Deep Cut and the Thousand Year Door

CHAPTER 1: Castle and Dragon

After a quick travel through a pipe, Big Man, Frye and Goombella find themselves in Petal Meadows. There was grass, trees and flowers everywhere, that kind of decor was rather unusual for Splatlandians like Big Man and Frye who lives in the middle of the desert, but it was really pretty.

"Well, here we are! The Petal Meadows, where folks say a Crystal Star hides." Says Goombella. "Woo-hoo! Here we go, guys! The start of out adventure! This is completely awesome!" She was really excited to get searching.

"This would have been even better if Shiver was right here with us. But it's not like we have a choice. Let's get going!" Frye says, leading the way.

"Ay! (Right behind ya!)"

On their path, there were a few rocks, with three of them shaped in a rather weird way. The one in the middle looked like a giant pipe, while the other two on the left and right were almost identical, the only difference was that the one on the left had a hole shaped like the moon on it, while the one on the right had one shaped like the sun. There was also a castle that was visible in the distance, but it was too far to reach it by foot, but another pipe seemed to be able to bring them here. Not minding that, the group still continued their way to wherever the Crystal Star or a hint to it might be. But as soon as they took a few steps only, the ground started to shake a bit and the wind got stronger out of nowhere, and as they were wondering what was happening, the sky suddenly got darker. The three of them looked up and realized a giant, red creature was flying towards the castle in the distance and happened to fly over them.

"WOAH!" Frye screamed amazed at the size of this creature and how strong it looked.

"AYYYY?!" cried Big Man, terrified.

"Woah! What was that?" Said Goombella, flabbergasted.

"I don't know, but it looks strong! I wanna fight it!" Said the eel tamer while punching the air.

"Ay... (Frye, you are NOT fighting THAT...)"

"Why not?"

"AY? AY... (BECAUSE IT COULD EAT YOU WHOLE? YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT EVEN BREAKFAST TO THAT THING, JUST A LITTLE SNACK...)" The giant manta ray tried to convince his squid friend to not go a throw hands with something that's around a hundred times her size.

"Ugh, fine, but only cause we got better salmon to fry."

"Yeah, I never saw anything that humongous before. It looked kinda scary too. We should get going before it comes back." Goombella says "Here we go! Again!"

Trying to ignore what just happened and focus on the Crystal Star's whereabout, the group continue their way. Frye, still pretty far in the front was taking care of any enemy Goombas who dared to try and stop them, while Big Man and Goombella were chatting a little bit.

"Say, I, huh, have a few questions." said Goombella

"Ay? (Ask away?)"

"So, like, you and Frye... What are you? Like what species? Cause Frye's clearly not human, and you, well, I can't tell if you're a stingray or something else." Asks the goomba.

"Ay? Ay! Ay. (Is that it? Well, Frye is an inkling! And I'm actually both a Manta Ray and a Stingray, my mother is a stingray and my father was a Manta Ray.)" Explains Big Man. (Writer's note: It's a headcanon of mine btw, not canon.)

"An Inkling? What's that?"

"Ay. Ay! (Oh, right, you don't know what that is. An inkling is a type of squid that had evolved a long time ago, they are made of ink, and have the particular ability to be able to turn into a kid when they reach around 14 years old.)"