Chapter Text
Eight made a wish once.
She watched as they looked over their shoulder like a beast rearing its ugly head. She recognized the mark they wore on their cape, the headset on their head, the gun in their hands, the glint in their eye.
Eight made a wish once, before the metro and the tests and the screeching beep of a bomb’s detonation crushed it like a glass bottle thrown onto the tracks, ground down each time the train passed until it was nothing but dust.
She could memorize how a gun felt pressed to her head like a brand seared on hide, yet she didn’t know what her favorite color was. Knew how it felt to be torn at and ripped apart like some unfortunate creature finally falling prey, but couldn’t recall her name.
Gun to her head, her hands around their wrist-
She remembered blinding overhead lights on sterile white, the sharp scratching of wheels on the rails, the chafe of her ink tank on the back of her neck, the persistent smell that burned when she breathed that she later identified as acetone. Eight remembered all of this, but not a single thing about herself, save for the fact that she was the ten-thousand and eighth, and possibly the most unlucky of them all.
After all, she didn’t get the saving grace of death.
Eight made a wish once. She stood in front of a ghost, the tormentor of her kind, a soulless beast who stripped away her birthright like nothing. She brought her Octoshot closer to herself.
Their eyes met. The fuzzy melody of that song wormed its way back into her mind, starting up through a broken radio nestled deep within. With shaky hands, she adjusted her hold, left hand on the foregrip, index finger settling carefully on the trigger. Just as she was trained to do against filth like Three.
They must have been taught the same, because they fixed their grip on their own weapon before they’re hurtling toward her like a meteor on course for the earth.
In this world? She lost before they even pulled the trigger.
————
Eight felt like a lamb to the slaughter.
Sure, that might be a bit dramatic, maybe even excessively, but she couldn't say that she was thrilled to be getting acquainted with the rest of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Only because she was sick of speaking this stupid, complicated squid language. No other reason.
The Captain had insisted that a formal meeting should be in order. After all, Eight practically saved Inkopolis, and it'd been two weeks since what happened in the metro. Well… his idea of “formal” was some diner that looked like it was around during the Great Turf War: black-and-white checkered flooring, tacky wallpaper, and a beat-up jukebox that faintly played old-timey music she couldn't understand the lyrics to.
Despite the multitude of ceiling fans running overhead, the summer heat created a muggy and overall unpleasant atmosphere, especially being tightly squished into the vinyl booth that made the skin on her thighs stick to it when she shifted around. She felt quite trapped being closest to the window and farthest from freedom. Four was directly next to her, which was… tolerable? She didn't know enough about them to formulate an opinion.
She paid no mind to the ghost sitting at the end.
On the other side of the table were Callie and Marie, dressed in their “civilian” outfits that were meant to mask their appearances and make them blend in with the “common rabble”. Truthfully, they didn't do a great job, but it was apparently enough to work—people on the surface were stupid, anyway. And then, of course, the Captain, squinting at the menu, attempting to decipher the small text on it and requesting help from Marie.
Eight only snapped out of her thoughts of potential escape routes when Four turned to look at her, flashing a grin that bared all the points of their beak. "So! Eight, right?"
Her ears pinned back slightly. They were loud, and they didn’t quite sound like all the other Inklings she’d heard so far, but nothing terribly deal-breaking yet. She only nodded, keeping her eyes down and finally opening her menu. She could pretend she knew what was on it. At least the pictures helped.
"Cool! So, I dunno if you remember or if anyone ever told you but I'm Four. It's nice to meet’cha!"
"Hey, inside voice," Marie suddenly scolded from across the table. "And elbows off, it’s rude." Four yelped at the light kick delivered to them from underneath the table. Someone at the end of the booth snickered.
"Ow!" Four rubbed at their shin in a rather dramatic way before turning back to her. "But anyways. How're you findin' things or whatever? Inkopolis is huge, yeah?"
Eight blinked a couple of times. She just nodded along—most of her brain power was being put into attempting to figure out what she wanted. There were too many options given to her, too many photos shoved in her face with wiggly, loopy text that she could barely read. Maybe she should just save the hassle and pick at random.
At some point during her prolonged silence, it must've dawned on Four that Octarians indeed had their own language and Eight couldn't understand what they were saying very well, because they looked a little bit embarrassed. "Oh! Um, uh… what'cha gonna order?" They followed up their question with another lopsided smile. Interesting enough, they spoke slower this time. Enough for her to understand, but not to the point where she found it patronizing.
Callie hummed from across the table, but she was in the middle of sipping her strawberry lemonade and thus almost choked trying to chime in. Clearing her throat, she said, ”You can get whatever you want, Eight! Gramps has a senior and veteran discount, so don't worry." She didn’t know what either of those things meant.
"Need help readin' it or choosin'?" Four asked. Eight squinted at the menu. She would’ve absolutely thought it condescending from anyone else, but the way they were smiling made it seem genuine.
Three overheard the offer. "She’s smarter than she looks," they muttered, mostly to Four but just enough for her to hear because of course, they had to make every second she spent around them miserable. Maybe if Eight curled in on herself enough, she'd disappear and magically be back home.
There was no doubt that Four noticed the jab. They chose not to address it, shrugging and quickly glancing over at the peanut gallery. "Oh. Just tryna help her out. But uh, I usually get the... here!" Flipping over the menu, they pointed to a stack of star-shaped, topping-loaded pancakes that looked like they would give her some sort of ailment. “The Starfish Special!”
Now this got her attention. “…Is sweet?” Eight asked quietly, eyeing the rather appealing rainbow sprinkles and cupcake icing. Within these two weeks, she had discovered that she’s definitely a fan of sweet foods.
“Yeah! It’s super good. Marie says it’s gonna put me in a sugar coma one day but it’d totally be worth it!”
Marie overheard their conversation and looked up from her menu at Four. “Why are you getting breakfast at one in the afternoon, anyway?”
“Ooh! I’m getting breakfast too!” Callie suddenly exclaimed, rapidly tapping at a picture on the menu and practically shoving it into Marie’s face. “The waffles here are so good.”
She brought a hand up to gently push the menu away. “Calm down. It’s not breakfast time.”
“Breakfast is just a frame of mind, Mar.”
“It really isn’t. The word breakfast means-”
“Don’t care, is too!”
The Captain shook his head as Callie and Marie bickered back and forth like inkblots until their argument was thankfully cut short by the waitress’ arrival; an older-looking bamboo shark with round-rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of her snout approached the table, pulling a pen out of her apron pocket. “We all ready to order here?”
Callie, in direct spite of Marie, said, “Yeah! I’ll get the classic buttermilk waffles, please.”
Marie glared at her. “I’m going to order normal food for this time frame. Just a plain Salmonid wrap. No veggies, thank you.”
“Oh, I’ll have a… nice bowl o’ tomato soup, please,” the Captain said.
After a few moments of silence and the sudden realization that everyone was staring at her, she put her remarkable ex-military brain to use and inferred they were waiting for her to order. “Um, the… starfish.” Great job.
The waitress took a moment to process her words, but she otherwise didn’t falter. “The Starfish Special, darling?”
Four butted in. “Yeah, that’s what she’s gettin’. I’ll have that too, with extra sprinkles on mine.” And just like that, the spotlight was off of her. She’d celebrate the little victories.
It was Three’s turn, and instead of ordering they slouched in their seat, eyes fixed on a chip in the table rather than anyone else. “I’m not eating. Thanks.”
Marie shot them a glance. “Really? You’re not getting anything?”
They shrugged. “Dunno. ‘M not hungry.”
“You oughta get some meat on yer bones, kid,” the Captain insisted. “You use’ta like the grilled cheeses here, right? Never too cool for a grilled cheese.”
“It’s fine. I’m not-“
Callie turned to the waitress. “They’ll have a grilled cheese and some fries, please.”
The waitress collected the menus and left. Three only blinked a few times, stunned, before sitting back and crossing their arms, grumbling something under their breath and starting a great deal of bickering between them and the other side of the table. Four, eyeing the situation, decided to stay out of it, pulling out their Squidphone to kill time.
It was strange to her, really. Everyone treated Three like they were some porcelain statue that could crack at any wrong move. Who knows, maybe she’d get lucky and they would fall over and shatter one day.
Four suddenly elbowed her, holding their phone in their left hand and what appeared to be brown milk in the other. “Ever had this?”
“Um…” Eight blinked at them a few times. They sure had a knack for interrupting her thoughts.
“Try it.” Four held it out for her. When she hesitated, they added, “I ain’t got cooties, don’t worry.”
After a few moments, Eight slowly moved to take a minuscule sip of their drink, treating it with a certain air of cautiousness as if it were poison. It was definitely chocolate-flavored, and she was right about it being milk, yet it tasted different than the nasty kind Marina and Pearl bought. In fact, she’d even say it tasted good. She hummed quietly in thought.
“Good, right? It’s chocolate milk. Not soy though, almond. Marie over here’s a weirdo and likes soy milk.” Four looked at her expectantly but did not gain a reaction, as she was too caught up with Three. They coughed. “Whatever. Usually me poking fun gets her attention.”
At the end of the table, the mild argument—or more so disagreement out of concern Three surely didn’t deserve—was cut off when the waitress was back with everyone’s food. The plate of pancakes was a little larger than she expected, but damn did it look good.
Four whistled, receiving their own plate. “Look at that. In all its glory. Coated in icing and a boatload of sprinkles.”
Three eyed their meal in front of them with some faint look of queasiness before they suddenly pushed themself out of the booth. “I’ll be back,” they mumbled, stuffing their hands in the pockets of their jacket and storming off to cod knows where. Good riddance.
Eight felt a little better now that the table wasn’t haunted. She poked at her star-shaped pancakes with a fork before using it to tear a piece off to eat. It was sweet, just as Four promised, and it stuck to her beak a bit when she chewed. She mentally noted to come back to this place.
Four glanced over to check in on Eight, but laughed as they realized she was doing just fine, seeing as to how she was practically shoveling the food into her mouth.
Eight checked off Four as more than tolerable.