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Acht lifted themself up off the ground and inspected themself. Their skin wasn’t green.
Wait, what?
Sanitisation had robbed Acht of the ability to change the colour of their skin or even their ink, and yet here they were with their skin the same colour as before they left the domes. That wasn’t the only different thing either.
Wrapped around their right arm were multiple rainbow glowstrips, while their left arm had an ornate cybernetic pattern that resembled an octopus tattooed along the entire limb. Their cap, headphones and tentacles were the same, but their visor became pointy at the sides, like a pair of barely functional but very awesome looking pointy shades. Their outfit was an ink-splattered tank top with ‘DEDF1SH’ printed on it in a graffiti style font, and on their legs were a pair of army trousers and boots whose camo patterns glowed different colours in the dark.
Acht wasn’t an expert on freshness, but this look was just plain fresh.
“Rina, you ok?”
Acht followed the voice next to them and saw Pearl, with a similarly different appearance. The short Inkling’s mantle gained an extremely pearlescent sheen, and her usual crown became much bigger, encrusted with real pearls. Wrapped around her shoulders was another one of Pearl’s preferred stupidly oversized jackets, but the way it was styled and decorated made it seem more like the cape worn by a monarch, complete with a faux-fur lining on the outside. The dress she wore underneath was similarly expensive-looking, the lace sewn around the skirt seeming to be real gold. Her arms and fingers were coated in all manner of jewelry, the most noticeable being a coral green ring with an octopus engraved on it.
Marina didn’t really respond, more just made a sound not unlike a choking Smallfry. The tall Octoling was now wearing a silver bodysuit with highlights in her ink colour, not unlike when Order took her over. Over that she wore a white lab coat, however, and on her eyes were a pair of advanced looking goggles that brought out Marina’s 8-shaped irises. Her headphones similarly became more advanced looking, the antennae sticking out of them making them look like some other device altogether. Notably, on Marina’s finger was a ring very similar to Pearl’s, except hers was pink and had a squid engraved on it.
Predictably, Marina was drooling over Pearl.
“Rina? Hello?”
“Yes my queen?” Marina sighed dreamily before snapping out of her trance and covering her blush. Pearl’s look of surprise turned into a flirtatious smirk faster than a Salmonid gobbling down a kebbab.
“Good to know my royal scientist still has her wits about her~” Pearl purred with the most confident and disgustingly loving grin Acht had ever been subjected to.
“W-well, of course! How else can I ser-serve you otherwise, your highness?” Marina replied with confidence just barely scraped from… whatever would hold confidence.
Despite being an atheist, Acht prayed for someone to make those two stop.
“Um… am I interrupting something?”
Acht was no longer atheist.
After a bit of awkward stammering, introductions and pets were exchanged between cephalopods and mammal. Pearl and Marina decided to explore together, but Acht wanted to go on their own. They didn’t say it was to avoid more ceaseless flirting, but the (former?) zombie got the impression the pop duo knew that anyway.
Pearl and Marina took in the sights and sounds around them when a voice caught their attention.
“Oh, dearie. It looks like we’ll have to cancel the show…”
A brief sax note came from a humanoid shadow, whose feline companion understood the meaning of.
“Sweet and K_K said they were hired for an extremely urgent commission, so I fear we shall have to reorder our schedule…”
“Yo, what’s up?” Pearl decided to ask, Marina following her despite thinking they shouldn’t butt into a conversation like this.
“Oh, more Lightners!” Tasque Manager looked surprised for only a moment, “You see, my friend and I usually perform songs at the café together, but two of our bandmates are unavailable today.”
“Oh, we can help!” Marina perked up, feeling sympathy for her fellow musicians, “Pearlie and I are also musicians! I mean, technically we make pop music on stage for concerts, but we have plenty of other styles too, so we could totally…”
“We’re gonna knock their socks off!” Pearl declared confidently (and loudly), snapping Marina out of her self-induced mumble storm. The Shadowguy abruptly leant down to hold his socks in place.
“Oh, that would be perfect! Come, follow me to the café so we can get you two in order before your Dark World debut!” Tasque Manager smiled with gratitude.
Odd noises coming from a cobbled-together structure attracted Acht’s attention. The door was wide open, so they stepped in and saw three stereo-headed Darkners at a turntable. The only noises coming out of the various speakers that lined the walls, however, were cartoon splat noises.
“How are we supposed to make a song with this?”
“We could use a drumroll?”
“No, Queen said we were only allowed to use this one sample, otherwise we get nothing!”
“I kinda want a box of nothing…”
Oh boy. This was a rare kind of disaster: the kind Acht couldn’t just ignore. They cleared their throat during a rare moment of silence in the Scrap Shop to get Sweet Cap’n Cakes’ attention.
“Oh, didn’t see ya there!”
“Didn’t hear ya there!”
“Didn’t smell ya there!”
“Name’s Acht, but behind the turntable I’m Dedf1sh. Heard you were having some musical trouble?”
The three Darkners cleared their throats, but it sounded more like a mic popping.
“We got a big time commish to make a song…”
“From a hot babe too!”
“Did she even have a fan?”
“Ok. Why the cartoon splats?” Acht raised an inquisitive brow.
“Our client specifically requested that we use only splat noises.”
“Her son really likes ‘em!”
“I kinda like them too.”
“I think I can work with that.” Acht said while injecting as much confidence into their inflection as they could, which isn’t as much as they wanted.
“Woah, for real?!”
“Much appreciated madamoiselle!”
“Anyone else want cake?”
“Ok, rule one of working with me: don’t call me madamoiselle. I am nonbinary.” Acht asserted before walking around to the other side of the turntable and connecting their headphones to the rest of the equipment.
“Of course!”
“Oops, sorry nonbinary adult!”
“Didn’t someone mention cake?”
The Castle Town Café was positively roaring with cheer and excitement. Pearl and Marina were introduced by Tasque Manager and were now performing their third song for the night when they only inteded to do one.
“THANK Y’ALL CASTLE TOWN!” Pearl bellowed so loudly that the King of Spades tossed in his cell and put his pillow over hus head.
“Thank you, thank you all so much! I think we have time for one more song!” Marina held her hands over one of her hearts while applause and praise were piled on her.
“Hold on a moment!” Someone in the crowd called out. It was a Mizzle.
The holy water spirit levitated on the stage and asked to borrow Pearl’s microphone, which she handed over.
“Hathy… I have to tell you something…” the only Hathy in the audience blushed furiously while Mizzle turned pink.
“For a while now, I have had a song in my heart… a song too quiet for me to hear. But, the music we’ve heard today resonated with that song, and I can hear it clearly now! And the song… it’s about you, Hathy! I love you!”
Hathy, having turned completely red now, shyly climbed on stage and slowly leaned in towards Mizzle. Mizzle leaned in as well and…
Smooch!
The crowd went wild with cheers and congratulations, some Shadowguys playing celebratory and romatic music on their saxophones.
“Looks like we helped two more lesbians outta the closet, ‘Rina!” Pearl observed smugly.
“Looks like Susie was right about our music!” Marina chuckled cheekily.
“ALRIGHT Y’ALL!” Pearl boomed to the crowd without her microphone, “SINCE THIS IS OUR LAST SONG, WE GOT A SPECIAL CONDITION! ANY O’ Y’ALL WHO GOT RHYTHM CAN JOIN IN!”
The party raged on in the café, attracting almost everyone in Castle Town.
Gathered around a table set in front of Spade King’s cell, Lancer, Queen and Ralsei alongside a couple of Rudinns and Werewires (who supposedly had better things to do, but Queen disagreed).
“Girldad, when can I open my present?” Lancer asked with a little smile. His excitement was getting unbearable to everyone except Queen.
“As Soon As Your Second Present Is Ready My Little Gravy Sweetie Honey Pie Boy Child”
“Yo.”
Everyone jumped in their seats a little at Acht’s sudden entrance. They were accompanied by Sweet Cap’n Cakes, holding a mixtape in their hand.
“Oh, hello Acht! I’m glad to see you’ve made some friends!” Ralsei squeaked with a smile.
“Oh, I made more than just friends.” Acht smirked as they shoved the mixtape in Cap’n’s mouth. Music started playing out of the flirty stereo man’s speakers, and it was…
Unique, to say the least.
“Hold on… is this cartoon splat music?!” Lancer hopped up on the table to get closer to Cap’n, wanting to hear the music better.
“That’s Right Son Boy Child I Commissioned These Guys To Make You A Cool Mixtape”
“About that…” Sweet started.
“Oh Right Here You Go” Queen withdrew the fattest wad of cash anyone present had ever seen in their lives. Before she could give it to Sweet, however, it exploded.
“Ohohohoho! Looks Like That Was My Extra Dangerous Money Here Take This Instead” Queen took the cake off the table and plopped on Sweet’s head. He was unimpressed, but K_K looked overjoyed.
“Wow, I’m impressed you were able to make such good music with just cartoon splat noises!” Ralsei praised Acht while Lancer danced around him.
“I hate to say this, but… I agree. I expected this music to be nothing but torturous noise, but… I just can’t bring myself to insult it!” Even Spade King was snapping his fingers to the beat!
“Well, when you study all existing music genres and attempt creating your own, and then get turned into a music-making zombie by a fascist AI so it can have some tunes for its genetic experiments, you pick up a few skills.”
Ralsei and King just stared blankly, unsure of what to make of that information.
“Wow Cool Story I Will Now Repost It And Pretend It Is Mine So I Can Get More Likes Than You”
The two DJs and one rapper were now back home in Pearl’s estate late at night. The sappholopods had already gone to sleep, but Acht liked staying up late. The darkness and quiet at night were a comfort to them.
Tonight, however, their mind focused on something specific.
While they were composing music, they talked with Sweet Cap’n Cakes about the Dark World.
“So this ‘Dark World’… how does it exist, exactly?”
“Well, it’s all thanks to that dark fountain, ya see!” Sweet explained while pointing to the gushing pillar of darkness out the window of the scrap shop.
“Wanna know something really cool? Any Lightner can make one!” This caught Acht’s interest.
“Wish I was a Darkner so I could make a Light Fountain.”
“K_K, you are a Darkner.”
“Cycle back for a moment. How does a Lightner make a Dark World?” Acht refocused the conversation, noting just how scatterbrained these three could get.
“Queen used to talk about it a lot. Apparently, you need something to stab the ground with, a clear dream or goal in mind, and enough determination to open it.”
As Acht added the finishing touches to the last song, they carefully thought over Sweet’s words.
Acht has a good life. They live with their best friend in her and her partner’s massive house, they get to make music and they’re a famous DJ.
But they also have a dream that hasn’t quite come true yet. A dream of self-liberation, agency and the dirtiest underground raves.
They focused on the clear image of the dream. Their desire for it. For that freedom. That freedom only they can seize for themself, that Marina and Pearl and Agent Eight gave them the tools to seize.
They struck the earth, and darkness rose.