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-1.
“She’s hiding something.”
“Eh? Whassat?” Cap’n Cuttlefish all but yelled. Three winced.
“Not so loud, Gramps.” They glanced around, as if Eight would suddenly appear in the empty carriage. She was in a test right now, and Three knew logically that she couldn’t come and overhear, but the octoling moved so quietly it was hard to feel certain.
“Agent Eight,” they clarified. “She’s hiding something from us.”
“What gives you that idea?”
He might come across as accusatory to other people, but Three had known Cuttlefish since they were still an inkblot and knew it was a genuine question. It wasn’t unlikely that he had already reached the same conclusion; he just wanted to know how Three got there.
“She’s… not here.”
“Yeeeees? She’s in the test–”
“Not what I meant.” Three gestured vaguely, struggling to articulate their point. “She’s here, but she’s not here. I think she forgets we’re even here sometimes, even though we’re the only ones here, I’ve checked.
“I heard her talking to someone,” they continued, “I don’t know who. What if we’re being set up?”
Cuttlefish took a moment to process that. Three knew he always did this when considering something new, but it didn’t put them at any ease. They kept glancing at the doors. What if she came back right now? It couldn’t end well, not if their hunch was right.
“I don’t think we are,” he finally said.
“You’ve seen how subtle Octavio is,” – Three snorted – “so this couldn’t be him. There isn’t really anyone else.
“Not to say I’m not concerned by Eight. Keep an eye on her.”
1.
“Sure, I can keep an eye on her.”
Marie stopped short, her arguments dying in her throat. She narrowed her eyes at Four.
“What?” Marie gave her a Look. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not planning anything!”
“...”
“I’m not!”
Marie wasn’t stupid. She had known Four for an entire month (okay, maybe that wasn’t that long, but it was a very intense month!) and knew she didn’t take orders without being at least a little contrarian first. Not unless she had an ulterior motive.
“You’re giving me that “Four has an ulterior motive” look.” Fuck. “I swear I don’t! I already said she could room with me, I’m not gonna go out of my way to avoid looking out for her.”
That wasn’t exactly what Marie had meant. Forgive her for not immediately believing every word Gramps said, but there was no way a former Octarian soldier wasn’t planning to betray them. She wanted Four to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn’t steal any zapfish, or squidnap someone, or whatever else Octarians did in their free time – not looking out for her.
But Four had already bulldozed through the conversation, as she tended to do. There wasn’t really a way for Marie to correct her without seeming like a paranoid old lady (as Four had called her before. Multiple times).
“Okay, fine, whatever,” she conceded. “But–”
But Four was already gone, signing something much too fast to be understood to the (frankly, terrifying) Octarian soldier she had agreed to house. Marie felt a headache coming on.
“She’ll be fine,” said Callie, appearing suddenly in a way that was surely bad for her hearts. “You said she was tough, she can handle one Octarian, easy.”
-2.
There was no denying it, Agent Eight was tough. Watching through the CQ-80 that Marina had rigged to show the CCTV footage within the test chamber, it was hard to consolidate the quiet, agreeable octoling with… this.
The current test was simple – Eight needed to defeat every enemy, which would reveal the launcher to the next section. It was even simpler for her, given that the enemy ink hardly seemed to phase her.
Three would have been splatted by now. They glanced at Cuttlefish and gestured towards the screen; a silent question. That wasn’t normal, right?
He shook his head. On the screen, Eight wiped what should have been a lethal amount of ink off her arms and continued the test like nothing had happened. That shouldn’t be possible. Not with normal ink, but certainly not with that almost-glowing turquoise ink, shot by those apparently-dead (what the fuck?) octarians.
Not that anyone wanted her to be splatted more than she already did, of course. She was just… concerning. The longer they were stuck down here, the more reasons Three found to be concerned about Eight.
Later, she would come back to the train, arms still soaked in ink, and Three would berate her for it again. For now, they added this concern to the growing pile.
2.
Bola leant against the side of the doorway. The lights were off, but that didn’t matter to them, they could still easily pick out the silhouette of their new roommate, staring into empty space.
(Flora had shrugged when they had asked where she came from.
“Dunno, my boss was real vague about it, apparently her grandpa and some other guy found her in a subway.”
One day, Bola was going to grab Flora’s boss by the shoulders and shake her until she gave some actual answers, secret agent bullshit be damned.)
“No, I don’t mind.” They were startled out of their musings by the quiet rasp of Eight’s voice. “You’re not a secret. Just… maybe tomorrow? I don’t want to break their stuff.”
There was nobody else in the room. She wouldn’t be on a phone call either, Bola had watched her struggle to use the calculator app earlier.
They cleared their throat and Eight jumped to her feet, spinning to face them. The inside of her mouth glowed in the darkness of the room.
“Who you talking to?”
Bola saw no point in dancing around the subject, and clearly neither did Eight.
“My sister.”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah.”
They made a show of looking around the room, shrugging. “I don’t see a sister in here.”
“Most people can’t,” she said, as if it were completely normal.
‘Fuck it,’ Bola decided, ‘I’m not dealing with this shit.’
3.
Bola took it all back. Flora’s boss could be as mysterious as she liked, Eight was fucking sick. They didn’t even know you could legally throw someone off the stage in turf war!
-3
“Hey Eight.” Pearl was talking to her through her headset (half of a headset, really, but it worked fine). Marina had repurposed one of the guest rooms into a “control room” with a screen to watch Eight complete tests from. She wasn’t there at the moment, so it was just Pearl and a bag of seaweed chips.
“Yeah?”
On her screen, Pearl watched Eight tilt her head to one side for a moment before swimming up a wall and collecting a pack of power eggs.
“How d’you always know where things are in these tests? You said you lost your memories.”
“I did.” Eight did not elaborate further. Pearl groaned, sinking back into her beanbag. Asking Eight questions felt like pulling tentacles sometimes.
“So? How do you know where shit is?”
“Oh.” Eight shot an Octotrooper from around a corner. “I get told.”
Pearl sat back up. “Told?”
“Well, not really told. Seven is the only one who can talk. Most of them use Dome Sign, some of them don’t know it so it’s just sort of gestures, but they tell me things about the test.”
Dome Sign… Marina had mentioned that once. It was something between Inkadian sign language and the colour-communication that inklings sometimes used (more standardised, though, Marina had explained). Apparently, it was mainly used for communicating in a loud battlefield, used by soldiers more than civilians.
Pearl had tried to learn it, but had given up midway. Inkling tentacles just weren’t as mobile as Octolings’.
“Wait– who’s telling you?”
“Them.” Eight gestured at a patch of air with a distinct lack of people inside it. “They’re right there.”
“There’s nobody there.”
“Yes there is! There’s Seven, and there’s the floating guy! There’s at least one in every test!”
“Okay, okay,” Pearl placated her. This was the closest to angry she had seen Eight get – she was kinda proud she’d been the first to get a reaction like this. “I’ll take your word on it, but I can’t see ‘em. Maybe they just don’t show up on camera.”
Eight didn’t seem entirely happy with that, but she dropped the issue.
Pearl muted her mic and groaned, loudly. This kid was gonna give her grey tentacles.
4.
“That was awesome!” Flora tossed his dualies into his bag as they left the Lobby. “C’mon, dude, high five!”
After a mildly painful two minutes of trying to explain to Eight what a high five was, to limited success, Flora threw her a cereal bar. At her questioning look, he shrugged.
“You totally carried us, you’ve earned it,” he signed. “I was all like “ahhh!” and you were all like “POW!” and totally crushed that dude. When you caught them trying to flank near the end – you should’ve seen the look on that guy’s face!”
Eight chuckled quietly, fidgeting with the grip on her Dynamo. It was amazing how she could still look so endearing when only a few minutes ago he had watched her utterly demolish a ranked team.
“It was nothing,” she claimed, eyes averted.
“Oh no, you don’t get to downplay that. You were playing like a real profreshional! Are you sure you’ve never played before?”
He said it as a joke, what little information Marie had shared made it clear Eight hadn’t touched inksports before, but he didn’t expect the contemplative look that crossed her face.
“Well there were a couple tests like it.”
“...tests?”
“Yeah, down in the Metro,” she said, like it was an explanation. Flora certainly did not feel explained-to. “There was one that was very similar to Tower Control, and one that was like Rainmaker. They were quite tough.”
She seemed to take his silence as a cue to keep going, rather than giving him the time to process whatever the fuck she was talking about.
“It’s very different, when there are only four opponents. And when you have three teammates. I forgot you guys were my team for a bit. I probably would have tried to splat you by accident if we were green team. Or blue team. Oh! There is Crusty Sean, I’m going to go exchange my tickets.”
‘What the fuck.’ Flora stood, motionless. ‘What the fuck. Where the shell did Marie’s grandpa find her???’
-4
“Eight, you can’t–”
CLANG.
“Oooh, that looked painful.”
Rainmakers made excellent bludgeoning weapons, apparently.
-5
They had been on this train for a few days now. Three had, on the Cap’n’s recommendation, resolved to get to know Agent Eight a bit better.
(“If you know more about her, you won’t be so intimidated by her!”
“What? She doesn’t intimidate me!”
He had given them a Look. They kept their beak shut.)
So… getting to know someone. Easy. You just… asked them questions. They would answer, ask you a polite question in the same range, and you would continue until the conversation ended. There was basically no way to mess it up.
Three walked directly in front of CB, where she was staring into empty space, and cleared their throat. She startled hard.
“Tell me about your family.”
(They could sense Cuttlefish face-palming further down the carriage.)
“... what?”
“Your family. Tell me about them.”
“I…” Her gaze flicked above Three, slightly to the left. One of her tentacles flashed a complex sequence of colours. “... don’t remember any. I lost my memories.”
Their eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
“What? No, I’m not. Why would I be lying?”
They continued to stare at her, arms crossed. They’d been told in the past that their stare was very scary. Eight’s eyes flicked between their face and that spot of empty air.
It took thirty seconds before Eight gave in.
“I have…– you have to promise to believe me, first.”
It was such a weird request that Three didn’t think twice before agreeing.
“I have a sister.” Not weird. “He’s right next to you.” Definitely weird. “We think he might be a ghost.” Three suddenly understood why she had made them promise to believe her.
“Your sister is a ghost that I can’t see,” Three repeated. Eight nodded. “He’s lost his memories too?”
“Yeah. I think everyone has.”
Three frowned. They remembered their life pretty damn well. Eight noticed the judgemental silence and quickly backpedalled.
“Well– I don’t mean you and Cuttlefish. I mean all the other test subjects.”
“There aren’t any other– wait. They’re ghosts, too?”
The doors of the carriage squealed as they opened. Three had never seen Eight move so fast – she was out the doors before they could get even a single word in.
Well. Good talk!
5.
“I don’t know… it doesn’t seem very safe.”
“Come on, Eight! Live a little!”
Bola sauntered past, patting Eight on the shoulder before joining Flora in the shopping cart.
“Yeah, Eight. This is, like, the best way to shop.”
“Just…” Eight bit the inside of her cheek, “run the plan by me one more time?”
With an enthusiasm that hadn’t been dampened by the five other times he’d had to re-explain the plan to his cautious friend, Flora launched into an excited explanation.
“Well usually we hang onto the sides of the shopping cart and push ourselves round the supermarket, right? But you’re,” – he gestured expansively at her body – “you know, super strong! So if you push us instead, we’ll sit in here and grab what we need as we go past and we’ll probably fall out way less!”
“So, really, it’s safer,” Bola asserted.
“Yup! Way safer! If you don’t want to, we’ll just do our old plan, and we’ll probably get suuuuper injured.”
“Super injured.”
“Suuuuper injured. And you don’t want us to get hurt cause you loooooove us.”
Eight groaned. Shut her eyes. Opened them again – Flora was giving her his best puppy-dogfish eyes. Bola was already smug; they knew she had already lost this battle.
“... Fine. Only because you’re gonna give yourself a concussion otherwise.”
- - -
“It’ll be safer, Eight. I won’t get a concussion, Eight.”
Two hands flipped her off. It felt good to be right.
6.
Her chest heaved. She wanted nothing more than to lay down her weapon, but she forced herself to keep it level with the inkling circling her.
“Why won’t you–” a carbon roller smacked into her side, “–go down?!”
She tried to swing her own roller – a dynamo – in a retaliatory strike, but Callie was already out of range again. They’d been at this for at least fifteen minutes. The spar had been in her favour at first, Callie hadn’t expected her swing to be anywhere near that strong, but she’d adapted and now Eight was tiring.
Their only spectator, Marie, was watching with interest. Eight wasn’t sure whether it was the good kind of interest yet.
A glob of ink rolled down her forehead. She kept her eyes fixed on Callie, even as it dripped into her eye. Behind Callie, her sister winced. She opened her mouth, unsure whether she was going to apologise to him or answer Callie’s question, when a splat bomb rolled to her feet.
Shit.
- - -
Callie leant heavily against her roller. When she had offered to spar with the Splatoon’s newest agent, she hadn’t expected it to take that much ink just to splat her. Good thing they had respawn anchors set up before starting. Could have been pretty nasty if they hadn’t.
Speaking of respawning, it had been a few seconds since Callie would’ve expected the octoling to respawn. Was she…
Her catastrophizing was abruptly cut short by the familiar hum of a respawn anchor. She watched with some relief as Eight slowly (like, weirdly slowly) crawled out of the ink.
“You ready for another round, Eight?” Marie called, idly spinning her umbrella.
Eight was already nodding and lifting her roller, but Callie frowned. The octoling’s tentacles were pale, curled slightly at the ends where they hung in front of her face. Her roller was shaking ever so slightly in her grip. Her gaze, which had been so intensely focused before, kept drifting to a point just behind her before snapping back.
“Actually… I’m pretty exhausted,” she lied, “you alright if I call it here, Eight?”
Eight looked perplexed but nodded, clearly relieved. Marie, on the other hand, knew damn well that Callie had better stamina than that. She answered her unspoken question with a wave of a hand – she’d explain later.
-6.
“So, your sister.”
Eight startled hard, wide eyes locking onto Cuttlefish.
“Wh– I don’t–” He waved a hand, cutting her off.
“Three told me. Your sister, she’s a ghost?”
She looked directly ahead, eyes locked on a point a bit above the opposite seat. Empty, at least to his eyes. He was beginning to think it wasn’t quite true.
“He. He’s– he’s still a girl, he says. We’re sisters. Just… he sounds nicer.”
Cuttlefish nodded. Far from the weirdest part of this situation.
“Alright. He’s a ghost. And he’s been, what, helping you through these tests?”
She nodded.
“Well, that’s all I need to know. Doesn’t hurt to have some help every now and then, making you so durable and strong. Tides know a normal inkfish wouldn’t be able to make it through some of those without.”
Eight frowned as Cuttlefish stood back up, mumbling something under her breath.
“Whazzat? These ears aren’t what they used to be, speak up!”
“I said he’s not doing that!”
The outburst had him stop for a moment, silently regarding the octoling, who shifted uncomfortably.
“Seven isn’t… making me stronger. He can’t do that. That’s just me.”
That definitely threw a wrench in his theory. He knew he was right, that no normal inkfish could survive the blows she took. She’d powered through tests covered in enough ink to kill someone thrice over. If it wasn’t ghostly intervention causing that, what was it?
7.
“No, seriously, what the fuck is up with that?”
Eight cringed away, or at least tried to. The wall Bola had her crowded against made it difficult.
“I– I don’t–”
“No, cut the shit! You know exactly what I’m talking about. Four direct hits you took from that roller! Four! And then it takes twenty seconds for you to respawn, I counted!” Despite their height difference, Bola still managed to look down on her. “What, are you hopped up on some performance enhancer?”
“What? No! It’s– I wouldn’t do that!”
Finally, a reaction. Bola kept their grin internal.
“Then what? Are you sick or something? We’re your fucking squad, Eight, we’ll help you out if you just tell us!”
Eight pushed Bola off – hard, they noted. She was breathing hard.
“I’m– I’m not sick-!” she rasped, breathing hard. “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know why I’m– why I’m like this! I don’t have the memories yet!”
They stared, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, don’t have them yet?”
“You know, just–” She made a frustrated noise, storming off. Bola didn’t move to follow.
Each answer they got seemed to just lead to more questions. It was… frustrating, true, but Bola was hardly a quitter. They weren’t lying when they said the squad had Eight’s back.
If only she would let them.
-7.
Three woke up from their half-doze on one of the uncomfortable with a jolt, to the sound of screeching metal, followed by a quiet curse. They were up and heading towards the source before they were even fully awake.
Eight stood at the end of the train car, staring at something in her hand. The door in front of her had its handle ripped clean off, likely the source of the noise.
“Eight…?” she startled, as she often did, and offered them a sheepish smile as she turned.
“Ah. Apologies, did I wake you? I… did not intend to do this,” she gestured with the snapped handle, but Three wasn’t paying attention to that. They were scrutinising Eight’s face.
Eight had yellow eyes. This… whoever this was, their eyes were green-blue, the shade of ink shot by those strange octolings.
“Already figured it out, huh?” Not-Eight asked, head tilted and smirking in a way that looked strange on Eight’s face. “I’m not Eight. I’m… Seven, I think she called me.”
Three nodded, still tense. Zapfish rescue operations, they could do, but paranormal body takeovers? Not so much.
“She’s asleep right now. Don’t worry, she said I could use the body, if I wanted.” The body? Not hers? “But, as you can see, I’m a little… unused to it.”
“...right. So you took off a door handle.”
Seven huffed. “Not deliberately. This body is stupidly strong, you know? And I’m not just saying that because I can’t lift anything at all, usually.”
Well… that answered some questions, they supposed. Dome octolings hadn’t spontaneously gotten twenty times stronger overnight, but that still raised the question of why Eight was so strangely powerful.
Seven wasn’t exactly helpful, as Three questioned him further. They didn’t press the issue.
0.
Eight’s friends, colleagues, whatever, stopped questioning her oddities, eventually. Oddities and quirks that once drove them to frustration were dropped, just another “Eight” thing. She was strange, they knew. They were too.
“Hey, at least they’re not asking questions anymore,” Seven offered, floating upside down and reading her texts.
She just hummed in idle agreement.