Coral Shores (A Splatoon Story)

Chapter 1 - Shade

With a cautious gaze, Murdoch glanced at every direction as he walked back to the refuge, where he managed to bring many other lost souls for protection, making sure Rainey was behind him. Since those mysterious, bioengineered Octolings began to show up and taking Coral Shores's residents hostage, the entire town went into chaos. They did not know why they were here, or what they were doing with their hostages, but he knew for a fact that they were not here for mindless killing. If they did, they would've killed more than half of the town's population by now. However, it has been a week since they arrived, and there have been no deaths that he was aware of, apart from his own kills, all for the sake of keeping Inklings and Octolings like Rainey and the child in her arms safe.

As he walked, Murdoch fixed up the collar of the Dark Bomber jacket he was wearing and turned back to Rainey. "Does he have a name?", Murdoch asked her, hoping he could talk to her to calm her tensions. Rainey jumped a bit when she realized she was being talked to, then looked down at the baby boy in her hands, who was sound asleep.
"M-My... My mother called him Skipper...", Rainey answered, making Murdoch frown in confusion. Didn't she just mention Skipper was not her brother?
"That's a nice name.", Murdoch muttered, keeping the thought to himself.

"What about your parents? Do they know you're out here?", Murdoch asked her, and her expression showed immediate horror.
"M-Most likely...", Rainey answered in a tone of hesitation, that even Murdoch took notice. He stopped completely and made sure no Octoling soldier was following them, then knelt down to Rainey's level. It was then when he noticed that the Annaki Drive Tee she was wearing was slightly worn out, as if she hadn't changed it in a while.
"Did something happen to them..?", Murdoch asked, wanting to make sure that Rainey was sane enough to think clearly if she ever needed to. Rainey hesitated to answer once again.
"Probably... I ran away from home before I could see anything...", she answered, surprising Murdoch. She didn't know what happened to her before all of this started, but not even he would leave his own parents under any circumstances, triggering his disagreement.
"Why would you run away..?", he asked her calmly, but he did not get an answer right away.

Before Murdoch could say anything else, a noise alarmed them, somewhere on the intersection ahead of them, down to their right. It sounded like a fight. Murdoch immediately reacted by bringing up a small face mask and a beanie over his two, untied yellow inkling tentacles that rested on his shoulders. "Stay behind me..", Murdoch whispered to Rainey as she did what she was told, holding Skipper close to her. As silently as he could, he moved against the wall of a building and peaked around the corner. As he did, he found two of those bioengineered soldiers, male and female, attacking another male Octoling, and a female Inkling keeping her distance right behind him. The Octoling seemed to be trying to protect her.

Murdoch witnessed as how one of those soldiers punched the Octoling that protected the Inkling girl behind him. "立たないで.", the female soldier seemed to have ordered. "お願い。抵抗しない限りあなたを殺さないから私たちに彼女を渡して.", she continued, but since Murdoch did not understand the Octarian language, he had no idea what they were saying. The male Octoling slowly stood up as he noticed that the soldier punched the Golden Toothpick out of his hair. With a fearless expression, the Octoling grabbed it and poked it back into his afro, standing up.
"ふざけるな。何も渡さん！", the Octoling yelled back at them.
"I don't know what they're saying..!", Murdoch whispered to himself in a frustrated tone.
"It's Octarian..", Rainey told him. In that moment, he completely forgot that Rainey was also an Octoling. Surely she must know it. "They're telling him to hand over the girl... He's refusing to.", she translated to him. Realizing this, Murdoch looked back at the Octolings.

After a few seconds, the fight between them resumed, so he quickly turned to Rainey. "I'll try and lend a hand. Make sure you can hide somewhere.", Murdoch whispered to her as Rainey began to panic.
"H-Hide!? Hide where?", Rainey stuttered, trying to keep herself silent as Murdoch began to look around, then realized that the building right next to them had a broken window.
"Try and hide in there, and make sure you stay quiet. Once I'm done, I'll come back for you.", Murdoch told her, but Rainey was frozen in place, afraid that something wrong might happen. So much so, tears began to fall down her eyes. "Please, you have to trust me.. I promise I'll come back.", Murdoch reassured her and, after a few seconds, Rainey forced herself to jump over the tiny wall and hide inside the empty building. Murdoch let out a small sigh and looked back at where the soldiers were.