Agent 38: In The Making

Chapter 17: Yay, Trauma!

*Quick note: I got the chapters mixed up on accident, so this one will also be from Agt. 3's POV, hope ya'll don't mind*

     Three was perched atop a small platform in the Arowana Mall, sniping anyone who dared get in the way of Eight's Inkbrush. He had to admit, she was very good with it. Most of the time she hid in the ink, but when someone came close, she leapt out and slapped them with her Brush until they were splatted. She'd inked most of the turf on the bad guys' side, and the rest of the team (which consisted of Agent 4 and a random Inkling) were inking their own side with ease.
     As Three was sniping the opposite team, he caught himself thinking about the fight back in the Metro... Cuttlefish had told him that his eyes were glowing at the time he had been controlled, indicating he was not himself. The right side of his face still felt very sore from the goo, and burned from time to time.
     He heard someone splash into the ink behind him and jumped half a mile, swiveling the Charger around and shooting at the person who'd super jumped.
     For a split second, he saw his own face, engulfed in fury, eyes glowing a menacing teal green, slime across the right side of his face. His eyes went wide in horror. Then Agent 4 screamed, "Ow! Rude!"
      He quickly masked the fear in his face and crouched down again, aiming at the person who was about to splat Eight. He let go of the trigger, aim dead-on, and easily splatted the person as Four crouched down next to him with a sneer.
     "Agent 3? Scared?" He teased, poking his shoulder. "Never thought I'd see the day."
     "What're you talking about?" Three asked. "What was I scared of? You?"
     "When I landed, you might as well have jumped three feet in the air." He said. "And when you turned around, I saw you were scared before you sniped my eye."
     He shook his head in denial. "I think you saw wrong. I don't get scared."
     "Oh? You certainly looked rather frightened." Four countered. "I would say- shoot, shoot, SHOOT!" He suddenly yelled in his ear. Three jumped (Again) and let go of the trigger, blindly splatting someone who was about to kill the other Inkling on their team. A loud horn blared around the Arowana Mall. Finally, 10 more seconds on the match.
     He suddenly felt hands on his shoulder and whirled around, remembering those hands to be cold tentacles that wrapped around his body and squeezed too tight.
     It was only Eight.
     She squeezed his shoulders gently, waiting for the results of the match. "I'm pretty sure we won that..." She murmured.
     "I think we did!" Four exclaimed.
     Suddenly, Judd smacked Lil' Judd with his green flag, indicating that they had won. Eight jumped up and down with a squeal of excitement, and Four punched the air with a smile. However, Agent 3 felt no excitement. He only felt fear. Why was he seeing these things? Why was he having flashbacks of the Metro? Had it really cut that deep?
     A familiar feeling flickered in his mind. He dug the Charger into the floor and used it to stand up, when both teams were transported back to the Plaza. Eight jumped up and hugged him with a loud "Thank you, thank you, thank you!".
     "No problem." Three said absentmindedly, still lost in his thoughts as he sat down on one of the benches. Four eyed him suspiciously, then snapped his hand right in front of his face when he didn't respond to his name.
     "Three," Four said. "Hello? Earth to Alexander?"
     He snapped out of his mind and glared at him. "What."
     "You were zoned out for a sec, man." Aaron said, eyes worried. "Everything ok?"
     Three narrowed his eyes to menacing slits. "I'm fine. Don't ask me that again."
     Aaron backed away, palms up, an annoying innocent look on his face. He kept his withering glare on the Inkling until he backed away enough that he was comfortable, and then turned his gaze back to the ground, thinking. No one had ever really asked how he was doing, so it almost felt uncomfortable when somebody did - which was rare, to say the least. His thoughts wandered back to the Metro. There was a big chunk of it that he couldn't remember, which was rather unsettling. He didn't know what he'd done, or how much he'd scarred Agent 8. Three had noticed that she had a nasty scar that slashed from her upper back to her lower back. It looked like she'd taken a direct hit from a Splat Bomb, and the glass surrounding the ink had been the cause of this scar.
     Three himself had a bad scar that zig-zagged from just above his right eyebrow to a bit below his right eye. It already annoyed him that it was there, and it, too, was unsettling, since he didn't know how he got it. His best guess was that he'd probably been hit too hard by Eight's ink when she knocked him out, but he couldn't say for sure.
     The Octoling sat down next to him with a pleased sigh, nudging his shoulder. He looked up to see her beaming at him, eyes glinting a million colors in the sun.
     "I cannot believe I won my first match!" She exclaimed. "That was way too much fun. You're really good with a Charger, by the way. Makes me wonder why you had the Hero Shot with you when we fought."
     Three tensed up, realizing he could probably get some answers out of her if he asked the right questions. "About that... How did the fight in the Metro go?"
     Eight snorted. "It went horribly. You nearly killed me. It's a miracle that I was actually able to get that goo off your face. By the way, Cuttlefish mentioned something about you screaming. Did the goo hurt?"
     He nodded with an internal shiver. She patted his shoulder reassuringly with a smile that didn't annoy him for some reason. "If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here, I guess."
     He looked up and met her eyes. Her beautiful, pale, opal eyes, and saw nothing but sincerity. He barely knew the girl. How could she be offering something so soon?
     Aaron came running back to them with three giant sweet-looking things in his hands. It looked like both waffles and broken waffle cones piled onto a stack of ice cream of different hues, and sweet decorations were littered above. Four layed one on his lap, one on Eight's, and sat down next to Three, passing them all a spoon.
     "I thought we should celebrate!" He exclaimed. "Eight won her first match on the surface, and she did amazing!" The Inkling raised his waffle with a triumphant grin. "To Sarai!"
     Three raised his plate to bump against Aaron's with a grin as he glanced back at Eight. "To Sarai," He agreed.
     A giant smile was suddenly printed on her face as she raced her waffle to clink against the others'. "To me, I guess!" Eight said excitedly.
     "Now, shall we dine?" Four asked in a hilariously annoying British accent.
     "We shall." Eight declared in another awful British accent. Four's was annoying, but now he found it adorable when the Octoling did it.
     He stabbed his spoon into the ice cream and shoveled out a giant bite. Eight mimicked him and her eyes immediately lit up when it touched her tongue, sparkling like opals shining in in the sun. She stared at Four, mouth full of ice cream, and dug out more bites from the waffle.
     "This," Aaron explained, inhaling his platter of sweetness. "Is a Double-Fried Super Shwaffle. The guy at the food truck over there makes 'em."
     He had to admit, it was pretty delicious. The cold of the ice cream went perfectly with the warmth of the waffle, not to mention the outstanding flavors.
     "Wow," Three mumbled, astonished. "Aaron, you really didn't have to. How much do I owe you, man?"
     Aaron bumped his shoulder with a smile. "Nothing. This is a mandatory celebration dessert. You wouldn't have gotten to your apartment without me buying you both one of these."
     "Noted:" He said. "Aaron is overly positive and way too generous."
     "I try to be."
     He glanced over at Eight, who had completely vaccumed her Shwaffle. Now, she was just staring at him, chin on her hand, with a slight smile on her face as pink dusted her cheeks.
     He reddened. "What?"
     "Nothing." Eight said with a chuckle. "Just thinking about how cute you are."
     The pink on his cheeks turned into a pomegranate red.

Holy carp.
She done did it.
Word count: 1480