Tearing at the Seams

"30 seconds left!"

"Shit," Glasses hissed in frustration, shaking the ink off his tentacles as he emerged from the spawn pad. He quickly collapsed into squid form before launching himself across the stage to his teammate's location. As Blackbelly Skatepark flew by beneath him, he caught sight of his teammate and shifted into humanoid form just before landing. The second his feet touched the ground, he began to swing his Octobrush at a nearby enemy, but was unfortunately too late to save his teammate from being splatted. He lunged, dispatching the enemy swiftly before swimming up the side of the tower and covering it in his team's green ink.

"10 seconds left!"

Unbeknownst to him, another enemy player had snuck up the side of the tower. Hearing the sound of Splating charging up, he whipped around, but only managed a single swing of his Brush before he was splatted by the Splating's barrage of ink. As his ghost floated away into the sky, he glared down at the smirking Inkling girl.

"5... 4... 3... 2... 1... GAME SET!," the announcer cried just as Glasses emerged from the spawn pad again, panting from exertion. He shook his tentacles free of ink before sighing angrily. He didn't even have to look up at the scoreboard to know that his team had lost.

"THE VICTORY GOES TO... TEAM MAGENTA!," the announcer shouted, just as he'd expected.

Glasses huffed irritably as the crowd erupted into a cacophony of cheers and boos, resisting the urge to pull his tentacles in frustration as he turned and walked off the pitch, avoiding eye contact with his teammates.

He hadn't won a single match today. Since he'd arrived at the Lobby Tower that morning, it had been loss-after-loss. His entire body ached from the constant effort of swinging his Octobrush, which was almost the same size of him, and his muscles were screaming at him to stop and rest.

You can rest when you win. Do you WANT to get kicked off the team?

He gritted his teeth as he recalled the events of the Square King Ranked Cup. After an unfortunate incident regarding a falling beehive, he'd been temporarily hospitalized and much too injured to participate in the tournament with the rest of Blue Team. So that they could still participate, Emperor had stood in for him, which he'd initially had no problem with.

That was, until he saw just how well Emperor fit into the team, so much so that Glasses had started to worry that what was a temporary arrangement might end up being not so temporary after all. And why not? Not only did Emperor fit into the team perfectly, but he was also clever and extremely strong, much stronger than Glasses ever had been or ever would be. With Emperor, Blue Team was unstoppable, and had even made it to the final round of the tournament, where they had come dangerously close to defeating the legendary X-Blood Team.

Even if they lost in the end, they wouldn't have made it to the final round at all with me slowing them down.

To make matters worse for him, due to the sheer amount of victories they'd raked in during the tournament, his teammates had all skyrocketed in rank, leaving him scrambling to catch up to them like a duckling that had fallen behind its siblings.

How could he be so weak? For cod's sake, he was supposed to be Blue Team's leader!

Am I though?, Glasses thought, shaking his head in dismay. Everyone seemed to be under the impression that Goggles was the leader instead, and Glasses had stopped trying to correct them long ago. At this point, he even agreed. He was too pathetic to be a leader, or even part of a team for that matter. It wouldn't be long before his teammates realized that, if they hadn't already. If he didn't get stronger and catch up to them soon, they'd get rid of him. And he didn't know what he'd do without them.