Great Turf War

Day 14

Wahoo envied Cuttlefish. While they had both survived the siege of Arowana Castle, Wahoo was left crippled and without purpose. Cuttlefish, on the other hand, vowed to strike down Octavio. He dedicated his life to this cause. He would lead the Inklings to victory. But Wahoo? His ambitions of defeating the Octobot King that day would forever remain just a dream. Cuttlefish clenched his fist. That resolve he held had still not disappeared.

A faint creaking sound came from behind him. In an instant, Cuttlefish's deranged memories of the siege dissipated. He turned around to see Marie standing in the doorway, with Callie, Shio, and Sairento behind. Cuttlefish stood up and walked over to greet them.

"What brings you here, soldiers?" His tone indicated that he was on edge.

"We wanted to ask permission to become an official unit of the Inkling army," replied Marie. She seemed as deathly as her grandfather.

"There happens to be a tournament happening in 5 days. If you made it to top 3, you would be able to call yourselves a true squidbeak splatoon."

A small smile appeared on Marie's face, and the four of them promptly gathered outside.

"Well then, we'd better get ourselves ready," Sairento suggested.

"Agreed," Callie said.

"I'm off to the weapon range again," Marie announced. Usually, this statement would be tragic to hear. This time, however, Marie sounded genuinely excited.

"I'll... figure something out," Shio said. It had been about a month since he had felt this sensational thrill, and that was when he took the enlistment trials. This time, it was something even grander.

Shio, Sairento, and Callie had nothing better to do, so they joined Marie at the weapon range. The range featured target practice, parkour, 1v1 stages, 4v4 stages, and a slew of other combat settings. It was basically a makeshift gym, after the old one got destroyed. To be honest, the four didn't understand why it wasn't just rebuilt, or relocated. Heck, even using another platoon's gym wouldn't be that bad.

"Hey Shio," Sairento called. Shio turned his attention to him.

"Step into the orange ink pad. We'll step into the blue one."

"Not this again," Shio groaned. "You just want to splat me again, you sadist."

"I need a target that adapts quickly!" Sairento proclaimed. "Besides, you can have a splash wall."

"Those deploy too slowly," Shio said. He was still uninterested in ruining his afternoon. "I'd rather use it to smack you across the face."

"You can do that if you accept my offer," Sairento jested. In reality, Shio's entire week would be spoiled.

"No," Shio declined flatly.

"Come on! It's going to help us grow as fighters."

"Fine, but Callie's going to suffer with me."

"Hey! Why do I-"

"It is decidedly so," Marie smirked.

Team Orange vs Team Blue was quite nostalgic for them. Both sides were eager to kick the other to the curb. Callie ran towards them without regard for strategic evaluation. A frontal assault on two blackliners would not last for long, as Marie and Sairento started shooting at the berserk Roller Girl. In her time of being in the army, however, she had a few tactics up her sleeve.

She threw a splat bomb in front of herself. The resulting explosion nullified Sairento's splatling bullets for a moment, and gave her more movement options. Shio joined in, painting the ground with orange ink using his hero shot. With more ink and more options, the frontliner duo started moving in.