Chapter 9 - Introductions

About 10 minutes after sending the text, Mavi had gotten a response.

Instructions to follow tomorrow morning.

Once she realized there’d be no follow up that night, she went to bed.

Now it was the morning. Mavi lay in bed in that blissful sorta-sleep that comes after waking up without an alarm. For a few minutes she simply laid there, her mind drifting with non-thoughts and light dreams. A moment later, she remembered the text, and she found herself laying there wide awake.

Mavi sits up, shifting so her legs hang off the side of her bed. Alright, just have to check my texts again and I’ll know what to do. . . . It’s a bit cold in here, maybe it’s time to turn on the heater? . . . She glances over at her alarm clock. 9:17. I don’t sleep in that often do I? . . . Sky looks clear outside, seems like the weather will be nice today. . . . Fine. Reluctantly, Mavi reaches over to her nightstand. She grabs her phone from it, other hand reaching to unplug the charger. It takes her almost two minutes to work up the courage to look at the screen, her resolve from the night prior having seemingly abandoned her. Eventually, she powers on the screen and looks down. A text stands out among a few other mundane notifications.

Clover • Messages • 6:00 AM I have been instructed to relay the following message: Good choice. At 12:00, mee…

The lock screen notification cuts off. Mavi frantically unlocks her phone, opening the message app as fast as she can. She eagerly stares down her entire message history with Clover:

I’ll do it

Got it, will be there at 12:00

She takes a few moments to calm her breathing and think. *Alright. I have two hours and forty minutes until I have to be there. The Plaza’s about a 20 minute walk if the crowds are light, we’ll call it 30 to be safe. That gives me two hours and change to get ready.

She hops to her feet, resolve flooding her system. Around 20 minutes of morning preparations later, she’s cooking breakfast. Tiara walks in as she throws the eggshells away.

“Mornin!” Mavi calls, looking up from the pan.

Tiara’s head swivels towards her. “Hey! Good to see you up.” Tiara’s eyes narrow playfully. “You were avoiding me yesterday…”

Mavi shrugs before answering, “I’m feeling better now.”

She keeps her eyes narrowed for a moment before breaking her stare with a smile. “Great! Egg sandwiches again?”

“Bagels this time.” Mavi nods towards the toaster, where indeed two bagels are cooking.

“I’m still adding Jam!” Tiara insists.

“Grab the honey for me would you?” Mavi asks as she peppers the eggs.

“Sure!”

A few minutes of quiet pass. Mavi pops the toaster before the bagels get burnt, she pulls them out and quickly sets each bagel on its own small plate. After cutting each one in half, she quickly divvies up the eggs, half for each bagel. She lays a slice of cheese on top of each egg.

Grabbing a plate in each hand, Mavi makes her way to the table. She places the plates at each of their seats. “Here’s food,” Mavi says as she reaches for the honey.

“And here’s drinks!” Tiara echoes a moment later, setting a cup near each plate. The sisters spread their chosen topping on the inside of their bagels, before replacing the top bagel, completing the sandwich.

“So,” Tiara starts between bites. “You seem in better spirits, did you resolve your whole–” Tiara wiggles her fingers as she searches for the right word– “whatever you had going on?”

Mavi nods as she finishes chewing. “Yup! It took more convincing than it should have, really.”

“Well good, I was starting to get worried.” Tiara smoothly replies before she takes another bite.”

“I told you not to worry!” Mavi scolds. “I had it under control, I just had to be sure about my decision.”

Tiara giggles through her bite of sandwich, having to reach for her glass of milk after a few seconds to avoid choking. “Sorry, I can’t help it!” She defends after clearing her throat.

Mavi heaves an overdramatic sigh, a smile playing across her lips easily. “So, what are your plans for the day?”

“Oh! It’s my turn to choose where Me’n Queen go this weekend! I think Imma drag her to the mall. I don’t even need anything, she just needs to get out more than twice a week.” Mavi nods through another bite of sandwich. “What about you?” Tiara asks.

“Mhp!” Mavi swallows her bite. “Do you wait until I take a bite to ask me questions?” Tiara gives her an innocent smile. “I don’t have any plans, so I’ll probably just hang out here for a while. Might go out for some fresh air.”

“Ah, nice. Enjoy your day off.” Tiara says before eating the last bite of her sandwich.

“That’s the plan!” Mavi happily calls before downing her glass of water. “I’ll take care of the cleanup, since you helped last time.

“Oh, alright,” Tiara answers, before following Mavi’s example and polishing off her glass of milk. “I’m gonna go get ready then!” Mavi nods as Tiara makes her way out of the kitchen.

Mavi takes her time as she cleans the dishes, she’s not sure how to fill the next hour and 35 minutes, so she’s trying to slightly drag out the work she does have. It’s only when she finishes wiping down the counters does she hear the sound of Tiara’s imminent return.

The first tell is the more obvious clop of her boots as she makes her way down the hallway. The other being the quiet jingling of several necklaces. Tiara stops in the doorway, dressed in her typical over-the top getup.

A fleece jacket partially covers a bright colored shirt. A skirt hides the tops of striped leggings, which only reach about halfway down her legs before they’re covered by massive knee-length platform boots. Both her arms are covered in bracelets, and several necklaces hang freely between her open jacket. As usual, her tiara rests atop her head.

“I’m gonna go bother Queen!” She merrily shouts into the kitchen, before continuing on to the door.

“Be sure to duck when she throws something at you!” Mavi shouts back as she wrings the wash cloth out.

“I’ve gotten good at side stepping actually, it annoys her a lot more.” She says as she pulls open the door.

“Enjoy your shopping!” Mavi hollers as she steps out of the kitchen to see her sister. Tiara waves as she closes the door behind her. Well, now I have an hour and twenty minutes. Let’s go get cleaned up.

A few minutes later, and the two emerge. When she finishes forming, Mavi’s squelcher is held in her hands, half raised to aim. Her finger isn’t on the trigger, but that’s not a hard fix. Mavi looks around, they were back at the weird clifftop (valley-top?) from her first meeting. The cabin rests a little ways to the right, and what Mavi can now make out as some sort of training course a bit off to the left. The tables from before weren’t anywhere to be seen, apparently, (but not surprisingly), they were temporary features.

There’s no one around, except for Pearl. Mavi lowers her aim, but doesn’t move her finger from it’s rest beside the trigger.

“Well!” Pearl shouts, much more lively than she had been in the Plaza. “Apologies for the rude introduction, I didn’t want to blow my cover!” Pearl offers an easy shrug in apology. “You know how fans can be.”

Caught off guard by the sudden shift in demeanor, it takes Mavi several seconds to form a response. Pearl barges ahead with the conversation in the meantime.

“Let me introduce myself,” Pearl turns to her, snapping her finger outward, making an L shape with her thumb and index finger. “The name’s Pearl, singer, songwriter and half of the famous idol duo Off the Hook! Known for my amazing shows, legendary vocals, and scream battle with a giant human-head statue. But you can call me Agent 5.” She turns the pointing fingers into a hand held out to shake.

Mavi hesitantly reaches out and takes her hand. “W-well, hi. I’m Mavi, uh the new Agent 9 I guess?”

Pearl stares at her for a moment. “You need to work on your intro. But we’ll have time for that later! Come! We’ve got a meeting to meet!” Pearl starts towards the cabin.

Mavi follows behind, her mind ablaze. This is already so far off what I thought would happen I don’t even know what to expect anymore. Off the Hook is part of this too!?

As they walk towards the cabin, Pearl spins and starts walking backwards, still leading her towards the door. “Alright so here’s how this is gonna work. Agent 2–” Pearl pauses as she mouthed ‘Marie’– “is waiting inside. She’s gonna ask you a buncha questions and bla bla bla you’ve probably done an intake meeting before.”

Pearl pulls a small, handheld notebook from her jacket pocket. “Here’s a copy of all the info she’s gonna give you. She sure as hell didn’t do a good job of giving it all to us when we joined, so I got her to write it all down.” She tosses the notebook to Mavi, who catches it. She looks down, flipping the cover up to read the first page. Interesting…

“Now, she doesn’t know I’m giving this to you so don’t snitch! She’s thinks I was going to study it to help her during the interview. HA!”

“Do you want this back for the meeting?” Mavi asks, a bit of hesitance in her voice.

Pearl stops, nearly tripping on the cabin stairs in the process. “That’s uhh, not a bad idea actually.” There’s a brief pause. “I like you already, you’re clever.”

Mavi blushes at the compliment, looking away as she hands the notebook back. They’ve stopped in front of the cabin door. While she’s looked away, trying to recover, she hears Pearl whisper to her.

“Psst! Mavi!” she hears the shorter inkling whisper. Mavi leans down to listen. “Between you and me?” Pearl asks. “I think this whole meeting thing’s kinda bullshit.”

A “huh?” involuntarily slips from Mavi’s mouth.

Pearl continues “Yeah. You’re the only agent who has to do an ‘intake meeting’. As far as I’m concerned, you were asked by an agent if you wanted to join, and you said yes. That makes you an agent.”

“T-that’s… T-Thank you.” Mavi whispers back.

“Yeah yeah,” Pearl answers as she draws back to her full height.

Before Mavi can respond, Pearl turns around and opens the door. “Two, we’re here!” She shouts.

There’s no response. Pearl turns back to Mavi. “Well, after you.” She gestures for Mavi to enter as she steps out of the way. Slowly, Mavi climbs onto the porch, hesitating for a moment before making her way through the door.

The inside is not what she was expecting. It’s very, homely she decides. I was expecting like, an office or… I don’t know what I was expecting really. But it wasn’t a normal looking house.

“Welcome to Cuttlefish Cabin! She’s a real beauty on the inside ain’t she?” Pearl snarks as she urges Mavi further into the house.

Mavi finds herself in the leftmost corner of a large (for a cabin) living room, a kitchen/dining area further into the cabin sectioned off by a countertop.. A large table sits in the corner across from her. Straight in front of her, the back wall is lined with a few doors.

“I hate to ask, but do you think you could leave your squelcher on the table over there?” Pearl gestures to a small table beside a couch. “I get why you’re keeping that on you, but I promise Marie’s unarmed in there.”

Mavi hesitates for a moment before ultimately setting it down. Pearl then leads her to the leftmost door, the one nearly directly across from the front door. Again she opens the door, before gesturing for Mavi to go through.

The room is dimmer than the rest of the Cabin, and much colder. Inside the room she can see a large collection of computer monitors, all of which currently display a blank light blue screen. Mavi steps inside.

The room is bigger than it looks from the outside. A series of work stations with various arrays of computers and monitors run along the sides of the room, 3 on each side. On the side with the door, a larger 4th station sits with a different setup of monitors. These ones were on, and had active security footage of the Cabin’s outside and several surrounding areas. Across from the door a large workbench covers much of the remaining wall, covered in various tools and spare parts.

A large weapons display lines the back walls. Many of the weapons were a similar color to the two reflective vests hanging on a rolling clothes rack.

A series of familiar reflective vests line a display rack against the back wall, two of the sets were missing, judging by the empty hangers. A display rack showcases various different weapons, many of which were the same color scheme as the vests.

Along the front wall, a single, much larger work station rests. A series of three chairs sit in front of the desk, each with a microphone in front of it. Smaller monitors sit at each stand, with a series of larger ones in the background set next together to form one large screen. Mavi couldn’t possibly guess what it was used for.

Various other oddities are scattered around the room. In a corner a rolling whiteboard sits with various half erased diagrams. A corner bookshelf is filled with books, the few covers Mavi can make at a glance are all training manuals for different fighting styles. Above the workbench, a smaller whiteboard is hung, it’s writing outlines the schedule for the following month.

Large boards with different maps line the walls behind the stations, various colored pins stick out marking locations. Two of them show land, one of them being the surrounding area, while the others show a confusing series of circles interconnected with lines. Are those the underground domes the Octavians live in?

In the middle of the room sits a large rectangular meeting table with rounded corners. Marie sits at the head wearing the same kind of reflective vest, which Mavi assumes at this point is the uniform. Marie wears the matching headphones, like Quinn and Clover had worn, however, the rright ear showed some significant signs of wear. Her fingers drum across the table in a measured pattern of taps, 4 taps, a pause, then two.

“Mavi! Welcome to the operations room. I’m so glad you decided to join.” Marie offers her a disarming smile.

“Last time I was here you nearly killed me.” Mavi bluntly drags the main issue to the front of the conversation, as she slowly walks deeper into the room. “And you weren’t exactly happy about my invitation either.”

Marie sighs, abandoning the bravado. Apology and regret soak through her words. “I was going to get to that, but it’s probably better to get it out of the way now.”

Marie’s foot rapidly taps the ground 4 times before she stands up. “I have some… lingering… anxiety about the other agents. When I saw you appear first, I assumed the worst.” Marie finishes her approach, stopping a few feet in front of Mavi. “That was wrong of me, and you nearly died because of it.” Marie bows, hands held together. “I am truly sorry, Mavi.”

Mavi, for her part, is stunned speechless for a few moments as her brain struggles to processes the sheer absurdity of this moment. Here she is, little old nobody Mavi Reefseeker, with arguably the most famous person in the country bent at the waste apologizing. During the process of joining said person’s secret military group. After said person nearly murdered her.

I should respond. I need to respond. Come on brain, give me something! “D-uhhh, it’s ok! Uhm, n-no harm no foul?” Real coddamn smooth there.

Marie pulls back up before she continues. “I also apologize for being rude during the following discussion. I kinddaaa had a head splitting migraine after coming down from a crazy powerful adrenaline rush.”

A sigh of relief escapes Mavi’s lips before. Before she can stop herself, Mavi holds out her hand, a sly smile quickly forming on her face. “I think I know the feeling.”

Marie pauses for a second, before a matching smile fills her face. She grabs Mavi’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” She says as they begin to shake hands. “My name’s Marie Kensaki, unofficial second-in-command of the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Also known as Agent 2. Some people only know me for my side career.”

Mavi laughs, before responding. “Nice to meet you Marie! I’m Mavi Reefseeker, the newest member of the New Squidbeak Splatoon, from here out also known as Agent 9!”

The handshake stops after they’ve shook 6 times.

From the back of the room applause sounds. Mavi immediately straightens, muscles tensing slightly as she turns to look in the back of the room.

“Oh, that was beautiful you two! I was so worried after Clover told us what happened that there’d be tension, I’m so glad you’re getting along!”

Marina Ida, the other half of Off the Hook, stands near the back of the room, a bright smile on her face and her hands folded against her cheek. Her large brown-to-teal tentacles are tied up in a ponytail behind her head. She wears a pair of rectangular framed glasses over her eyes. She’s dressed in otherwise casual winter clothes, though her sweater is a familiar pink and white color scheme.

Pearl lounges in a chair next to her, an approving smirk crosses her lips as she meets Mavi’s eyes.

“Eep!” Mavi lets out a quiet squeak, she had forgotten Pearl was even back there. And for Marina to have walked in on it too! Oh I think I might just keel over and die of embarrassment.

A mixture of common sense and panic kicks Mavi’s brain into gear. “Ah! R-right, umm, hi?”

The gear was apparently reverse.

Marina giggles lightly into her hand. “Hi!” She chipperly responds a moment later. “Welcome to the Splatoon, Agent 9. We’re glad to have you.”

“T-thanks. I uhm, wasn’t expecting… others to be here. Or for–” Mavi gestures towards the members of Off the Hook– ” you to be here either.”

“You’re taking it better than most do when the meet us, so props for that.” Pearl says.

Internally Mavi forces herself to calm. “After I figured out who Agent 1 and 2 were, I guess I was just more ready to accept meeting more famous people.”

“You didn’t freak out in the Plaza either!” Pearl chirpily adds.

“From what you’ve shown us and what Clover’s told us, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders.” Marina encourages as she walks closer. When she’s about 5 steps away, Marina gestures to Mavi’s hip. “May I?” she asks.

May she huh? Mavi reaches for her hip, but her hand bumps into her brella first, still clipped to her hip from when she left her apartment. “Oh! You want to see the brella?” Marina nods, and Mavi unclips it.

“I should have this fixed up by the time you’re done here. It seems like it’s mostly arm damage anyway.” Marina walks over to the workstation that’s covered in tools. She drags a chair from one of the other stations over, before carefully setting the brella on the table.

Marina turns back to Mavi. “I try to handle small weapons repairs. It’s a hobby of mine.” A pleased smile finds it’s way onto her face for a moment. “Sheldon handles our major repairs and upgrades, so it’s nice to try and help out where we can.”

“Wait, Sheldon? Like the Horseshoe crab who runs Ammo Knights Sheldon?”

“Yup. All the hero weapons were made by him too.” Marie gestures to the panel of weapons.

Upon more than a cursory glance, Mavi can see a reflective-colored weapon for every weapon type, except a splatana and a stringer. Makes sense I guess, those are still pretty new over here in Inkopolis. Interestingly, there’s two variants of the splattershot, one more rectangular in design compared to the other’s L shape. The L shaped was also significantly more worn than the other. Hung up beside the other two was an octoshot, which also looks like it hadn’t had an easy time of things either.

Marie continues, a hint of pride in her voice. “All the hero weapons have been designed to offer a significantly more bang than your standard turf weapons.”

“Wait, you shot at me with a Kensa charger though. I thought the hero weapons were their own thing?”

Marina chimes in from the work desk, “Oh, that’s Sheldon’s newest project! He’s modifying turf weapons to have the strength of the hero weapons, without changing anything about them.”

“Modifying weapons isn’t that hard though, I’ve done it myself a few times.” Mavi replies, confused.

“No dude, you don’t get it. It’s IDENTICAL,” Pearl insists. “The weight, the balance, everything. The only way even the most competent turf regulator could tell them apart is a demonstration.”

“Which is real convenient for us, seeing as Sheldon is one of the most well-respected turf regulators.” Marie smoothly adds. “He modified a Kensa charger for me, as a sort of trial run. She grimaces,”You just so happened to show up the night I got to show it off.”

“I see.” Mavi pauses for a moment. “Alright, I’ve got another question then.” Mavi points at herself. “I’m agent 9,” She points at Marie, “you’re Agent 2, Callie’s Agent 1.”

Nods from around the room confirm her statement.

She points at Pearl. “You told me you’re Agent 5, so that means–” Mavi points towards Marina– “You’re Agent 6.”

More nods.

“Quinn is Agent 3 and Nora is Agent 4. That leaves 7 and 8 open.”If Clover is Agent 7–”

“Agent 8.” Pearl corrects.

“Well then who’s Agent 7?”

“There’s no Agent 7,” Marie admits.

“Isn’t Sheldon an agent?”

“Oh, no. Sheldon’s our weapons tech.” Marie explains.

“Wha- Why not make me Agent 7 then?”

Marie just shrugs. “Don’t ask me. Callie gave you your number.”

Mavi knows she must have made a particularly funny confused face because Pearl bursts out laughing.

“I don’t… right, alright I guess it doesn’t really matter.” Mavi dismisses the matter, it’s not worth the effort. “I guess it makes sense actually.”

Marie raises an eyebrow.

Mavi elaborates, “Well, I’m the newest agent, it makes sense for me to be the lowest in the hierarchy. Making me Agent 7 would put me above Clover.”

Marie looks genuinely baffled for a moment, like the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. Clarity snaps through her eyes a few moments later.

“Huh… I can see why… but no, that’s not how we operate.”

“They’re just code names.” Marina confirms. “There’s not really a traditional command structure here.”

“You said you were the unofficial second in command though?” Mavi asks, genuinely confused.

“Marie runs the budget.” Pearl cuts in before Marie can say anything. “So she gets to yell at us about stuff like she’s the boss.”

Marie sends her a glare, before she explains. “There’s only 8 of us,” she glances at Mavi, “9 now I suppose. Point is all of us are equally competent at what we’re doing. We all have our individual strengths, but for the most part we’re kind of… group led? I guess that’s descriptive enough. Missions are lead by an individual, but they’re planned out before hand, making it more of a formality than anything.”

“For now though, you’re the lowest on the hierarchy.” Pearl interjects, an air of finality to her words.

“Pearlie! Don’t tease her. She’s got enough to figure out as it is.” Marina scowls as she scolds her bandmate. Pearl sends Mavi a wink.

Marie continues after she’s sure the other two are done. “Pearl’s not… wrong but that’s not how I would have phrased it. For the time being you’ll accompany other agents on their missions, until you’ve got the skills you need.”

A sigh of relief escapes Mavi before she can catch it. “That’s… good. I don’t think I want to go out on a solo mission yet anyway.”

“Don’t worry about that. We won’t send you out alone for a while yet, not if we can help it.” Marina assures her.

Mavi catches Marie grimace out of the corner of her eye. “If you can help it?” She asks.

Marie meets her with a sheepish look. “Well… when Quinn and Nora joined, we, well I, kinda… threw them straight into the domes. Not that we’re going to do that to you! No, thankfully you get to join when we’re NOT undergoing a massive crisis. Benefits of peace time, haha.”

The silence that fills the room is a bit crushing.

“Hope you’re cool with Quinn, he’s the most available, so you’ll be with him a lot.” Pearl warns her.

“He seems nice!” Mavi defends, glad to have the conversation is moving again. “Um, could you explain what you mean by ‘group led’ earlier? I’m not sure I follow.

Marie sits back down before she begins explaining. “It’s not very complicated, we have weekly meetings where we discuss a pretty standard set of procedures. How patrols went, anything that was noticed, major or minor, as well as a few reports. Coordinate schedules, we try and schedule things up to a month in advance if we can, that sort of stuff.”

Pearl picks up for Marie, “Bigger things though, they get their own meeting. Like…yeah, ok so a few months ago Quinn was on a deeper patrol. while searching he found a formation of Octavian soldiers we didn’t know about. He reported it right away of course, but a few days later he called a meeting about it. He lead us through what he found, as well as different ideas he had for dealing with it. Ultimately we decided to do a deeper investigation, which lead to us finding a whole development we didn’t know about beforehand.”

“That’s very… bureaucratic.” a hint of disappointment is audible in Mavi’s voice.

Marie and Pearl both immediately break into laughter. In the background Mavi can see Marina set down her tools to move her hand in front of her mouth, her shoulders shaking slightly.

“H-hey!” Mavi shouts, embarrassed.

Marina forces herself to stop laughing, “It’s not you Mavi, it’s just, no one’s put it so bluntly.”

Mavi’s indignity fades somewhat. “S-sorry, it’s just, this is so d-different from what I was expecting. A secret military group, ran by the Squid Sisters. I was picked up by Pearl from Off the Hook. Everyone who’s part of it is so crazy good at fighting they’re like a one-squid-army.” She pauses for a moment. “And here I am, all noted company present, talking about meetings, and meetings about meetings, and scheduling, it’s all so, mundane.”

“You had some high expectations then?” Pearl asks, a teasing tone in her voice.

“I’m not sure what my expectations were to be honest. This is all so, normal, I guess.”

“It is a pretty laid back system.” Marie admits. “Comes with the trust. We’ve all gone through some pretty rough shit, that forms bonds that run deep.”

Mavi feels small in that moment. “I… how can you all trust me then? I hardly know you guys and you certainly don’t know me! I.. I don’t have that same connection you guys do.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Marina counters. “Nora trusts you. Enough to turn to you when she was near her lowest.”

“That’s a pretty solid vote of confidence.” Pearl continues. “We trust Nora, and Nora trusts you, so we trust you.”

“…Really?” Mavi asks, her voice small.

Pearl doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah! You’re here aren’t you?”

It takes Mavi a few moments to wrap her head around that. She feels overwhelmed, but for once it’s not in a bad way. Eventually she nods.

Marie stands after her foot quickly taps the ground four times. She takes a moment to stretch before turning to Mavi. “I do have to run you through some finer details about you joining, but it shouldn’t take that long. You wanna get a sandwich while we go through it?”

“S-sure, I could eat.” Mavi stands and moves to follow her to the door.

“Hey, Marie, wait.” Pearl calls after her. Marie stops in the now open doorway, and turns back. “I thought this was an intake meeting, why are you making sandwiches?”

Marie looks back with a look of genuine puzzlement. “Um, to… welcome her to the Splatoon?” Her fingers tap against the side of the door in a short 2-tap pattern.

“To w-, But what about the notebook’s worth of information you said you had to tell her!” Pearl pulls the notebook she had handed Mavi earlier out of her pocket. Marie rolls her eyes and walks on out the door after tapping its surface four times, leaving Mavi behind in the doorway. “Hey wait! What about this stuff!” Pearl flips the notebook open. She stills as she reads the page.

“Stupid Gremlin won’t even read the first pa–!” In the background, Marina snorts as she laughs.

Pearl wheels to Mavi. “You! You set me up!” Pearl points an accusatory finger at Mavi. “How could you!?”

“Uhm… i-it says at the bottom of the page n-not to tell you.” Mavi stutters in defense.

Pearl stares at her for a moment longer before her eyes snap back to the notebook.

“You should go,” Marina tells Mavi, sending her a genuine smile. “I’ll have this done in a little bit,” she gestures to the brella.

“A-alright. It was nice to meet you! You too Pearl!” Mavi waves at each of them, before ducking out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“I’LL GET YOU BACK YOU GRANDMA!!” The closed door does very little to quiet Pearl’s screams of rage.

Mavi takes a moment to catch her breath, looking around the living room. Compared to the operations room, it was downright homely. All the furniture, and there’s a good amount of it, is worn from years of use. The brown leather couch has several patches across it, the coffee table in front of it has had any layer of polish, as well as several under it, worn away after frequent use. A small collection of 3 arm chairs sit roughly around the table, their color faded to the point you can barely tell them apart.

Several other chairs had been brought in from other rooms, but they had been in the living room so long they had developed a sense of belonging. Everything else, the lamps and the small side tables they sat on, the entertainment center, the bookshelves, and even the piano in the corner of the room were all saturated with wear.

It was a gentle wear, one that came from years of use and upkeep rather than neglect. It gave the entire cabin a feeling of comfort and warmth, of love. Mavi imagined that this is what her grandparents house would have felt like.

She finishes her walk through, passing the countertop that unofficially divided the living room and the kitchen. The kitchen itself was pretty standard fare, the appliances looking a similar modern to the technology from the operations room. Usually, the new technology would stand out against the aging home holding it, but somehow this place managed to make it look graceful.

“There you are. I didn’t think this place was big enough to get lost in.” Marie calls to her. She’s sitting a bit further into the kitchen area, past a set of cabinets a somewhat area. A table that could maybe sit four people rests against the wall in this space, the wall across from it lined with packs of soda cans. It reminds Mavi of her own apartment, with her dining table pushed to the back of the kitchen in a similar manner.

“I was just… looking around.” Mavi sheepishly admits.

“I know it’s pretty old…” Marie starts, trailing off.

“Oh no! N-not like that!” Mavi insists. “It-It’s comfortable. I never really had a place like this before… I like it.”

Marie looks surprised for a moment, before a fond smile quickly covers her face. “Well, you’re welcome to stay as often as you like.” Mavi smiles.

Mavi takes a seat across the table. In front of Marie is two sandwiches, one of which she quickly passes over

“I asked Nora what kind of sandwich you’d like, if you’re wondering.” Mavi nods as she picks it up and takes a bite.

“Before we get started…” Marie reaches into her pants pocket, and with an almost insufferably smug grin, pulls out an identical notebook to the one she had given Pearl. “Here’s everything written down, so you don’t have to try and remember it all. I’m still going to run through it real quick.”

Mavi takes the notebook, flipping through it, about 1/3 of the pages are filled, but with the notebook’s small size, it probably amounts to about 4 sheets of paper overall.

“Ok, first order of business, you get paid for working with us.”

“Wait, what?”

This again causes Marie to pause. “Did… you think you weren’t going to get paid?”

“Y-yeah kinda…?”

“Just what kind of group did you think we were?” Mavi can only offer a weak shrug in response.

“Anyway, You get 100,000 G a week, slightly above the standard payout for a standard turf pro. Assuming you complete the things you’re scheduled for, of course.”

“Oh!” It was less than she made working at her current job, but it’s more than she was expecting. “Alright, I can cut some shifts at the store if I need to spend more time here I guess.”

Marie pauses, sandwich halway to her mouth. She sets it back on her plate, “Right, I forgot you work there too.” A thoughtful look crosses her face. “I might could pull a few strings to get you out of shifts you’d be scheduled here for, without a pay reduction.”

Mavi raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything due to chewing a bite of her sandwich.

Marie continues, more thinking out loud than explaining, “I could probably spin something about needing a consultant or assistant with something… call you away on the days you’re scheduled…” Marie’s fingers rap against the table in an even 4 tap pattern. She trails off, finally taking that first bite of her sandwich.

“Anyway, I’ll work on that later. For now, let’s check through the rest of this.” She flips through the notebook quickly, scanning the pages. “If it’s alright with you, we’ll save the proper history lesson for later, you’ve got enough to deal with today.”

Mavi nods.

“Alright, I’ll try and get the right people here for those. At some point I’ll need your current schedule so we can start trying to coordinate patrols.”

Mavi swallows her bite. “Well, I work at your store, roughly 4 days a week, more around holidays. Other than that, hmmm.” Mavi trails off.

“Hmm?” Marie asks through her sandwich.

’Well, it’s just… I agreed to join my sister’s… b-band.” Mavi feels a bit sheepish admitting she’s in a trying band to THE Marie Squid Sister, but its easier than trying to hide it she decides. “I, I’ll need at least a few hours a week for that.”

“Hmm.” Marie swallows her bite. “Yeah, no I’m not letting you go with ‘just a few hours a week’ You’re taking two days a week, at minimum, to work on that. If you have something coming up around that tell me and you can have more.”

“A-alright. I um, I also still play turf with my friends, th-though that’s not as consistent.”

“We should be able to pretty regularly get you a third day, or you could join them the days you’re on comms.”

“On comms?”

“Right, I should explain what you’re actually going to be doing.” She grabs the strap of the reflective vest she’s wearing. “This here is the Hero suit. It looks pretty simple, but it’s actually an incredibly complicated piece of gear. It’s incredibly ink absorbent, offering significantly more protection that standard turf gear.”

“Like the hero weapons.” Mavi clarifies.

“Like the hero weapons.” Marie confirms. “If you were wearing the hero suit, you could take two shots from that Kensa charger without getting splatted.

Mavi’s eyes bulge. “Really?”

Marie nods sagely. “They’re more than that too. There’s a whole host of sensors and cameras safely settled into these. If you’re on comms, you’ll be receiving the data they gather, and comparing it against our database of existing data on wherever the field agent may be.”

“I think I’m understanding. You communicate what you find to the field agent?”

“Yup. A lot of the process is automated, thanks to Marina, but you still have to tell them what’s different. The comms help guide the field agent to wherever the goal of the patrol is. They also watch out for enemies, traps, or really anything else amiss.”

“That doesn’t seem that bad.” Mavi admits.

“It’s really not.” Marie agrees. “It’s a bit more involved for big missions, but in that case each agent has a comms, so its not much more difficult. You can’t be lazy though, some seemingly innocuous details can completely turn a situation on its head. One time, while Quinn was patrolling dome #37, that’s the second one from the top, we discovered a coming ambush because the ambient temperature was two degrees higher than it was typically.

Mavi lets out a low whistle. “That’s pretty intense.”

“It’s usually not. Really, it’s grunt work, both it and the field work. 19 out of 20 patrols you won’t find anything. But it needs done. We all have something stopping us from giving this our full time, Pearl and Marina have the news for example. Quinn’s the only one who doesn’t, ever since Nora’s leg was damaged.”

“I thought Quinn played turf daily?”

“He does, only because we force him to take time off.”

The conversation stalls for a few moments. Marie strains like she’s listening for something, while the two eat, but whatever it is she doesn’t hear it. “You have to keep your eyes open on patrol.” She resumes. “Things have been… quiet. I don’t trust it. Octavio is planning something, and doesn’t play clean. He’s pulled some real underhanded shit before to try and beat us. That’s part of… well, I guess there’s not really a reason to hide that from you now.”

The mood in the room falls, Marie’s face with it. “Octavio… he squidnapped Callie during the second zapfish incident.”

Fuck. Mavi felt a wave of guilt wash over her. I was thinking so bad of her, but that’s what happened? “Th-that’s awful…”

Marie looks genuinely stricken for a moment, as if the memories were causing physical pain. Her fingers tap the table in a slightly jerky 6 pattern. “It was… when you came out of the grate with a weapon, and Nora wasn’t there, I panicked, Mavi. And I-I’m sorry, truly. I thought you might have…”

Mavi again recalls that night. Marie’s scream of ‘WHO SENT YOU?’ echoes through her mind.

Marie closes her eyes, clears her throat, pulls her hands up, and lets out a large breath. “Alright, phew. Got through the hard part,” she says more to herself than to Mavi. “Octavio… he’s up to something. Things don’t go quiet and stay quiet here. He’ll make a move eventually, but we can stop him before he does. We just need to figure out what he’s going to do.” The fire in Marie’s eyes was only matched by the glow of her tentacles.

“Well, shit.” Is all Mavi can reply. “If you’d have opened with that the other night I’d have been on board right then.”

Marie’s posture deflates as she relaxes against the back of her chair. “It’s that easy huh?” she muses lightly.

“That wasn’t easy.” Mavi corrects.

“True.”

Any further conversation is stalled by the now-familiar rattle of the grate.

“Shit! There they are!” Marie’s quickly on her feet again. She looks back at Mavi, before looking at the door. “Wait here a sec,” she says, before stuffing the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth and speed walking back into the cabin proper.

“Oh! Um, alright.” Mavi follows in Marie’s example, though she opts to finish her sandwich in two bites instead.

Just as she’s swallowing the last bite, Marie rounds the corner back into the kitchen area, “C’mere.” she calls. Mavi quickly stands to follow. As they’re walking through the cabin, Mavi glances out of the windows. Around the grate four figures stand, one dark pink, one yellow, one blue, and one she doesn’t recognize. There’s the others, wonder what they’re up to. Looks like they went shopping…? What’s in the box Nora’s holding…

Before she can investigate any further, Marie stops her in front of the operations room. “Head back in there, I’ve got something to, uh, coordinate real quick. Pearl and Marina will answer any questions you’ve got for now. Yeah, that works.”

“Sure.” Mavi shrugs as she turns to head into the operations room. She’s probably just coordinating a patrol or something.

Stepping inside, Mavi’s met with the members of Off the Hook, shoulder to shoulder, sitting over the work desk, looking at something.

“Be back soon,” Marie distractedly tells her before closing the door.

Mavi takes a moment to look around the room again, before looking back at her fellow agents. It takes a moment of inspection before the scenario clicks. Are they… no, they’re just sharing cephallo-pods. I don’t think they know I’m coming…

She waits a few seconds, before she realizes Oh my cod I was right, they’re snuggling!

She stands there for an awkward few more seconds, before deciding to rip the metaphorical bandage off. She clears her throat, and the embarrassed, slightly panicked looks she gets tells her that the following conversation will probably be the most awkward of the day.