Skull x Headphones (Splatoon Manga)

Part 8: Regroup

The next day, Headphones and Skull climbed down the ladder back down to Inkopolis.

Skull had grown friendlier toward Headphones, and neither of them mentioned their kiss as they merged with their teams again and Skull apologized for running off.

And when Headphones headed back to team blue, and the two teams separated, everything seemed fine.

The next day, Army called an S4 meetup to help catch up Skull on what he had missed, but also demanded the rest of the S4 came to memorize these new strategies. Mask, as usual, just groaned and came to get it over, with, because he knew he would never hear the end of it if he didn't. He just thought he was fine with his sub-weapon strategy.

And, as usual, Aloha didn't show up for the first 15 minutes.

"Stupid party animal!" Army yelled. "He thinks he can be anywhere at anytime!"

"Relaaaaax, Armyyyy," Responded Mask, who was fine with not having aloha here. "He's always late to meeeetings."

Army muttered to himself, but had to admit Mask was right.

Skull, meanwhile, was bored out of his mind. He just wanted the meeting to start, but Army refused and told him that Aloha needed to know that he needed to come to meetings on time.

Skull sighed. He had done a lot of that lately.

His thoughts began to wander, and eventually landed on his kiss with Headphones.

Did she really love him? Or was it just to have him break the depression? Either way, he had enjoyed his time with her on Moray Towers. It made him feel like a little kid again, when his mum sang him songs about happily ever afters, the squid who jumped over the moon, and other things. Headphones had basically (temporarily) put him back in that zone.

He kept dreaming about Headphones, and before he realized it, another 15 minutes had gone by. And Aloha still hadn't shown up.

"Where in the world is he?!" Army shouted, now slightly nervous of what was happening. "Aloha is never this late to meetings!"

"Yeeaaaaah, but whoooo caaaaarres?" Mask again responded without enthusiasm. "He probably tripped and fell in the pool and New Albacooooore, and is laughing it off with his friiieeeends."

"This isn't a laughing matter, Mask!"

"Come oooon, Army. It's fiiiiiiine. Right, Skuuuuull?"

Skull froze. He didn't like to be thrown into Army's arguments.

"I can send him a text message." Skull answered.

"If he's not here in the next five minutes, I will go out, look for him, and drag him here neck first!" Army said hotly. He was running out of patience, Skull could tell.

He sent the text message, and soon got an answer.

<Hey. Army is going to throttle you if you don't come to the meeting.

>No.

<Huh?

>Leave. Now.

<Why do I have to leave? And where?

>Because. He will get you. And this ink will retur

[All messages deleted by user Aloha]

"Uh, guys?" Skull nervously looked around. Since the apartment where Army lived was under renovation, Mask's apartment was too messy and covered with video games, Aloha's was covered in party stuff, and Skull's smelled overwhelmingly like sugar, they were holding the meeting at a Crusty Bucket table near the back. At another table, Gloves was in squid form in Half-Rimz's lap, who was petting him. 

"Guys," Skull said, more urgently this time.

"What is it? Did the party animal say he was finally coming and apologize for being 30 MINUTES LATE?" Army said, looking up from his argument with Mask.

"Uh, no, he told us to run and hide from something."

"Wha-"

A loud crash cut them off. Gloves had turned back into kid form, but one of his tentacles had covered his eyes and caused him to topple over into a chair. Half-Rimz was laughing on his emotionless face, while Gloves appeared to be mad.

Army sighed. "Can I see the text message?"

"Well, he deleted them midway through typing another message."

"What!?"

Army slammed his hand on the table. "We have to go find him!"

"Whyyyyyyy?" Mask whined, but stopped when Army gave him the glare of a lifetime.

"Allriiiight..." He sighed. "Where do we go?" 

"Just go anywhere you'd think he would be." Commanded Army. "I will go inform my team about this, so I suggest you should too." The rest agreed, and the rest of the day was spend trying to find Aloha.

Skull first went to find Aloha's team, who was (just like Mask said) at New Albacore Hotel.

The team said that Aloha had been sick lately, so they were planning him a surprise party for when he got better.

"Don't tell him, though!" said an enthusiastic Octoglasses.

Skull assured them he wouldn't, then texted Mask and Army about the discovery he'd made in a group chat.

[Skull] <Team Pink said that Aloha is sick.

[Mask] >Well hes not in his apartment

[Army] >First of all, use proper sentence structure, Mask, and second of all, did you break into his house without permission?

[Mask] >No, the door was open.

[Skull] <The door was open? I'm coming over there.

Skull turned off his phone and caught the train heading to the beach, which was near where Aloha lived. The salty sea made him wish he brought some sweets.

Mask was already there, and boy was the place messy.

"Did you do this?" Skull questioned Mask.

"Noooo, it was already liiiiike this."

Skull sighed. "I'm going home. Its getting late anyway."

Mask agreed, so Skull texted in the chat that they were going home.

When Skull lay down in bed, he wished for the concrete comfort of Moray Towers.

"I'm going up to Moray tonight, A." He said Aviators.

"Alright, just don't get yourself into too much trouble with that Headphones girl." He said, winking at Skull. Skull felt his cheeks get hot under his bandana, because Aviators probably knew about his night with her.

"I'll be back by 9:30 tomorrow morning." He promised, and grabbed his pillow and climbed up the parking garage.

What he wasn't expecting but was secretly hoping happened.

Headphones was up there too.

See? There they are again, commander.

You have done great, minion. And great job luring the tidy one in. He's in the sanitization chamber right now.

I adore your praise, commander.

Which one is next, my minion?

The one with hay fever, commander.

And of what use could he be?

Well, he is very skilled at technology and sneaking around, commander. You wouldn't know.

Are you questioning my abilities, minion?

N-No, commander! Just a slip of the tongue.

It better be.

[End transmission]