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You gently rubbed the sides of your temples as you attempted to soothe the painful throbbing coming from your skull.
'What the hell happened?'
Only once the pain had finally subsided were you able to take in your unfamiliar surroundings. You were sitting in a back alleyway.
"Well that's not sketchy whatsoever,"
You mumble to yourself, noticing the odd colors. You weren't sure how to explain it, but everything seemed more... vivid? Saturated? The leaves were greener, and there were brightly colored signs and stickers everywhere. It kind of reminds you of how Japan looks in the media. You saw that you had the strap of your backpack gripped in the hand that wasn't just soothing your headache, you were glad that you had something familiar with you. You quickly assessed the items you had in there. Water bottle, phone, charger, notepad, pencils, eraser, mini first aid kid, and oh, would you look at that, some pain-soothing meds. Perfect. Thanking any of the gods above for this being one of the singular times that you were prepared, you took the small pill. You heard lots of chattering coming from outside the alleyway. Once you were finally able to stand up, not without feeling slightly dizzy for a second, you made your way to the middle of a wide-open area.
'No damn way.'
Are those inklings walking around? You quickly jump back into the alleyway, trying to catch your breath and figure out what the hell is going on here. You look down at your hands once again and see that they're bigger, and your fingers are definitely more square than you remember them being. You look around in a panicked state, trying to find some sort of reflective surface. You find a broken-down shop window's glass, and what looks back at you definitely isn't you. Or at least, the you that you're used to seeing. What's staring back at you is your avatar, from your favorite Nintendo game. Your eyes are bigger, and you have... tentacles? You immediately bring your hand up to feel them. Oh, they're not as slimy as you thought. That's good. But they sure are sensitive.
'Alright,' You think to yourself, 'I can get used to this. Yeah. This is fine. Probably just a weird, extremely realistic dream of some sort.'
You peek your head out of the alleyway, to take in the sight of Inkopolis Plaza once again.
Yup. Absolutely normal.' A few moments pass and your thoughts start to calm, making you more reasonable.
'Hey wait, doesn't this mean that I don't have to worry about real-life stuff? Maybe I could just enjoy this for a bit. That sounds nice.'
With a quick breath in and out, you shrug your bag over your shoulders and make your way to the center of the square.
You paid no mind to the chatter around you, - until it involved you. After getting bumped into by an idiotic inkling running by, you decide that you're better off ignoring him, trying to make your presence as non-noticeable as possible.
"Oh, sorry about that!"
"Yeah, no worries."
The inkling continues on and you're about to settle down on a nearby bench when you realize,
'Was that blue inkling wearing goggles?'
You try to glance back at the inkling boy, but he's already gone into Inkopolis Tower.
Well, this is Splatoon one, and they've got limited gear, so it was probably just some random dude.' You reason with yourself, trying not to get your hopes up.
You sit on the bench with your backpack on your lap, taking in the scenery.
'I've got nothing better to do, so maybe I should try some turf while I'm here? This probably is just a dream, so I've only got so much time here, right? So why not enjoy it?'
With a small smile on your face, you realize that you don't have a weapon, so you make your way over to Ammo Knights. Remembering how much Sheldon likes to talk, you try to walk around the store discreetly while looking around for your main weapon while his back is turned. You assume he's cleaning a weapon or something.
"Ah, hello, hello! You seem to be new here, may I introduce you to some weapons?-"
You're quick to cut him off before he can continue, claiming that you're looking for your main weapon.
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to get more experience doing turf war before getting a weapon of that caliber. Here, how about you try this one?"
Sheldon hands you a Splattershot Jr. and sends you off.
You look down at the weapon held lazily in your hands. . . . Seriously? You're an S+ ranker for cod's sake, rank X in Splatoon 2 and 3! Man, this is infuriating, but it's not like you can do anything about it. You take a quick glance at your reflection then look down at your shirt. Your basic tee. You look a little lower and spot the cream basics.
"Oh, guess I really am a newbie."
...
"I suppose I've never actually played turf before, so maybe I do suck."
A couple of matches of carrying your team and spawn-camping your opponents later, it seems you're 'good' enough to get a better weapon, and gear. After the first two matches you started to feel really bad, so you went easy on the opponents, opting to simply turf.
Even if you weren't up the the 'right level' or whatever, Sheldon could easily tell that you're some kind of veteran with the way you carried yourself and your weapon. Not to mention how pressed you were about getting your main. So despite not being at the proper level, he carefully handed you your favorite weapon and allowed you to test it out in the training range. With him watching over carefully, of course. He really hoped he was making the right decision here, or else you're paying double-maybe even triple for the weapon if you break it.
You roll your eyes at him, holding the weapon as if it were your most prized possession.
And man, did it feel good.
It's like it felt just right in your hands, like it was made for you.
You made your way to the training area, inspecting the weapon carefully since, y'know, you've never technically used it before. Once you figured out how the ink worked, you started attacking the targets, with perfect precision. Not one wasted drop of ink.
You're crouched down after destroying all of the targets in seconds, taking a breather. You get up and dust yourself off, looking at your beloved weapon.
'Oh yeah, we're gonna have lots of fun.' You look at the machine in your hands with adoration.
It's almost like you've been doing this for years, the muscle memory is definitely there. It's almost like your skills transferred over from how good you were at the game.
'That's pretty useful,' you think to yourself, walking out of the shop as Sheldon stares at the 'newbie' with his jaw on the floor.
