Chapter Text
—Celly’s POV—
Celly rushed through the corridors of Galleon High School, desperate to find his friends. They had planned a practice turf war match against another group of inkfish for today, and he had forgotten completely. As with all schools at dismissal time, the building was abuzz with students trying to get home, making navigation very hard for Celly. The octoling shoved his way through the crowded hallways, his cerulean tentacles bouncing repetitively against his glasses as he made his way towards the music room.
Just as he expected, the mournful sounds of a lone violin grew louder as he neared the room, and, peeking through the doorway, he spotted the source of the music: an inkling boy by the name of Dusty, with golden-colored ink and cerulean blue eyes. Celly smiled. Dusty was staying in a bunkhouse here in Splatsville away from his parents in Inkopolis, so he didn’t really have much reason to get home fast. As a result, he would spend lots of his time after school, making use of the orchestra room’s acoustics to play the violin. Right now, he was preoccupied with a piece that sounded very sad and dramatic. As much as he hated to interrupt the inkling’s practice session, they had places to be.
“Dusty!” he hissed, causing the other boy to jump a little, and almost drop his bow. Dusty’s head whipped around, his face bearing an alarmed expression, until he realized that the culprit for his surprise was Celly.
“Oh, hey Celly,” he said, setting down his instrument, “What’s up? You nearly gave me a heart attack, dude.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Remember that scrim that we planned last week? That’s today!”
Dusty’s eyes widened as the realization set in. “Crud. You’re right. Do Biscuit and Floe know?”
“They should; I sent a message in the chat, but I know that you’re usually here practicing, so I came to get you.”
“Okay, we’ve got no time to waste, then. Let’s get going!”
Dusty hurriedly packed his violin in its case, then sprinted alongside Celly towards the school’s front exit. The arid atmosphere of the Splatlandian desert hit them as they left the building, and they beelined it to the nearest train station.
Splatsville’s metro isn’t exactly what one would call “fast,” and the boys stood at the side of the tracks, anxiously waiting for the train to arrive. To alleviate some of the stress, Celly asked, “Who are we playing again? I really haven’t been thinking about this match much.”
Dusty pondered for a moment. “Wasn’t it Ringer and their team?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Celly said, “Doesn’t he play splatterscope? I remember that he has really good aim.”
“Yeah. Us anchors don’t usually interact, but I’m aware that he can really jam up opponents when he wants to.”
“Hey, so can you! You’re good with more than one type of bow,” Celly said, gesturing at Dusty’s violin case.
“Hah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
The two turflings turned as the train rolled into the station, hurriedly jumping into the closest car when its doors opened.
Luckily for the duo, the Lobby Tower was only a single stop away, and the second that the train’s doors opened, they bolted towards the building, huffing and puffing as they arrived at the lobby’s test range.
“Hey, lookie who finally decided to show up!” teased a voice from the direction of the locker room. Celly looked up to see an inkling with raspberry-colored tentacles and a light blue bandana tied up in them, swinging her splatana by her side as she walked towards the two now-exhausted inkfish.
“Hi Biscuit,” Celly responded. He grinned sheepishly. “Guess you guys didn’t forget like we did…”
Following Biscuit was an octoling sporting a cyan varsity jacket, her purple tentacles neatly framing her face.
“We assumed that you guys would remember until we saw your text, Celly,” she said, in a slightly accusatory tone.
“Yeah, sorry about that, Floe,” Celly replied, “Is the other team already ready to go?”
“No, you guys lucked out. They seem pretty slow with setting up their weapons and everything. Biscuit and I are all set, though.”
“Alright. Let’s go get ready then, Celly,” Dusty said. The two boys made their way over to the locker room, where they dropped their backpacks off and picked up their weapons. Dusty opened his locker, placing his violin inside and taking out a well-conditioned Tri-stringer.
Celly peered into his own locker, where the holographic glint of a Colorz Aerospray and the hefty frame of a Custom Explosher greeted him. As he pondered over which weapon to use, he fiddled with the stack of bracelets situated on his right arm.
Hmm, which one to pick? I planned on lifting later, so maybe the Explosher isn’t the best choice right now.
He grabbed the Aerospray, running his hand along the Emberz logo embossed on its ink tank.
But then again, splashdowns feel so much more cathartic… I could use that sort of stress relief today.
“Celly! Let’s go!” Dusty called from the entrance to the locker room. The octoling jolted, unaware that he was zoning out. “Right! Sorry! Coming!” He elected to take the Aerospray, even as much as he wanted to use something a little more explosive.
Celly met the rest of his team in the test range, where Biscuit was absentmindedly slashing at a squid bumper with their splatana wiper while having a conversation with Floe, and Dusty stood by listening. As Celly got closer, Biscuit’s words became more clear, “-yeah, and apparently they were the only person who actually got an A before the test was curved- Oh hey, Celly’s here!”
“Hey. Sorry for taking so long. We all set to go?”
“Yeah, we just need to change our ink color for the match. I think that their main color is red, so we can’t choose anything too close to it,” Floe responded.
“Man, we really need to pick a team color!” Biscuit remarked, “It’s been what, like a full month since the season’s started and we still haven’t decided on one.”
“And a good team name too,” Dusty added, “We can’t just keep going as “Team 36” for the whole school year.”
“That’s true,” Floe said, “Actually. Are you guys all free after this practice today? We could meet up and discuss those things. Also, Dusty, it sounds like Biscuit desperately needs some help with their biology class right now.”
“Hey! I am perfectly capable of upping my grade on my own!” said Biscuit. She swiftly added, “But I wouldn’t mind if y’all wanted to have a quick study sesh, though.”
Dusty smiled. “Sounds fine to me. We can all go to my place at the bunkhouse, if you guys want.”
Everyone gave their confirmation, as a voice came from the other side of the lobby, “Hey guys, we’re all ready to go when you are!”
“Ah, right! We’ll be out in a moment,” Floe responded. “Alright guys, which color are we going with?”
“I think that Celly’s blue color looks good,” Dusty said. “If everyone’s fine with that.”
“Well obviously I am,” Celly said, looking to Floe and Biscuit for agreement.
Both shrugged. “Fine by me,” said Biscuit.
“Alrighty then, let’s get to our spawners,” called Floe, already making her way to the lobby doors.
A few minutes later, both teams were ready to launch into Scorch Gorge. One of Ringer’s friends had agreed to officiate the match, and had set up in one of the grated domes located around the map. As soon as they blew a whistle, all eight turflings leapt from their spawners, initiating the game.
Immediately, Celly set on turfing the area around his base. He was using an Aerospray, after all, and he knew that his teammates would all want to get into position as soon as possible. As he painted around spawn, he watched Floe dodge roll into the midground of the stage, covering as much ground as it is possible to do with a pair of Glooga dualies. Biscuit followed suit, tossing a few curling bombs as she advanced to the middle of the stage.
Celly, having covered enough ground as he found necessary, joined his teammates in taking the midground. Oddly enough, he didn’t see any sign of the other team, until the telltale sightline of a splatterscope extended from on top of an elevated platform in front of him. He strafed as quickly as he could out of sight, hurling a burst bomb at Ringer to discourage any attempts to follow him.
While the bomb hit its mark, Celly was so preoccupied with getting away that he didn’t register the pair of tetra dualies that he was swimming directly towards. The tetra user, an octoling by the name of Clover, if Celly remembered correctly, immediately threw an autobomb and dashed towards Celly, pinning him against a wall where he was quickly splatted. Before bursting into ink, Celly shouted, “Guys! Tetras on me!”
As he respawned, Floe’s voice came on over comms saying, “I got ‘em. We got a nozzlenose on the central tower, though. She set up a bubbler up there.”
“On it,” Dusty replied. Even while spawning back in, Celly could make out the unmistakable gleam of a charged special, followed by the roar of several killer wails firing. Four of the speakers locked onto the inkling inside of the Big Bubbler in the center of the stage, who was quickly forced to vacate their position, and subsequently splatted by Biscuit, who was lying in wait at the base of the elevated platform.
A large part of the match passed with the standard back-and-forth of a Turf War game, as each team pushed and counterpushed against one another, with neither being able to gain a definitive upper hand.
Finally, a few mistakes made by the other team towards the end of the game led to Celly and his friends being able to achieve a wipeout, which they quickly took advantage of, almost completely covering a large part of the stage just before the match ended.
Of course, because it was just an informal school match, profreshional Turf War referees like Judd wouldn’t be present, so there wasn’t any exact way of determining the winner, but the inkling presiding over the match quipped to his friend, “Yeah. You guys totally got destroyed there.”
Ringer grinned and gave his friend a light shove, saying, “Shut up!” He then turned to Floe and the rest of her team, quickly adopting a more serious demeanor, and extended his hand for a handshake. “Good game, guys.”
“Yes. Good game to you and your team as well,” Floe said, returning the gesture.
Both team captains turned away from one another, each walking back to their respective teams. Amusingly, both octolings seemed to loosen up significantly when joining their friends, quickly dropping any disposition they had when talking to each other. Biscuit, taking note of this, remarked, “Wow. Is it a team captain thing to act all serious and formal like that, or is it just you two who are weird?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Floe, seeming completely oblivious to any apparent awkwardness between her and Ringer in that interaction.
“Heh,” Biscuit said, watching the other team walk away, “Anyways, let’s all go head over to Dusty’s!”
About fifteen minutes later, after everyone had gathered their belongings and stashed their weapons away in their lockers, the four inkfish all made their way to the nearby train station, finding an empty bench to sit on as they awaited the arrival of a train.
Biscuit broke the silence by saying, “Sooo… We got any plans for dinner?”
Celly smiled. It seemed like Biscuit always had food on the mind.
“I personally just planned on ordering in,” replied Dusty, “But if you wanted to cook or something, that’s fine by me.”
“Well, it depends on what ingredients you have,” said Biscuit, but it already seemed like they were planning a meal in their head. One thing that Celly had learned about Biscuit pretty early into their friendship was that she loved to make food, especially for her friends.
“Hey, don’t forget that we’re supposed to also be studying,” reminded Floe.
“Yeah, but surely it won’t take THAT long, right?” was the inkling’s response.
“C’mon! This is why your grade is tanking!”
Just as the girls were about to begin bickering, a train rolled into the station, interrupting any squabble that might have ensued. The metro was never too crowded around this time, so all four turflings were able to easily find vacant seats next to each other.
The train ride was silent for the most part, with Biscuit watching Floe play some complex-looking rhythm game on her phone, Dusty reading a biology textbook, and Celly staring out the window, watching the desert landscape fly by.
At one point, Celly sidled a little closer to Dusty, leaning some of his weight against the inkling’s shoulder and looking over at the open textbook. Glancing up at his friend’s face, Celly thought that he saw his skin shift a few tones redder, but that also could’ve just been the lighting changing as the sun set.
“So… Cell signaling, huh?”
Dusty started a little. “Huh? Oh- yeah. Apparently Biscuit messed up big-time on the other unit two test- You have Mr. Vitri, right?
“Yeah. I heard he’s the easier of the two teachers.”
“Maybe. Mrs. Ferrin’s tests seem to have a shell of a reputation, but she barely gives us any work.”
“Huh. Well, I guess that works out for you, ‘cause you’re a pretty good test-taker, right?”
“I guess so. But I think other people have a lot of trouble with them.” He added jokingly, “Like Biscuit.”
Dusty’s last comment elicited an indignant “Hey!” from the inkling to his right, who was still watching Floe’s locked-in gameplay.
The rest of the train ride continued the same way, with Celly leaned against Dusty, wordlessly poring over the bio textbook, until a voice over the train's intercom declared, “Next stop, Ironshell Station.”
“Alright guys, this is the one,” said Dusty. Each inkfish gathered their belongings and walked to the nearest set of doors, waiting for them to open as the train slowly slid to a stop at the station. The team stepped out onto the platform, following Dusty to his home at the bunkhouse.