Run Afoul

In the midst of the foggy ocean, a lone boat creaked its way through the waves. It bobbed nauseatingly to and fro, and the engine growled a threat to the enemies waiting in the depths. The air was thick, held a fishy stench far worse than any octarian dome, and every breath felt like inhaling a lungful of microbes.

No squid enjoyed travelling by water, and Three was no exception – but she could fight off the seasickness, and even the ominous atmosphere hovering over this vessel like a foreboding raincloud. It was the mandated outfit bothering her the most; the rubbery overalls didn’t fit properly and felt like they’d been worn by a million others since they last saw the laundry. The condensed splashdown specials being attached to her hat, of all things, felt unnatural and heavy. Today’s headache had started the second they cast off the dock.

Was this really what squid kids did for fun these days? Three was only here because it paid better than turf war, and she didn’t want the pressure of ranked. From a glance, it seemed her agent skills would be well suited to the business everyone referred to as ‘Salmon Run’. Already, she was starting to have her doubts… but Eight ran shifts here occasionally, and she’d heard Four did, too. It was probably fine – and she refused to be outdone by Four.

The boat ride felt like an age, and Three’s desired silence was constantly interrupted by one of her teammates. Every shift was a group of four, and one of today’s was a guy whose Grizzco cap contained his spiky hair but not his outgoing personality. He kept trying to prompt conversation, and had so far given up on everyone except one other squid; a slightly older-looking inkling who seemed the most at ease here, suggesting he was a regular at this job. Three made no attempt to socialise, accustomed to working alone and wishing she could do this job that way, but there wasn’t much else to look at besides the water out here.

Their fourth teammate also remained quiet. She was an octoling girl, who sat stiffly with a nervous expression, and either shrank away from or hadn’t processed the extroverted squid’s few attempts to talk to her. The few times Three glanced in her direction, she realised the octoling was staring at her; the stranger would quickly snap her gaze to the floor of the boat instead, hair curling inwards in a way Three had learned signalled unease.

Judging from the reaction, this octoling recognised her as Agent 3. This was going to be an awkward shift. Let’s just get this over with so I can get paid.

After a torturous voyage, they finally neared the ruins of Ark Polaris. Massive chunks of debris protruded from the water here, a sight that reminded Three of the fractured NILS statue and made her dislike this place even more. The four cephalopods were soon superjumping through the sky, landing on separate corners of the multi-layered structure in the centre. 

All the weapons provided were old and worn, but bugged with technology allowing them to be scrambled between waves – or taken away, which was a scary thought – and when Three’s first-wave weapon appeared in her hands she was almost thrown to the ground by its unbalanced shape. Great! Of course she would get the roller, Four’s favoured weapon, immediately. At least he wasn’t here to witness her flailing around with it. There was a splattershot in today’s pool of weapons, but it had fallen into the hands of the loud inkling boy.

An angry mob of pan-wielding fish burst from the water below, marking the beginning of their first wave. Three quickly realised she could disperse much of the crowd by rolling her weapon across the ground, and chose this as her directive until the sturdier cohocks blocked her way and tried to take a swing at her. Her previous doubts were beginning to fade, as the fight went smoothly in their favour. She didn’t need much more than her own skills and knowledge from the pamphlet provided beforehand, although by the time the salmonids retreated into the ocean to regroup, Three’s arms ached a little from swinging the roller around. How did Four do this for hours on end? Clearly she needed to work out more.

Mr Grizz’s voice crackled from a speaker on the ship, anchored a safe distance from the action. He greedily praised them for the full basket of eggs they’d collected. Three hadn’t asked what he wanted with them before agreeing to this, was sure he wouldn’t give an honest answer if she did, and decided not to think too much about it. Instead, she spent her few seconds of breathing time looking around to check on the state of her teammates; the loud inkling boy looked full of energy still, the older one remained calm and unreadable, but she didn’t see the octoling girl until the four of them superjumped back to their starting positions. Thinking back, Three had barely seen her during the fight. She must have been putting the work in, though; there was no way they’d have done so well with one of their teammates missing.

That octoling was definitely avoiding her, then. Hopefully that wouldn’t be a problem. It was easier if other people weren’t getting in her way, right?

In the seconds leading up to the mixing of weapons, Three tried her best to send out some mental splattershot-summoning energy. What she got, instead, was an evenheavier weapon tossed into her poor aching arms. 

An E-liter. Scoped. Oh, wonderful. All of a sudden, she regretted never asking Marie for a lesson in chargers. Even holding this thing felt weird and clunky. She was going to have to try and stay back and hope she could manage to hit her targets from a distance. It couldn’t be that bad.

She did, out of suppressed spite, glance around to see which of her teammates had been given the splattershot. It was only visible to her for a second, in the hands of the octoling, before the nervous girl noticed her glance and quickly dissolved into cephalopod form to hide in the orange ink at her feet. The splattershot was similar to an octo shot too, at least, so an octoling would know how to use it. Thinking that way made Three slightly less bitter as she painted a line of ink across the ground, using her limited time to adjust to the scope.

The enhanced vision it gave was immediately covered by small floating lights.

“Ah, shoot,” Three muttered under her breath as the glowflies swarmed around her.

Even the clouds above darkened ominously as the ravenous horde of fish burst from the sea, eyes wild. There wasn’t time to worry if these little glowing bugs held some kind of parasite to cause that behaviour; Three had to focus on trying to take out as many salmonids as she could with her poor aim.

The older inkling seemed to know what he was doing, but the rest of their team was scattered about the platform, and that did them no favours. Three tried her best but was quickly overwhelmed, even when the flies buzzing around her decided someone else was more interesting. There weren’t proper respawn pads out here, so she ended up spending most of the wave as a puddle of ink in a life ring, and burnt through both her splashdowns on the rare occasion that she wasn’t.

Their team held out for a while, but eventually the spiky inkling was splatted alone on the far side of the platform. The older guy hopped onto the ride rail to go and help just before Three went down, following another missed shot. I really don’t like this weapon.

That left her here with the octoling, who soon noticed the sorry clump of ink hopping around nearby. She turned in preparation to revive her teammate with the splattershot she had been so generously given – and then froze.

She’d realised the person she was about to respawn was Agent 3.

Her hesitation lasted a few moments too long, and a fresh torrent of frenzied salmonids came crashing over her, splatting the poor octoling within a second.

Oh dear.

Fortunately, the one inkling still alive had realised everything now rested on him; he hopped back onto the ride rail for temporary safety and used a splat bomb rush to clear out the salmonids and revive his fallen teammates in the process. With an entire mob of salmonids after him, he was splatted as soon as he reached the end of the rail, but the rest of the team was up to fight off the remaining few fish as the glowflies dispersed into the lightening sky.

Three, slightly frazzled from that wild wave, looked on as the octoling swiftly put some distance between them, going to revive their saviour. He gave her a disappointed look as he respawned, and muttered what sounded like ‘don’t hesitate next time’. The octoling didn’t meet his gaze.

Knowing how close they’d been to wiping out in that fight, Three realised she was going to have to do something if she wanted them to succeed – and, more importantly, get the bonuses for this shift.

Praying the glowfly infestation wouldn’t return, her first objective upon superjumping back to the starting positions was to go and speak to that octoling. She forgot, at first, that a weapon was about to materialise in her hands, and startled when it did – of course, now Mr Grizz was polite enough to give her the splattershot. She didn’t think that was going to help.

The octoling saw her approaching, gun in hand, and let out a terrified gasp, clutching the E-liter she’d been given, almost trying to hide behind it.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Three said quickly, keeping the splattershot pointed firmly at the ground, even though it couldn’t harm someone currently sharing her ink colour.

Eyes wide, the octoling shivered. “But you are—”

Three shook her head, quickly glancing around to make sure the others didn’t overhear. “I know. I’m just here to do Salmon Run, though, alright? I promise.” When the octoling didn’t seem assured by this, Three gave a small sigh, holding out a gloved hand. “…Faye.”

“Huh…?” The octoling flinched away from her gesture, but her tone sounded confused more than scared.

“My name. It’s Faye.” Three shrugged awkwardly. “If that helps.”

A silence met her words, made worse by the splashing sounds as salmonids began to rise from the water – but thankfully, the octoling soon reached out a wary hand to shake hers. “Ibis. That, um, my name be.”

“Ibis,” Three repeated. “Pretty name.” Her comment brought a shy smile out of the octoling.

With the air cleared, the final wave went even smoother than Three could’ve hoped for. Ibis was in her element with an E-liter – she sniped a scrapper out of Three’s path and grinned when the inkling gave her a thumbs-up – and everything felt right in the world now that Three had the splattershot in her hands. They ended their shift far above quota, with the loud inkling beaming his unused stingray into the sky to celebrate, which Three spared a laugh at.

They jumped back to the ship, arriving to the cheers of Mr Grizz, who was definitely celebrating their gains rather than them. As they began to trundle their way back to the shores of Inkopolis, he gave a new announcement; “anyone who wants another shift, stay on the boat when we get back.”

Ibis was watching the lifeless speaker with a thoughtful look, pressing her gloved fingers together. Three, deciding she did not feel completely terrible after that first shift, gently tapped her arm. “You wanna do another?”

The octoling blinked in surprise, but her expression soon gave way to a smile, and she nodded confidently.