Chapter Text
In the city of Seabuya, music, fashion, art, and dance is everything. However, that’s not the only important thing to those who inhabit it. Almost everyone loves to battle. Turf Wars, Anarchy Battles, even Grizzco shifts! After all, Turf Wars were created as a way to control the damage done by the Inklings and the Octarians when the two species would fight. Turf wars and Anarchy Battles were seen as a way to show your skills off by dominating the competition. These battles are also a form of entertainment and an important part of the culture in Inkadia, as well as a way to avoid more destructive forms of conflict while keeping the competitive spirit alive.
However, everyone wants to be the best.
Tsukasa is no exception.
On their way to the lobby, weapons swung over their shoulders, he’s focusing heavily on today’s battle. While the trio of brightly colored Octolings and an Inkling were chatting happily amongst themselves, Tsukasa kept going over strategies in his head. This battle had to be PERFECT. What kind of team leader would lose a battle just because he didn’t know who it was against? Sure, they had no clue what team they were against, or what strategies the team used. Wonderlands x Showtime, his team, used a very simple strategy. Tsukasa and his Splatana on the front line, while Emu flanks with her Splat Roller. Rui and his custom, barely legal Splatling stays mid field and holds their ground (seriously, Tsukasa swears that one of these days he’s going to get banned from doing battles), and Nene gets up as high as she can to snipe anyone within range. It’s always important Nene has good spots, and this being a random battleground is a little scary. Not all of them were E-Liter friendly. If someone were to make it up to where she is or sneak up behind her, she has no way of charging a shot up fast enough to splat the enemy in time. The Inkling is very tough though, she’s usually able to handle any danger that comes her way.
“Tsukasa-kun? Whatcha’ thinking about?” A voice asks. He snaps out of his thoughts and sees Emu, a pink haired Octoling, looking at him with wide, curious eyes.
“Ah, Emu, sorry I must have spaced out!” He chuckles. “Just thinking about today’s battle, did they really not tell us who we’re going against?”
“Unfortunately not…” Rui’s smooth voice answers, his messy, purple tentacles bouncing when he walks. “I feel as though we might have some tough competition today… fufu….” The peculiar blue streaks he has seem to have spread further, Tsukasa brushes it off though. Rui is always doing something crazy. After all, he’s a well known and almost feared Octoling in Seabuya. He’s known for making all sorts of crazy, barely legal weapon modifications. He’s even started creating brand new weapons and weapon types. Tsukasa doesn’t know too much about the inventor's activities, but he recalls the Octoling mentioning a gauntlet type weapon?
“Dear cod… I need us to win this… No matter what team we’re against!” Tsukasa yells. Those near the group turn their heads to look at him.
“Do you always have to be so loud….” Nene looks up from her Sea-Cucumber Phone for a moment. The Inklings gray green tentacles uncover her face as she looks up. Her expression is cool and collected. She knows what to do, and she’s not worried about the overall outcome. Tsukasa’s pretty sure she only cares about her splat count anyway. She treats battles as a game, everytime they battle she tries to outdo her last snipe count. Most of the time she delivers. She’s got an incredibly accurate shot, and Tsukasa’s jealous of that. Sometimes it’s really hard to get accurate hits with his Splatana. Not that he’d ever admit to being jealous of course!
“Ack, sorry Nene…. Guess I’m just worried.” He messes with one of his tentacles, which is a pale blonde color with peach colored tips. He’s an Inkling, so his are super smooth. Sometimes they end up a little torn in battle though. Hopefully they stay nice this time!
“Hey it’s okay! As long as we have fun it doesn’t matter if we win or not!” Emu squeals excitedly, bouncing around.
Tsukasa know’s Emu is right, but he really wants to win this. He loves winning. It gives him the satisfaction of knowing he’s a good team leader, and a good fighter. He’s already five starred his Splatana, so now he just has to win as many battles as possible. He wishes they were an Anarchy Battle team, but Emu doesn’t really like those. He knows Nene dabbles in them sometimes, but he doesn’t know what her rank is. Probably really high. Tsukasa doesn’t like doing battles with random teammates, because a lot of the time, they’re absolutely terrible. Rui gives him a look when he doesn’t respond to what Emu says. Tsukasa quickly stammers out a reply.
“Y-yeah! Of course!” He wipes sweat off his forehead. It’s kind of funny that Inklings can’t go in water, but shell does he sweat a lot when he’s nervous! Nene also gives him a look. Emu seems to accept that response, and she smiles at him before basically skipping into the lobby.
“H-hey wait up! Emu!” He chases after her. How does she move so swiftly with a giant roller on her back?! She must have, like, exclusively run speed up on her gear!
Rui giggles as he watches the two, and Nene finally puts her phone away.
Upon entering the lobby, the team makes their way to the locker room. They didn’t get lockers by each other, but Tsukasa thinks he’d rather NOT have a locker by Rui. He’s seen the inside of that guy’s locker….
“Ah, Tsukasa-kun? Could you do me a favor?” Rui asks him, without even looking up from tightening a few screws on his Splatling, which he’s decorated with brightly colored stickers, and various splashes of ink from past battles that he hasn’t bothered to wash off.
“Yeah?”
“Can you go grab my goggles from my locker for me?” He gestures to his locker. It’s bright purple, and is covered with exclusively weapon stickers. Holographic ones, matte ones, and some other random weapon, subweapon, and special stickers. He has no clue how Rui obtained all these, he knows for a fact Rui hasn’t 5 starred more than one weapon. He mostly plays backliners anyway! There’s all sorts of different weapons on there!
Tsukasa nervously glances at the locker. He knows for a fact it’s a disaster in there, but his teammate asked him to do something! A true teammate would help out! Tsukasa puffs out his chest.
“Why of course my dear teammate!” He struts over to the locker and opens it. A mountain of various items falls directly onto the Inkling.
“Ack!” He yelps in surprise. Why does Rui need so much stuff?
“Sorry Tsukasa-kun… I should have warned you. You have to open it very slowly in order for that to not happen…” Rui sheepishly looks at the mess, and the poor Inkling stuck underneath it all. The Octoling pauses tightening his screws and goes to dig Tsukasa out of the pile.
“You know… maybe if you, I don’t know, ORGANIZED something for once in your life… you wouldn’t have almost crushed me!” Tsukasa scolds him.
“Is our big strong team leader not strong enough to handle a little avalanche?” Rui teases him.
“W-well yes I am! But I don’t want to be injured right before a battle!” Tsukasa shouts frustratedly. Part of him hates when Rui teases him, but he doesn’t entirely hate it… It makes his face all flustered!
They manage to shove everything back into Rui’s locker, and Tsukasa retrieves the Octoling’s goggles.
“Thank you…” Rui puts them on his head. His tentacles barely fit under the things, but Rui hates getting ink in near eyes. His eyes don’t have as much protection as Tsukasa’s or Nene’s, as he’s an Octoling and has less of an eye mask, and it’s uncomfortable for Rui. Emu doesn’t mind it though! Rui goes to finish tightening his screws.
Tsukasa checks the time. Three more minutes until they head to the battle site…. He really hopes this is a good fight. WxS has trained hard, but this team might have trained harder.
Three minutes turns into two, and two turns into one, and next thing he knows, they’re boarding the bus to take them to the fight. The stage they’re taken to is Humpback Pump Track. He glances to Nene, who immediately grimaces. This is not going to be a good match. It’s going to be super hard for Rui and Nene to land hits in such a weird layout.
As they exit the bus, the tension is high. The only person unaffected by this is Emu, who is just here to have fun. This is all a game to her. It makes Tsukasa a little angry honestly, this was serious for him. He doesn’t care if he has fun, he wants to win! That’s all he’s ever wanted!
As they get ready to launch, they hear the music start to play. Clickbait by C-Side, a good one. Tsukasa would rather hear Yoko and the Gold Bazookas though, or even that new producer, their name was K he thinks?
“Wonderlands x Showtime versus….”
Here comes the moment of truth.
The other team is revealed. It consists of an Octobrush, another E-Liter, an N-ZAP 85’ and someone on Dualie Squelchers.
Oh carp. It’s them.
“Vivid Bad Squad!”