remark as well. “Uh.. REMEMBER TO DRINK WATER??”

The guard, now enraged, ran after the group as the doors closed, leaving the car in a state of fragile peace- and covered in ink, of course. Anki's stop, blessedly, was next up, and she quickly stowed her sketchbook in her backpack, then carefully maneuvered around the puddles of ink and made it to the door.

At the station, she whipped out her phone and used its camera to check if anything had got on her. She seemed okay. Her front tentacles, usually kept at a sharp, blunt cut a bit past her shoulders, were a bit rounded at the ends now as they began to grow back. Her 4 other tentacles were tied back in a ponytail, which thankfully hadnt come undone in the struggle. She sighed in relief as she began her walk to the school.

It seriously wasn't a far walk, maybe like 5 minutes? But the entire time, Anki was feeling rather sluggish from the excitement of the day so far. And she was also nervous about her interview. What if she walked into the building and everything suddenly exploded? I mean, yeah, she knew logically that wasn't going to happen but WHAT IF???

Her anxiety and exhaustion contradicted eachother and forced her into a completely average pace. She walked a couple blocks away from the station before taking a left onto a street that was located in a slightly quieter, less populated part of town. It was immediately apparent which building was the preschool, but Anki double checked the address on her phone to be certain.

Yup- This was the place. It was a building much smaller than a lot of the structures in Inkopolis, but to be fair, it was a preschool, and she was nearing the suburbs anyway. It was light blue with a bunch of splatters of various colors painted on the walls, and was only 1 story tall. There was a fenced off playground connected to it, at least from what she could see- there was a very tight mesh installed over the fencing, making it a bit tricky to see inside. She guessed it was either for privacy, or, if these kids were anywhere near as crafty as her siblings were when they were little, it was for preventing them from squeezing through the fence and making a break for it.

Anki took a deep breath and approached the front door, which had a keypad lock on it for what she guessed was security reasons. There was also a doorbell, which she promptly pressed. There was no answer at first, but after maybe 20 seconds, another inkling answered the door, who had very dark gray tentacles styled in a wave style, purple eyes, and who looked rather pale. She seemed a bit bewildered for a split second before checking her watch and looking back up to Anki with a slight smile. “Oh! You must be Anki Dory, yes?”

Anki answered with a quick nod. “Yeah, that's me. I'm here for an interview?”

“Yes! Yes, of course. I'm Odette Paralva, and I'm the director here- Follow me to my office, I'm so glad you're here!” With that, the other inkling made a sweeping gesture to invite Anki into the building, which she did. They walked from the small yet welcoming lobby (which had a few places to sit, a bookshelf, and a LOT of cubbies) to the front office.

Anki looked around. The office was mostly tidy and nondescript, save for a handful of trinkets and knickknacks perched on Odette's desk, and a large respawn pad that seemed to be using white ink instead of any particular color. Anki remembered any hospital, school, or other such facility serving inkfish was required to have at least one respawn pad per building for emergencies. She knew this, because at Inkblot, one of the buildings she had classes in had a pad right smack dab in the center of the lobby, and she'd asked a friend about it. It made sense to her that hospitals and all would have spawners, but she never understood the school requirement, aspecially in this case- There's no way these kids would be splatting eachother. ...Right???

“Alright, have a seat,” Odette began as she pulled out two chairs from next to her desk and sat in one, motioning for Anki to do the same. “Let's confirm some information, then we'll have a tour of the school, then I'll get to the actual interview. You're 19, right?”

The next few minutes were spent just talking about Anki's basic info and work history. Eventually it was time to tour the dang place, and Odette curtly walked over to and opened the door out of the office, inviting Anki to follow her.

The first stop was the infant room, which was a bit small, but more cozy than cramped. Most of the surfaces were made of materials that ink could easily be cleaned from, like plastics or laminate. One wall was lined with about 8 small clear tanks, one of which contained a sleeping, light blue baby octoling. To the left of the door they'd just entered through, Anki noticed a counter with a sink, a small table with cute little chairs for babies old enough to sit in them, and a couple high chairs for those who werent. The center of the room held a large playmat and a couple short shelves with board books and toys and other such things. Upon that mat were two infants; one orange inkling who was sitting upright and gnawing on a rubber ball, and a purple inkling who was young enough that they still looked entirely like a squid and had only just barely started using their tentacles like arms and legs. They seemed to be trying to crawl.

Finally the leftmost wall had a changing station, and the one staff present in the room, an octoling with dark skin and bright orange tentacles tucked into an equally bright baseball cap, was busy there changing a diaper on a green octoling baby who was EXTREMELY unamused with the current situation they were in. The adult finished up what she was doing and popped the tot down on the floor, who immediately waddled away, and then turned around again to clean the changing table.

“Ah, Finneas is getting so good at walking!” Odette exclaimed with much more energy than she'd had at any point in the past 15 minutes.

The staff at the table, not missing a beat as she cleaned the changing table, replied back. “Yeah! He has been walking so much! I think he started crawling and decided he just had to keep moving.” She finished cleaning the table and washed her hands before turning to face Odette. “Oh! Who's this, Odd?”

Odette cleared her throat and regained her cool, profreshional energy. “This is Anki; she's interviewing to be a float aide here. Anki, this is-”

She was INSTANTLY interrupted. “Oh, fresh! My name's Nectarine. I work with the infants. We're a bit empty right now since half of our inklets went home for the night already, but here's who we have! The sleeping one is Sky, she's an absolutely tiny little thing- Ah, this orange squiddo is Quill, she figured out how to sit up recently!”

Nectarine trotted over to the playmat in the middle of the room and sat down with the kids. “This little guy is Bubba. He's working VERY hard on crawling, as you can see. And then- Nuh uh, you may NOT hit people!” She gently yet firmly grabbed the green octoling, who was about to smack Quill on the head. “This troublemaker is Finneas, and I really hope he moves up to toddlers soon...?”

Odette chuckled a bit. “Two more months, Nectarine. Then he'll be old enough.”

Anki smiled. “Its good to meet you, Nectarine. The inklets too.” Her ears pricked up a bit as she heard a faint, muffled wail, but she figured it was probably a kid throwing a tantrum in another room.

“Well.. Let's move on, shall we?” Odette offered.

The next room they visited was toddlers. A pink-tentacled inkling woman with tanned skin was leading about 15 colorful inkling, octoling, and one or two jellyfish toddlers in some kind of dance party to an Off The Hook track while a teenaged inkling boy with short blue tentacles and a lighter skin tone leaned against a nearby wall with his arms crossed, watching casually.

“That's Safina, the toddler lead. She's very sweet, but won't hesitate to enforce the rules in the classroom. The other person is Anchor, he's still in high school, but the kids love him,” Odette explained. Anchor overhead the conversation and whirled around to give a quick peace sign, which Anki waved in response to before Anchor faced the commotion again. Safina was too focused on her kids to notice the pair at the moment.

As they exited the room, Anki heard the wail from earlier again, but a bit louder and longer. Odette seemed concerned about this, but just slightly. Anki fidgeted with her hands. “Do you hear that?”

“Yes, I do... Something may be happening in the preschool class. Let's hurry,” Odette said quickly, wasting no time in running to the preschool room across the hall. The first thing Anki noticed is this was probably the most diverse class. There were mostly inkfish, yes, but there were a handful of jellyfish, and a few sea anemones too, making around 30ish total. The second thing she noticed is everyone was huddled in one area.

“MS RIBBONS I DON'T WANNA COME OUT!!” A voice wailed from inside the air vent everyone was crowding around. Ribbons, the inkling in question, who had dark skin accented by light brown tentacles done in two braids, was obviously panicking over this. “I know! I know, Curly! But it isn't safe to be in the vent!”

An octoling, wearing glasses, with a similar skintone to Ribbons and light green tentacles done in one big curl in the center of his otherwise shaved head was trying to mediate. “Calm down, everyone, it's going to be okay. Curly, can you please swim out?”

“NNNO!!!” the child in the vent sobbed. “I WANT MAMA!!”

A second octoling, with a fair skintone and red tentacles that were tucked behind her ears had been measuring the vent. She seemed a but unsettled but overall unfazed. “I do not think one of us will be fitting inside the vent.”

“Oh cod Veri, not even in swim form?!” Ribbons cried, to which the octoling, Veri, nodded. “We will need to find another way to pull him out of the vent.”

“WHAT is going on here?!” Odette exclaimed as she and Anki approached. Ribbons whipped around to face them, not paying Anki any mind. “CURLY'S STUCK! In the vent!!”

Odette pinched the bridge of her nose. “...How? Is he okay?”

The green octoling piped up. “Well, he's been trying to switch forms recently, and today he went squid! Which is very cool,” he said, placing emphasis on 'very cool' so Curly could hear. He then quieted his voice. “But being that he's only 5, he doesn't have much control over it, and he got stuck as a squid. He swam into the vent and is refusing to leave because he's embarrassed.”

“Oh cod,” Odette said, her face softening. She marched up to the vent. “Hey, Curly? Are you okay? Can you come out and talk?”

“NO!! NONONONONONO-” The kid started yelping. Odette whirled around to the green octoling. “Lime, can you distract the kids with an activity? Ribbons, go help him out too. Veri, stay with us please, since you're the most calming presence in this room.” The staff did as they were told and Lime and Ribbons started luring the rest of the class away with arts and crafts. A few of them gave curious glances at Anki as they went.

About 20 minutes later, the negotiations were going nowhere and the kids were starting to crowd again. Anki had stayed quiet, unsure if it'd be in bad form to jump in, but this was starting to get kind of old.

“Hey, uh, Curly, right? Y'know, it's not embarrassing to get stuck in squid form. It happened to me all the time as a squiddo. It happens,” Anki butted in gently in the middle of one of Odette's sentences, which she seemed a bit stunned by.

She heard a loud sniffle from the vent. “It does?”

“Oh, yeah. One time in middle school I got stuck and all my friends joined me in squid form till the end of the day,” Anki continued. “Hey, would that help at all? If you had another squid out here? So you aren't alone.”

“M-maybe..” Curly responded apprehensively. Anki looked around, kind of embarrassed she was doing this at a job interview, especially since Odette was looking at her in a way that made her anxious. Veri, on the other hand, had a soft expression that made her feel a bit more like she was onto something. She morphed into her squid form before speaking again. “Okay, it's safe to come out now, dude.”

Curly quietly slid to the vent cover and peeked out, and upon seeing Anki laying there as a squid slowly slipped through the cover before inching over to her. Anki could now see he had a very similar ink color to her own, which reminded her of when she would get into this kind of situation. It was kind of eerie. “You just gotta relax. Just breathe, okay?”

Curly breathed in and out a few times, and suddenly changed back into his regular form- completely dark blue and maybe half the size of an adult inkling. He instantly started bawling.

Anki morphed back into kid form, dripping some ink on the floor as she did so. “Hey, see? Not so ba-” She let out a small yelp as Curly hugged her WAY tighter than she thought a 5-year old could. After a couple minutes, as the new crowd dispersed, Veri managed to convince him to come do arts and crafts.

Anki and Odette silently returned to the office, where Odette sat down in her chair cradling her head in her hands, with a look of deep thought on her face.

“Uh, so.. I totally blew it, didn't I..?” Anki began. Odette looked up at her awkwardly standing in the office and began to speak.

“When can you start?”

“Excuse me?”

“You displayed genuine care for a child you'd never even met before today, talked him down when nobody else could, and proved you have good problem solving skills under pressure. I am offering you the job,” Odette elaborated. “So, when can you start?”

“WHAT?!”

Little did Anki know, accepting this job would lead her entire life down a brand new, exciting path...

Chapter Text

About one week passed before Anki's first day came. It flew by pretty quickly, considering she had classes and such. She had to complete some training and shit online but none of it was too difficult.

She was going to work 2 full days and 2 afternoons per work week, to accommodate her college schedule. This first day was going to be one of the full days, and to be honest, Anki was anxious. She was REALLY hoping she wouldn't have to talk anyone else out of the air vents. Plus, she was a float, so she wasn't sure where she was working today yet.

She felt tired and hadn't even started her shift for crying out loud!

She was, again, taking the metro to work. It was around 9 in the morning, her shift started in 30 minutes, and she'd be there until close at 5:30. Today the train ride was mostly uneventful. No turf wars or anything. There WAS some person dressed up in a Fresh Fish costume from Wahoo World sobbing their eyes out 3 seats down from Anki, but she chose to ignore that because frankly who would wanna get involved in whatever the hell was goin on there?

No, Anki kept to herself and doodled the entire ride, as difficult as it was to do with someone absolutely WAILING beside her. Like this guy was GOING through it.

At her stop, she got off and began the same walk she'd taken a week prior. Her mind was like a scrampled egg at the moment and she couldn't stop thinking. Was today going to go well? Would anyone remember her from her interview? OH GOD WHAT IF ODETTE FORGOT WHO SHE WAS AND SHE LOOKED LIKE A WEIRDO TRYING TO INFILTRATE A SCHOOL FULL OF TODDLE-

...Oh, she was here. Welp, better head in.

She punched in the door code which she had been told after her background check cleared: 1-2-7-3. She felt like the number must've held some sort of significance, but had no idea what. Sadly she was unaware of the nightcore version of Rockefeller Street, let alone the original. Tbh I don't think many if any of the people of Inkopolis knew of it considering it was written like 12000 years ago.

She warily opened the door to find a quiet lobby, although she could hear the usual hustle and bustle emanating from each classroom. She stopped by the office to see what she was going to be doing today.

Odette looked up from her computer and seemed to be hurriedly changing tabs on a browser. Her face was kind of flushed, like Anki had caught her in the middle of something. Unbeknownst to Anki, her boss had been watching turf war highlights instead of getting shit done.

“Uh.. Is everything oka-” Anki began only to get cut off.

“YES! Yes. Er.” Odette stammered before clearing her throat and fiddling with a stack of papers on her desk. “You came for today's assignment, yes?

Anki nodded. Her mind wandered slightly, wondering what Odette had been so embarrassed to be looking at on the computer.

“Today, you will be in preschool; because of your performance at the interview last week,” Odette began. “Lime is due to go on break in about 15 minutes, so it'll just be you, Veri, and Ribbons for about an hour, but just follow their lead and you'll be just fine.” She ended off her explanation with a smile.

“Okay, cool. Thanks. I'll head over,” Anki confirmed before stepping out of the office politely.

The first thing Anki noticed upon entering the room was that everyone seemed to be getting ready to go outside. The staff in the room were working like an assembly line, trying to get sunscreen on every child, and getting water and a first aid kit and such gathered up. Anki, not knowing how to help, walked up to her nearest coworker, who happened to be Veri. She was busy sitting in a chair and getting sunscreen on a very unamused jellyfish child. There were a few other kiddos lined up behind her.

“Hi, uh... Veri? I'm Anki, I'm new. What should I be.. Doing, right now??” Anki sounded as awkward as a tuna fish working in a canning facility. Veri did not miss a single beat, however.

“Hello, yes, I am Veri. Go put your bag away in the staff locker first." She pointed to a set of two lockers towards the back of the room, fitted with basic padlocks. There were a few keys hung up out of the kids' reach. "You can help me get the sunscreen on everyone after.” Anki quickly stowed her bag, and returned. With that, the Octoling held a pair of vinyl gloves out to the inkling, who gave a quick thanks as she slid them on and started tackling the same line Veri was working on.

Suddenly, the classroom door opened up, and Anki, being very perceptive to sound, craned her neck to see what was happening. A small family walked in- An inkling woman with fair skin and orange tentacles in a very lazy down style was accompanied by a more tanned octoling with pink tentacles in a side parted style. There was a somewhat intimidating aura radiating off them, like they could kick your ass if you messed with them, and had perhaps kicked many asses before.

With them was a small, dark pink octoling child who looked EXTREMELY mischievous. Well, maybe she didn't look it, but she just gave off the VIBES yknow?? Lime had started walking to the door to greet them, but the child immediately ran into the room to get ready for outside time.

It wasn't until Anki felt eyes on her that she looked up again, and lo and behold, Lime and the inkling woman were standing by her. The octoling was standing slightly behind them.

“Kaori, this is Anki, she's a new float aide here. Today is her first day, which is why you haven't seen her,” Lime explained to the woman, who was staring intensely at Anki, making her nervous. She noticed a weird greeny blue stain on her face around her right eye, and her eye was the same greeny blue. “Anki, this is Kaori Vanderblast and her wife Haven. Kaori is rather particular about who provides care to her daughter.”

Anki flushed a little in the face of sudden judgement, until Kaori suddenly gave a small hum of approval and gave her wife a thumbs up.

“All good!” Haven chirped before addressing Anki directly. “Please be aware, Hope can be a little- HOPE VANDERBLAST!” She suddenly exclaimed, pointing at their daughter who was trying to climb a shelf and had gotten startled by her mother. She then continued to scold, but in Octarian. “O KANTE LO SUKA LO RADI A!”

“Mama!!!” Hope whined, “Mi tawi keke sopona mi!!”

Her inkling mom gave her a look. The 4-year old hopped down from the shelf, then sat on the floor and pouted.

“Hope,” Veri chuckled slightly under her breath, “Si wilen e sitelo awen.” The younger octoling grumbled and got up, walking into the sunscreen line. Anki had no idea what ANY of them just said.

The inkling suddenly tapped her wifes shoulder before signing something that again, Anki didn't understand. The octoling's face went a bit pale. “Oh, no, we are about to be late! We need to go.”

Hope ran over and gave her parents a goodbye hug before they left. “Bye mama, bye mommy!”

With that, the pair left. Lime clapped his hands once and turned to Veri and Anki. “Alright, I'm going to help with the transition to the playground, but then I need to go on break. It'll be just you two and Ribbons, but you should still be in ratio since Anki is here now. The temperature outside is nice, so you can stay out for the full hour if you want. Are you guys going to be okay?”

Anki nodded apprehensively while Veri gave a much more confident nod. Ribbons walked over, having overheard the conversation.

“I'm sure we'll be fine! Let's get out there!”

Anki hadn't noticed during her interview, but there was indeed a door in the preschool room leading straight to the playground. Lime pulled her aside, handed her a clipboard with an attendance sheet clipped to it, and walked her through counting the children as they left the classroom, in order to make sure everyone was there. She counted 32 total,which was the same amount as on the sheet. Veri had gone out before the first kiddo, and Ribbons walked outside after the last one. Anki was about to head out too, but was stopped by Lime putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, Anki?”

“...Yeah?”

Lime gave her a calm smile. “Just relax. You're going to do great.” As he exited the classroom, Anki flushed a bit. Had her anxiety seriously been that noticeable? DAMN!!!

She hurriedly escaped onto the playground and shut the door behind her.

15 minutes later, and Hope and her small friend group were bored. She, Curly, a purple jellyfish boy named Zaphary, and a pale, orange-tentacled anemone girl named Wisp were lounging around underneath the large play structure the school had in the playground area.

“I wanna go insiiiide..:” Wisp groaned and sprawled out on the ground. “It's warm out and there's nothing to do.”

“We could go get water,” Zaphary suggested. As the oldest of the group, just a month older than Curly, he was the one who tended to be the most rational and cautious. “And we could play in the sandbox! Or, or, we could play pretend?”

“Yeah, but what kind of pretend?” Curly questioned. “Oh, oh, and I want water too. Can we get water?”

“WAIT WAIT WHAT IF WE PLAYED SCHOOL? I WANNA BE THE TEACHER!!” Hope suddenly shouted. “I heard my mommy and mama say a fancy new word when they were talking yesterday. I wanna do a lesson on it!”

“YEAH LET'S DO IT!!” Curly said with immense enthusiasm. “I LOVE fancy words!!”

The entire group quickly came to the consensus to go get some water before playing school. There was a small table near the door leading back into the classroom, set up with a water cooler and some cups that the children could use to get themselves a drink. The inkfish kids were always advised to be cautious that they didnt spill a large amount on themselves, but usually there were no issues. There was a stack of deep paper plates there with the cups, too.

Everyone except Zaphary got a cup of water. Zaphary, however, being a jellyfish, couldn't easily drink from a cup. This was because, similar to an inkfish in swim form, his mouth was in the center of all his tentacles. This was why there were paper plates available. He fixed himself a plate of water, just.. Sat down in it, and drank it up. Don't think about jellyfish biology too hard; I don't know what I'm doing.

“Hehe, hey guys, watch this,” Hope giggled, dunking her hand into her cup. In a few moments, her hand and forearm became bloated with water. She took a deep breath, directing the water away from her arm, and then promptly spat it out of her mouth, now tinted with her pink ink. Her friend group roared with laughter.

Inkfish children are a lot more sensitive to water than adults. While an adult can usually handle a bath or wading around as long as the water is clean, and only has to be mindful about falling into deep water where their dense ink sac would force them to sink, well... The kids are basically sponges, as Hope proudly demonstrated to her friends twice more.

Unfortunately the merriment would get cut short by Ribbons seeing the commotion. “Uh, hey! Hope! Please don't do that, it isn't safe! You could've gotten hurt.”

Hope shrugged, tossed her cup into a nearby trash can, and hopped away, her posse in tow. Soon they were back under the playground, and Hope was tapping a pretend stick on an invisible whiteboard.

“Okay! So yesterday, uh, we were at the store, and uh, there was this guy with REAL FRESH tentacles, they were like green, but they were also yellow, and he had these cool sunglasses on, and I really like sunglasses, I've got a pair at home and they're purple, but his were orange...?” Hope trailed off for a moment, as 4 year olds are apt to do when they get distracted.

“OH! Yeah! So we were trying to get seanut butter! Because for sandwiches,” She continued, nodding. Her friends nodded along; truly, because for sandwiches was a noble cause.

“But then the cool guy got the last jar! And my mommy was sad about it I think. But it's okay because we still had a little bit at home. Anyways so he did a silly face at my mama and mommy as he walked away with the jar! And I heard them whispering to eachother as we walked away!”

“What'd they say?!” Wisp nearly screamed. The suspense was killing her.

“They were talking in Octarian! And they called him mopa! He looked really cool so I'm pretty sure it means pretty,” Hope concluded with a satisfied smile.

“Ohh.. You're so smart, Hope,” Zaphary said in awe.

Hope rocked back and forth on her feet. “Yup, and I'm only 4!”

“We should tell everyone!!” Curly exclaimed, prompting a mission to spread the word across the playground. And spread it they did, going from child to child, telling them of the word, to a very positive reaction.

The first sign of trouble was when one of the octolings, only 3 years old, walked up to Anki. “Hi Ms New Teacher! You're very mopa!”

Anki tilted her head. “What's that mean?”

“You're real pretty!!” The little squirt responded before running off and PROMPTLY hitting his head on the monkey bars, which he had run right into.

After dealing with the sobbing boy, Anki noticed that numerous kids were beginning to chant this odd new word. It was quiet enough, though, that it wasn't very noticeable. Until Curly went up to Veri and called her mopa.

She had been drinking a cup of water and immediately coughed and sputtered. “E-excuse you?” Veri took a moment to regain her composure. “Why are you calling me that? That is unkind.”

Curly's face twisted into one of confusion. “Why is calling someone pretty mean?” Immediately after he said this, Veri looked like she had undergone the 5 stages of grief in mere seconds as she realized something: Curly didn't know what the word meant.

“Stop saying it, it does not mean pretty,” Veri said plainly yet calmly, and rushed over to Anki and Ribbons, who were supervising some of the younger preschoolers climbing the main play structure while chatting. As she did, she heard more kids saying it and a deep sense of panic settled in her gut.

“THE CHILDREN,” she exclaimed, startling her coworkers. “They are saying a forbidden word!”

Anki furrowed her brow. “What? Is this about that mopa thing?” She didn't notice Veri cringing as she said the offending word. “Doesn't it just mean pretty? I'll bet it's one of those made-up words that kids come up with.”

“It is an octarian word,” Veri began icily. “It means.. Er..” She was struggling to find the words in Inklish. She resorted to turning around and gesturing to her behind.

“Butt..?” Ribbons guessed quietly. “They do make potty jokes, yeah.. We should discourage it, then.”

Veri shook her head violently. “No. It is.. How do you say... Hole?”

Anki gasped and her face went pale. “Oh my cod, are they saying..” She shrank her volume down to a whisper. “...are these kids saying the octarian word for asshole?!”

Veri snapped her fingers. “Yes! Yes. Very bad word. It is an expletive.”

Ribbons practically melted. “Oh my cod oh my cod what do we do?!” She began to hyperventilate before Veri tapped her shoulder, grounding her.

“We must find who is responsible,” Veri said, nodding. “I will ask Curly. You two, please find a new word for the children to talk about.” She walked off towards Curly without another peep, leaving the two inklings to their own devices.

Anki immediately began spouting nonsense. “HEY GUYS! YOU KNOW WHAT?! I'VE GOT AN EVEN COOLER WORD FOR US TO USE!” She'd gotten the class's attention, and tried to come up with a brand new word in the Inklish vocabulary on the spot. If this was DnD, she would've rolled, like, a 12. “IT'S CALLED, UH, SPANKELOR! IT MEANS T-SHIRT!”

The children wearing tees, which was a very high amount, gasped and were instantly distracted by complimenting each other's spankelors. Ribbons looked like she was about to pass out as Anki sighed in relief.

Meanwhile, Veri had found the culprit of the colorful language misinformation: Hope. Curly had pretty much immediately told Veri who taught him the swear word. She approached Hope from behind and placed a hand on the pink girl's shoulder.

“Hope. You may not say mopa at school again, or we will need to alert your mothers,” Veri said simply. “It does not mean pretty. It is a very rude word.”

“Huh?! MY mommy wouldn't say something rude!” Hope protested, crossing her arms.

“Perhaps you misheard her, then?” Veri offered up genuinely. Hope just kinda shrugged and ran off after a funny looking bug that flew past the two of them. Veri sighed; what were they gonna do with this kid?

And so, at least for now, peace was restored to the playground.

Chapter Text

A quiet splatter rung out amidst the quiet darkness of a tunnel in Octo Valley.

Kaori, on high alert, whipped her head backwards, sensing trouble. Haven, too, gave pause, though not due to noticing anything off, rather, she trusted her wife and captain enough to heed her instincts.

The two were on an escort mission in Octo Valley. Somehow, even after over a hundred years and some decades, DJ Octavio was still alive and relatively healthy, and of course had not retired from his position as the Octarian emperor. Yet, as time marched on, unrest grew in the domes due to continued poor conditions, even despite Octavio slowly attempting to cooperate and trade with nearby civilizations for resources, and the New New Squidbeak Splatoon had come into contact with numerous octolings interested in defecting.

Octavio wasn't too keen on letting them do so.

So, in recent months, the Splatoon had been infiltrating the domes, and sneaking people to the surface, in the hopes that less people would die.

Escaping the domes was no easy feat. Haven knew that all too well.

At this moment in time, they were escorting two adult males and one female child. The adults, presumably in the army, had red tentacles, as was customary for most lower ranking Octolings. The child was a pale green and seemed to be around 10. Kaori and Haven were to escort them through this long maintenance tunnel where they'd regroup with the rest of the Splatoon.

Kaori grunted a little, squinting, and trying to focus her good eye on the distance.

“Amora mi,” Haven began, almost silent. “What is it?” She readied her Splat Dualies, expecting to have to fight.

Suddenly, the tunnel behind them was beginning to flood with Octotroopers. Usually, one or two wouldn't be a big deal, but there were at least 10 closing in on them, and MUCH faster than usual.

“WE NEED TO MOVE,” Kaori boomed, aiming her Splattershot and trying to take out as many as she could. She splatted maybe two before rushing the defectors along the maintenance tunnel. Haven took charge with a look of pity for the little creatures, blasting ink shot after ink shot at them. She didn't realize until her ink tank was empty that she was out of ink.

In her realization, she failed to notice a purple blast of ink heading her way, and was splatted.

Kaori could tell what happened by hearing alone, and became furious.

“EIGHT!!!” She roared throatily, turning around and taking aim with her Splattershot again and inking as many of the damn things as she could, getting around five more splats. She then remembered the mission was not yet complete. Whirling back to the family of defectors, she began to bark a hasty instruction.

“O TAWA LO RADI!!” She pointed to a far off door at the end of the tunnel, behind which the rest of the Splatoon was waiting. One of the adults began to protest, but Kaori cut him off with an urgent “GO!!!”

With that, Kaori took down the rest of the Octotroopers, breathing oh so heavily. She punched a wall as hard as she could.

They could target her all they liked, but they would NOT be getting away with harming her wife.

She yanked a stolen map out of her pocket and started hunting down the nearest respawn pad, hopping on radio and telling the rest of the team that the family was en route, but she'd be taking some more time. It was time to go on another rescue mission.

---

Meanwhile at the preschool, Lime returned from his break. Thankfully, when Veri reported to him the Octarian Swear Word Incident, he found it HILARIOUS, laughing for a solid minute, and lauded the girls for how they handled the situation.

It was now about noon, and the cheery visual schedule on the wall
near the front of the room dictated it was time to eat.

The students had this routine DOWN, grabbing their lunches from their cubbies in the hall and returning to the classroom in record time. Considering the speed that the swear word spread across the playground earlier, Anki idly thought the children operated as a pack, or perhaps a weird hive mind,

The meal went by smoothly. If anything, the kids were kinda loud, but for fucks SAKE, they were all 3-6. they were GONNA be loud. Anki expected that.

What she didn't expect was Lime, Veri, and Ribbons to each pick a table to monitor then pulling out their own packed lunches from the lockers in the back of the room and proceed to sit and eat with the class. Anki stood around awkwardly for a solid minute before working up the courage to ask Lime what to do.

"Oh, you can go monitor the table over there. Make sure nobody chokes, open tricky wrappers, keep the peace, all that. You can eat with the kids if you want, too.” Lime smiled casually as he spoke.

"... Is that allowed??"

“Well, yeah. We could walk around the entire time and hover around the kids, but its more fun this way, and we can keep a closer watch on everyone too. Oh, and then you don't have to eat on your break," Lime explained, setting his sandwich down on the paper he'd wrapped it in to keep it fresh.

"...I guess that makes sense," the inkling supposed. Lime nodded encouragingly at her.

Anki retrieved a small bento box. from her bag and sat at the only unstaffed table. There were 8 kids seated with her, and she noticed Hope and who she presumed were her friends were among them. There, too, was the little one who had so innocently called her an asshole earlier. She had a feeling she wouldn't be forgetting that face any time soon.

The table was silent for a moment as the kids sized up the sudden new occupant of the table. Suddenly, the 3 year old octoling blurted out an adorable yet very drawn out “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Ms New Teacher!”

“Oh! Hi! I'm actually Ms Anki,” Anki said with a small smile. “I don't think I know your name yet, can you tell me?”

“It's Croc!!” The little blue guy said enthusiastically.

Anki nodded. “That's a good one.”

“Well, I ALREADY know your name,” Curly said, in almost a bragging tone. “Mr Lime told us yesterday that we were gonna have a new teacher called Ms Ankle.”

“Anki.”

“Oh.” Upon being corrected, Curly grabbed a handful of chips from his lunchbox and noisily ate them. Wisp was hiding behind her short tentacles, not really in the mood to meet someone new right now. Zaphary HAD a lunch with him, but was only kinda picking at it.

Other than Hope and co, and Croc, there was one green jellyfish girl, a yellow inkling girl, and a lavender inkling girl. From glancing at the labels on their lunch boxes and bags, Anki learned they were named Spinella, Cece, and, fittingly, Lavender.

“I have ankles,” Cece said happily, trying to put her feet up on the table. Anki quickly shut that down. “I see that. We all have ankles. But you gotta keep them ankles under the table or you're gonna knock over your food.”

“Zap doesn't have ankles,” Cece pointed out as she lowered her feet. “Neither does Spin.”

Spinella looked at Anki with very wide eyes. “Does that mean I can put my tentacles on the table?”

“Nah, they've been on the floor,” Anki said casually. “They might have dirt on em. Do you wanna eat dirt?”

“My brother eats dirt sometimes,” Curly said, raising his hand. “He's a baby. Ms Anki do you know my brother? His name is Corky and he's also blue but not the same blue as me because that'd be weird.”

Anki opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Zaphary. “I know his brother. I saw him eat dirt once. It was really gross but also kinda funny. I like babies but I don't like ramen.”

Hope, who'd been uncharacteristically quiet for the entire conversation, finally said something. “Ms Anki do you like ramen? What do you have for lunch?”

The topic of interest immediately changed to the mysterious contents of Anki's bento. She popped the top to reveal a tuna sandwich.

“I like fish,” Hope said approvingly before returning to her lunch.

“Ms New Teacher are you a grownup??” Croc said with awe in his eyes. Anki nodded, prompting another question. “Can you change colors? My mommy said grownups can change colors.”

“My mommy can change colors,” Hope bragged. “And so can my mama. But my mommy can't make her eyes look different anymore because she has an owie on her eye.”

Lavender gasped a bit. “My mommy has an owie too! She told me her ink sac is sick and that's why she's kinda floppy and has to use a wheelchair.” Hope gasped in response to this.

“Wow... Do all mommies have owies?” She wondered aloud.

The general flow of conversation continued like this, with adhd-esque topic changes that never really went anywhere, until lunchtime was over and everyone started to clean up.

---

“Eight!” Kaori said, mood lifting immediately.

Haven, standing at the other end of what felt like the millionth maintenance tunnel Kaori had searched, whirled around in a fighting stance, at first being startled, but then softening as she realized it was her partner. “Cap?!”

It had been HOURS since Haven had been splatted, and as it turned out, when Haven respawned she did so in the midst of like, 5 other octolings, all from the army. So, the poor thing had to flee and lay low, and then decided to try finding Kaori. This was all while Kaori was trying to find HER.

It was frankly a hot mess that could've been avoided by talking on radio, but unfortunately neither of them were in a particularly secure environment to be doing so. They were deep inside the maintenance tunnels of Octo Valley, and the only thing they had to help themselves out was Kaori's stolen map of the corridors.

The pair ran to eachother and crashed into an unsteady embrace. They stayed that way, silent, for a solid minute before unhooking from each other's grasp.

“I missed you,” Kaori signed, at this point too tired to be verbal. “I was worried.”

Haven shook her head and quietly responded. “I missed you too. I think we need to leave.”

Kaori nodded in agreement, and the pair made not two steps forward before Haven stopped dead in her tracks. “Wait. What is the time?”

Kaori shrugged and pulled out her phone before handing it to her wife. Haven took a loot at the phone, then Kaori with a wild expression. “It is 5:45. We are late to get Hope.”

The inkling facepalmed in a very exhausted manner before the pair started to dash out of the corridor, surface-bound.

---

It had been a great first day, if not a bit frazzling. Lunchtime gave way to naptime, and after everyone was asleep there was a solid hour of mostly quiet. This was when Anki took her break, which was incredibly an hour long and paid. She could barely believe it.

There was a small staff lounge tucked behind a 'Staff only' door in the lobby. It had a couch, a table, a few chairs, a HUGE closet full of snacks for serving at snack times, and some other various odds and ends. She'd sent the hour in there drawing, and it was very refreshing.

When she returned, a few kids were starting to wake up, and from the schedule on the wall she knew that next up was indoor play time. This was 2 hours long, and she took the time to get to know more of the kids. Lime had then gone home, leaving Anki, Veri, and Ribbons.

Then there was snack, and circle time (Mostly just singing and talking about whatever topic they were focusing on for the week), and finally parents started to pick up as they transitioned to more free play.

Now, that was all fine and dandy. Anki met some of the parents and things went over well. Veri went home once her shift was up, and it was just Anki, Ribbons, and 5 kids.

Then 4, 3, 2, and by the time 5:20 rolled around, Hope was the only child left in the entire building.

10 minutes passed and it was time to close. Hope hadn't been picked up yet.

45 more passed, not even a message from her moms.

Anki was starting to get concerned, and approached Ribbons while Hope played with some building blocks, seeming very unfazed.

“Should we call someone..?”

“No, Hope is usually one of our later kids. This isn't the first time she's stayed past close, too,” Ribbons sighed. “Odette tells us not to worry about it and that there's a good reason, but I don't know what it is.”

Anki frowned. “That doesn't sound good.”

Ribbons nodded quietly and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I hope everything is okay at home.”

Suddenly, the classroom door opened, and lo and behold, it was the Vanderblasts. They looked worse for wear, tired and scratched up, with civilian clothes thrown on hastily and a few splatters of purple ink on them here and there they hadn't washed off yet. Yet, seeing Hope was happily building a super tall tower seemed to lift a significant weight off both of them.

“MOMMY! MAMA!!” Hope abandoned her blocks and rushed to her family with a tackle hug. “Did you do something cool?! Was it super important?!”

“Yes,” Haven replied, her voice a little raw. “It was very cool. We can tell you about it at home.” Kaori looked like she going to pass out from fatigue at any second, but still found the energy to scoop up her child and give her a small smile. Anki watched as Ribbons approached the family with a cheerful expression to talk about the day...

...And after they left, both breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, how was your first day?” Ribbons asked genuinely. Anki thought to herself for a moment.

“It was very interesting.”

Chapter Text

The next day was one of Anki's afternoon shifts from 1:00 to 5:30, and her assignment was to the toddler room. She was feeling pretty confident about it, since the kids in that room were about 16 months to 3 years old, and her siblings were around that age when she used to babysit. She'd know what she was doing much better than in the preschool room, at least.

Anchor was assigned to infants, or at least would be after he got off of school. Currently, Odette was helping in infants. From what Anki had heard from Odette (After spending 5 minutes going from room to room trying to hunt her down when she arrived for her shift), preschool had THANKFULLY only gotten 29 kids that day, letting them get by JUST before hitting the 1:10 staff-to-child ratio with Veri, Ribbons, and Lime.

Anyways, Anki entered the toddler room and approached Safina to ask her what to do. Safina, however, stopped everything she was doing (Picking up toys) and went RIGHT into intro mode.

“Hi! You're Anki, right? I've heard good things! You helped Curly out last week, right?” Safina paused. “Oh, right, wait, I'm coming on kinda strong there. I'm Safina.” The inkling stuck out her hand to Anki, who shook it.

“Uh, yeah, I helped Curly calm down and get out of his squid form. That was during my interview tour,” Anki confirmed. Safina gushed a little.

“Oh, he's getting so grown up! I remember when he was in my class... Now he's learning to shift!”

A little pink jellyfish child, running around the room at breakneck pace, suddenly tripped and fell flat on his face. Safina bent down to pick him up as he started to scream, and soothed him the best she could. Anki, trying to be helpful, picked up the toys that Safina was chipping away at.

...And proceeded to get pummeled by a screaming toddler.

Anki accepted her fate and flopped to the floor, letting herself succumb to the sudden attack. However,she suddenly felt the child's weight leave her, and looked upto see Safina holding them. Getting a better look at the squiddo, she saw it was a very enthusiastic green inkling toddler.

“Verna! We do NOT tackle new friends!” Safina scolded as Verna, the toddler in her grasp, kicked and flailed in an attempt to get free. Safina obliged after her little speech, and Verna turned around and stared at Anki with a big dopey smile. As a matter of fact, a lot of the tykes were starting to gather around Anki, curious about this interesting new person.

“Friends! This is Anki,” Safina said to the swarm. “She's a new teacher. Say hi!”

There was a cacophony of noise in response. Most of the toddlers said hi or some variation, but the younger kids who couldn't say much yet just kind of yelled. There were a handful of students who also just didn't care and weren't paying attention.

The swarm's collective attention span ended up running out shortly thereafter and the toddlers dispersed.

“Alrighty, so on the docket right now is just tidying up the room, then we need to get the cots out of the storage closet and set up for nap,” Safina explained to Anki, pointing to the closet in question, which was on the far side of the room. “Should be easy as a crab cake!”

The younger inkling looked up at her superior with an odd expression. Safina blushed.

“Y'know, maybe I didn't say that saying right. It's fine, let's just get going.”

Safina, having known the kids for longer than 5 minutes, started to rally the class to help pick up the absolute mess that was the classroom, while Anki went to the storage closet and hauled a large stack of basic ol' daycare cots out. The stack had some kind of frame at the bottom with wheels, which made it easier to roll everything out. Each cot was labeled with a child's name and had a blanket folded up on top, which Anki guessed were from everyone's homes.

They probably wouldn't get much use out of cots that were still stacked up, so Anki started to take them down and plop em on the floor in rows. Slowly, some of the sleepier kids trickled over and flopped onto their assigned cots.

That was about 5 of the 13 tots. The other 8? Well, that was another story.

As Safina turned off the lights and started ushering the remaining kids to bed, a small but mighty resistance of three toddlers formed, consisting of Verna, a little pink sea anemone named Fisher, and a particularly young orange inkling named Tang.

“NO BED!!” Fisher yelled,sitting on the floor and refusing to move. Verna was inspired to do the same, naturally, and Tang was just kinda running and screaming.

The other 5 children resisting were more tearful than spiteful, doing things like flopping to the floor or flopping onto their cots and just SOBBING. The combined noise from both groups was disrupting the kids who did want to nap, which was kinda a fucking problem.

Safina was a rockstar, scooping up toddler after toddler and bringing them to their assigned cots. By some miracle most of them actually laid down, albeit very angrily or sadly. Verna, however, instantly got up the MOMENT Safina sat down to rub a couple of the more stubborn children's backs, and started to run around the room in laps.

Safina sighed. “Anki, can you hit the lights please?”

Anki nodded and obliged before awkwardly turning back. “Uh, should I get Verna?”

“Yes, please! That'd be so helpful!”

Anki waited until Verna's path came close to her, and suddenly scooped her up. Verna seemed VERY pissed for a moment until realizing Anki was holding her, and she gave her teacher a goofy grin. Anki, confused, brought her back to her cot and laid her down, which she didn't protest as hard this time. After a couple minutes of Anki patting her, she seemed to be asleep, and together, she and Safina slowly got the entire class down for nap.

There wasn't anything in particular to do while the kids slept. Safina explained she usually used the time to plan for the weeks ahead or to clean, but she'd been pretty much caught up for today. Thus, the two opted to quietly chat.

“So, Anki, how are you liking it here?” Safina asked with a warm smile, sitting on the floor in the midst of all the sleeping children. She practically radiated positivity, and Anki couldn't help but feel a bit... Well, intimidated wasn't the right word. No, she was feeling inadequate.

“Uh, it's pretty good,” she replied, sweeping one of her tentacles behind her ear and kneeling beside Safina. “People seem nice and I like the kids. I just cant help but feel kinda.. I dunno. Underprepared?”

Safina gave her a nigh-imperceptible look of pity. “What do you mean underprepared?”

“Uh, well, I mean, this is the first time I've worked in a school,” Anki started. “My last job was as a line cook. And, I mean, I used to babysit my siblings in high school, but otherwise? The only reason I got this job was because I was nice to Curly during my tour.” She let out a small sigh. “I'm a mess compared to everyone else.”

Safina shook her head a little. “Oh, honey, you're doing great. I can tell you care about the kids, even from just working with you for a short time. Hey, and from what I heard, you literally sat with Curly until he was calm. Anki, that's huge! It's so, so important to let children know you see their struggles.” She shifted her weight a little, moving from sitting on her knees to sitting with crossed legs. “You made sure he knew he wasn't alone. And that's great!”

Anki buried her face in her hands. “...Is it?”

“More than you realize.”

“...Ah.”

The two sat in a thick, yet not unpleasant silence for about 5 minutes before Anki noticed Verna popping her head up from her cot, looking around as if to ensure the path was clear. Anki gave her a lead paint stare and walked over to the child, before sitting down next to her and trying to lay her back down.

Verna, not seeing this coming at all, became severely startled, and involuntarily released a burst of ink around her, IMMEDIATELY splatting Anki.

Anki was pretty damn surprised by this. It'd been a while since she'd had time to participate in Turf War, so she wasn't really used to respawning either. One second, she'd been splatted, and the next, she felt herself soaking in the ink of the office's respawn pad, feeling pretty dazed. As she felt her body begin to hold a shape other than a puddle of ink, she tried to climb her way upwards, in a weird metaphorical sense, and soon found herself standing on the respawn pad, good as new. Looking down, she noticed that some of the white ink on the pad was stained dark blue from her own ink, but as she stepped off the pad, it quickly faded back to white.

She blinked a few times, hearts racing. Before she had time to process what happened, though, she realized she had places to be, and rushed out of the office, leaving a few dark blue inky footprints behind and not even remembering to shut the door.

The toddler room was starting to fall apart. Verna had become understandably very frightened by what had happened, and was starting to whimper and cry. Safina was handling the situation as calmly as she could, but was also trying to juggle soothing Verna and cleaning up the surprisingly vast puddle of bright green ink before anyone else could get splatted. Add to that Anki walking in, and Verna's young toddler brain not being able to comprehend her still existing after all that, and Verna began to wail.

One toddler awoke, then 2, then 7, and that's when Anki and Safina realized the next hour was gonna be Extremely Difficult.

Chapter Text

“Aw, it's okay everyone!” Safina said hurriedly, trying to do damage control. Given the fact she was already juggling the hot mess in the vicinity AND Verna, she barely made a dent in the number of toddlers awake. It might even be more accurate to claim she made no dent.

Thankfully, nobody started to cry, and the general air was more one of disgruntlement and confusion than unearthly terror.

Anki gave a tired sigh before trying to think of what to do next. How would she get her siblings to go to bed again?

Her mind flashed back to one particular night three years ago, when she was 16. Her parents were out doing a short string of Turf Wars, and had asked Anki to babysit. Of course, her getting a couple coins out of it sweetened the deal, but she had nothing going on that night, so she probably would've done it either way.

At the time, her sister Mari was 3, and her brother Naut was 7. Anki had organized a movie night with them, and together they gathered up some snacks from the kitchen and sat down in the living room of their family's slightly cramped 3-bedroom apartment, streaming a few movies from Anki's childhood that she thought her siblings would at least tolerate. Mostly Squidney movies, which I'm gonna pretend are the in-universe equivalent of Disney. Don't think about it too hard.

They watched Finding Weemo, a movie about a jellyfish getting lost in the Inkadian wilderlands and getting caught by the Octarians- Anki hadn't seen the movie in a few years, and hadn't realized how tone-deaf it was in some areas, and considering how many octolings had been immigrating to Inkopolis and the surrounding areas since she was little and the movie came out, their depictions had aged POORLY. She really hoped her siblings wouldn't take them as fact.

That night, Mari and Naut were too excited and chatty about what they'd just seen to go to bed.

“Guys, I know Finding Weemo is like, super fresh, but you guys really need to sleep.” Anki leaned in the doorway of the two younger squids' room and crossed her arms as Mari pouted.

“I don't WANNA, Aki!!” Mari whined, sitting up in her little pink toddler bed covered in crayon drawings. “I'm not tired,” she said, her droopy eyes betraying her words. Naut, while being generally the quietest and least argumentative of the three youth, was also in blatant protest of bedtime, balling his dark purple hands into fists and slamming them onto his own bed, a basic black twin bed instead of a toddler bed.

“C'mon,” Anki reasoned, “Mom and dad are gonna be super mad if you guys are too tired for school tomorrow.” She pushed off from the doorframe and stretched a bit, awaiting the next argument her siblings would use.

“But right now isn't tomorrow,” Naut said quietly. “Right now is today.”

Anki thought for a minute before shaking her head and coming u with something on the spot. “How about I tell you guys a story?” She moved to sit on her brother's bed as Mari cheered and jumped from her bed to Naut's, nearly falling on the floor.

---

In the present, Anki took a deep breath. “Guys, lay down, I'll tell you a story.”

A few of the more exhausted or groggy toddlers had already done just that, and about 3 more laid down. Anki took another breath, blinked slowly, and sat down in the general midst of all the cots. There were few kids who were very adamant about not going back to bed who just sorta sat there, but Anki was hoping she could get them at least a bit sleepy with this maneuver.

“Once upon a time... There was a jellyfish named Weemo.”

From there, she retold the story of Finding Weemo on the fly- How Weemo was missing 2 tentacles and had an overprotective dad, how he got lost on a field trip and went missing into the wilderness near Mount Nantai, and finally how his father ventured into the woods with a local inkling and to find him.

Verna calmed down and climbed into Anki's lap. Anki flinched slightly, changing her ink color to match Verna's so the occasional splotch of green ink on the tot's clothes wouldn't sting.

When she reached the part of the story where a group of patrolling octolings found him, she paused. In the movie, she remembered Weemo had been found and essentially kidnapped, and held hostage for practically no reason- Hell, in the movie, the octolings didn't even look like real octolings, instead swapped for big, scary creatures with a vaguely inkfish proportioned form- and Anki realized, in fact, unlike she had thought at 16, the film was less of a poorly aged product and more so just full of speciesism.

These kids deserved better. Both for the sake of the Octo kids in the class, and for everyone else, too young to recognize the story wasn't real.

“The octolings had been on a camping trip, and were very worried for young Weemo,” Anki spoke to the group of toddlers, who were slowly drifting off. Verna had, by this point, fallen asleep in Anki's lap, snuggled up against her body.

Anki kept going. While she was focused on visual art in school, she'd always had somewhat of a knack for storytelling, too, and the words came as easily to her as breathing did, the story flowing from her lips fluidly. She told the children of Weemo's group and his dad searching for each other in the vast woods, and she told them of how they found eachother right back at the very entrance to the woods Weemo had disappeared from.

She polished off the rewritten tale with the main characters having a celebratory picnic together, and looked up to see every last toddler was asleep. She whipped her head around to see Safina standing nearby, hands clasped, with a big smile on her face. The inkling in question looked like she was about to cry from pride as she let out a whisper.

“You're going to do great here.”

---

That evening, Anki was the last staff to leave the building, at least to her knowledge. She'd cleaned up the toddler room for the night and was about to leave when she noticed a sheet of paper sitting on the counter by the door.

Right. The incident report.

After everyone had been put back to sleep, Anki had laid Verna down on her cot and covered her with her blanket. Afterwards, Safina walked her through writing an incident report. Anytime someone was injured to the point of requiring first aid, or splatted, an incident report had to be written, and needed to be signed by everyone involved- The child(ren) involved and their parent, the staff present, and finally, Odette, given she was the director.

Anki needed to drop the report off at Odette's office before she could head back to her dorm. She gripped the sheet of paper lightly in her hand as she walked out of the classroom and over to the office door, assuming her boss had gone home, and intending to leave the report on her desk.

She wasn't expecting to hear voices as she approached the door.

“...And we have never seen the Salmonids run this far inland,” A voice that sounded vaguely familiar explained. Anki couldn't quite place it, but she could swear she'd heard this person before.

Next up, Odette replied. “Do.. Do we have any reason why they are gathering?” She sounded worried.

“We don't, and it doesn't make sense. Salmonids generally return to their place of birth, and the furthest inland we've seen them is Inkopolis Square.” The familiar voice sighed.

Anki silently pressed her ear to the door, unable to help but snoop a little, even if she knew she shouldn't eavesdrop. She focused her hearing and slowed her breathing down.

“I've heard of the Big Run incidents in the Square and Splatsville,” Odette said quietly, “But being stationed here, I never responded to one. What can we expect?”

“Salmonids,” the other person said bluntly. “Many, many salmonids, generally hostile, all over the city.” Anki kept trying to place this voice. It reminded her of Marie of the Squid Sisters; whose music had been a staple in her family's household since she was little. Her parents were huge fans of theirs and had even attended some of their shows in the duo's prime shortly after she was born. Anki thought it was interesting how someone could sound so much like her.

Odette sighed and Anki could hear the sound of papers shuffling. “How long do we have?”

“...At the current rate we see them approaching, we anticipate one week. Agen- Veronika and Surume have already been deployed to Inkopolis. Surume is already at HQ, and Veronika will be here tomorrow at latest.”

“Will this impact Hope's attendance?” This piqued Anki's interest, and she pressed her ear closer against the door. Hope was one of the few kids she'd gotten to know somewhat well in the few days of her employment, given that she was the last to be picked up the day prior. Turns out, over an hour of caring for one child can reveal a lot about them.

Silence. Then the voice spoke again. “Slightly. Captain says that she will be here from open to close due to her and Eight fighting in the Run. Marina Ida will be escorting her.”

“Okay. I see. We will need to add her to the approved pickup list.” More shuffling papers. “I expect she'll be armed?” Now Anki was VERY interested. What exactly was going on here? And Marina Ida? As in, THE MARINA IDA was involved with Hope? And who were Captain and Eight anyway?

“She will be armed with a modified Undercover Brella and standard kit. Sheldon can send you the specs for the mods if you need them, but it's primarily to reduce ink consumption.”

“Modified?” Odette sounded like she was raising an eyebrow. “You know it's already a big risk allowing her to carry a weapon in here for dropoff. But a MODIFIED one? If licensing hears about this, they'll bite my head off!”

“We have the clearance,” the other voice said in a much calmer tone than Odette. “You know the Splatoon is sponsored by the IDC.”

“The Defense Corps and the Department Of Marine Services have nothing to do with each other. With all due respect, 2, Captain, how the HELL did you get clearance for this?!”

“We have our ways.” The sound of a piece of paper being slid across a desk could be heard, and Odette grumbled a little.

“...I see. Alright. Just please make sure it isn't obvious the Brella is a weapon? I don't want parents panicking. There's already going to be enough strain on the community.”

“Of course.” There was a solid 5 seconds of heavy silence. “...Captain also wanted to request you join the front lines.”

“WHAT?! If there's going to be a Run HERE of all places, I need to protect the school and keep my parents and staff calm, let alone the children!”

“I understand, but the current projections estimate that if-”

The familiar voice was interrupted by a new one, one that was a little gruff, a little gravelly, but still identifiably feminine.

“Agent 5,” she began. “I know you have responsibilities. I know you haven't been in the field in years. But we need all the hands we can get, or those coddamn fish are going to get deeper into the city, and then the school really will be in danger.” This new person shuffled in place audibly. “Neither of us want that. Neither of us want civilians hurt. Neither of us-” She choked up a bit- “Neither of us want our kids hurt.”

Odette sniffled a bit. “...Can we talk about this at HQ?”

“...Okay.”

Anki heard footsteps coming to the door and panicked, diving under a nearby couch, shoving her bag under with her, and shifting into her squid form, staying as still and quiet as she could as three inklings exited the office. She glanced over to see Odette, of course, and- Oh cod, it WAS Marie Cuttlefish! Anki would know that hairstyle anywhere, even with her wearing a facemask and trenchcoat- and, wait, Mrs Vanderblast???

Before Anki could theorize at all, she saw Odette bend down to the floor. SHIT! She dropped her incident report on her way under the couch! The older inkling picked the sheet up and returned to a normal position, not seeing Anki.

“What's that?” Marie asked coolly. Odette glanced the report over.

“Incident report. Our new aide must've dropped it.”

“Anki Dory?” Kaori asked quietly. Odette nodded and folded the report, placing it into a tote bag she was carrying. Kaori let out a slight hum at this. Odette continued: “I'll need to sign this at the HQ. Duty calls, y'know?”

“I can respect THAT,” Kaori said with a bit of humor in her tone. Marie smiled a bit, and like that, the three left the building.

Anki waited 10 minutes before slowly squirming out from under the couch and leaving the building, mind racing.

Chapter Text

The next day Anki worked was 2 days later and set to be busy- She had a half shift, but was assigned to the infant room, which, while only having 8 kids at maximum, was still going to be a bit hectic, considering they were literal babies.

But Anki had helped care for Mari when she was still a little inklet, and had a base understanding of how to care for the infants. No, what she was anxious about was the team meeting that night after close.

It was a monthly affair, and from what Anki had gathered from her coworkers, it was an hour long, and was mostly just announcements and talking about the month ahead. She was still nervous though. Good ol anxiety!

She stepped out of the train that day and noticed the sky was an odd color- Just slightly off. Maybe a bit reddish, as if the sunrise had been extended. She filed a note mentally to paint something like that later and kept walking.

It had been a couple hours in the baby room and Anki was doing well. She was getting along with Nectarine, and the infants, while somewhat disturbed and afraid of a random new person caring for them, were overall not that difficult.

Something occurred to the young inkling as she sat on the playmat with the more mobile babies, waiting for her coworker to set up lunch. Every other room had mixed species, but looking around at the 7 in attendance here, there were only inkfish.

“Hey Nectarine?”

“Oh, you can call me Nectar. What's up?

“Oh, uh, thanks. I was wondering why there aren't any kids in here who aren't inkfish?”

Nectarine paused for a moment and turned their gaze away from the small infant table and towards Anki. “Do.. You not know? Inkfish ink is like, super toxic to other species before the age of 1.” They walked over to a nearby cabinet and pulled out a few lunchboxes from the kids' homes. “We legally can't mix species until these inklets stop making that toxic ink.”

Anki's face flushed, and she felt dumb. “Ah. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I didn't know that.” She averted her eyes from Nectarine, who noticed this.

“Hey, don't beat yourself up over it. It's not really something they teach in school, and I can't imagine they put it in the training, considering we don't mix infants anyway,” Nectarine shrugged. “Hey, this is your first center job too, right?”

Anki nodded.

“Yeah! So there's no way you could've known.” Nectarine finished setting the table for the more mobile kids, and clapped once. “Alright, let's get lunch started!”

That night, after cleaning up the infant room, Anki gathered her things and sat on one of the lobby couches for the meeting. Veri, Nectarine, and Anchor had arrived already and were chatting amongst themselves on the same couch.

“Oh. Hello, Anki,” Veri greeted politely, with her usual blank expression. Nectarine gave a slight wave and Anchor felt the need to introduce himself.

“Uh, hey. I'm Anchor.” The boy awkwardly stuck out his hand towards Anki, who shook it.

“Anki.” The older inkling replied curtly.

Suddenly, Safina burst in through the door. “OH MY COD AM I LAT- Oh.” She blushed and facepalmed as she went to sit next to Anki.

Odette walked out of the nearby staff room with Lime, who was helping her lug a heavy looking projector screen. Ribbons followed carrying the projector itself, and the trio started setting up the system.

“Is everyone here?” Odette asked the air. A chorus of affirmatives rang through the lobby, and Odette smiled. “Okay, perfect.”

Ribbons and Lime took their seats once Odette started up the projector. “Alright! First order of business, everyone welcome Anki to Inkopolis Early Learning Center!” The team gave Anki a light round of applause, and Safina gave a loud “WHOOP!”, making Anki blush and pull her knees close to her chest.

“Next up, we are STILL looking for an infant assistant,” Odette said, clicking to the next slide and frowning. “You all know I love our kids and helping in the rooms, but lately we've really needed the extra coverage, and if I'm in the rooms all the time, I can't be there to answer the phone, run tours, accept mail, monitor the spawn pad, none of that.” There was a moment of silence. “If you know anyone who is qualified under DMS standards, please refer them!”

“Alright, now for the meat of the meeting,” Odette mumbled, clicking to the next slide, which was a schedule table. “In 2 weeks, the owner of the school, Mr Conch, will be making his quarterly visit.” This earned a cacophony of groans from the audience.

“Okay, yes, I know, he's very nitpicky about how things are run here. But he literally owns this place, so let's try to have a good attitude about it and be on our best behavior. This means keep your classroom clean, no drama, try and plan some activities for the kids to do. We can do it!”

Odette got a few lead paint stares and quickly swapped slides with a nervous chuckle. “Uh.. Moving on! I've gotten word that there's going to be a Splatfest soon. The sneak peek will be in 3 weeks, and I think it'd be a good time to teach about the history and significance of the events.” The inkling glanced around at her colleagues. “I recall last year, Lime held a mock Fest in his class. That was a really fun idea! Maybe we could do that again?”

“Cleaning up the playground took a solid hour,” Lime said, his usually chill demeanor being momentarily replaced with pure terror. He shook his head a bit and relaxed. “Everything else went great, though. We could totally have another fake Fest, but if we do a fake battle to go with it, we need to find a more easily washable ink substitute than what we used last year.” The team murmured amongst themselves, primarily in agreement.

“I wasn't here last year,” Ribbons pointed out, “And neither was Anki or Veri. And I think Anchor too..?” She fidgeted with her braided tentacles. “What was the fake Splatfest like?”

“Oh!” Lime exclaimed. “It was really fun. Monday and Tuesday we had the kids vote for a team, then we kept the hype going until Friday, when we had a fake Turf War on the playground.”

“How does one perform a fake Turf War?” Veri asked, looking concerned.

“Oh, squirt guns and water balloons full of colored glue cut with a bit of water, so the non-inkfish kids could play too,” Lime waved away the question. “We can NOT use glue again. Even after spraying the kids and playground down with the hose everyone was still sticky.” He looked almost traumatized. “So.. So sticky..”

“Hey, I thought it was a good idea!” Nectarine said, putting their hand to her chest in mock offense. “You could've added more water!”

Lime, for the first time in a while, looked annoyed. “Nectar, if any one of the inklings or octolings got hit too much with that, they'd splat.”

“Cod, you're right. Can you use watered down paint?”

“No, that seems like it'd stain, and it'd take too much water to make it work anyway.”

“Why can't we just use real ink?”

“Where the hell are we going to get that much ink?! And it still splats-”

“Orange juice?!”

“WHY WOULD WE USE-”

Odette cleared her throat, interrupting the two's bickering. “You two, I know you're family, but this is still a profreshional environment.” Lime leaned back in his seat comfortably at this, while Nectarine pouted a bit.

After regaining control of the floor, she spoke again. “...Anyways, I'll leave it to your classroom teams to figure out what, if anything, you'd like to do for Splatfest week. I've got one more announcement, then we have a training film to watch about handling classroom conflicts. We have something coming up next week.”

Anki perked up ever so slightly. She'd been thinking a lot about what she overheard the night before, and was pretty sure Odd was about to talk about it. I mean, she thought it sounded important. She remembered somehting about people potentially getting hurt? And Salmonids? She'd never seen one in person but had heard they were pretty dangerous, and- Oh shit, Odette was talking.

“Next Monday, Mackie from toddlers is going to start transitioning to preschool!” There was a light round of applause. “I've given Safina and Lime the schedule, but it's the usual; slowly have him in preschool for longer each day until we're at a point where he can handle being in there for the full day.”

Safina looked like she was about to sob. “He's getting so big...” She then began to ACTUALLY cry a bit. Anki silently held her hand, which she seemed to appreciate.

Anki remembered Mackie. He was a blue sea anemone who was very quiet, and from what she knew, the oldest in the toddler room. It was probably a good thing he was moving up.

As the staff chatted about how Mackie's transition week would play out, Anki's mind started to wander. Was Odette really not going to talk about whatever the Big Run was? It must've been a big secret, then. But why keep danger a secret?

Also, there was something Mrs Vanderblast had called Odette. Agent 5. What was that about? Maybe they were some weird LARP group or something. Yeah, that'd make sense. ...Would it?

Anki looked up, and realized the training video was starting. She aimed her focus on that and tried to forget what she'd heard.

Chapter Text

It was the morning after the meeting, an eerily calm Friday morning. Odette was busy in her office, checking who all was in attendance. Numbers seemed low today, and she figured it was because of the air quality. There was something weird in the air today, as the sky stayed a smoggy pink past sunrise and a strange smell lingered in the streets of Inkopolis; something almost metallic or even bloody. It frankly smelled awful and Odette had to practically drag herself out of her apartment that morning.

Idly, she fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. Something felt... Off. She just couldn't place her finger on it.

She continued to look through the software she used to manage attendance and messaging parents, not really aiming to do anything in particular.

Suddenly, her office phone rang. Yes! Finally, a distraction from the unease settling in her gut. Odette picked up the phone with a light smile. “Inkopolis Early Learning Center, this is Odette Paralva speaking?”

“Agent 5!” It was Marie. “The Big Run- Our predictions were off, and-”

“THEY'RE HERE!!” She could hear Kaori yelling from a slight distance. “BOOYAH BASE AND MOVING NORTHEAST!” Odette could also hear the sounds of splattering ink and growling in the background.

“We're mobilizing now, so if-” The call cut out before Marie could reply.

Odette's blood ran cold. Not only was the Run happening way earlier than planned, but from the sound of it, the Splatoon was going through it.

...The school was northeast of Booyah Base. Odette wasn't the best at geography, but she knew that much. Her options were to either stay back here and hope the salmonids stayed far away, or go out onto the frontlines.

...She opted for the latter, after much deliberation and recalling what Kaori had told her a few nights ago. Neither of them wanted to risk the kids getting involved in this.

Quickly, Odette checked over the attendance list. Everyone was on site except Anki, who was probably still commuting, and Anchor, who had the day off. She crossed her fingers in hopes that the team would be okay without her there, and slipped out of the building without a peep to head to the NSS HQ and grab her gear.

---

Anki had been riding the Inkopolis Metro, taking her usual route. She almost wanted to call in sick that morning, because frankly, the city air smelled terrible. She thought it smelled a bit like rotting fish. She decided to come in anyway, knowing it'd make a bad impression to play hooky during her first week on the job.

The train screeched to a halt at the next station, 2 stops away from Anki's stop. A few people got on, a few people got off; pretty typical. Soon enough, the door closed, and the train prepare to move on.

Only it didn't.

The young inkling looked up from her phone when she realized she hadn't felt movement in a while. Well, this was annoying. Maybe someone was holding the doors on another car- it wouldn't be the first time. She just hoped she didn't end up late.

The PA speaker suddenly crackled to life. “Good morning riders, we are currently experiencing a delay due to mechanical failure. Please remain calm and stand by, or feel free to exit the train.” The doors opened as the announcement was repeated in Octarian and Jellish.

Well, shit. Anki stowed her phone in her bag and decided she'd better go on foot.

The air outside hit her like a garbage bag full of wet socks. It smelled even worse than it did when she left home! It was more than just fishy now, it almost smelled like... Like blood, she thought, and maybe with some sewage and ink mixed in. Gross. And a bit creepy.

She was NOT going to let this ruin her Friday, dammit! Anki walked to the end of the platform and easily hopped onto the sidewalk below, skipping the like, 3 stairs she could've used instead. She hastily yanked a fabric face mask out of her bag and put it on, which blessedly masked the stench a little.

Anki idly wondered why the air smelled so awful today. Maybe a fish processing plant had a spill or some kind of leak? She hoped it was that, as much as it didn't really make sense.

About one block into her extended stroll, Anki heard something odd. Her ears perked up a little, and she whirled around to try and find the source. It sounded... Almost like an ink splatter?? But the street she was on was weirdly deserted. Were there more annoying teens trying to have a random turf war in the middle of her commute?

Sadly, this was not it, and Anki found herself face to face with a massive Cohock, who was slowly marching forward towards her, leaving a trail of dark green slime in its' wake.

---

Anki would've said something witty, but she was too terrified to do so, instead letting out a VERY high-pitched shriek that stunned the salmonid for a moment, giving her a chance to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE. The thing is, she was working off adrenaline, not logic, and ran onto whatever street was closest, unfortunately running into a fair swarm of salmonids of various types. In her shock, she rushed to try and stop, but lost her balance and fell into a puddle of slime.

“AAGH!” She yelled as the slime got soaked into her skin, causing a vague burning sensation that overtook her senses. She could feel her body preparing to splat as a defense. Suddenly, a few splatters of orange ink flew her way, and she rapidly changed ink colors, shifted into squid form and dove into the ink, trying to displace the immensely painful slime from her system.

From in the ink, she watched someone in a hard hat, blue slopsuit, yellow safety vest, and a gas mask trudge over, splatting a few smallfry as they went. Tapping a button on the side of their hat, they began to speak. “Civilian on Cyan Parkway. Going to get them to safety. Neo, come cover me.” A small voice blurted 'Copy that!' as they continued their approach.

The person's voice was vaguely familiar, but Anki couldn't see their face thanks to their mask. She rose from the ink to try and get a better look. “Wha- Who are you?!”

“...Nobody. Come on, we need to get you out of here.” Without waiting for a response, the slopsuited person grabbed Anki's forearm and dragged her away, inking the ground as they went. “What exactly were you doing out here? “

“G-Going to work?!” Anki blurted. “What the hell is happening?! Why are there REAL LIVE SALMONIDS IN INKOPOLIS?!”

“Big Run,” The suited person replied bluntly. “They, uh, come on land sometimes.” It seemed like now that there was less active danger, the figure was struggling to find words.

“That doesn't ex- EEP!” Anki yelped as a stray blob of slime hit her square in the shoulder. The suited person grit their beak behind their gas mask and started to open fire at a nearby Steel Eel with their Hero Shot.

“YEEEEEEHAW!!!” A voice cried from above as 3 explosive shots hit near the controlling salmonid, exploding into 3 bursts of ink, destroying the damn thing. The inkling responsible for the kill landed in front of Anki and the masked person. She was wearing NOTABLY less protection than the other person, her face fully exposed, revealing yellow eyes, orange tentacles pulled into a braid on one side, and a tanned complexion. She still had a slopsuit, but otherwise she was just going into this like it was an average Tuesday. Notably, she wielded a Tri-Stringer, which Anki was PRETTY sure was illegal in Inkadia.

“Neo, take this seriously,” The masked person sighed. “People are in danger. Case in point,” she gestured to Anki, who was wincing from the shot at her shoulder, totally unarmed, and without any form of protection. She looked a bit like a pathetic sopping wet cat, but... Man, idk, a squid?

“Oh, damn, Cap,” This “Neo” person said, a bit surprised. “I thought you said you were gonna get them to safety!”

“I was GETTING to that,” said “Cap”, in a rather blunt tone, before directing a softer, but still somewhat grumpy voice to Anki. “You said you were going to work?”

Anki nodded wildly. “Yeah, uh, I-” She hissed at the pain in her shoulder. “Hang on...” She shifted into a squid and sunk into the bright orange ink surrounding her and the two fighters. “Okay. That's a bit better. Uh, yeah, I was just trying to get to work- Uh, wait, let me back up- I work at a preschool near the edge of downtown, and the train stopped, so I went on foot, but then- The salmonids- I just-”

The young inkling quit her blubbering for a moment. “What even is happening today?!”

“Oh, it's a Big Run,” Neo explained casually, reaffirming the idea that this was an average Tuesday for her. “The salmonids are a very war-centric species. Y'know about Salmon Runs, yeah? Well, when they do those, they're just tryna return to their spawning grounds. The Big Runs are more of a plain ol' war. Though they've never invaded Inkopolis.. And we still don't know why they randomly go aggressive every once in a while. It's been theorized to be to-”

“...What??” Anki reacted, finally rising from the ink puddle she was in, feeling waaayyy better.

“Oh, a Salmon Run is when-”

“I know about those, they taught us that in high school!” Anki exclaimed. “NOWHERE did they mention THIS-!” She gestured wildly around to the general vicinity. “How do you even know this?!”

“Oh I'm a salmonologist!!” Neo chirped. “They're just such cute little guys, and they're super interesting, and it REALLY sucks that we have to splat a bunch of them, but if we don't, Inkopolis is gonna get overrun...”

Anki blinked. “...I'm sorry, you think salmonids are what now?”

Before Neo could repeat herself, a Smallfry the size of a Chum, with a bright orange bandanna tied around its tail to denote it as part of the team, tackled her to the ground, making her laugh. “LITTLE BUDDY!! My little runt! Have you been holding down the fort? Have you? Oh, have you?” She proceeded to babytalk her 'little runt' while Anki's brain crashed and Cap just stood around like THIS was her average Tuesday.

“...Okay. Anyways. I think I know what school this civilian is talking about,” Cap said, trying to change the topic away from whatever the hell this was. “Inkopolis Early Learning Center?-” She saw Anki nod- “I will take the responsibility of escorting her there. Neo, you and Little Buddy can hold down this sector. If things get quiet, regroup with 8 and 4 at the Plaza. 5 and 2 should be in the sector between here and the Plaza, and 1, 6, and 7 are patrolling the outskirts of the wave area. Be careful.”

“Aye aye!” Neo saluted in a pretty nonchalant manner as Cap led Anki towards the northeast.

---

“Man, this fucking sucks,” Surume groaned over radio, performing dodge roll after dodge roll against a swarm of Smallfry before finally finding a minute to splat them with her Dualies.

From the roof of Ammo Knights, Haven sniped a few Cohocks trying to sneak up on her teammate with an E-Liter. “I agree. I was anticipating there to be more of them.”

There actually were a fair amount of salmonids in the plaza, a fact which Surume recognized and frowned at. “Eight, you're kidding.”

Haven smirked a little. “No. I do not kid. I was truly expecting more of a challenge.”

Surume's jaw dropped. “DUDE, PLEASE! I bet if you were down here, you'd be changing your tune REAL quick!!” She performed a dodge roll to get out of the way of a sudden Maws that had arrived on scene.

“We will see,” Haven said, leaving her E-Liter on the roof in favor of an old Aerospray clipped to her slopsuit and super jumping down to the main street.

---

Marie and Odette were in the most hot water out of everyone in the Splatoon, to be honest. The midway sector had easily the most salmonids, and two people armed with a Squiffer and an Octobrush were just not enough, even as hard as they were fighting. From the various buildings around the street, a variety of people were watching the brawl in various degrees of interest, ranging from terror to utter delight.

It happened so fast: Marie stopped to wipe some slime from her goggles, and in that split second, Odette was overtaken by the swarm. Marie scrambled to strike her teammate's life ring with her Squiffer so she could respawn, but just as she was getting her aim confirmed, she too, was splatted, this time by a stray, powerful shot of sticky dark green slime.

The midway sector had fallen.

Veronika got the distress alert on her radio a couple seconds after it happened, and her hearts dropped. She'd been trying to chase down and stop a swarm of salmonids from heading the same direction as Kaori and Anki, but noticed at the last second another group trying to peel off and head to Inkopolis Tower. She whipped her head around wildly before deciding getting more people was the best course of action, running off towards the midway to revive Marie and Odette.

---

The next 15 minutes were a blur as Anki was led to her workplace by Cap. There were a few salmonids lurking, but the homefront was mostly quiet.

That's why Anki began to worry when they were about 2 blocks away, she heard a strange noise in the distance, and the masked stranger froze in her tracks.

Unbeknownst to Anki, in the span of 15 minutes, the midway team got splatted and revived, a massive horde of salmonids were beginning to converge on their location, and everyone in the Splatoon was mobilizing to that very block to make a final stand.

“Kid. Run.” Cap's voice was cold.

“W-what?” Anki shuddered, not noticing the first few members of the swarm arriving.

“I SAID RUN!” Cap screamed, shoving the younger inkling to the ground to keep her from getting hit by a shot from a Stinger that had slowly been rolled into the area by a group of Smallfry. This, unfortunately, had the side effect of knocking her gas mask off, revealing to Anki a familiar face.

“HOPE'S MOM?!” Anki yelped rather unprofreshionally, making Kaori cringe and essentially go nonverbal as she blasted away at salmonids. At that time, Odette, Marie, Surume, and Haven super jumped in, causing another round of shock for the poor college student (Haven notably had a smug grin on her face, while Surume looked pissed). “ODETTE?!”

Odette, about to strike a Cohock with her Octobrush, went pale as she caught sight of her newest employee. “A-Anki?! GET OUT OF HERE! RUN! IT ISN'T-” She was splatted before she could finish.

This time, Anki didn't need to be told twice, and ran as Callie, Marina, and Pearl arrived on scene.

She ran as fast as she could go, which admittedly was kinda slow, but it got her away from the action. She didn't stop for anything until she reached the preschool, and slammed the front door shut behind her.

Anki sunk to the floor and caught her breath, unable to really think. She barely even heard the foghorn signaling the salmonids' retreat over the mental shock she was experiencing.

...She got up 5 minutes later to go clock in, hoping for a distraction.

Chapter Text

Anki, instead of waiting around for Odette, had went from room to room looking to see who needed an extra set of hands. She soon found herself in Preschool, which was lively as ever.

Curly was in the corner, near a shelf of art supplies, brandishing a sword made of markers clicked together by the caps. “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!” In front of him stood Zaphary, Spinella, and two inkling girls Anki didn't know very well yet.

“Go away Curly!!” Spinella shouted, her arms crossed and looking pretty furious. “Let us color!!”

Ribbons was desperately trying to calm the situation down. “Curly, we need to share the art supplies. They're for everyone!”

In response, the young boy stuck his tongue out. “No way, avocado farts!”

“YOU'RE AN AVOCADO FART!!!” Spinella screamed and lunged towards Curly. Anki rushed over to get in between the children while Ribbons let out a yelp and held the young jellyfish back. Curly, genuinely startled by his friend's behavior, ran away, crashed into Veri's legs and started crying. The other two girls there also ran off, while Zaphary went to get Lime, who was filling out the attendance sheet on the other side of the room.

“C'mon, Spin, let's take a deeeeep breath,” Ribbons began, kneeling on the ground and holding Spinella close to her. “Let's talk about what we can do when we're angry.”

Veri returned with a crying Curly.

“I'm sorry, Spinella,” he wept, begging for forgiveness with his eyes.

Spinella looked at the floor, still in Ribbons's arms. “Okay. Sorry I tried to hitted you.”

Anki, seeing the situation was being handled, walked over to a less populated area to supervise. Specifically, the book nook, situated near a window overlooking the playground. There were a few kids sitting and looking at books, though in all likelihood most of them wouldn't be able to understand the text inside due to their age. Hope, though, caught her eye; sitting on a bench under the window and resting her arms and head on the windowsill, looking outside. Though the Big Run was over, the sky was still pinkish, and it was also startling to drizzle lightly.

“Hi, Ms Anki,” She said, in a much less energetic tone than usual.

“...You okay??” Anki asked, tilting her head and kneeling down to the girl's level. Hope turned from looking at Anki to looking out the window.

“I'm okay.” Hope shrugged. “I hope my mama and mommy are okay.”

“Oh, uh, what happened? I mean, why's that?” Anki stumbled over her words, but thankfully Hope didn't notice.

“Mommy said there was gonna be a bunch of salmon-sammie-salmodis at work today,” Hope said, her kinda blah tone not wavering even as she struggled to pronounce 'salmonids'. “I heard they're big and scary, but my Aunty Vera has a little one as a pet. And he's nice. Ms Anki, do you have a pet?”

“Oh, I don't,” Anki said casually. “Do you?”

Hope latched onto this new topic, perking up significantly. “No but I REALLY REALLY wanna sea bunny! But mama says they chew on everything. But that's okay because sometimes I chew on things too. And, and, sometimes Aunty Vera lets me pet her salo- saminin- salminis, and his name is Little Buddy even though he's not really little. He's kinda slimey but he's also really silly. One time he ate an entire burger in one bite.”

Anki blinked a few times. Hope's Aunty sounded a lot like that inkling she saw earlier with her mom. How complex was this kid's family tree??

From across the room, Anki heard the phone ringing, and soon, Lime walked over to let her know Odette had called her into the office.

Anki felt all 3 of her hearts sink as she made her way over.

When Anki entered the office, she was hoping, PRAYING it was only going to be Odette. But instead, it was her, Kaori, Haven, AND Marie.

She was pretty sure she was fucked.

“Uh... Hi,” She started awkwardly. Odette clasped her hands and rested her forehead on them, closing her eyes.

“Anki, we need to talk.”

“A-ah, yeah, um, it's cool you were fighting the salmonids, I-I don't judge,” Anki stammered.

“It isn't that,” Marie butted in. “The problem is Captain and Agent 5's identities were exposed to you, and we now need to set the record straight and talk about what happens next.” Her voice was dead serious, and Anki gulped.

“C-Captain?”

“Captain 3 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon,” Marie said, motioning towards Kaori, who looked exhausted and was covered in ink splotches and slime. “You know her as Kaori Vanderblast.”

“Hope's mother,” Odette clarified. “I am Agent 5 of the NSS, Marie is Agent 2, and Haven-” She motioned towards Haven, who was looking particularly worried- “Is Agent 8.”

“O-Okay! Cool! Good to know!” Anki laughed nervously, failing to mask her anxiety. She could've sworn she heard about a Squidbeak Splatoon in high school, probably in some history class she hadn't bothered to pay much attention to, but to her knowledge, it was disbanded like, forever ago. So what was this about a new on- Oh, shit, Marie was talking.

“We are an organization of undercover agents sponsored by the Inkopolis Defense Corps. Currently, our group's purpose is to defend both Inkadia and the surrounding territories from external attacks, and we have an additional interest in providing aid to Octarian defectors.” Marie glanced around the room. “We are not meant to be known to the general public.”

“Hence, why I called you here,” Odette said, prompting Anki to burst into tears. Odette's face contorted into one of startlement and confusion.

“I'm so fired, aren't I?! I swear I didn't mean to snoop or anything! I was just trying to get here on time!!” Anki buried her face in her hands and had an anxious breakdown while the Splatoon members stood around awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

Well, except for Odette. “Oh! Oh, Anki, no, this has nothing to do with your position here. Well, mostly.”

“It doesn't?” Anki peeked through her hands.

Kaori mumbled something under her breath. Odette flashed her a thumbs up and kept talking. “Well, here's the situation. As you are well aware, Kaori and Haven's daughter attends this school. This means that having a civilian on staff aware of her parents' status is very dangerous- there is all kinds of potential for information to leak, and then you or Hope becoming a target if an enemy of ours finds out about these two's civilian identities. It is for these reasons why having personal connections to civilians aware of your status as an NSS member are forbidden.”

The young inkling sitting across from Odette wilted again. “So I AM fired.”

“Just listen!” Odette said, sounding almost frustrated, but quickly regained composure. “Anyways... The fact of the matter is that you now have choices. The first choice was Captain's idea-”

Kaori cleared her throat, prompting everyone to gaze her way. “...We wanted to invite you to be an affiliate of us.”

Anki's face went blank. “What? Like an agent??”

Kaori switched to sign, which her wife began to interpret. “No, you would not be sent on missions, and it'd be mostly to ensure you have a tie to the Splatoon beyond knowing something you shouldn't. And, it'd also allow us to legally provide basic ink combat training to you, which may be useful if at all you ARE found and targeted.”

“Does... Does the targeting thing happen a lot..?”

Kaori looked at the inkling with an expression of deep thought before finally settling on a shrug. Anki frowned.

“What's the other option...?”

Odette gave the softest look Anki had seen on her so far. “I would need to terminate your employment here to get rid of the personal connection.” Her voice softened as well. “Anki, I like you a lot. You've been here for just a week and I've heard a lot of great feedback from the team about you. I really, really don't want to lay you off. You have a lot of potential, but rules are rules..”

There was about a minute of harsh silence before Anki spoke up. “...I guess I'll do the affiliate thing...?” Her voice was filled with apprehension.

“Oh, thank cod!” Odette breathed, sounding relieved. As she began discussing the details of this new arrangement, Anki couldn't help but wonder how her life got so weird.

Chapter Text

The next day was Saturday, and instead of relaxing in her dorm like she was planning, Anki had been told to go to a specific address in the business-y part of town for her first combat training session.

She was utterly dreading it, as she'd rather just recharge for the week ahead, especially since she had plans for Sunday, but she figured it was better than losing her job.

It was a non-descript office building, and Kaori checked the address again, thinking it might be incorrect. Nope, this was definitely it. Cautiously, and while looking around to ensure she wasn't being watched, she approached what looked to be the front door and buzzed the intercom. She stood awkwardly for a moment, not receiving a response, but suddenly, a voice came through, a bit grainily, and underlaid with a low buzz.

“Hey, kid. I'll be down in a minute.” The voice was gravelly and quiet, but Anki could make out that it was Mrs Vanderblast. Surprised, she looked around and soon noticed a small security camera trained on the front door. That was probably how she was recognized.

Soon, the door, which was tinted extremely darkly, opened up, revealing Kaori Vanderblast herself. She was dressed up in some kind of sportswear outfit, mostly black with a few yellow accents. There was an official yet tattered and patched cap sitting on her head at an angle.

She squinted at Anki a little after they stood awkwardly for a moment. “Come in already.”

Anki did as she was told, and instantly froze. The interior of the place was nothing like an office. They were currently standing on a large loft, with a handful of desks scattered about, some having computer setups, some being more like workbenches. There was what looked like a meeting table on a far wall, complete with a whiteboard, which currently had some turf war strategy scribbled onto it. Surume and Veronika were arguing over something in front of it, though Anki knew neither of their names and only recognized Veronika.

The loft cut off abruptly halfway through the space, being finished with a railing. There was a break in the railing near the center to accommodate a ladder leading down into a decent-sized training course, similar to what she'd seen in the lobby when she used to do turfing in high school. There was a large respawn pad in the dead center of the course, and a small fenced off area to the side held an elevator and a few doors.

Anki stared around with her mouth lightly agape. Kaori didn't seem to care much, her expression firm and unmoving.

“MOMMY!!!” A small voice yelped, suddenly running from a really short desk hidden from view by the taller ones and jumping into Kaori's arms. “Mommy! Come see what I drawed!!” It was Hope herself.

Kaori's face immediately softened. “Okay. Show me.” She set the child down, who rushed back to her desk. Anki awkwardly followed the pair.

As Hope started to grab the crayon drawing sitting on her little desk, she realized Anki was present. “MISS ANKI!!!”

The 19-year old was caught completely off guard as Hope rammed into her with her arms outstretched, trying to tackle hug her. Anki lost her balance and the two toppled to the ground.

The child thought this was, of course, hilarious, and climbed on top of Anki's stomach, making her release an odd sound that sounded somewhere between a grunt and an 'oof'. “Haha, I got you!”

“Hope,” Kaori said gruffly, “Is that how we greet people?”

The small octoling flashed her mom a smile. “Uh, yyyeees?”

“No it isn't. Get down.”

Anki coughed a bit as Hope got off her with a disappointed huff. “You're very energetic today.”

“I GOT TO COME WITH MOMMY AND MAMA TO WORK!!” Hope yelled, confirming that indeed she had the approximate energy equivalent to a small nuclear reactor. “And I didn't even know you were coming! I like you, you're funny and like fish.” It was impressive, really, the rate at which she was speaking.

“...Your drawing?” Kaori reminded her gently. Hope gasped and swiped the paper off her desk and held it out proudly. “It's a narwhal playing tennis.”

The two adults looked at the picture. It looked like a spiky blob holding a chicken drumstick.

“Very nice,” Kaori said, nodding, as her child's eyes twinkled. She turned back to Anki as Hope sat down and returned to her coloring. “So, welcome to Squidbeak HQ. It ain't much, but it's enough. Tod-”

“YOOOO IS THAT THE KID FROM THE BIG RUN???” Surume called out from the meeting table, having spotted Cap talking to Anki. Kaori flinched a bit at first but then gave a quick nod.

“Dude, I heard you were joining the team, but I didn't know you were gonna be here today!!” Veronika gasped. “That was DAMN fast! Dude, it's gonna be so nice having someone else around h-”

“Calm down. Like Deep Cut and Sheldon, she's just an affiliate.” Kaori gave a subtle look to Veronika, who ignored it completely and trotted over with Little Buddy following close by.

“Since it's not classified now, hi! I'm Veronika,” The inkling said, grabbing and shaking Anki's hand. “That dumbass over there is Surume.” She ignored the girl in question's annoyed shout of 'HEY!!!'.

“I'll bet you already know Cap and Haven, since their kid goes to your work and all. The Squid Sisters and Off The Hook aren't here, but they're also part of all this.”

Anki was absolutely fucking dazed.

“Hey wait, where IS Haven??” Surume asked from over at the meeting table.

Kaori simply walked over to the railing and yelled down into the training course. “NA, HAVEN?”

The octo peeked out from behind a dummy that ordinarily would be moving, but was currently still. She was presumably repairing it, if the toolkit next to her was any indication. “Sema lo?” Seeing Anki, her face fell a bit, like she was nervous about something. “Sina ipoti e one lo teni?”

Kaori shrugged. “Ona li pomuta sa palupini lo teni.” Haven didn't seem to like this answer, but still, she came and ascended the ladder up to the loft.

“Hello, Ms Dory.” Haven gave a polite bow to Anki, who gave a slight, awkward wave in return.

“How's the motor fix going?” Kaori nudged, making her wife practically light up.

“Oh, it is very interesting. At first I thought perhaps it was a problem with the motor itself, but as I inspect closer, I believe there may be some pieces of popped target trapped within the magnetic track. You see, as I was testing the motor, I saw a scrap of bright blue material lodged-”

Anki spaced out around here as Haven continued to infodump. The past 24 hours had been such a clusterfuck of new information that she really just wanted to go to bed.

“-But, if my theory is correct, we could more easily adjust the speed of all of the moving targets we are using.” Haven smiled brightly at Kaori, who blinked a few times.

“...Wow.”

“Yes! Yes, it is incredible!” Haven gushed. “As soon as I am finished testing this repair, the course will be available to you. It should not be longer than 15 of minutes.”

“Thanks, Eighty. You're the best.”

“Of course! I must resume.” Haven, confidence renewed, slid down the ladder and dashed back to the target dummy she was working on.

“...So, uh. You know turf wars, right?” Kaori asked Anki awkwardly after a moment of dead air. She really would rather be using sign right now, but she was pretty sure the teen didn't know it.

“I used to do them in high school?” Anki said, starting to feel nervous. “I'm, uh, in college though, and I have a job, and a lotta homework, so...” She let the rest of her words go unsaid.

“Hmmph.” Kaori looked Anki up and down. “C'mon.” She JUMPED over the railing to get down into the training pit, doing a safety roll to break her fall before standing up and motioning for the younger inkling to follow her. Anki squeaked and opted to use the ladder.

“Haven, make sure Veronika and Surume don't drag Hope into anything stupid,” Kaori called as she led Anki to the elevator in the fenced-off portion of the pit. Haven gave a thumbs up, not even looking up from her work.

Anki anxiously followed behind Kaori as she walked into the elevator and headed for the second floor. The young inkling was honestly expecting something crazier than the office hallway they emerged in.

Kaori approached an unusually heavy-duty door amongst the other typical, office hallway doors, and punched a code into a keypad sat on the wall next to it. The door clunked open, and the pair entered.

“What.. Is this?”

Kaori looked at Anki with a mildly amused expression. “It's an armory, what does it look like?”

The room they entered had no windows, and was full of warehouse-style shelves upon shelves of various ink weapons and boxes of parts. Against one wall was what looked like a repair station. The occasional act of graffiti peppered the walls and shelves of the armory. Towards the far end of the room, Anki could see a few racks of gear and armor next to a handful of lockers.

“What did you use when you did turf?” Kaori began inspecting a few weapons on the shelves.

“...A splatana wiper,” Anki admitted. “They had just legalized them in Inkadia around the time I turned 15.”

Kaori hummed a bit. “We've got one you can use for today.” She yoinked a wiper off the shelf and tossed it at Anki, who scrambled to catch it. No sooner than she had, Kaori unexpectedly tossed an ink tank at her, too. Anki was unable to catch it and it clunked miserably on the floor.

When she looked up, she saw that Kaori was already at the back lockers, gearing up with her hero shot and an ink tank. She was done and back by Anki before the poor girl had even gotten her ink tank hooked up.

Kaori crossed her arms and leaned against a shelf as Anki rushed to get her equipment settled. She slung the tank straps over her shoulders and tightened them up so they'd fit, and then yanked the back collar of her shirt down so she could tap into her ink.

Right towards the back of the base of the neck in developed inkfish, there was a particularly thin, sensitive patch of skin over a major ink channel, which ink tanks were designed to connect to. If one focused, they could emit some ink from that patch, but not at a pace fast enough for turfing or combat. There was a small tube and hookup system leading into the ink tank, and Anki vaguely remembered how to get tapped in. The hookup was a lot like a suction cup, and was to be squished against that patch of skin to create enough pressure that ink could flow freely through the skin.

Anki pressed the hookup onto her neck and squirmed a little as she felt ink flowing into her tank. It felt weird and hot for a second before feeling, frankly, like nothing. She was a bit wobbly for about 10 seconds before her ink sac started pumping more ink into her system to keep her internal pressure correct.

The next thing she needed to do was connect her tank to her wiper. There was a small port on the splatana's handle, designed so a tube coming from the bottom of the ink tank could be attached. From memory, she inserted the tube and twisted it to lock it, and jumped a bit as the wiper instantly became loaded with ink.

“I thought you used to do turf,” Kaori said, raising an eyebrow at how jumpy Anki was.

“I did!” Anki protested, embarrassed. “Just not in a few years. I forgot how weird all the equipment feels at first.”

Kaori shrugged. “Ah. Well, no point in dinking around up here any longer.”

Kaori opted to start out with a sparring match to get a feel for Anki's fighting style, and then build up from there. In all honesty, she wasn't the best at structured training, and more just went with the flow.

Haven, Hope, Veronika, and Surume were sat up by the railing of the loft to watch the sparring match. Hope looked like she was about to explode, and Anki couldn't tell if it was due to excitement or if she'd just tried to take a bath before she was old enough not to get splatted by it. Haven, on the other hand, looked really, REALLY nervous, and was fidgeting with one of her tentacles. Surume and Veronika were just vibing. Little Buddy was trying to eat a stapler somewhere in the distance.

“Your objective,” Kaori began in a surprisingly clear and confident voice from the opposite side of the field from Anki, “Is to try and splat me. I'll go easy on you, so don't hold back. Let me know when you're ready.”

Anki breathed in and held a starting stance she thought was okay, then shook out her nerves. “Uh, ready!”

Kaori's advance was immediate, beginning with a bomb thrown a considerable distance forward, followed by her shifting into swim form and diving into the ink. Hope seemed really confused by this for some reason, and tugged on Haven's arm to get her attention.

Anki jumped backwards as Kaori jumped out of her ink and aimed at her with her hero shot. Thinking quickly, Anki charged a good swipe with her wiper, and inked a long path off to the side, swimming away as fast as her tentacles would take her.

She ducked behind a target dummy and tried to think of what to do, but Kaori came running over. “You shouldn't stop and rest in the heat of battle! Every moment you spend sitting is a moment your opponent can use splatting!”

Anki yelped and smacked the captain in the face with her wiper, making her stumble back and remain surprised for a moment, before breaking out in a huge smile, perhaps the most expressive Anki had ever seen her. “Interesting...” She inked a path away from Anki, who, confused, inked herself some more turf around her.

Suddenly, Kaori popped up from a small puddle or orange ink near Anki, and opened fire. Anki freaked and swam away, but Kaori pursued her, wanting to test something. Anki swiped haphazardly in Kaori's direction, getting a fair amount of dark blue ink on her.

Kaori grinned a bit more, slowly understanding how the young inkling operated. She seemed to avoid conflict until the moment was critical, and then would ink with reckless abandon. The captain saw at least some potential in Anki, and if she could just nudge the college student to balance her offense and defense, she'd be well-rounded enough to defend herself.

The battleground was truly Kaori's happy place, unless you counted Haven's arms as a place. If there were two things the captain was, they were a strategist and very, hopelessly gay.

She knew that the younger squid wouldn't learn anything from the encounter if she won effortlessly, so she dove back into the ink to recover and prepared to ambush as Anki started inking turf again.

Sneaking behind the college student, Kaori suddenly arose and took aim. Right before she was about to take one or two warning shots, she heard her wife yelling, freezing the entire sparring match.

“KAORI VANDERBLAST, STOP!” Haven slid down the ladder and stormed over, being careful not to step in any ink. “There must be a better way to teach her of how to defend herself!”

“Experience is the best teacher, Haven,” Kaori argued. “You can't just read a book and suddenly know how to fight.”

“That is not what I meant,” Haven said, tugging on one of her tentacles. “She is our child's teacher, and we have met her less than one week ago! You are being far too harsh with the teaching!”

“How is it harsh? We have a perfectly good respawn pad! She's got the look in her eyes, she'll be okay!”

“IT IS HARSH BECAUSE IN THE TIME OF FIVE DAYS WE HAVE GONE FROM CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES TO TRYING TO SPLAT HER! Cannot we first get to know her better?!” A slight accent Anki hadn't really noticed about Haven's voice earlier was really starting to shine through as she became more tense.

“A real opponent wouldn't sit down for tea and biscuits before getting her ass, Haven!!”

The couple slipped into arguing in Octarian, and Anki quietly slipped up to the railing and sat with Veronika, Surume, and Hope. Hope was staring off into the distance, and naturally, Anki was concerned. “Hope, are you okay??”

“My mommy is a SQUID!!” Hope grabbed Anki's arm as she exclaimed, and shook her a bit. “SHE HAS 2 MORE ARMS THAN MAMA AND ME!!! THAT'S SO UNFAIR!!”

Anki couldn't help but stifle a snort. “What's so bad about having two less arms?”

“Less arms to hold things with,” Hope pouted. Anki nodded thoughtfully.

“You've still got 8 in octo form, though. 8 is a big number.”

“Mmm...” The young octoling furrowed her brow in thought. “I guess.”

Anki gazed down into the pit to see the wives still squabbling. “Do they do this often?”

“Nah, not really. When they do it's usually about dumb stuff like movie lore or weapon kits. Haven must be MAD,” Veronika speculated aloud. Suddenly, the group saw the two hug, kiss momentarily, and return up the ladder.

“Anki, I'm sorry for throwing you into a sparring match right away,” Kaori started. “Now that I've talked to Haven I realize we should've gauged your skills and abilities first.” She glanced around, seeming a bit lost for words. “Maybe we should all get some lunch and regroup.”

“LUNCH!!” Hope instantly yelled, jumping up and running in circles. “LUNCH LUNCH LUNCH LU-”

“Aw, HECK yeah!” Surume said, fist pumping. “Can we get dessert?”

“No.”

“Aw, thanks cap.”

“She just said no?” Anki said, confused. Surume brushed her off. “She's totally joking.”

And with that, the Agents, Hope, and Anki set out on a noble quest to get some grub.

Chapter Text

After Anki and Kaori got their gear off and cleaned up a bit, the group was ready to head out. Kaori removed her cap and plopped it down at her desk before joining the rest of the group by the front door.

As they exited, Kaori quickly enabled the security system of the building by tapping some kind of keycard on the entry keypad. She casually jammed the thing into her pocket and clapped once before signing something to the group.

“Where should we go?” Haven interpreted for the one or two people in the group who couldn't understand.

“I WANT FISHSTICKS!!” Hope yelled with immense enthusiasm, prompting Veronika, who was standing directly next to her, to cover her poor ears. Anki stifled a small chuckle and listened to the rest of the group's answers.

“As long as Captain's paying, I'm down with anything,” Surume said with a wink and a nudge towards Kaori, who sighed and confirmed with a silent thumbs up that she was indeed paying.

Veronika stretched her arms behind her back. “Yeah, I just want something meaty. Oh, and they've gotta let Little Buddy in. I'll fight them if they don't.”

“No you won't, you're too soft,” Surume teased.

“DON'T YOU TEST ME!”

“We can find someplace that allows him,” Haven assured Veronika, trying to break up whatever this was. “Surume, you are my age and yet you act as a young child. Please be civil.”

Surume huffed as Haven quietly signed to Kaori asking her what she wanted to do. Wordlessly, Kaori tugged her phone from her pocket and tapped around on a map app, before showing her wife the closest result for a casual sit-down place.

“Maritime Diner,” Haven read. “We can try there.”

Anki sputtered for a moment. “Oh my cod, I used to work there.”

Everyone turned her way and she blushed deeply.

“Place has been open for like, 2 weeks,” Kaori said quietly, a somewhat disturbed look on her face, visibly questioning how a full-time aide who started a week ago had 'used to' work at a diner opened only 2 weeks prior.

“OH! Oh no oh jeez it's not like that. No, no, see, uh, my boss laid everyone off and closed the place? Something about finding himself. And then just went and reopened in a new spot.” She tugged on one of her front tentacles, trying to not let her anxiety get to her.

Haven gave Anki a look of pity. “Oh, I am sorry. Perhaps we should find a different location?”

Anki waved her hands dismissively. “Nah it's okay! It's fine. Don't wanna wear Hope's little legs out with the walk, anyways. Another place might be farther.”

“Yeah, or Surume's legs,” Veronika said thoughtfully.

“I'M NOT THAT SHORT!!” Surume growled, prompting Haven to break them up AGAIN.

It was maybe a 7 minute walk to the diner, and the journey was filled with mostly casual chatter, save for a few more epic roasts and squabbles between Surume and Veronika, who Anki was starting to realize probably Just Did That. Hope darted back and forth from her moms, to Little Buddy behind Veronika, to Anki, who was in the middle of the group. Soon, she settled into the middle with Anki so she could be easily heard by everyone. She was quiet for a moment before having a VERY important question to ask.

“Ms Anki, what's laid off?”

Anki looked down at the curious young octo and tried to break it down as easily as she could. “Oh, it's when your boss takes away your job, but you did nothing wrong.”

“WHY WOULD YOUR MR BOSS MAN DO THAT?!” Hope was visibly turning a bit redder. “That's not nice!!”

“My boss?? Uh, well, he wanted to close the restaurant we worked at,” Anki shrugged. This didn't really satisfy Hope, whose ink at this point was a deep red instead of her usual dark red-magenta.

“But, but, he still has the restaurant. That's not fair.”

“Hey, it's not all bad. I got to become your teacher,” Anki said with a small smile.

This calmed down the child ever so slightly, and her ink gradually returned to its' natural tone. “Oh. Yeah.”

Soon enough they arrived and sat down at some random table. Of course, Anki's luck was terrible enough that her old boss was the one handling their table.

“Oh! Anki! Didn't expect to see YOU around these parts.” He was a rather tall, tan inkling with toxic green tentacles and a particular bite to his voice.

Anki rested her head in her hands. “...Hi Lucky. Went good.” She twiddled her thumbs a bit, not realizing Hope, sat across the table from her, was again turning a deep, angry red, as well as glaring at Lucky.

“Went? So you're employed again, eh?” Lucky raised an eyebrow. “Don't let me catch you working for a competitor, now!” He laughed heartily and gave Anki a light slap on the shoulder, which she seemed vaguely bothered by, but found the energy to laugh along.

“Haha, no, no, uh. I'm a preschool aide now.”

“WOW! Teaching a bunch of snotty 3 year olds all day? I don't know how you do it.”

Hope was pretty pissed now, and was baring her beak and giving off a low, quiet, gurgle-y growl.

Anki laughed anxiously. Haven could tell something was off, and could ALSO see her child becoming progressively angrier and interrupted the exchange. “Apologies, but may we obtain some of beverages?”

“Ah, yeah, of course. What can I grab everyone?”

Anki breathed a sigh of relief, silently thanking Haven as the group ordered some drinks. It wasn't that Lucky was a bad person, it was more like he was very, very extroverted, and had a few problems respecting boundaries, both of which tended to spell disaster for her.

Haven and Kaori opted for plain water, while Veronika went with some kind of lemon soda pop and Surume copied her to prove some kind of point that was lost on Anki. Anki herself ordered a blueberry soda pop, while Hope grumpily asked for almond milk and ketchup mixed together, which Kaori put a halt to immediately. She overrode Hope's request and asked a regular almond milk be brought instead, which Hope seemed very displeased about.

Veronika also asked for a bowl of water for Little Buddy, who by some miracle was allowed inside, and was currently curled up under the table.

Once Lucky walked away from the table, the mood instantly changed.

“Hope, why are you so angry?” Haven queried, tilting her head at the tot.

Hope crossed her arms and pouted. “Mr Boss Man got rid of Ms Anki's job and it isn't fair!”

“It's okay, Hope, layoffs are just part of being a working adult,” Anki shrugged. “It wasn't just me, anyway. Everyone lost their job.”

“But you're so funny and you wear sneakers and you have blue tentacles,” Hope argued. “I don't get it.”

“It sounds like an unfortunate event,” Haven supposed. “Perhaps we can speak more of this at home, Hope?”

The little octoling grumbled out a 'fine' and sunk down in her booster seat.

“Why's he think he can get all touchy with you?” Veronika asked, leaning back in her seat. “Creepy guy...”

“Eh, he's just like that,” Anki said. “Always has been. With everyone. It's fine.”

“You sure as hell- UH I MEAN HECK,” Surume immediately corrected, remembering there was a child at the table and seeing Haven shoot her a light glare, “Uh, you didn't look like you were fine.”

Anki shrugged as Lucky returned with everyones drinks. “Y'all ready to order, or do you need more time?”

“Uh, yeah, we're GONNA need more time,” Surume started, looking like she was gonna start shit until Kaori gave her an expression that told her not to make a scene. She scrambled for an out. “I mean, uh, we haven't really looked at the menus yet..!” The pink-tentacled inkling gave a vaguely disingenuous smile as she flipped the menu open before her.

“Alright, take your time. I'll check on y'all soon.” With that, Lucky walked away and Surume deflated.

“Cap, why can't I just go off on that guy?”

“She said it was fine,” Kaori said with a shrug, though she seemed annoyed. “Respect her boundaries.”

“Can we just get food already?” Veronika said, slumping onto the table. “I haven't eaten anything in like, 7 hours.”

“FOOD!” Hope exclaimed, sitting upright and alert. “I forgot! I want fishsticks! I'm gonna read the menu!!” She yanked the menu at Kaori's spot away and tore it open, staring at the options. “...Hey mommy can you read me this??”

Kaori smiled ever so slightly and pointed to a small kids' menu in the corner, which had illustrations, thankfully.

“Thanks mommy!!” Hope held the menu up extremely close to her face, making a variety of 'hmmm's and 'huhh's. Haven looked like she was about to melt from sheer affection over the tot.

“Well, I want a sandwich,” Veronika said after barely glancing at the menu.

“I thought you wanted meat??” Surume questioned in a bit of a playful tone.

“Calm down, I'm getting a crabmeat patty.”

“Oh, shoot, that sounds good. I was thinking-”

“YEP! Still want fishsticks!!” Hope suddenly slammed Kaori's menu down on the table hard enough to rattle everyone's cups slightly. A few patrons of the restaurant glanced over at the table, and Kaori gave the young girl a quiet 'shh'.

“Sorry, mommy,” Hope said with an exaggerated sad face, before cheerfully handing the menu back and rapping her little hands on the table.

Anki stifled a quiet laugh, not even bothering to touch her menu. She knew damn well Lucky wouldn't be able to make a whole new menu in a matter of weeks, and already had an idea of what she wanted. Probably just some shrimp salad.

“I think calamari would be nice,” Haven thought aloud.

“MAMA?!” Hope yelped. “You can't eat that! It's squid! Mommy's a squid!!”

“Mommy's an inkling,” Kaori said in a quiet and unusually patient voice. “Squid live in the ocean and don't talk. They're just animals.”

“But- but you can BE a squid!!”

“Not the kind you eat,” Kaori shrugged. “It's like how you and Mama are octolings, but there's also octopi in the ocean that aren't like you.”

THIS seemed to resonate with Hope. “Oh.”

“Yes! I would never eat one of your mother's kind!” Haven shook her head. “That would be awful.”

“Besides, I'm the one who does the biting in this relationship,” Kaori mumbled under her breath.

Haven, who was taking a sip of water, immediately sputtered and coughed. “KAORI!”

“WOAAHHHH, Cap!” Surume howled as Veronika giggled childishly next to her. “Keep it E For Everyone, we got 2 kids at the table!”

Anki was not amused. “I'm 19.”

“Still look plenty squishy to me,” Surume said, crossing her arms behind her head.

Hope, completely lost, looked from face to face at the table. “I don't get it.”

“W-We will teach you when you are older,” Haven stuttered, her face flushed red as Veronika's giggles began to die down.

At about that moment, Lucky returned and leaned on the tabletop. “SOOO, can I get you anything?”

“Calamari, please,” Haven said, and Kaori quickly signed something to her to indicate she wanted the same, which her wife dictated to Lucky, who was using his phone to type in the order.

“Two crab sandwiches,” Veronika said, before quickly clarifying. “Uh, one's for Little Buddy, and he doesn't like tomato, so leave it off one.”

“You know me. Just a shrimp salad, extra hot sauce,” Anki said absentmindedly, fidgeting with one of her front tentacles.

“Some clam pasta on the double!” Surume said, lightly slapping her palm on the table for emphasis.

Lucky finished typing and looked back up. “What about for the inklet, hmm?”

“I'M NOT A BABY!!” Hope growled. “I'M 4 WHOLE ENTIRE YEARS OLD!!”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Lucky stammered, clearly not expecting Hope to be- Well, Hope. “What would the young lady like?”

Hope huffed, still angry and even growling a bit, but somewhat appeased. “Fishsticks.”

“Okay! Does anyone need anything e-”

“NO!” Hope growled, turning a dark red. Haven moved in to try and calm her down as Lucky ran off.

Sadly, Hope was PISSED. She was hungry, probably needed a nap, and was mad at Lucky not only for laying off a person she liked but also calling her a literal infant. Her 4-year old brain didn't know how to communicate this, and therefore her body reacted with the most primal form of communication it could muster: A chomp.

“Iii!” Haven hissed, her daughter's beak grazing her forearm. There was no blood, but it stung. “Hope! Okto pona li mokike ala e mama!”

Hope realized what she did and immediately started to cry. “MAMA-!”

“I am okay, but we must remember to breathe when we are angry so this does not happen again. We may practice later when you are calm.” She gently lifted Hope from her booster seat and held her close. Anki watched this intently, feeling like it could help her manage conflict at work and such.

The mood at the table was notably tense until Lucky arrived with the food. He passed plates out to the older inkfish first, then set down Hope's plate at her spot between her parents.

“FOOD!” She instantly perked up, squirming away from Haven and climbing back to her seat, grabbing a fishstick and cramming it into her mouth with a happy hum. Veronika tossed the sandwich she got without tomato under the table for Little Buddy to devour (“Here ya go, my little runt!”), and from the sounds of it, he did so very quickly.

Finally, Lucky set Anki's bowl of salad down and patted her on the head, which she flinched at. “And here's your shrimp salad, Anki.”

“...Thanks, Lucky.”

Once the inkling left, Kaori spoke up. “You sure you're okay with him touching you, kid?”

Anki practically wilted. “Well, not really, but like- He's my boss. I can't just tell him to stop.”

“No he's not.”

“Huh?”

Kaori gave her a heavy stare. “He's not your boss. Odette is. If you aren't comfortable, you tell him off.” She quietly started on her calamari and left Anki with that sudden realization.

While everyone was either eating or focused on the exchange, Hope came up with a Scheme and sliped under the table, meeting Little Buddy.

“Hi Little Buddy!!” Hope whispered with a twinge of mischief in her tone. “I gotta plan. Ms Anki's old boss is really really mean. I think we should go get justice!!”

The smallfry tilted his head and gave a curious whine.

“It'll be easy!!” Hope whispered back. “We just gotta sneak over to the kitchen... Oh! And we need... Octo Hope!!” The young child began to make a quiet yet strained “hnnnnng” sound, trying to shift into her swim form. She'd only done it once before, a few weeks ago, when one Saturday she crashed into a shelf in her room and suddenly, boom, octopus. She'd been stuck until the next evening, and wasn't even AWARE that she could shift until that moment, and was convinced she'd been cursed to be an octopus forever until Haven and Kaori reassured her. But that was a story for another time, and she was SURE that she had it down now! She wouldn't get stuck as an octopus this time!

Suddenly, with a bloop sound, she managed to morph down into an octopus. “Aha! Yeah! C'mon Little Buddy!” She wiggled her way up onto the salmonid's back, and the two set off.

Haven, after about 10 seconds, sensed something was off, and looked up, instantly realizing Hope was gone. “Where is Hope?!”

Kaori froze, before looking up and sighing. “We looked away for less than 15 seconds.” Her voice was somewhere between a deadpan and disbelief.

“Oh, she could be anywhere!” Haven panicked, standing up from her seat.

“It's just like when she was a baby,” Kaori said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, NOT forgetting the time she climbed my arm and BIT ME,” Surume said, cringing. Anki wasn't sure she wanted to know the story behind that.

“Haha, classic.” Veronika leaned back in her seat before realizing the severity of the situation. “Oh, wait, shit, this is really bad.”

“We must find her!!” Haven cried, starting to tear up. She looked around wildly, seeing a short inky trail on the floor, which was a perfect match for Hope's ink. “There!” She dashed after the trail.

“Follow that ink!” Anki exclaimed, running after Haven.

“C'mon, Little Buddy!” Veronika quickly realized her smallfry was missing. “Oh no, Lil B is gone too! Maybe they're together?!”

Hope had heard the commotion at the table and skillfully hopped off of Little Buddy and used her suckers to climb up a wall and onto a ceiling rafter. She stealthily traversed the beam, heading for the kitchen door. The plan was to throw a bunch of eggs at Lucky. Truly devious.

The gang soon found Little Buddy sitting and looking guilty next to the wall where Hope had climbed. A dark magenta ink trail led up to the ceiling.

“OKTO LITE MI!” Haven panicked, as Kaori approached her to offer a hug. Hope was sneaky and flexible enough that nobody could SEE her on the rafter beam, making it easy for her to crawl across and into the kitchen, easily pushing the door open from the rafter.
Once inside, she snuck over to the kitchen, and seeing the two line cooks' backs were turned, grabbed as many eggs as she could carry from the fridge while still being able to crawl around (3), and headed back to the ceiling, silently escaping the kitchen and climbing back onto the rafter in the dining hall.

“It's gonna be okay. Hope Vanderblast, you get your tentacles down here THIS INSTANT,” Kaori said with a level of power to her voice Anki hadn't heard since the Big Run. She was unaware that the beam she was talking to was currently vacant.

“Everything okay?” Lucky suddenly approached, causing Surume to audibly groan.

Haven approached him with great speed and went full business mode. “My child is on your bar. Please help.”

Kaori, seeing Lucky's look of utter bafflement, restated what her wife had said. “Our kid's missing and this ink trail means she's probably in the ceiling. Sorry.”

“OH COD, REALLY?!” Lucky instantly freaked and grabbed Anki's hand. “C'mon, Anki, let's go check the security cams-”

Anki jerked her hand from Lucky's. “...Don't touch me.”

“What?” Lucky said, baffled.

She repeated herself. “Do. Not. Touch me. I don't like it.”

“You.. Don't?”

“No, and I never have. I just didn't have the guts to say it before.”

Lucky went pale for a minute before quickly offering a bow. “I am so sorry, Anki. I really didn't know. Pl-”

Suddenly, 3 raw eggs fell on him, and he yelped. Hope, who was on the rafter above, yelled “BOOYAH! That's what you get for being mean to me and Ms Anki!!” and wormed herself over to where Kaori was, before jumping down, thankfully being caught by Kaori's fast reflexes.

Kaori was stunned for a moment before she held the octo out at arms length, looking straight into her eyes. “You are in huge trouble, young lady.”

“WHAT?!” The little octopus gasped, before Haven swooped over to Kaori's side, arms crossed. “Do you have any idea of how much of the worries we felt?” Her accent was shining through again.

“...Sorry Mama.”

“Give apologies to this man at once.”

“Sorry, Mr Boss Man.”

Lucky blinked a few times. “You know what? How about y'all go finish your meal.”

“Actually, we'll take some to-go boxes, if that's okay,” Kaori said grumpily. “Let me pay you.”

“It's on the house,” Lucky said with an anxious wave. “Don't worry about it.”

“I said, let me pay you,” Kaori mumbled, handing Hope to Haven and fishing around her shorts pocket for her wallet. She casually pulled out a 250 cash coin out of her bag and handed it over. “This enough?”

“...Maam, this is almost twice what your food cost.”

“Take it as a tip.”

“...Okay! How many boxes, then?”

Back out on the street, Surume and Veronika were at their usual rate of banter towards the back of the group, and Haven gave an exasperated sigh as she carried Hope. “Hope, that was very unkind, what you did.”

“Yeah, but he was mean to me and Ms Anki!”

“It was kinda awesome,” Kaori mumbled under her breath. “But you need to stay with us in public so you don't get lost or anything.”

“Fiiiine...” Hope stood still for a moment before grunting and straining, flexing her tentacles. After maybe 20 seconds, she sighed. “Mama, I'm stuck.”

“Oh dear,” Haven sighed, hugging the little octo close as she walked. “Try to take some deep breaths. Once we are within the HQ I will try to help.”

“I might be able to help too?” Anki offered up. “I helped her friend out of swim form once.”

Haven thought for a moment, then hummed. “Yes, please.”

With that, the group increased their pace, trying to get back to HQ ASAP to hopefully get a break from the chaos of the past half hour.

Chapter Text

“I HATE being an octopus!!”

Anki sighed, resting her head in her hands. Currently, she was sitting on the floor of the NSS HQ loft with Haven and Kaori, the three of them huddled around Hope, who was at this point flopping around miserably on the floor. Veronika and Surume had judged themselves to be deeply unqualified to handle this, and were watching from the nearby meeting table.

“It will be okay, Hope. We will figure this out,” Haven said in a soothing tone. “Just breathe.”

“I AM!!!” Hope whined, frustrated. “It's not working!!”

“Kid,” Kaori said quietly, “What exactly did you do when this happened at work? With her friend.”

“Well,” Anki began, “He was hiding in an air vent because he was embarrassed, so I shifted into swim form so he felt less awkward about it, and we took a few deep breaths together. Then he just kinda blooped back.”

Kaori huffed and looked like she was deep in thought for a minute. “Breathing's not helping much.”

“Perhaps it is because she is uncalm,” Haven proposed. “Hope, how are you feeling?”

“Like a stinky smelly octopus,” Hope grumbled.

“You don't smell,” Kaori said, tilting her head.

“YEAH BUT WHAT IF I START?!” Hope squealed, curling into a ball and starting to cry. Haven scooped the young octoling up and held her in a light hug.

“Okto mi...” Haven murmured. “There is simply no way you would begin to smell simply for being you.”

“Yeah, unlike Kaori,” Surume called from the table, earning a really scary looking glare from the inkling in question. “Eep!”

“Perhaps we should attempt a different approach,” Haven suggested, moving to cradle Hope like a baby. The older octoling's face went soft. “You are very precious like this...”

“MaMA!!!!” Hope protested. “I don't wanna be precious! I wanna be a kid!!”

“I got an idea,” Anki thought aloud, thinking back to high school health class, still fresh in her mind from a couple years prior. “Shifting is like, pressure-dependent, right? Uh, hm...” She glanced around to gauge everyone's reactions, which looked vaguely confused. Anki frowned.

“So, uh, Hope. You've got a big, strong ink sac in your chest, and- Jeez this would be easier if I had my class notes- Uh-” Anki cleared her throat- “Try and like, squeeze your chest real hard from the inside??”

“I don't HAVE a chest! I'm an OCTOPUS!!”

“Shoot, you're right. Squeeze where your chest WOULD be??” Anki offered up, sounding doubtful of herself.

“No, wait, kid, you might be onto something,” Kaori muttered, scooting closer to her wife. “Haven, you too. Maybe we need to combine strategies.” She held her arms out, and Haven hesitantly handed Hope over to her.

Kaori laid down on the floor with Hope on her stomach. “Here's an idea, kiddo. I'm gonna breathe real slow and steady and what I want you to do is breathe along with me when you feel my chest rising and falling. Got it?”

“Mommy this is dumb.”

“Work with me, will ya?” After shaking off that exchange, Kaori began to take some deep breaths and waited to feel if Hope was syncing up with her.

“Okay, now, when I breathe out, I want you to do the squeezy thing Ms Anki talked about. Harder every time we breathe out. Okay?”

“...Okay...”

As Hope and her mother breathed in and out, Anki watched as the little octo seemed to become more strained, eventually squeezing her eyes shut and dripping some ink onto Kaori's shirt. Suddenly, after an agonizing minute, Hope suddenly blooped back into her blobby but recognizably humanoid form.

“MOMMY I DID IT!!” Hope laughed and bounced up and down on top of Kaori, who coughed and tried to sit back up to no avail.

“Hope, stop, I need t-” Kaori was interrupted by Hope losing her balance and falling forward onto Kaori, bonking her face against her mother's.

“Owwwww!!” Hope cried, pushing up off of Kaori's chest and staring her in the eyes. “Mommy, your face is so hard!!”

Kaori attempted to lift the child off of her, but Hope leaned back over the inkling's face and started to squish her cheeks, inspecting dutifully. “Oh, good! Mommy, your face is okay! Mine hurts though. I think maybe you might be made of rocks.”

Haven lifted Hope off of Kaori from underneath the tot's shoulders, allowing the inkling to sit up.

Kaori coughed again as she arose from the floor. “[I think YOU might be made of rocks. You're very heavy.]”

The young child kicked and squirmed within Haven's grasp. “I'm not made of rocks! Look!! Blehhh...” Hope stuck her tongue out, jamming her thumbs into her mouth and stretching her face into a goofy expression, as if to prove her elasticity.

“That is enough of that,” Haven sighed, setting Hope down, who immediately rammed into Kaori, hugging her legs.

“It's okay, mommy. I still love you even if you're rocks.”

The inkling froze for a moment, her face showing a very confusing array of emotions before she knelt down and hugged her child back. “...Love you too, kiddo.”

“So, uh,” Veronika began, interrupting the sweet familial moment. “Today was pretty wacky, and this is really cute and all, but I kinda need to get back to Splatsville..”

“Oh, for cod's sake, Vera, you done went and messed up the moment!” Surume gasped, placing a palm over her chest with a look of mock offense.

“Calm down. It's fine.” Kaori hoisted Hope up and over her shoulder, hanging the now squealing and laughing tot upside down. “Anki, how's next week at the same time sound for a more productive session?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah, sure,” Anki stuttered, having been distracted for the past minute or so. “That works.”

Kaori hobbled over to the college student and offered a fistbump with her free hand, which Anki accepted. “Good to meet you a bit more formally. Don't be late.”

Anki arose early the next morning, though she really, really wanted to sleep in. She tidied up her apartment a little, got dressed and lazily grabbed her bag off the floor, and like that, she was off, aiming to take the Metro to the other side of town.

You see, today was her monthly visit to her family. She'd made a habit of spending the day at the family apartment at least once a month, mostly because if she didn't, her parents would fuss and worry over her 24/7. That, and she liked seeing her siblings.

She thought to herself as she walked to the Metro station. It'd been a pretty long week. She hadn't told her parents about her new job- She messaged them about the interview, but forgot to follow up later. That wasn't even the most unusual thing that had happened, arguably, considering she'd stumbled upon a secret agent group with her boss and one of her student's moms and MULTIPLE pop idols and oh cod she REALLY can't let her parents know about that, not only was that against the NSS rules but they'd also FREAK and- Oh, she was at the station already.

Anki blinked a few times to escape her stupor and tapped her train pass on the station terminal, groaning when it gave her an angry beep to tell her there was no more balance on the card. Just her luck. She'd set it to auto-refill, so the only thing this could mean was there wasn't enough money in her bank account for a pass refill anymore.

Her first payday was next Friday. She'd just have to make do until then.

Anki rifled through her bulky bag and froze. What the HELL was an ink tank doing in there?!

...Oh, right. Kaori had told her to keep it and the Splatana Wiper she'd been lent. Anki foggily remembered leaning the weapon against the wall in her closet, but must've left the ink tank in her bag. Great. It was too late to go bring it home now. Hopefully nobody would go digging in her bag and ask questions.

Anki grumbled and yanked her wallet out, proceeding to a nearby ticket machine and cramming a couple coins in to get a paper ticket. Soon after, the train came roaring into the station, and Anki boarded.

She was planning to stop at MakoMart to grab some snacks, but the abject lack of cash in her coffers prevented it. It was probably for the best; she hated the damn place. There was a huge section in the store partitioned off for Turf Wars, and as such, there was constant upbeat pop music clashing with whatever shitty chill jams they played for the actual shoppers.

On the train, Anki's mind wandered again, this time to her siblings. It'd been a full month since she'd seen them last. Surely, not much must have changed in such a short span of time, but some part of her was nervous maybe they'd forgotten about her.

In a logical sense, there was no way Mari would've. She was in her first year of elementary school now, and had developed into a feisty, headstrong young inkling. Hope reminded Anki of her sister, in a way. Though Mari definitely didn't have as strong of a sense of justice, she did have a pretty keen memory.

Naut was still quiet as ever, if not quieter than when he was younger. From what Anki had heard, he was starting to get into art, just like her. So he, in a strictly logical sense, would probably remember her too.

...Anki paused. They were her siblings, and she'd only moved out in the past year. And she'd seen them both, like, literally last month. Of course they'd remember her. She cursed her anxiety silently as the train arrived at her stop and she departed.

Along the route to the old apartment building her family lived in for as long as she could remember, Anki began to panic a little internally. How would mom and dad react to her new job? Her mom had seemed supportive when she talked about the interview, but maybe they'd be disappointed she still wasn't really doing Turf. They were profreshional Turf War players, man!

Anki shook her head and blinked as she realized she was standing at the door to the building. She fished an old NFC key out of her bag and buzzed herself in, proceeding to the elevator and going up a few floors before walking down the hall.

She took a deep breath. It was her family. She loved her family. It'd be fine.

A knock on the door and a concerning array of clanging sounds later, and Anki was met by her mother; an inkling with her dark purple tentacles done up in a rushed ponytail, dressed in pajamas and an apron. If the splatter of beaten egg on her tentacles and the mess of fallen pots and pans Anki could vaguely see behind her in the kitchen were any indicator, she was probably making breakfast.

“Oh! Anki!” The older inkling smiled warmly. “Welcome home! Uh.. Do you mind helping me out with breakfast..?”

And with that, the visit was off to an interesting start.

Chapter Text

“So what exactly happened here, Mom?” Anki queried, casually removing her shoes and tossing her bag onto the floor by the front door.

Her mother, already rushing back into the kitchen to clean up the pots she'd spilled onto the floor, gave a light huff. “Well, I wanted to surprise you and your siblings with breakfast, since it's a special day! So I started making waffles, but we were out of flour since you know I don't bake much. So I sent your dad out to buy some and switched over to making omelets, but, er.”

Anki looked around as she walked over to the kitchen island. There was a bowl of beaten egg knocked over on the counter and spilling onto the floor. Next to it was a salt shaker that had tipped over. Anki also noticed the egg mixture had, like, way too much pepper in it. Somehow. There wasn't a pepper grinder or shaker to be seen anywhere. From putting the pieces together, the young inkling figured her arrival startled her mother into knocking over all the pots and pans, too.

Honestly Anki wasn't sure how her mom went this wrong.

“Well, let's clean this up then,” Anki mumbled, grabbing a rag from a nearby drawer and sopping up the egg from the counter and floor, casually tossing the bowl into the sink. “We have more eggs, right?”

“Yeah,” Mrs Dory said, finally getting the cookware in order. “In the fridge. I was thinking fruit salad too, but-”

A loud door creaking open and a young child's yawn interrupted the conversation. “Ma..? Why do I smell eggs..?” The light blue inkling child yawned again as she stopped in front of the kitchen. She blinked a few times as she awoke further.

“...ANKIIIIIII!!!” Mari suddenly yelled, rushing forward to hug her older sister. “YOU'RE HERE!! YOU'REHEREYOU'REHEREYOU'REHE-”

“Calm down, squiddo,” Anki chuckled, patting Mari on the head.

“Good morning Mari! Sleep good?” Mrs Dory asked cheerfully as she grabbed a new bowl and cracked a couple eggs into it.

“Mhm,” the child confirmed, letting go of Anki. “Are you makin' eggs?”

“Girl, yes,” her mother replied, pumping her fist a bit and setting her work aside. “We're gonna have omelets, fruit, and waffles!”

“YAY!!” Mari squeaked, giving a jump for joy. “Where's dad?”

“Buying flour.”

While her mom was distracted, Anki subtly grabbed the bowl of eggs away from her, to ensure she wouldn't over-pepper them again. She started to beat them, adding a more suitable amount of seasonings before proceeding to the stove, where a pan was already placed. “Is this clean?”

“Yeah, got it from the cabinet just before you arri- Hey, wait, you go relax! I said to help out a little, not take over! You're a guest today!” Mrs Dory scolded Anki lightly.

The younger inkling gave a devious smile. “Make me.”

“Oh, I won't. Mari will.”

At this, Mari gave the biggest little gasp her 6-year old body could muster. “Anki! Yes! Let's go get Naut!!” She began dragging Anki down the little apartment hallway with as much strength as she could, which was a surprising amount.

“Dude, it's the weekend. He's probably asleep still,” Anki warned the child, raising an eyebrow.

“So? We're all awake!! He should be too!!” Mari knocked confidently and incessantly at Naut's bedroom door, and Anki just sighed.

Naut, the dark purple boy himself, wearing a pair of wrinkled pajamas, answered after a long groan emanated from within his room, combined with a few slow, heavy steps towards the door. “...I thought having my own room meant you weren't allowed to wake me up early anymore.”

“Yeah, well, uh-” Mari stammered. “WELL ANKI'S HERE!! It's visit day! So it's okay!”

Naut blinked and looked up at Anki, who waved awkwardly, still being clutched at the forearm by her younger sister.

“...Oh. Hi Anki. Can I get dressed?”

Anki herself yawned a bit. Naut's sleepy energy was infectious. “Yeah, go ahead bud.”

Naut nodded and closed the door, retreating into his cave again.

Mari was practically vibrating. “Anki c'mon c'mon!! Let's go play video games!! NAUT WE'RE GOING TO THE LIVING ROOM!!!” Mari dragged Anki off without waiting for her OR Naut to reply.

A few minutes of sitting around in the living room and playing on the last-gen console the family owned, and Naut joined them, blinking slowly and lowering himself onto the couch beside his siblings.

“Why you so sleepy, Naut? Did you stay up late drawing?” Anki questioned.

“...Painting,” Naut said quietly, earning a respectful nod from his sister.

“Been there. You mind showing me later?”

Naut, while not showing any obvious expression, was soaking up the positive attention. “Okay. Later.”

“Cool.” Anki stretched her arms high into the air and shook them out before grabbing her controller again. A sudden sound from the door caught the siblings' attention, and they looked over just in time to see their dad walking in with a frankly concerningly large bag of flour in tow.

“Agh, no, she's here alrea- I mean! Hi Anki! Welcome back, kiddo.” He was a rather tall, medium skinned inkling with dark blue tentacles tied back into a lazy bun. Grunting, he set the flour down onto the counter in the kitchen. “How's school?”

“Good,” Anki shrugged, being immediately interrupted by Mari tackle-hugging her dad.

“Woah, Mar! We feelin' handsy?” The older inkling picked up the 6-year old and spun her around, producing a round of laughter. He popped her down onto the floor and grunted. “Man, I'm getting too old for that.”

“No you're noooooot...” Mari whined.

“Well! We have flour now. Thanks, Harbor,” Mrs Dory said with a clap as Harbor gave her a thumbs up. “I'll start on the waffles. Can't be too hard.” She grabbed her phone out of her apron pocket and pulled up some random recipe, leaning the device against a spare pan placed on the kitchen island. “You guys go relax.”

“I wanna help cut fruit!!” Mari yelped, hopping up to a stool next to the island. Mrs Dory rolled her eyes with a light smile. “Yeah, okay. You can help. Everyone else, go chill!”

“So, what's been going on in your world?” Harbor queried, looking intently at his eldest child.

Anki was sitting back in the living room with her dad and brother- Besides the kitchen, there wasn't really anywhere else in the apartment where they could sit and still technically be with Mari and Lanie (Anki's mother).

“It's been eventful,” Anki shrugged, leaning back into the couch cushions. “Especially the past few days.”

“Oh, yeah, those salmonids on Friday?” Lanie called from the kitchen, busy pouring waffle batter into the waffle iron. “That was awful! They canceled all the Turf War and Ranked matches and we had to hide inside the lobby for like, an hour.”

Mari, who was sitting at the counter and slowly cutting up some strawberries with a plastic knife, piped up, too. “Our school got a lockdown! It was really scary!” Naut nodded wildly in agreement.

“Oh, oof,” Anki reacted. “Yeah, I was commuting in the middle of it. Train broke down and I tried to go on foot.”

“Commuting? Does that mean-” Harbor began.

“Yeah, I got the preschool job,” Anki confirmed, earning a round of cheers from her parents.

“Oh, I knew you could do it!” Lanie whooped, before suddenly pausing and growing eerily cold. “Wait. YOU WERE OUTSIDE DURING THE ATTACK?!”

“Y-Yeah, but ma, I'm okay, I only got hit twi- Urp.” Anki was interrupted by her mom rapidly abandoning the waffle iron and rushing over to her, squeezing and inspecting her face.

“TWICE?!” Harbor was starting to get concerned, too. “That slime isn't good for you at all! Did you splat?!”

“No, no, uh. There were some people fighting the fish that sprayed some ink down for me so I could recover. I got to work late, but safe.”

From next to Harbor, Naut stirred uncomfortably. He hadn't actually seen a salmonid in real life before, but had seen pictures, and was currently imagining his older sister getting cartoonishly thrown into the sewers by one. He didn't like the idea.

“Don't you ever get off a busted train again!” Lanie exclaimed, finally letting go of her daughter and returning to the kitchen, shaking a little.

“Ma, I'm fine,” Anki sighed. This was definitely where she got her anxiety disorder from.

“You could've gotten seriously hurt, Anki,” Harbor said, frowning. Mari, not totally understanding the tension and weight in the air, slowed down her cutting so she could turn the conversation over in her head a few times.

Unwilling to fight this battle, Anki conceded. “...Okay. I'll be more careful.”

Eventually, breakfast was ready, and the awkward energy and tension dissolved entirely as everyone got some food and started eating.

“So, about your new job,” Lanie started, stabbing a waffle on her plate with her fork. “What all do they have you doing? You're in art school, after all.”

“I'm an aide,” Anki replied plainly. “Kinda just an extra set of hands.” She popped a strawberry piece into her mouth.

“And you don't need a degree? That's fresh!” Harbor exclaimed, before Naut quietly and politely reminded him not to talk with his mouth full.

“Do you have friends at your new work?!” Mari asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh! Do you?! That'd be so great!” Lanie rested her head on one of her hands and shut her eyes. “It's been so long since you've mentioned any friends, Anki. I remember when you and Nanami would have sleepovers, and stay up for hours past midnight, or that time you were out past curfew and we were so worried, but it turns out you had just fallen asleep at her place.” She chuckled softly. “I was so mad! Oh, or how-”

At the mention of her old friend, Anki shrunk back a little, swallowing the piece of fruit she'd been chewing on.

Nanami was around a year older than Anki, and the two had been best friends in middle and high school. The thing is, Nanami was really competitive and sporty, and Anki... Well, she wasn't. She enjoyed the occasional Turf War match, but her true calling was art. When Nanami was in her senior year in high school, Anki decided to quit Turf to focus on getting her GPA high enough that she could attend Inkblot.

...The two had a really big fight over it.

They'd made up, of course, as good friends should, but their bond never really recovered, and they slowly drifted apart over the remainder of the school year.

Anki hadn't heard from Nanami since the older inkling's class graduated.

“Ma,” Anki said quietly, interrupting her mother's reminiscing. “I'm getting along fine with everyone at work.”

Harbor picked up on his daughter not being too keen to talk about her social life and responded accordingly. “Well, that's good. Lanie, maybe we should drop the subject.”

Lanie furrowed her brow a bit. “All I'm saying is it'd be great if Anki could make some new friends. She's barely had any in years!”

Harbor stood up from his chair,waving an arm at Anki. “She's obviously uncomfortable, Lane. Stop it.”

Lanie finally sighed and returned to her food, prompting Harbor to take his seat. Anki was flushed red by this point.

“Just saying...”

An awkward air returned to the family once more.

The awkwardness slowly subsided as the meal progressed, and eventually the three siblings excused themselves to play more video games. This went on for an hour before Anki found herself in her former bedroom, now allocated to her younger brother, to look at Naut's painting.

“Wow,” Anki breathed. The painting was really large and impressive for someone her brother's age. It depicted the Inkopolis skyline, or at least what the young inkling could see from his window. The colors, in Anki's somewhat educated opinion, were pretty well selected, and while the piece was of course rough around the edges, it was still plenty good.

“...You know, you're not bad at this,” Anki said, turning to Naut, who had been standing next to his work with a mildly anxious expression until receiving the praise, which he flashed a shy smile at.

“Hey, can I show you some of my sketches?” Anki asked gently. “I brought my sketchbook. Maybe you could use the inspo?”

Naut nodded his head wildly and followed Anki to the living room, where their parents and Mari were watching TV. Anki quietly knelt down to her bag, which was still laying next to the front door. Unfortunately for her, she forgot entirely about the massive ink tank in there, which rolled and clattered onto the ground as soon as she opened the bag.

Naut stared at it with wide eyes, and was about to say something, but was interrupted by his father.

“Woah, an ink tank? What's that for?”

Anki froze as she realized all eyes were on her. She could ABSOLUTELY NOT tell the truth about where she got this tank! She could say she forgot it in her bag, though. But that'd require her explaining why it was in there in the first place.

“Uh, I was thinking of trying Turfing again? So, I uh, borrowed this tank, but I forgot to take it outta my bag,” the poor girl bullshitted, eyes darting from the tank to her parents and sister. “Sorry.”

They bought it COMPLETELY. “Oh, squiddo, you know we still have your old kit in storage! You could've asked us!”

Anki blinked a few times at Harbor's repsonse. “You do??”

“Yeah, of course! We weren't about to throw out your stuff.”

“Hey, maybe we should go play a few rounds to help you derust!” Lanie sounded genuinely excited, and Anki almost felt bad for lying. “Who wants to go watch some Turf War?”

Mari cheered loudly, and Naut gave more of a silent hand raise next to Anki. Before she knew it, Anki was getting swept off to the local lobby.

It'd been a blur. It'd been so long since Anki's last match, she legally needed to get an exam by the standby medics at the lobby to ensure she could safely participate in the sport.

She had been ushered into a clean, quiet, clinical room, separate from the rest of the lobby, and in stark contrast to the chaotic and energetic vibe of the rest of the place. The exam was mostly stuff like testing her reflexes, seeing how much incompatible ink she could take on before her splat reflex triggered (which STUNG, by the way), and also some weird test to ensure she could signal. Anki had to admit she didn't know much about biology, but thanks to that old high school health class she DID know signalling was done via some really low radio signals inkfish could naturally emit and perceive, and that had something to do with respawning too. She couldn't really remember many details.

What really pissed her off was having to get a pregnancy test. That CERTAINLY wasn't a rule when she was in school, but according to her mom, someone had unknowingly had an egg cooking in them during a major tournament last year, and when they got splatted it resulted in said egg being left behind on the field and instantly perishing, leading to mandatory and periodic testing. After having it explained to her, Anki felt kinda bad, but still annoyed that they had to give her a finger prick.

Lastly, Anki's high school Wiper and ink tank had to be inspected. They were significantly more banged up and poorly maintained than the shiny new gear the NSS had given her, but surprisingly, she just needed new ink tubing for connecting the tank and splatana, which the officials were happy to provide.

An hour of testing and inspections later, and Anki was cleared for her “first” match.

“So, here's the plan,” Harbor explained to Anki, signing the two of them up into the same pool. “Your mother is going to be in the stands with your siblings, since they can't be unattended. So it'll just be us today. That cool?”

Anki nodded, and looked around. Indeed, her mom and siblings had disappeared from the busy lobby, which was packed with people training, signing up for matches, getting snacks, entering and exiting the locker room, waiting to be called for matches, or using one of the handful of lobby terminals.

The lobby was huge, and had been renovated since Anki had last visited. There wasn't a locker room or snack station previously, and only like, 2 terminals. Now there were easily 7 or 8.

“...What's the rotation right now?” Anki queried, turning back to her dad.

“Oh, we'll be at Makomart.”

“Oh, for cod's sake...” Anki groaned. “I hate that place.”

“Hey, it's not all bad. We got assigned to dark blue! So we don't even need to switch ink colors.”

“...That would've taken, like, 5 seconds.”

Harbor rolled his eyes.

Eventually, the pair, two octoling strangers, and the team they were against (orange) were called to Makomart to compete. Transport from the lobby to the match was simple; there was a discrete inkrail system set up in these utility corridors under the city specifically for getting to matches. Anki thought it was a bit overkill, but was grateful they didn't have to slowly creep towards Makomart on public transit.

The corridors spat them out right next to a small sign-in kiosk. Anki looked around, taking in the section of the store where Turf took place. They were currently standing just outside the walled off area used for the actual sport, and there was a small medical area for emergencies, plus the sign-in kiosk, of course. A few officials from the Turf Association Of Inkadia were also standing by. To the sides of the play field, there were two spectator stands that weren't HUGE, but were nothing to scoff at, either. Anki scanned them until she saw Mari, sitting next to Naut and Lanie, waving at her and Harbor and yelling and cheering.

Harbor signed the two of them in to confirm they were there. From the looks of it, they were the last to arrive, and as such, he quickly yanked Anki over to the entry point and led her to the spawn pad.

This part, Anki remembered from when she was younger. She quickly went into swim form and dove into the ink, waiting for the whistle to sound to let them know to get inking.

From up in the stands, just a couple rows from Anki's family, in fact, a young octoling gasped and jumped up, pointing to Anki as she entered the field.

“AUNTY SURU LOOK!!! It's Ms Anki!!”

That girl was Hope Vanderblast, the one and only, and she was accompanied by Surume. Haven and Kaori had signed up for a few matches that day, and Surume had volunteered to accompany Hope in the stands.

The octoling was FIERCELY excited to watch her moms compete, and her excitement only compounded seeing Anki enter in.

“WOAH! No kidding!” Surume craned her neck, successfully seeing and identifying the college student before she dove down. “Wonder if she knows who's on the other team.”

“She prolly does. Ms Anki's real smart,” Hope nodded thoughtfully. “But now I dunno who I want to win!!”

“Eh, don't sweat it. This'll be interesting either way.”

Anki had no idea, but this battle was going to be eventful.

Chapter Text

The match started off uneventfully, with Harbor giving a friendly reminder to Anki that they should focus on rushing the center stage instead of inking the base. Begrudgingly, Anki followed him into the fray. She really would've preferred to stay in the backlines and ink as much turf as she could, but Harbor had been doing this since before Anki was conceived, so she opted to follow his lead.

Harbor, using his Flingza roller, made a mad dash for the center before taking a grand swing around him to ink a wide radius. He made a short trail off to the side as a red herring, and returned to his splash area to dive down and wait to ambush.

Anki haphazardly swung her sword around, trying to get some ink down. She looked up to see team orange making their grandiose advance forward. One of them, an inkling girl who looked around her age, had a New Squiffer, and was scrambling up to one of the higher levels to start sniping. There was also an octoling boy who looked like he'd JUST turned 14. He had a Splattershot Jr, a testament to how new he was.

The last two were an inkling woman and a vaguely fem octoling, equipped with a Splattershot Pro and a set of Dualies Anki wasn't too sure she knew the model of respectively. Anki blinked a few times as something became obvious to her: That inkling had the same scarring and general fatigue written on her face as Kaori.

Oh cod that WAS KAORI. And Haven, too.

“Ka- MRS VANDERBLAST?? VANDERBLASTS?? PLURAL?!” Anki stammered, caught up in her shock at running into these two of all people. Kaori and Haven froze momentarily, also caught off guard.

Harbor, still sunk down into his ink, gave Anki a quizzical look, but Anki was unable to see it as she got unceremoniously splatted by the other team's Squiffer.

“OH!” Surume cackled. “They had no idea! Not Anki OR 8 and Cap!”

Hope frowned. “I don't get it. Why were they so surprised looking?”

“Kiddo, I'm gonna lay it down easy,” Surume said, pausing as the young octoling before her stared up with her big ol eyes. “Turf matchmaking is random. I think they got pitted against each other without realizing it.”

“Oh.” Hope's eyes returned back to the action and she saw Anki respawn. “SHE'S BACK!! GO MS ANKI!!”

Mari heard this and gasped loudly. “THAT'S MY SISTER!!!”

Much to the annoyance of the people in the row between them, the children continued their yelling. Lanie seemed unphased. “WOAH!! SHE'S MY TEACHER!!”

“THAT'S SO COOL!!”

“YEAH!!!”

“HEY DO YOU WANNA SIT HERE?!?!” Mari aggressively patted an empty couple of seats next to her.

“YEAH I'M COMING!!” Hope yelped back, climbing over the rows of seats, causing much dismay and chaos. Surume freaked and tried to hold Hope back, but the child's resolve was too strong, and nothing would stop her, not even a trained agent.

In the end, the inkling sighed and ran to the end of the row, climbing the stairs, and sat back down next to a now very chatty Hope.

“So, er. Your daughter is my daughter's student?” Lanie asked, a bit awkwardly, aiming the question towards Surume. The inkling coughed and sputtered.

“Oh! Oh this isn't my kid! I'm her aunty!” Surume desperately tried to clear the air as Hope gave an affirmative nod to Lanie, eyes twinkling.

“I see!” Lanie leaned back in her seat.

Hope wasn't finished. “MY MOMMY AND MAMA ARE ON TEAM ORANGE!! LOOK!” She gestured wildly to the approximate location of Haven and Kaori.

Surume and Lanie shared a knowing look with each other as the girls continued to literally scream at each other. It was a look that reassured the other that this was the norm.

Anki respawned quickly, and started running back to center. This time, she was going to try staying out of trouble, and looked for a more secluded area to ink up. Her plans were yet again foiled by team orange, and she was splatted quickly from a few shots from Kaori.

Haven shot her a look. “Kaori.”

“It's a Turf War! The entire point is to get as much turf as possible!” Kaori shot off a few more rounds where Anki had previously inked, cementing her point. Sadly, the captain would not have the last laugh, as Harbor snuck up on her, crushing her with his roller and sending her right back to orange's spawn pad.

“You mess with a Dory, you... Uh...” Harbor tried to come up with something clever to say, and failed horribly.

Haven raised an eyebrow at him and aimed one of her Dualies his way.

“YOU MESS WITH A DORY, IT'S THE END OF THE STORY!! HA!!” Harbor snapped his fingers.

“Oh, that was not terrible,” Haven supposed, nodding thoughtfully. “Sadly, you have splatted my wife, and now I must seek avengance. Apologies.” She dodge rolled out of the way of a crushing blow from Harbor's Flingza and splatted him with her Dualies.

Anki, who had been superjumping back over to her dad, landed and fucked it up entirely from lack of practice, falling into a heap at an uninked area at Haven's feet, coincidentally assuming the Family Guy death pose. She looked up at Haven and the two both yelped in surprise.

“A-Anki!”

“Mrs Vanderblast?!” Anki untangled herself from her heap and stood back up, swaying haphazardly.

“Oh, you can call me Haven. It is okay,” Haven said, momentarily becoming calm before raising her voice again. “What are you doing here?!”

“My dad-” Anki began, before unceremoniously getting splatted by the Jr player on Haven's team,who started celebrating over getting his first splat ever.

Anki arose from the ink of the blue spawn pad unamused and decided she was going to stick to the less busy areas of the map and focus on inking. She'd had enough of getting splatted. She swam through the blue ink covering her team's base and headed for a side route to start making some charged sweeps of ink.

Meanwhile, Kaori and Harbor were beefing. Turns out, the literal captain of the New Squidbeak Splatoon and a profreshional Turf player were both pretty skilled.

“HOW ARE YOU DODGING THIS?!” Harbor yelled, trying to maneuver his roller to squish Kaori again. Kaori, however, was not having it, and now that she wasn't distracted, she was able to use her agent skills and training to her advantage.

She smirked as Harbor charged straight at her, and just as he reached her, she jumped ON TOP OF HIS WEAPON. The man freaked as Kaori shot him right in the face with her Splattershot Pro, then proceeded to make a short superjump behind him while he was trying to wipe the stinging ink from his eyes.

Harbor, a seasoned Turfer, heard the sound of Kaori's jump and saw through her tactic, whirling around as she tossed a Splat Bomb his way. His vision was still a bit blurred, and his face stung like hell, but he was able to ink some ground and dive in and away to avoid the explosion.

Kaori charged back at him, but Harbor, now having recovered from the ink, rose up and lauched a charged shot at her. He was JUST too slow, giving Kaori a split second to swim away to recover and start shooting again with an almost eerie smile on her face. COD was she enjoying this skirmish.

Harbor was a bit more frustrated, though, and kept trying to go for the younger inkling, strongly wanting to come out of this with a successful splat. The two had a rather impressive and nearly COMICAL back-and-forth fight going on.

Soon enough, one of the octolings from team blue and the Squiffer user from team orange called a temporary truce with eachother and sat on a nearby platform to watch.

...They ended up wasting the rest of the match doing this.

Anki had a quiet rest of the match, thanks to half of the competitors being distracted. She and Haven had been the only two to actually focus on inking in the last minute, thanks to the remaining member on each team getting caught up in their own little skirmish.

As she and her team stood next to team orange underneath one of the spectator stands, Anki held her breath. She'd actually had some fun inking the field, and was hoping it wasn't for nothing.

There were enough matches happening at any given moment across the city that Judd or Little Judd just couldn't be there for every single judgement. Drones with cameras had become commonplace for calculating exact percentages of turf, but Judd did still judge matches, and it was considered an honor if he judged your match, just thanks to the tradition of it all.

Judd happened to be at Makomart to judge matches that day, and lazily wandered the field until suddenly raising an orange flag, earning a chorus of cheers from the stands.

Harbor deflated a bit, before straightening up and turning to the other team. “Good game.” He then looked Kaori dead in the eye. “And good fight!”

Kaori gave him a bit of a smug grin and a peace sign. “[You too. Good to battle against someone with a solid skillset.]”

The man looked at her blankly until Haven interpreted for her, at which point Harbor gave a quick thanks.

Back in the lobby, Anki found herself lost in the crowd, separated from her father, who had gone off to hunt down the rest of the family. A sudden hand on her shoulder made her practically jump to the ceiling. She whipped around to see it was Kaori, followed by Haven.

“...Kid. I thought you didn't do Turf.”

Anki immediately began sweating. “No... But dad dragged me here. He and my ma are profreshionals, and they got really excited after I pretended to be interested in Turfing again.”

“You do not need to pretend to be somebody who you are not,” Haven nudged gently. “I understand if you feel as if you would disappoint them for not playing the sports, but you are your own person.”

Anki blinked. “...No, it isn't that. I left the ink tank Captain gave me yesterday in my bag and it fell out at a visit today and I had to explain why I had it without revealing anything, and at first I thought they'd just buy it and that'd be that, but then they bought it TOO well, and- What's so funny??” Anki realized Kaori was snickering lightly.

“...Kid, I fought YOUR DAD???” Kaori laughed heartily, switching to sign. “[He's good. Maybe I should recruit him.]”

“I- What?” Anki sputtered at Haven's interpretation, dumbfounded.

“[Kidding. Anyways, I need to go check the match data. See you tomorrow.]”

Haven interpreted for her wife, and like that, the pair was gone, making Anki feel like the past hour had been some fucked up fever dream.

Chapter Text

The next day came faster than Anki would've liked. After one or two more matches where she blissfully wasn't matched against the Vanderblasts, the time came to wrap it up and head home. After some more relaxing and catching up at the apartment, Anki had trudged off to the train station once more, and that was that.

The morning was rather slow. The college student had awoken early thanks to the magic of insomnia, and couldn't fall asleep due to the same. She spent a solid hour staring up at the ceiling before giving up and getting ready early.

Her commute was thankfully very quick feeling. She became absorbed in a drawing of an oddly dressed passenger sat across from her. They were wearing... a full set of samurai armor, for some reason, and Anki just HAD to capture the moment.

Upon arriving at work, Anki casually entered Odette's office, ready to start the day in spite of her more frazzling than refreshing weekend. To her surprise, the director was not sitting at her desk.

“Odette?”

Anki took a quick glance around the small office, quickly coming to the conclusion she was not there. Sighing, and with her confidence dashed, she stepped out to hunt down the older inkling.

Her first stop was the infant classroom. She poked her head inside to see Nectarine with an unusually low number of babies on the playmat.

“Uh, Nectar?” Anki stepped inside the room fully, closing the door ever so gently behind her. “Have you seen Odette?”

Nectarine, who had been enthusiastically playing peek-a-boo with Finneas while Corky was perched in their lap, paused and looked over to Anki. “Oh, hey newbie! I haven't seen her all morning. I heard todds is pretty slammed right now, so maybe check there??”

Anki nodded. “Okay, I will.” She scanned the playmat momentarily. Finneas, Corky, and Bubba were the only three babies in attendance. “Uh, where is everyone?”

Nectar visibly deflated, clearly unpleased. “2 sick babies, one at an appointment, two on vacation.” They shook their head a bit, blinking hard. “Gonna be a quiet day.”

“Seems like it,” Anki shrugged, stretching her arms over her head afterwards. Finneas had gotten bored from the lack of attention and had stumbled off to a squid plushie laying on the playmat nearby, which he flopped onto and began viciously wrestling, rolling around with it and gnawing on it with his little beak. Nectarine seemed wholly unphased.

“Uh,” Anki reacted. “I guess I'll see you around?”

“Yeah, see you Anki!” Nectarine chirped, waving as Anki made her exit.

Anki next popped her head into the toddler room. Indeed, it was swamped. Safina was desperately trying to corral a group of toddlers trying to climb up on top of one of the counters, while Ribbons, woefully inexperienced in the toddler room, tried to convince Verna and a couple others sat at one of the tables not to steal each other's snack, which from Anki's vantage point, looked to be some fruit. From the sounds of Verna and the others, she was not very successful on this front.

“HEY, do you guys need help?” Anki called from the door. Verna snapped her head over to the door at the sudden sound, and gasped loudly, abandoning her snack, much to Ribbons' dismay.

“AGIIIIIII!!” Verna screamed, ramming into Anki's legs, giving her a tight hug. Anki was deeply unprepared for this, and fell backwards, thankfully not hitting he head as she plummeted to the floor. The green toddler before her thought this was peak comedy, and roared with laughter, starting to climb onto Anki's stomach.

Ribbons gasped loudly and dashed over to the door, before peeling Verna off of the younger inkling. “Verna! We do NOT climb people like that!”

Predictably, the tot was not pleased with her fun being interrupted, and let out a wail of protest. Ribbons sighed and waited for Anki to rise back up before releasing Verna, who went right back to clinging to Anki's legs.

“Oh! Anki!” Safina exclaimed, not letting her eyes drift away from her current task. “Yes! Are you in here today?!”

“No idea!” Anki sighed, scooping the child at her feet back up. “Odette wasn't in the office and I can't find her.”

Ribbons facepalmed. “Really..? Man, she's usually so punctual, but I haven't seen her all morning either.”

“Oh, man, seriously?” Anki reacted. She offhandedly worried she'd gotten in some kind of trouble with Kaori, but shook off that notion pretty fast.

Meanwhile, Odette was on the other side of town, stuck at the HQ. Indeed, she was in a troublesome scenario, but not what Anki was thinking.

She was sat at the table in the NSS HQ's loft, arms crossed, and looking displeased. Next to her was Kaori, who had a much flatter expression. Across from them both was an inkling who looked not unsimilar to Lime, who had a variety of papers in front of him, and was dressed somewhat formally in a suit, a stark contrast to Kaori's worn street clothes and Odette's casual blouse and slacks.

“Darius,” Odette sighed, resting her head in her hands. “Do we really need to do this NOW? It's monday, and I have a center to run.”

Darius, the man in question, looked up at her casually. “Yes. You know adding someone new to the IDC database is a high security venture, and as your group's rep, I have to make sure we follow policy here.”

Kaori grumbled something under her breath.

“What was that, Captain?”

“Nothing.” Kaori pulled her cap down over her face.

“Thought as such...” Darius shuffled some papers around. “Odette, do you have Ms Dory's ID on file?”

“...At the center,” Odette replied vaguely. “But we should really involve her in her own IDC filing, Darius.”

“You already informed her of the proceedings, yes?”

“Well, yes,” Odette began, then cleared her throat. “But that was right after the Run a few days ago. She seemed EXTREMELY dazed and I'm not sure she comprehended everything.”

Darius shut his eyes and thought for a moment. “...Okay, let's go see her then.” He quickly packed up his papers in a small briefcase.

“W-wait!” Odette protested. “She'll be on shift. Can't we reschedule this?!”

“We are already DANGEROUSLY close to reaching the deadline to get Ms Dory's info filed,” Darius warned. “And I truly don't want you to get in hot water for this.”

Kaori grumbled a bit. “[Odd, let's just go.]”

Odette began to open her mouth in protest, but stopped and hung her head a bit, feeling small. “Okay.”

The morning was off to... Well, a start. Anki's arrival had allowed Ribbons to return to Preschool, where she was much more comfortable. The chaos in Toddlers, though, remained.

After cleaning up snack, Anki found herself assisting Safina with that morning's group time. They somewhat successfully rounded up the class and got them to sit down around Safina, who also sat on the floor. She had a few books with her, and a couple toy trucks.

“Good morning, friends!” Safina smiled warmly. “Do you wanna know what we're gonna learn about this week?” She was given a couple cheers from the older toddlers, and silent stares from the younger ones.”We're gonna talk about community helpers! Does anyone here know what a community helper is?”

Again, she got a round of stares.

“A community helper is someone who helps our community! Like firefighters,” Safina chirped, holding up a little firetruck, “Who help us put out fires! And defense corps agents, who help catch bad guys! Or... Teachers!” She pointed her thumbs to herself and grinned.

Verna started going 'WEEWOOWEEWOO' and pointed to the fire truck. Safina clapped in encouragement. “Yes! That's the sound a firetruck makes! How bout we read a ook about firefi- Odette?!”

Anki glanced towards the door. Yup, there was Odette, who had a very awkward looking expression. “Er, can I borrow Anki?”

Anki's face warped into one of sheer anxiety. Safina, who wasn't looking at Anki, shrugged. “...We'd be outta ratio, Odd.”

“Shoot...” Odette mumbled. “I'll get someone from PS to tag in. Give me a minute...”

Sure enough, Odette returned with Veri, who sat next to Anki. “Hello, Anki. You may go now.”

Anki wrung her hands and waved goodbye to her coworkers and kids as she left with Odette for the office.

“Uh. Am I in trouble?” Anki asked, her eyes darting around the office. She wasn't expecting to see Kaori there, or a really intimidating looking stranger.

“No, but remember how I said you'd have to get filed with the Defense Corps since you're a Squidbeak affiliate?” Odette gave Anki a small, subtly anxious smile.

“...Barely.” Anki's reply was quick and truthful.

“Well, uh, we're close to the deadline, so, Anki! Meet Darius. He's the IDC representative for the NSS.”

Darius didn't look very amused.

“H-hi?” Anki stuttered. “What's this all... Like, entail..?”

“[Lots of paperwork.]” Kaori looked like she was smoldering in her seat. Cod, did she hate paperwork. Her signs were lost on Anki.

“Er, what the Captain meant to say was-”

Darius interrupted Odette. “We need your ID, address, tax documents... As much information as we can get for your official file. Rest assured it's all for security reasons.”

“...Huh???” Anki blinked. “I don't even think I have my tax stuff on me right now.”

“That's fine.” Darius's expression made Anki feel like it was not fine. “The real thing we need from those anyway is your Social Assistance number, which Odette should have on file.”

“...Okay, how long will this take?”

“Not long. Let's get started...”

Meanwhile, things in the toddler room were going surprisingly well. Veri's generally calming aura had helped the class settle significantly, and after group time, they'd transitioned to an open arts and crafts period. Most of the tots were set up with crayons and markers, and were overseen by Veri, but a small group of older toddlers were being taught how to use scissors by Safina.

“...And you put your thumb in the little hole!” Safina demonstrated happily. “Oh, uh, unless you don't have thumbs, of course,” She addressed a jellyfish who was frustratedly trying to hold the scissors. “Here, you can...” She gently guided his tentacles into holding the scissors.

“Alright, yay! Now you put the paper inside...” She demonstrated as she worked to carefully open the scissors and put a piece of paper between the blades.

“And snip snip!” Safina brought the blades together, cutting her little scrap of pink paper in half, much to the awe of the 4 children she was teaching.

“Ms Safina?” Veri called out.

“Yeah? What's up?” Safina set her scissors down and turned to make eye contact with the octoling.

“I was wondering if we could perhaps utilize paint during this art time?”

“Mmm, maybe. I wanna get done with this group fi-” A sudden shriek filled the air, and Safina whipped her head back to see that in the 10 seconds she was facing away, Clover, a green octoling who was almost 3, had grabbed her adult scissors instead of his own dull safety scissors and snipped off part of one of his tentacles. “Oh, no! Clover! Are you okay?!”

Clover blubbered in response, a bit of ink and blood dripping from where he'd cut himself.

“Veri, get the first aid kit!” Safina yelped, scooping up the child and the cut off bit of tentacle. “Shh, shh, it's okay, Clover. But we gotta leave Teacher's things be.”

Veri looked downright shell-shocked as she shakily retrieved the kit from a nearby cabinet, applied a pair of gloves, and approached Safina, going through a stiff, detached set of motions to clean and dress Clover's wound. Safina noticed this.

“Veri? You okay, hun?”

Veri didn't respond, her breathing instead growing shallow and fast. She seemed almost detached from reality. The octoling grew lightheaded and dizzy as her hearts began to race

“Hey! Hey, Veri, breathe. Go sit down. I can finish handling this.” Safina carefully took the bandage roll from Veri's calloused hands and fastened it on Clover, who was still sniffling and crying a bit. She deposited the cutting in a small plastic bag so it could be thrown out.

Veri didn't move at all. Safina frowned- Her words had just passed right through the octoling. “Veri?” She reached for her coworker's hand while holding Clover in her other arm.

THIS did something. “A!!! O luka ala e lawa mi!” Veri shouted in Octarian, shrinking away desperately. Safina, not speaking a lick of the language but getting the gist that Veri had been triggered, instantly froze and draped her hand back around Clover.

Veri looked terrified. She took a few steps backwards, her long, tied back tentacles squirming anxiously. She grabbed one of them and fidgeted with it defensively.

“I'm sorry, Veri. Are you okay? Do you need to sit?”

Veri was just barely lucid enough to understand. “I-I.. I can-”

“Nope, go sit down and take a breather.” Safina spoke in a gentle yet firm tone, and Veri stumbled over to the craft tables, sitting on the floor with her eyes wide and breathing ragged. A few tears were rolling down her face.

“Miss 'Eri?” Fisher queried, getting up from his spot and waddling over to her. “Miss Eri okay?”

“Ms Veve sad,” one of the older toddlers called from the scissors table, which Safina had sneakily removed the safety scissors from by this point, making it less of a scissors table and more of a big kid table.

“Oh! I hug!!” Fisher exclaimed, flopping his weight onto Veri's trembling form. “Huuuuug!”

This helped ground her a little. “Oh.. Fisher.”

Verna let out a battle cry and ran on over, piling on Veri, followed up by a few other kids.

“Ah..” Veri sighed, her senses slowly returning. She sniffled. “You are all very kind.”

Meanwhile, back in the office, Anki was fucking suffering. What was meant to last 5 minutes had rapidly snowballed, and it had been 20 minutes and counting.

She couldn't JUST hand over her documents, no. She was ALSO required to testify and confirm every little detail, AND Kaori and Odette had to vouch for her on some things, too, given they were her captain and boss. Neither of them looked happy about sitting in the office talking about stupid things like Anki's phone number and birthday, either.

She could only hope it wouldn't take much longer.

“You sure you're okay?”

Safina scooted around the tables, cleaning up stray marker ink and crayon marks. The kids were now in free play time on the carpet, and Veri was sitting down, swarmed by toddlers still worried about her.

“Y-Yes... I was simply reminded of my time underground.” Veri glanced away from Safina, unable to make eye contact.

“Undergrou- Oh! Oh.” Safina frowned at this realization. “Right... You wouldn't have been from up here, huh?”

Veri slowly shook her head. “I was in the Octarian Empire until I had 16 years of age. Then, I escaped.” She didn't elaborate further.

Safina paused for a moment, before connecting the dots of an injury reminding her of her time in the domes being pretty concerning. “OH, you POOR BABY!!” Safina dropped her cleaning cloth and zoomed over, kneeling before her. “Is there anything I can do if this happens again, hun? Should I call somebody?”

Veri had a slight twinge of amusement display on her face. “Ms Safina, I have 26 years of age.”

“Oh, poo,” Safina said, waving a hand. “I'm 37. You're practically an infant to me.” Her tone was one of obvious humor and lightheartedness, and Veri chuckled a bit.

“Okay. I suppose the only thing would be not to touch me when I am panicking.”

“Noted,” Safina nodded. “I'm sorry about that, by the way.”

“It is okay. You would not have known.”

“I still feel bad though! I thought you were just, like, squeamish, not-”

A sudden, desperate rattling from the garbage can interrupted the heartfelt moment.

“..Huh? What's- EEK!!” Safina jumped as a little green Octarian climbed out of the trash and fell onto the floor with a pathetic plop. “WHAT IS THAT?!”

Of course, her sudden fright prompted a small group of toddlers to swarm the damn thing. Veri gently removed the children from her body and walked over with a calm but deeply annoyed expression and plucked the tiny Octarian off the floor.

“It is an Octarian. They grow from octoling tentacle cuttings. I did not know our children could produce them. I- Hey!” She gasped as the creature wiggled free of her grasp and made a break for it, being chased around by the toddlers.

“W-WHAT?!” Safina's jaw dropped. “You're kidding! I've never had an octo kiddo lose a tentacle before- Or ANYONE for that matter. Do we throw it away like an inkling cutting?? Licensing says cuttings need to be tossed in a plastic baggie!”

Veri chased after the swarm of kids as she called back. “Well, it is not a cutting anymore, so-”

Unfortunately for them, Odette had been walking Anki back, and at that very moment, they entered the room. Odette took a moment to process the scene before her, but when she saw a green Octarian being chased around by at least 5 kids and Veri, as well as Clover standing nearby with a bandaged up tentacle, she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don't tell me Clover got his tentacle cut?”

“Er.. Yup,” Safina confirmed. “I was gonna write the report during nap?”

“Go call his parents and start writing the report right now. It's gonna be a long day.”

Safina gulped audibly.

Chapter Text

Indeed, the rest of the day was long.

Odette explained that in all her years of teaching, she'd only seen this happen ONCE. Thankfully, she remembered what she was told to do by the DMS- Call the child's parents, and send the Octarian home with the child. It was legally the parents' responsibility to figure out what to do with it, apparently.

Anki was dumbfounded when the situation was explained to her. Like Safina, she, too, had no idea about the Octarians thing, and was lost for words until she consciously decided not to think too hard about it.

Veri and Anki sat with Clover in the midst of the chaos of free play time, trying to keep him calm and quiet. This wasn't a very tall task, as he was absolutely fucking FASCINATED by the creature in his hands. He sat in Anki's lap, facing her so he could show the thing off to her up close.

The Octarian was, of course, very small. It had one big, green eye right smack dab in the middle of its white side, and a small mouth that occasionally let out a small, broken syllable or two. The thing couldn't be bigger than a small mouse, not that Veri or Anki knew what those were. Despite this, it was doing its best to wander out of Clover's hands and start trouble.

Clover was not about to allow this to happen, being far too curious. “Miss Veri, lookit! It walkin!” He held the creature up close to his eyes by the very tip of its top to examine it. The poor creature kicked its tiny legs and squirmed, evidently not happy about this.

“It can do that, yes.” Veri was trembling slightly from her earlier panic attack, but was otherwise back to her usual flat demeanor.

“This is soooo weird,” Anki shuddered quietly. Veri nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, a very concerned looking, tan octoling man with yellow tentacles tied into a bun burst into the classroom. He was dressed somewhat casually, like if today was his day off, or maybe he worked from home. “Clover?”

“Dada!” Clover said enthusiastically, first whipping his head towards the door, and then wiggling and flailing out from Anki's lap and successfully kicking her right in the junk on accident, thanks to the way he was positioned facing the inkling. As Anki doubled over in abject misery, Clover ran up to his father, holding his Octarian like a first place trophy.

“Dada look! A guy!” Clover looked very proud of himself. His father looked like he was getting pale.

“A, si lo,” Veri began, walking over and initiating a conversation with Clover's dad in Octarian.

Anki was still reeling from the sudden kick to the crotch.

“Anki, you alright?” Safina asked as she paused a small parade of toddlers she was leading.

“He- Oh cod he got me right in the nethers,” Anki croaked.

“Oh, you poor girl,” Safina frowned. “Do you need anything? Ice pack, bathroom break? It's not that time of the month, is it??”

“Nah- Nah I'm good. Just. Ow...” Anki cringed as she stumbled onto her feet.

Safina chuckled anxiously. “Yeah, you really gotta watch out when they're sitting on your lap.”

Anki swayed a bit, in a very significant amount of pain. A sudden wave of nausea changed her mind about going to the bathroom. “Actually, no, I feel like I'm gonna puke. I need to go. Now.”

Safina gave her a pitying nod. “We're in ratio. Go take as much time as you need.”

With that, Anki scrambled out of the classroom, inadvertently nudging Veri aside, who was left somewhat confused, but didn't say anything as she saw Clover and his dad off.

Soon, it was just Veri and Safina with the kids. The majority of them were occupied with various toys, but one or two were of course causing a ruckus as usual.

“...Is Anki alright?” Veri asked hesitantly.

“Clover accidentally kicked her.”

Veri's eyes widened. “That sounds terrible! Has she sustained an injury to her legs?”

Safina, trying to respect Anki's privacy, just shrugged. Veri looked kinda worried, but was soon preoccupied with Verna trying to jump off a table.

Odette, having returned to her office, sighed and sat at her desk. “Sorry I took a while... Emergency. Okay. We should be good, yes?”

Darius tapped a stack of papers into alignment. “Yes. I'll get this all back to base today. If all is well, she should have her IDC ID in 2 weeks. Captain, it'll be mailed to your HQ, which I'd imagine is more secure than...” He checked his papers and frowned subtly.

“Cerulean View Apartments.”

Kaori nodded curtly as Darius packed up his things. After he left, there was a tense and thick air to the room, and Odette tilted her head at Kaori, who was positively STEWING in her seat.

“Are you okay, Captain?”

Kaori's attention snapped from the floor to the director, and she sighed, releasing what looked to be a massive burden from her body, evident by her shoulders relaxing and expression loosening. “[I hate paperwork.]”

“I know. But now it's over. Do you have anything else to do today? How about you go relax?” Odette suggested.

“[That'd be nice,]” Kaori began, her hands wavering for a second. “[But Hope's got a doctor appointment in like, 2 hours.]”

Odette raised an eyebrow. “She does?”

“[Did I forget to send a note about it? It's her annual well-check.]”

The director gave her an understanding smile. “It's okay, it happens. I can let Lime and the others know. When are you going to be picking up?”

Kaori grunted. “[I'm already here, ain't I? Might as well grab her as soon as we're done in here.]”

“Okay! Is she going to come back today?”

Kaori raised her hands in front of her, but then paused and held up a finger to indicate she needed a minute. She slid her phone out from her pocket and checked through her calendar before shutting her eyes in thought. After a moment, she formulated her response.

“[No, I'll keep her. Been too long since we had some bonding time.]”

“Okay! That's great!” Odette suddenly began to stammer, realizing this could be taken negatively. “Wait, wait, not Hope not coming back, I mean- Agh. I mean it's really great that you're making some time for Hope.”

Kaori smiled ever so slightly.

“I remember when she hadn't hatched yet,” Odette began to reminisce, an almost nostalgic smile creeping onto her face. “You'd only just found her egg. I'd only known you and Haven about a year. You know, I wasn't sure you'd be up to the task of parenting, but...”

The director chuckled softly. “You're turning out to be a great mother, Kaori.”

Kaori's breath caught in her throat. She stood at a standstill for a solid 10 seconds before resuming signing. “[...I am?]”

Odette laughed and nodded as she picked up the landline phone sitting on her desk. “You are. Loosen up! I'll call PS right now. Go get that appointment done and have a fun day together.”

Ribbons loved children. She'd always been interested in babysitting, and had wanted a baby sibling for almost her entire childhood- Unfortunately being left as an only child.

She'd gone to college for her bachelor's in child development, and minored in inkfish biology. She had been CPR certified for 4 different species since she was 12. She had gone through every scenario in her head dozens of times, she'd passed her credential exams with flying colors. She was prepared!

...But as she stood in the preschool classroom, her faith in her assistant credential wavered.

The place was even busier and more chaotic than usual, in SPITE of the lull in attendance they had that day (A bug of some kind had swept through the room over the weekend).

Hope was, of course, trying to 'play spies', as she called it, which was basically just her running around and staring at the other kids to 'gather intel', and then throwing crumpled up wads of paper at them, on 'missions'.

...She really needed to have a word with Hope's parents.

If that wasn't enough to contend with, on the other side of the room, Cece had discovered a spider and was showing it off to an audience of half-fascinated and half-terrified kids. Mackie was trying to eat it, which Cece was VERY displeased about, evident by her shouting at him that it was NOT food. Spinella was audibly weeping from nearby, thanks to her eternal fear of bugs.

And right before Ribbons was Curly, who had been caught licking his friend Zaphary.

“Curly, you shouldn't lick people,” Ribbons said in mild exasperation. “That spreads germs. Also, Zaphary might sting you on accident.”

“No I wouldn't,” Zap protested, “I'm real careful.”

“YEAH HE'S REAL CAREFUL!” Curly yelped back at Ribbons, who covered her ears.

“Why.. Why were you licking him in the first place...?”

“I wanted to see if he tasted like grape,” Curly said with a shrug. “He looks like a grape gummy.”

Ribbons blinked. “I.. What?”

“I look like a gummy, Ms Ribbons,” Zaphary explained. “Curly, do I taste like grape?”

Curly smacked his lips a bit. “No.”

“What do I taste like?!”

Curly frowned. “Bad.”

Zaphary started crying. “I taste bad???”

“Yeah. Sorry Zap. You try!!”

Before Ribbons could react or say anything, Zaphary tearfully licked one of his tentacles and recoiled. “Ew!! You're right!! I wish I tasted like grape...”

“Hey, what do I taste like?” Curly asked enthusiastically, jamming his arm towards Zaphary. Ribbons quickly tried to stop the interaction, but was interrupted as Lime walked by.

“Hey, now, I can answer that. Inklings taste like paint.” He laughed a bit, his relaxed demeanor shining on through. “You don't wanna lick Curly.”

“Ew!” Both boys shouted in unison, Curly looking particularly disgusted.

“Why do we look so yummy if we taste so bad?” Curly whined. Lime ignored the concerning undertones of this phrasing to explain.

“Well, you know how some animals like tree frogs are super brightly colored? That's so other animals know not to eat them. It means they taste bad. Same with us.”

“Woah...” Zaphary reacted, before latching on to something only tangentially related. “C'mon Curly, let's go draw some frogs.”

“YEAH!!” Curly shouted, grabbing Zap's tentacle and dragging him off to the art station.

Ribbons looked at her lead with a look of deep concern. “How... How do you know what inklings taste like...?”

“Oh, I don't!” Lime laughed. “But it got them to stop. You've gotta appeal to their curiosity.”

Ribbons gave a relieved sigh. “I see...”

Lime gave her a smile as he went to smoothly interrupt a sudden burst of activity from the other side of the room, caused by Mackie successfully eating Cece's spider.

Ribbons, now alone in the area, decided to tidy up some of the stations with a slight sigh. As she kneeled to pick up and sort some interlocking bricks at the manipulatives center, she thought to herself. She felt... Really dumb, actually. Ribbons stood back up and pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.

Lime was... Everything Ribbons wasn't. He was calm and well-spoken, while Ribbons was frazzled and paused every other sentence to try and find the words she wanted to say.

Lime was great with the kids, always knowing exactly how to stop a conflict or cheer up an upset child. Ribbons would try to stop conflicts quicker than she actually could, and didn't really know what to say to make anyone feel better half the time.

Ribbons tried. She tried so, so hard, but actually being in a classroom was so much different than what her classes and training covered. The children were rambunctious, and she expected this. But it seemed like half of them would say the most cursed things, or tried to fight each other on an hourly basis, or were hellbent on getting themselves water outside only to dump it all into the sandbox and make mud.

She didn't know what she was doing wrong. She had gotten through school with flying colors, she understood the science behind how these children developed, she'd volunteered at another center for a brief period as a part of her graduation requirements for her major. And she loved her kids! She loved her job! She should be great at this!

But she felt like she wasn't.

It was while she was wrapped up in self-doubt that Lime walked by on his supervisory rounds, and saw his coworker looking troubled.

He couldn't just stand by.

“Hey, Ribbons? Are you doing okay?”

The inkling snapped her attention to the older octoling before her, who was approaching slowly and gently. “Oh, uh, yeah. I just...” She fiddled with one of her braids. “It's nothing.”

“...Are you sure?” Lime said, seeing right through Ribbons' lie.

“...Okay, no,” Ribbons caved, being a pretty bad liar. “I'm... I just...” She sighed in frustration and lowered her voice to a dead whisper, her face held in a weird mix of awe and envy. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“EVERYTHING,” Ribbons suddenly blurted, months of fatigue evident in her tone. She slapped her hands over her mouth and blushed hard as she immediately regretted raising her voice.

Lime tilted his head, as if inviting her to continue.

“You just- I just- I don't understand how you always know exactly what to do and say,” Ribbons breathed. “I mean, just now, you got the boys to stop licking each other in like, 5 words!” She withered a bit, feeling ashamed. “...And I can't.”

“Oh, Ribbons,” Lime said, smiling ever so slightly. “That comes with time and experience. I felt a lot like that when I first started here.” He swayed back and forth in a very subtle manner.

“What??” Ribbons said, sounding like this concept was completely foreign to her.

“No, really,” Lime admitted, almost sheepishly. “I began here as an aide when I was 18. I'd only been living in Inkopolis for around 4 years, so there was a lot of culture shock with learning how people on the surface raise their children.”

“...What do you mean, people on the surface?” Ribbons was dumbfounded.

“...I'm from the Octarian domes, Ribbons.”

“Oh. Oh! Okay! Yeah, now I understand what you mean.” Ribbons nodded as she spoke. She was kind of surprised; she genuinely thought Lime and his cousin Nectarine were from Splatsville.

“But anyways,” Lime continued with a light hand flourish, “Where I'm from, education was a lot more... Strict.” He didn't elaborate on how. “I had to unlearn a lot of things, and like you, I was flustered a lot.”

“Wait, it's that noticeable?!” Ribbons gasped, cringing. Lime covered his mouth to hide a giggle.

“A little... But anyways, with time, I realized kids are just like that. They're full of energy and life, and go all over the place, literally and metaphorically. And it's our job as educators to work with them and support their exploration and curiosity, you know?” Lime offered a fist bump, which Ribbons hesitantly returned.

The sound of the classroom door opening grabbed Lime's attention, and on seeing it was Kaori, his intrigue was piqued. “I've gotta go see what this is about, but for the record? You're doing just fine. Try to take it easy, okay?” He flashed Ribbons a grin as he glided away to the door.

Ribbons left the conversation feeling just a bit better.

Chapter Text

Hope was, as usual, really excited to see her mom. Lime didn't even have to go get her after Kaori explained the situation, as the young octoling had happened to glance towards the door after tossing a wad of paper at a very unamused Wisp.

“MOMMY!!!” Hope roared, racing towards Kaori and jumping at her. Kaori, while taken a bit off guard, had her years of being an agent to thank for her not toppling over as she grunted and caught Hope in her arms, who was giggling and squealing.

Lime laughed softly. “Hope, you've gotta warn your mother before you do that.”

Kaori shrugged, or shrugged the best she could while holding a small child. “It's fine. Keeps me on my toes.”

“...Okay then! I'll go sign Hope out! I'll see you both tomorrow.” Lime shrugged before going off to log Hope's departure on the class's attendance sheet.

As the two departed the classroom to grab Hope's things from her cubby, Anki stumbled out of the staff bathroom with a groan. She was still in a world of pain. Getting kicked in the crotch was no small discomfort, and even though the worst of the pain and nausea was over with, Anki was by no means having a pleasant time.

“MISS ANKI!!” Hope kicked and squirmed her way out of Kaori's grasp before running over and hugging an unprepared Anki.

The college student stumbled back a few steps, struggling to process the past 5 seconds. “Uh. Hi Hope.” Her voice was a bit strained.

“...You good, kid?” Kaori nudged, grabbing Hope's backpack from a nearby cubby labeled with a pink paper butterfly displaying her name.

Anki patted Hope's head distractedly. “Mhm...”

Kaori paused for a moment, struggling to find words. “I, uh. Am your captain now. Technically. I'm here for you??” She sounded a bit awkward, and her face, while remaining mostly flat as usual, had a slight twinge of concern flash across it for a moment.

“I... Uh." The younger adult stared at the floor. "I may have been kicked in a very sensitive area,” Anki hissed quietly, her face turning red. Why the hell did she admit that?! Kaori immediately winced, recoiling a bit.

“You good, kid?”

“Y-yeah, just- I just-” Anki caved in from embarrassment and rushed past the two inkfish, charging into the toddler classroom. “I gotta go!!”

Kaori blinked, feeling sorry for the younger inkling, with some secondhand embarrassment mixed in. After a moment, she shook this off and led her child out the front door, who herself had been staring back at where Anki had been with a look of immense confusion.

The next day was set to be an odd one. Lime AND Veri were absent, having fallen victim to the bug in the PS room. As a result, Anki was set to spend her day in there.

Another weird tidbit: Anchor, who Anki had never worked with, was THERE, and for the entire day too.

She was more than a little unsettled when Odette gave her her assignment that morning. Not one but TWO staff out sounded pretty bad. Not to mention whatever was going around sounded contagious as hell. Nonetheless, she obliged, popping a fabric mask on over her nose and mouth on her way into the classroom.

Numbers were shockingly high, considering how many kids had been out the day before. As a matter of fact, Ribbons and Anchor were pretty close to hitting ratio- Wait, ANCHOR?!

Anki's anxiety began taking over as she went to put away her things. She hadn't worked with Anchor yet. Hell, she hadn't SPOKEN to him beyond like 2 words during the meeting last week. What if he hated her? What if she said something offensive? She had been out of high school for a year and a half! She didn't know what was relevant to highschoolers anymore!

She closed the locker gently and turned around, looking at the younger inkling, who was halfway across the room, talking to a small group of children playing with blocks. Awkwardly, she gave a wave which went unnoticed. Darn.

Anki tensed up visibly and went off to ask Ribbons what she should be doing.

The morning started out peacefully enough, or as peaceful as PS could get, anyway. The three inklings wandered the room, supervising free play.

Soon Anki found herself observing Anchor showing Curly how to make a fortune teller over at the art station.

“So, check it.” Anchor folded a blue square piece of paper in half, before unfolding it and doing it the opposite direction. Curly stared with wide eyes as the older inkling folded the corners in to the center.

He then did some black magic fuckery Anki couldn't comprehend, and voila! Fortune teller!

Curly, who had been pressing himself flat against the art table to watch Anchor's hands closely, suddenly banged on the table, popping upright. “HOW?!”

Anchor gently tossed the paper doohickey at Curly, who caught it and stared at in in awe. “I'm gonna draw a duck on it.”

“Knock yourself out,” Anchor smiled, leaning back in his chair. A few kids had gathered to see what their classmate was screaming about, and began requesting their own tellers en masse.

Anchor's cool exterior slipped a bit. “Wait, you guys ALL-”

Suddenly, Ribbons, standing in the center of the room, rang a bell, and instantly flinched, clearly not trying to ring it so loudly. “U-uh! Preschool, it's time to clean up for morning group!”

Anchor took this as an out. “Well, shoot. Maybe later, guys.” A chorus of 'awww's and 'mannnn's rang out from the group, as the class scrambled to get the room somewhat presentable.

Anki started trying to help clean the art center, hoping to more formally introduce herself to the last coworker she hadn't done so to, but Ribbons cautiously tapped her on the shoulder as she was bent down trying to pick up some loose papers.

Anki nearly jumped into the ceiling. “HU- Oh, uh, Ribbons?”

Ribbons flushed, embarrassed. “U-uh! Sorry Anki! I was just wondering if you could grab something for snack?”

“Oh,” Anki felt her shoulders relax. That was easy. She wasn't in trouble. She could do that. Though a part of her was irritated her plan was interrupted.

“Yeah. Break room closet, right?”

Ribbons gave an appreciative nod. “Yes! That's it. Thanks, Anki.”

Anki slipped out of the room in search of snacks.

Hope woke up that morning feeling fine. She was a bit tired, she supposed, but she'd had a long, fun day out with Kaori the day before, getting sushi and going to the park and even tie-dyeing some shirts, which Hope had really wanted to try since seeing Lime wearing a tie-dye shirt once.

Hope yawned and hopped out of her little pink toddler bed she hadn't outgrown yet, trudging out of her room and into the apartment's common area.

Immediately outside of her room was the living room, and on the far side of the common area was the kitchen, where she saw Kaori blushing while packing Hope's school lunch at the kitchen island. Haven was hugging her around the waist from behind, an almost smug or maybe teasing expression on her face.

“Mommy! Mama!” Hope's energy spiked and she ran forward on somewhat wobbly legs, skidding to a halt at the kitchen. Kaori immediately froze, and Haven gently removed herself from her wife to address Hope.

“Oh! Good morning, Hope. You are awake early.”

Hope just kinda shrugged. “Mama is there food? I'm hungry.”

“Would you like some cereal?” Haven offered, turning to the fridge. Hope scrambled up onto one of the stools at the kitchen island, almost falling off once or twice before finally settling into her spot.

“I will make you a bowl,” Haven said, hearing the vague sounds of climbing behind her and moving to a nearby counter to start pouring a bowl of cereal.

It was then that Hope noticed what Kaori was doing. “Mommy, is that my lunch?”

Kaori blinked a few times, coming back into reality as she set a small bag of crackers into Hope's lunchbox. “[Yeah. Why?]”

“Can you pack me cookies, mommy?” Hope rested her head on the counter, kicking her legs. “And apple slices?”

“[You ate the last bag of cookies yesterday,]” Kaori signed instantly. “[We can do apple slices though.]” She walked over to the fridge, which Haven had just opened to retrieve a carton of almond milk from. Kaori dug around in the produce drawer, producing a yellow apple, and proceeded to get a knife from a block on the counter, stopping at a cutting board and making short work of the fruit.

Hope grumbled as she watched her mothers work. “But I wanted cookies tooo!”

Kaori sighed as she placed the apple slices, now in a resuable zippy baggie, into her child's lunch. “[You ate them all. We can get more at the store tomorrow.]”

Hope continued to smolder, only perking up when Haven gently placed a bowl of cereal and a spoon before her. She swirled the cereal around with her spoon, before taking a bite.

“What do we say?” Kaori nudged quietly.

“Thanks mama,” Hope said, mouth full and some almond milk dribbling onto the counter. Haven had to choke back a laugh.

“Of course.”

After finishing her breakfast, Hope returned to her room to get dressed in something other than the yellow pajamas she'd worn to bed the night before.

Haven tidied up the counter as Kaori zipped the pink, sparkly lunchbox shut. The octoling paused for a moment, gazing up at Kaori. “She does not seem well.”

Kaori blinked. “How?”

Haven hummed momentarily, fiddling with one of her front tentacles. “I do not know. She is usually more excited in the mornings.”

“She got shots yesterday,” Kaori shrugged. “And we were busy. Probably tired.”

“Oh, you are right,” Haven breathed a sigh of relief, finishing up her task. Kaori went off to go hunt down Hope's backpack, and the morning continued as normal. With any luck, the day would go smoothly.

Chapter Text

While the Vanderblasts got ready to start the day, back at the preschool, the PS class had just wrapped up group. Anki had been setting the table for snack, which she'd decided would be fruit leather and bananas, in attempts of polishing off the last of a few bunches of the fruits before they got weird and mushy.

From the portions she listened in on, she surmised the weekly theme in PS was, unlike toddlers, fruits and vegetables. The class had been having a rousing conversation about favorite fruits, which somehow devolved into several children forming a heated debate on whether pineapples were haunted. She wasn't really sure where that came from, and truthfully, Ribbons wasn't sure either, and was struggling to find a way to steer the conversation back on topic. Soon enough, she noticed Anki's arrival, and took that as an opportunity to distract from the increasingly passionate discussion.

“Alright, everyone,” Ribbons began, raising her voice slightly amidst the crowd of children. “It's time for snack! Let's use some hand sanitizer and tiptoe to the tables!” She grabbed a bottle of hand sanitizer spray and walked around spritzing the students' hands. As they were sprayed, the kids left to find a spot to eat snack at one by one.

Anki turned her back for not even five seconds before hearing an angry shout from one of the tables.

“What's going on?” She asked, walking over to where Spinella and Cece were fighting over a spot at one of the tables.

“I WANNA SIT HERE!!” Spinella growled, trying to push Cece out of the chair she'd been sitting in. Cece, herself, was very annoyed by this, and was shouting about how she was there first.

“Hey, it's okay, there's a spot next to Cece,” Anki reasoned, earning her a loud sob.

“NO! STRABEY!” Spinella cried and stomped, her words becoming rapidly more difficult to pronounce as she cried.

Cece looked down at her napkin, which had a strawberry fruit leather and a banana on it. A light bulb went off in her brain and she poked Spinella. “Spinella, do you want my strawberry one?”

Spinella, eyes clouded with tears, turned to the inkling beside her and released an airy wail. “YEAH...!”

“Okay!” Cece plopped her fruit leather down on the napkin to her left, and Spinella sat there with a few sniffles. She tore the wrapper off and took a bite before gently pushing her still-wrapped orange fruit leather at Cece. “...'Tank you...”

“YAY! ORANGE!” Cece yelped obliviously, tearing into her prize.

At that moment, Anki's ears pricked up as she heard the classroom door open. Ribbons, having dismissed the last few kids to snack and entered the area, commended Cece for making such a generous choice, and Anki went to greet whoever arrived.

Of course, it was the Vanderblasts. Anki smiled slightly as she approached. “Morning.”

Hope, clinging to Haven's leg, looked up at Anki, not saying anything, but gently clenching her hands. Haven gently nudged her forward. “It is okay, Hope! You like Ms Anki.”

“We're having snack. Do you want something to eat?” Anki offered. Hope gave a sort of sleepy nod and waddled off to find a place to sit.

“She got shots yesterday,” Kaori mumbled as her child stumbled away. “So she's tired.”

“Oh, uh, okay. I'll tell Ribbons,” Anki nodded, trying to look like she knew what she was doing. With a quick goodbye, Haven and Kaori departed, and Anki was left with her coworkers and the kids.

Hope seemed a bit moody that day, Anki noted.

After snack was another round of free play, and Anki had been wandering the room, cleaning the occasional mess and keeping the peace.

Hope was sitting and playing with some cloth dolls with Spinella and Lavender. There was a wide variety of dolls, and Hope was playing as a shrimp, while Spinella and Lavender were playing as an octoling and a manta ray, respectively.

Spinella picked up a second octoling doll from the small pile of dolls, and mushed it against her first doll. “And then they kiss!” She and Lavender giggled lightly.

Hope, who had been happily pretending to be a shrimp wizard, had a bit of a sour look cross her face. “Kissing is icky. Why do you always make them kiss??”

Spinella giggled and shifted onto her tummy, kicking her tentacles behind her. “Is fun.”

“Oh.” Hope thought for a minute before deciding her shrimp wizard should do something 'fun'. She raised him high into the air and slammed him into the doll pile. “BOOM!! WIZARD SMASH!!!”

Lavender squeaked. “No! The dollies!”

“NO! STOP!” Spinella shrieked, suddenly hoisting herself onto her tentacles and scrambling forward to grab Hope's arm, trying to hold her back.

Hope let out a frustrated growl, trying to free herself from an unrelenting Spinella's surprisingly strong grip. “Stop it!!”

“WHY YOU DO THAT?!” Spinella roared, refusing to let go.

Lavender, anxious about her friends fighting, tried to get between them and push them apart. “No, sto-”

Hope, feeling pretty angry, made a quick, unthinking snap of her beak in Lavender's general direction, unfortunately getting her right in the arm.

The trio instantly separated, the mood taking a 180 immediately. Lavender froze, glancing at her arm as if the pain hadn't registered right away, before her eyes began to widen, flooding with tears. “OOOWWWWIIIE!”

Hope's eyes widened. “Wait wait I-”

By this point, both Anki and Ribbons had been rushing over to the group, and Anki snatched Hope up and away from the floor, while Ribbons picked up Lavender, dutifully inspecting her forearm and asking what happened.

“S-SHE BITED ME..!” Lavender wailed, pointing at Hope. Hope could see her forearm swelling up and forming a few hives, and began to cry herself.

Hope clung to Anki, crying into her shirt. “I WANT MY MAMA!!!”

“What happened??” Anki asked, deeply confused. Hope wasn't really known to be a biter at school. In response, the young octoling buried her face deeper into Anki's chest and wailed.

Spinella, sitting on the floor and looking a bit shaken, huffed. “She broke the pile of dolls and then bited Lavender.”

“Really?” Anki reacted, watching as Ribbons carried a crying Lavender over to the first aid kit by the playground door. She then looked down at the child in her arms. “Hope, you can't bite people.”

“I-I DIDN'T MEAN TO!” Hope yelled, looking up at Anki with big, watery eyes. The inkling sighed and shifted the child in her arms pityingly, caving just a bit.

“Okay. Let's go talk about it somewhere calmer.” She placed Hope down on the floor and led her to the book nook by the hand.

Hope was acting odd the rest of the morning. Following free play, the remainder of which she'd spent snuggled up by Anki in the book nook, it was time to play outside, and Hope hadn't seemed too interested, which was a worrying divergence from her usual enthusiasm.

No, that morning, she seemed to withdraw, opting to build a sandcastle alone in the sandbox.

By this point, all 3 staff had noticed something was up, and were various levels of concerned.

It was near the end of outside time that Lavender, with her bandaged up arm that had been slathered in local antivenom at the time of the bite, trotted over and sat down across from Hope in the sandbox. “Hi, Hope!”

Hope, who had been focused on her work, looked up and frowned a little. “...Hi.”

“Whatcha building?”

Hope perked up a little. “I'm making a fort! Look!” She began pointing out ever little, lumpy detail of her sandcastle. Lavender shared in her enthusiasm, giving the octoling a variety of ooohs and aaahs.

It was going great until Hope gently poked one of the sides, trying to point out a rock she'd pressed into the structure, which sadly caused the wall to collapse in a pile of moist sand.

She froze at first, before her lip quivered slightly and she burst out in sobs, flopping to the ground. “IT'S RUINED!!” She slammed one of her hands into the remnants of the castle, releasing a frustrated scream.

Ribbons, standing near the door and chatting with Anki and Anchor about the rest of the day's plans, instantly rushed over. “Hope, what happened?! Are you okay?!”

“Her sandcastle fell over and then she smashed it!” Lavender recounted, looking kinda shocked.

“Oh!” Ribbons breathed. “It's okay, Hope. What if we make a new one together?”

Hope continued to cry, curling into a ball in the sand.

Ribbons frowned. “Hang on a sec, I'll be right back.” With that, she stormed back to the door before kneeling down at the first aid kit that'd been set by the door, digging around for something.

“She's not hurt, is she?” Anki asked, approaching hesitantly. Ribbons shook her head, soon pulling out a thermometer from the first aid bag and clicking a sterile cover onto the probe from a small box of them.

“No. It's just- She's been acting weird all day! And that can be a red flag of illness. I-I'm checking her temp!” Ribbons gave a slight squeak as she raced back to the sandbox.

Anki walked back over to Anchor awkwardly, wringing her hands as the pair watched Ribbons snuggle Hope close and stick the thermometer probe under her armpit. By now a small crowd of kids was starting to form.

“Hope's having a rough day,” Anchor observed casually.

Anki jumped slightly, her brain going on autopilot trying to say something relevant. “U-Uh, fo shizzle.”

Anchor stared at her like she'd just spoken Mandarin Chinese, which as a language had been extinct for thousands of years by that point.

Anki, feeling herself getting red and realizing that was the most cringe thing she could've said, tugged at one of her front tentacles. “UH. Uh. I mean. I should go over there now! Bye!” With that, she shamefully slunk away to another area of the playground to supervise.

Ribbons, carrying a sniffling Hope, returned to Anchor, a frown on her face. “Temperature's fine...”

“So, just crabby?”

“No, no, I- I know she had shots yesterday, but I swear this is something else..!” Ribbons looked down at Hope, who said nothing, only nuzzling her face into Ribbons' fuzzy brown cardigan. With a worried frown, she approached a nearby trash can to throw the used probe cover away.

Hope sat quietly at the table during lunch, picking at her food. The apple slices she'd been so excited about that morning didn't seem too appealing at the moment. Or any of her lunch, for that matter.

“Hope! You got appy slicers!!” Curly exclaimed from across the table, jabbing a finger towards the food in question. Hope shrugged a bit, picking one up and inspecting it.

“I don't want it.”

“WHAT?! Why NOT?!” Curly gasped, like this was some earth-shattering revelation.

“Not hungy.” Hope prodded her seanut butter and jelly sandwich with her thumb, trying her darndest to produce a hole.

“Can.. Can I have your appies?” Curly said, clasping his hands together and giving his friend puppy dog eyes.

“Yeah!” Hope gathered together her apple slices and was about to hand them over when Anki, who was sat across from her and one seat away from Curly, stopped her with a gentle hand.

“That's nice and all, but we don't share food. It spreads germs.”

“Oh. EWWW!!” Curly reacted, recoiling a bit. Hope pouted, disappointed she still had her fruit.

“Wait, but-! But I shared my fruit strip with Spin this morning!” Cece, sitting next to Anki, protested. She seemed genuinely concerned. “Are we gonna get sick??”

“That's different. You hadn't opened the strip yet. Hope opened her apples,” Anki shrugged.

Spinella, who was busy eating a piece of fish at the far end of the table, coughed and did some sort of jellyfish equivalent of pointing at Anki. “I opened my fish! I did it all by myself!” Indeed, she had popped her lunchbox open that day without any assistance.

“You did real good!” Cece assured her with a thumbs up.

Anki glanced at Zap and Hope's lunches, which were untouched. “Are you guys really not hungry?”

Hope blinked a few times, feeling pretty tired suddenly. “I don't wanna eat.”

Anki was about to press a bit further, but was interrupted by Curly. “HE DOESN'T LIKE EATING AT SCHOOL!”

“He thinks it looks weird,” Spinella elaborated, huffing a bit. “Which is dumb!”

Zaphary visibly shrunk back as Curly glared daggers at Spinella. “YOU'RE dumb!”

“NO I'M NOT!!” Spinella shot back, making Anki clap desperately a few times to regain control of the table.

“Nobody's dumb! Zap, is there a reason you think you look weird?” Anki offered up a slight smile.

“My mouth's not on my face,” Zap grumbled, looking down at the floor.

“Oh. Well, that's okay,” Anki said plainly. “Spinella and a few of our other friends are like that too.”

Zaphary didn't respond to this, and Anki just blinked a little.

“Ms Anki can I go nuh-night?” Hope asked rather suddenly, poking the inkling incessantly.

“Already??” Anki asked, in mild disbelief, considering Hope had the generalized energy level of a small nuclear reactor. “I mean, yeah? If you really wanna? Start cleaning up, I'll get your cot.”

Anki got Hope's cot off the stack in the classroom storage closet as the child packed her lunch away, and not even one minute after she laid down, she was out cold.

Naptime was uneventful enough. Odette popped in so Ribbons could go on break, and she and the two younger inklings got to work getting the kids to sleep.

Many were VERY vocal about how they didn't want to sleep, which Anki was experiencing firsthand, sitting in between Cece and Zaphary's cots. Zaphary was laying on his back on top of his rainbow knitted blanket, arms crossed and not very pleased, while Cece would not. Stop. Talking.

“Ms Anki did you know that the biggest moth in the world is called the Atlas Moth? It's REAL big!! It's like, as big as your head I think, but it doesn't live here. It lives in, uh...” Cece, laying on her stomach, squirmed under her baby blue checkered blanket, tryin to remember.

“That's great, but let's try to get some rest,” Anki whispered, rubbing Cece's back gently. The young inkling did not heed her words.

“Oh, okay. Ms Anki do you know about humans? They used to rest too! But now they're all dead.” Cece frowned slightly as she turned her head to face her teacher.

“Uh?” Anki reacted. “Yeah, they sure are.” She had no fucking clue how to react to that.

“Mhm, my mommy and daddy told me. They learn about humans for their work!” Cece kicked her legs, completely messing up her blanket and leaving a slightly irritated Anki to cover her back up.

Wisp, who was in her cot on the side of Cece that Anki wasn't sitting at, groaned and rolled over under her bright orange blanket. Anki took note of this and sighed a bit.

“Cece, look, your friends are trying to sleep. Let's hussshhhh.”

“Huuusssshhhhh,” Cece repeated, curling into a ball while Anki continued to rub her back. Anki stayed there, continuing to rub, until she leaned over and saw she was sound asleep.

Then, she turned her attention to Zaphary, but was surprised and amused to find in his protest, he had managed to fall asleep. She gave a good nose exhale at that, and gently tugged his blanket out from beneath him and covered the young jellyfish.

She glanced around the room; an odd peace having fallen over the space. A quiet orchestra of snores carried through the area. Anki could see a faint glow radiating from the white undersides of the inkling children's tentacles in the dark, and could hear a quiet harmony of snores.

She turned around to see Odette starting to wipe down the tables used for lunch, and walked over to help. Odette, hearing footsteps, looked up and smiled. “Oh, Anki, can you swap with Anchor so he can go on break? And then you can go once Ribbons is back.”

Anki nodded and walked back amidst the sleeping children, where Anchor was sitting looking bored.

“Hey, uh,” Anki said quietly, feeling stupid about how anxious she felt about talking to her coworker. “Odette says you can go on break.” She fidgeted with her hands slightly, trying to work out some of that anxious energy.

Anchor instantly perked up. “Oh, fresh! Seeya!” He flashed a peace sign and instantly darted out of the room, making Odette chuckle quietly.