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'With new years.'
The thought of the phrase poured cold acid on Craig's metaphorical wound, on the freezing seat of a bus stop, in the midday snowfall of this second-rate town—Arowana—turned-capital where the Inkadian fascisti had dug in their grave. No, the Communist Party of Inkadia and it's animal-minded horde of sympathizers were the ones lighting the fireworks. The old calendars were hung off—it was 1950.
The Great Bluefin Cuttlefish swore to himself: He would hang half the beasts in Inkopolis. The day couldn't come sooner when the streets ran wet in that city, even if it was in Hell. Soon.
He took another chug from the finish of his amber whiskey, next to the other, empty bottle placed next to him—still a little bit left, but frozen by the weather.
Craig sported a long, dark cloth coat over his brown officer fatigues, and of course—his captain's cap haphazardly thrown on over his eyes. Look at the hero of the Republican Revolution, day-drinking in the street.
An ever-present sight of the Arowana Castle ruins to his left—between the split mountain overlooking the whole city above--only taunted him. In it he saw ghost of his past glories, the speed, the violence, from a time where a few slogans could wash away red as a wave. The whole of Arowana was aflame that night, when she died with the knife of his bayonet through her mouth and he let Tavie go, and it all started—Won't someone sell this Lieutenant General some fucking whiskey?!
A fleet of helicopters flew past. The bus stop stood in front of a multi-story hospital, facing suburb houses—the hospital standing as the single tallest building for a distance.
The street was wide and barren, with nobody else in sight, except for a single, young, lime-green-inked Cuttleling girl passing by on the other side. She wore a floral dress and nibbled on a steaming churro as she walked in front of Craig's sight.
He shouted with his chin to his neck, "Kids like you should be eating healthy food, not sugary shit off you scraped up off the ground!"
She didn't react to him.
"Pay attention to someone when they say somethin' to you or you're gonna be a whore when you grow up!"
She only glanced back, giving back an offensive stare.
"ARE YOU FUCKING LISTENING TO ME?! DUMB... BITCH!!" He threw the bottle with rage onto the lane line, smashing into a thousand pieces of glass and splashing what wet was left, around. Of which, none of it reached the girl.
Instead, Craig recoiled as he got sliced in the forehead by a stray shard. He fell and slouched back into the bus beat, wringing his head with his hands, swearing off at the world in murmurs.
...Craig heard leather boots approach and shuffle in place, back and forth.
"...What happened?"
Wiped blood ran down from Craig's forehead to his eyebrow, "Fucking bullshit, Amos. How's National Republicanism s'possed to survive to the next year when the next generation doesn't believe in anything?"
Ammoses idled then sat down next to Craig, tried to gently take the empty bottle off, but—
"It's all fucked, anyway," Craig grabbed and also smashed it, this time farther.
"Lochlann's in the southwest, keeping the fight going on the front line," Ammoses said.
"No such thing, tell 'im he needs a nail in his brain," he mumbled, "And Lakai's in the hospital."
"How bad is it?"
"Mm... 'll survive, but eyes beyond treatment."
"Fuck... So... Sardinia, Meduza?"
"Unless you're aimin' to be hunted by the CSB for the rest of your life..." He snapped to make eye contact with Ammoses, "—Mainland Kairyunochi? Are you out of your mind?!"
"It was just a suggestion—"
"'Hey everybody! Let's go to the edge of the fuckin' Steel Veil and enlist as border guards!'" Craig laugh-said.
"Then I'm out of ideas! I don't fucking know?!"
Ammoses sighed.
"I'm worried about Reinhilde. She was left behind in Inkopolis during wildmullet season..." Ammoses spoke up again.
"That's not funny," Craig interjected.
"She was left behind in Inkopolis. Sun knows what sick the Rivulists are doing to her head now."
"Reinhilde..."
"Mhmmh.."
"That's right. If I flew down and shot that bitch will you finally commit to somethin'?"
Ammoses was left speechless; Stumbling over air and letters until he managed to answer him, "—WHA—HEY, WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM?!" he pulled at his shoulder, "You're gonna murder my fucking wife?!"
"Get the fuck off me!" Craig shoved him off. He shot up, crossed arms walked away over the sound of glass shards.
"Do you even give a shit about anything? Or just smashing bottles like a maniac?!"
"I care about Inkadia. Which you don't."
"And for what?! You have anything to leave behind? Where are your kids?"
Craig grumbled, "Boarding school."
A moment of silence passed between the two men. Craig stared away from Ammoses to Arowana Castle and pulled out a box of cigarettes from his pockets—it was empty. he let it drop unceremoniously to the pavement.
Ammoses's head rose back up, "1943—the Atarime affair."
"This bullshit again, and from you, fucking closet Oct!—No, stab me in the neck! And that's never what it's going to be called!"
"—Amaria was found dead against your home's kitchen counter. I remember Amaria from the 'Kingdom times, that little aristo baby. You chose me as the best man for your wedding."
"—How much of your's bloodline is Octoling!? How much of your bloodline is Octoling? At this speed, it's a hundred."
"Everybody accepted... that that was an honest-to-the-Sun, accident."
"It was a directored scandal by my political rivals to destroy me, was what it was! Well it didn't WORK!"
"Craig, admit it to me—your closest f... —confidante. Did you murder her...?"
"...Why would I admit anything to you."
"Fucking dipshit moron!" he threw his hands up and stood up in the opposite direction, "Well, next Squidmas you'll be missing me."
Craig eyes fell down like noosed, as did his cap.
The approaching presence of unrecognized, non-Inkling man from the background of mountain-side became increasingly apparent to both. The steps and clacks from his clean dress shoes buzzed through the street. He wore a beige suit and black tie under a coat. He was clean-shaven, and his fins were cut and gelled to a sheen. His hands were
"Hello, is this the National Republican Inklings' Revolutionary Party?" he called out with a clearly foreign accent, and a hesitant pronounciation.
Craig and Ammoses looked back at each other with looks that reaffirmed to the other that they were on the same mind.
Craig creaked back, cautiously approaching as well—Ammoses following his lead in a different angle—"...Wwwe don't know! Are you CSB?"
The stranger slowed to a stop, putting his fins out of his pockets, "Ah... well... err, could you repeat that?" he deflected with a humorous tone.
"Who might you be?" Ammoses questioned.
"Just a man with your best interests."
Craig circled around out of his vision, to his back. Ammoses faced him forward, leaning on his pocket.
"Is that so?..."
"That's right. Are you ready? 'Shellendorf' and... 'Cuttlefish', if I am not mistaken?"
A cold barrel of bamboo pressed against the back of the visitor's head, "Missed your chance, red."
Ammoses gripped his inkpistol and aimed it between the man's collected eyes, arms full length.
After a second, the visitor's smirk flashed, and he only chuckled it off.
"Please, gentlemen, don't tell me you all that you are content with are arrested expressions of banditry, and... heh, one large grave of unrealised potential...?"
Another wordless moment passed. Craig and Ammoses looked at each other—Craig raised his fist palm-side to his vision.
"Who're you, really?" Craig asked.
"'You'? I am a representative from the Grand Fangayan Empire, coming to you with wide frills..."
Ammoses recocked his pistol, "Prove it."
He gestured to his pockets and began to reach for them, "If I may...?"
"Ammoses checks them," Craig warned.
"Ppperfectly fine!"
Ammoses leaned in close and patted him down, rummaging through and taking everything out of his pockets, including three cans of soft drinks of the same brand--Fangayan--, which raised intrigue. Primarily, he flipped through a passport, from a distance.
"He's the real deal," Ammoses turned the little book around to Craig's side.
"An assassin wouldn't go through the effort for such a ruse," Craig back away and pulled his rifle down, "What does Fangaya want now?"
"It is obvious," he joined his arms together around his back, "Communist forces have taken the capital city, the Army has collapsed, the National Republican State is not 'long for this world' as you say."
"We all die eventually."
"Simply, the Grand Fangayan Empire is open to offering all amount of support necessary to destroy the Inkadian Communist Party—terms are, negotiable, but we only ask for a truthful commitment to future cooperation, exclusively to us."
"You want us to become a proxy in your cold war," Craig moped around in place.
"I do not believe you understand fully—the Communists are already in a proxy war, yet you have no vanguard."
"Sounds like an Angel from Heaven to us, to me," Ammoses said.
Craig asked, "What's with the drinks?"
"Ah, an introductory gift--the finest fruit cider from Fangaya to Inkadia, in anticipation for our new connection..."
...
"Is this a metal cylinder?"
"Oh, ah, you want to 'peel' it open. Similar to a... a banana?"
It was silver and had simply a picture of a pear on it, apart from the typography. It made a fizzling *shiiiiiiish* once they figured it out.
It had a... sharp, prickly—downright chemical taste to it. But with an instantly addictive quality to it. It was unlike anything the Inkling and the horseshoe crab had ever tasted.
The visitor had his own. Before sipping it down, he said to the two:
"To the newly blossomed friendship between the National Republicans and Fangayan Emperorists!"