Cold Open to the Splat 2 campaign. This comes right off the heals of the Drifting stories (the 1000 word chapters showing how they're slowly drifting apart)
I haven't written that yet so, here's the outline giving you the conext those chapters would give.
"CALLIE!!"
She screamed as she dropped off the fence she'd just climbed. She'd been an agent for far too long to let something so simple slow her down, and by the tides she was on a mission right now.
I'm not too late. I'm NOT. This is where she said she was, this is where she'll be.
This was not Marie's first time on the Inkstain Productions studio lot, but it was her first time breaking into it. Callie was, or at least, was supposed to be, attending the [Show Name] wrap party with her costars, but it was glaringly obvious that wasn't the case. There wasn't a light on in a building, a car in the parking lot, or a soul on the campus that she could see. There wasn't hardly anything else in the are either, save for a Zapfish care facility, and a few industrial parks.Why the hell would Callie even come here if everyone else is gone?
"CALLIE! CALLIE I'M HERE!"
The silence had to be the most disturbing part. The only the whirring of distant HVAC systems, and the deep rumbling threat of storm clouds accompanied her echoing foot falls. Specifically, Marie couldn't hear the sounds of a fight. That's good, no, that's a good thing! That means Callie won! Or she's dead. No. No, it's— she wouldn't—
"CALLIE!! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! I'M ALMOST THERE, JUST HANG ON!!"
Marie hadn't answered the phone. I was busy! I was gonna caller her back in like 5 minutes. It didn't matter why. She hadn't answered, and now the message Callie left would haunt her for the rest of her life.
"MARIE PLEASE PICK UP!" Callie was screaming, her voice breathless and laced with fear.
"CALLIE WHERE ARE YOU!?" In the present, Marie begged for an answer that never came.
"THERE'S A SOLDIER— MARIE PLEASE I NEED HELP— AH—" Weapon fire and desperate footsteps fought to be heard over a sheer wall of noise.
"I'M HERE! CALLIE I'M HERE! PLEASE SAY SOMETHING!"
*"MARIE PLEASE!!!! MARIE!!" The last scream was a shrill, desperate howl; a plea from the soul for help. One that went entirely unanswered because Marie hadn't pick up the phone.
"SAY SOMETHING SO I CAN FIND YOU! CALLIE!" Tears threatened to spill from her eyes, but Marie Kensaki was not about to let that hinder her in anyway. With a technique that was far too familiar, Marie bunched any thought that wasn't immediately focused on saving her cousin, and chained them down.
She didn't have her Hero suit, the Hero Charger, or even anyone on Comms. On the subway back from Calamari County, she'd called anyone she could to try and muster some backup. Gramps, Quinn, hell, she even called Callie's agent trying to get information.
That wasn't to say she was completely defenseless. She'd thrown on thick, rubber boots and a heavy plastic raincoat before she left, which would provide at least glancing protection from attacks. Adding to that, Sheldon was the only person to actually answer her call, thankfully. He offered a turf-grade Squiffer that he could deliver with some experimental drone, and to press harder on calling Gramps and Quinn for backup. It would have to do.
Finally, Marie made it past the administration buildings and to the soundstages. Her eyes locked onto stage number eight in the distance, as Marie prepared to force her way in. As she neared, she braced her elbow and the butt of she Squiffer for impact, slamming her way through the door a moment later. The pain that suddenly laced her shoulder was tied down with the rest of her useless thoughts.
She threw herself into a roll to both reduce her chance of getting hit, and to recover from the impact. She was up in less than a second, Squiffer braced against her shoulder as the distinctive BEEP of a turf charger cut through the suffocating silence.
Nothing in the room moved. It was empty. The charger did not fall from her hands as she stared in horror. This is the place alright...
A large puddle of orange ink glowed against the ground next to several rows of folding tables. There's no pink though! She's not— not here, at least. NO. She's not dead.
It was hard to spot from her vantage by the door, but another splatter of orange ink was obvious on the far side of the room. The only thought she she gave her course there were the possible vantages she could be attacked from as she sprinted.
She's gone. She's dead.
(She could have respawned and ran.)
The attackers would have disabled the respawner.
(You don't know that...)
She called the attacker by name. Why wouldn't they know where it was?
Marie shouldered her way through another door. "SHOW YOURSELF!" She growled in Octarian, stopping in place just long enough to sweep the hallway before running again. Each movement was quick, but methodical. Every window or doorway got checked, Marie focusing her raging emotions towards her tentacles and using their glow to inspect the dark ones. Heavy rubber boots slammed into any orange puddle she passed, just to make sure the soldiers weren't trying to hide and ambush her from behind.
I didn't answer.
Progress was fast, but not fast enough for her. She couldn't afford to not be through, though, leaving her hanging in this agonizing state of not enough. Not enough to save Callie. Not enough to care about Callie.
Her rapid, coordinated efforts came to a tumbling halt as Marie saw a massive splatter of pink and orange at the end of the hallway, right next exit. Delicacy and decorum fled the playbook as she scrambled over, frantic. Everything around her faded as the color pink consumed her vision.
No...
Tides, please, no.
Heartbeats echoed in her ears.
The squiffer in her hands rattled quietly as she shook.
Pink ink splattered on the wall. The only pink ink she'd seen since entering the building.
Marie staggered forward, falling to her knees as a single hand reverently reached towards the wall. She didn't care about the burning from either ink color. How could she. Callie is
Callie... is...
Her eyes slid to the ground, each millimeter an agonizing endeavor made only possible by her head lulling. This splatter of pink ink... was a burst bomb.
Marie's system flooded with relief so palpable it made her dizzy as she finally spotted the plastic remains the burst bomb. Holy shit... She finally crawled her way out of the hostile ink colors on shaky limbs, dropping herself on the floor with a thoughtless grunt. That had to be the burst bomb she always kept in her shoe, as an 'emergency weapon' then. Hazes of color warped her vision as Marie tried to calm her racing hearts and dizzy head. She's not dead. Callie's not—
CALLIE'S NOT DEAD. Marie staggered to her feet, her mission remembered. What the hell am I doing laying here, I need to MOVE. She's still out there somewhere!
Marie quickly found herself outside, chasing the haphazard splatters of orange ink. A bright flash of light was soon followed by a massive crash of thunder as raindrops began to fall. It was hardly a storm, much less a shower at the moment, but it could wash her trail away all the same. *It could finish off someone left wounded outside though.
Marie ran a little faster, pulling her raincoat further down her arms.
The trail thankfully lead into the main administrative building with another door that Marie had to force her way through. As she broke through another door, Marie's jaw was set. She had the run outside to clear her mind, and now she was purely angry. She no longer intended to simply find the soldier attacking Callie, she was going to hunt this tide-smothered son of a bitch down if it was the last thing she did.
As Marie rolled through the busted-open doorway, the Squiffer's BEEP announced her aiming through the hallway with a deadly focus. The trail of shots abruptly stopped, but orange ink boot prints pointed towards an open hallway. Boot prints she recognized from underground. Marie prepared herself for another round of room sweeping, but instead, she stopped cold as she turned into the hallway.
A massive spray of orange ink completely surrounded one of the doors. It covered the floors, walls, and even some of the ceiling. Coverage that through effectively made escape impossible without a way to ink the ground. Whatever was happening, it was happening in there.
Marie hesitated for a single second, drawing a deep breath, before taking action. She fired the shot she prepared before, not hesitating to run through the sharp line of lime ink now cutting through the orange into the room. Another BEEP rang out as Marie shoved her Squiffer forward, barrel pointed directly at
At nothing. It was almost entirely empty, not even a splatter of ink save for her own and the stuff at the door.
No. No, it— it can't— she, she— she's gone. (There's no way to be sure.)
Marie fell to her knees, the world around her fading away from her senses as she stared down the only two items in the room.
Callie....
I lost her. I wasn't here and now she's gone. This is my fault.
(That's not how these things work.)
I didn't pick up the phone.
Light flooded the room as every spot on Marie's body erupted in white-green light. Her every muscle shook with silent anguish as her hand desperately reached forward, groping for the items on the ground.
(How could I have known there were octavian soldiers on the surface?)
Is the NSS not my responsibility? Callie has a life to live, and Quinn and Gramps are on a reconnaissance trip. Did I not agree to maintain things until they returned?
Nothing more than a pained howl could escape Marie's throat as she clutched the pink beanie to her chest.
(I did, but—)
Was it not my job to scout the canyon? Did it not fall to me to track them? Analyze their moves? Prepare for any attacks? Thwart any efforts they made? I was supposed to be there for these things.
The shattered screen of Callie's phone mocked her from the ground. You didn't pick up. You didn't pick up. You didn't pick up. It taunted through broken glass. The jagged, bent metal pointed at her mockingly, maliciously. You didn't pick up. You didn't pick up. You didn't pick up.
(Yes, but—)
I failed.
Choked, desperate gulps for air fought with the violent, silent sobs wracking her chest. I didn't pick up. I didn't pick up. I didn't pick up.
(I...)
I failed her. I abandoned her. I betrayed her. This is all my fault.
(I... I failed her.)
This is all my fault.
What have I done?
An unknown amount of time passed as she lay on the floor, curled around Callie's beanie. It couldn't have been more than a minute, but it might as well have been weeks to her.
A piercingly loud alarm suddenly blares, spoiling the delicate, somber silence with a shot of adrenaline. Marie flew to her feet, Squiffer drawn at the doorway on pure reflex. She couldn't actually see to aim due to the tears in her eyes, which she quickly fixed with the hem of her shirt. The room was still empty, no one was around, so what was making the... Wait.
Marie recognized this alarm. It was one she hoped to never actually hear beyond the demonstration she saw.
It was the panic alarm for the Zapfish care facility nearby.
Marie was running through the hallways before she'd even finished the revelation. There was no coincidence. A soldier confirmed by Callie's call, and now the zapfish was under attack? No chance.
Outside, the rain was starting to pick up, but it still posed little threat on its own, and none with her raincoat on. She scaled the studio's perimeter fence with reckless abandon, barely pausing at the top before swinging herself over the edge and onto the sidewalk below. Time was short, critically short, if she was going to make it there in time. Despite that, she spared a desperate second to glance at her watch, where a small dial in the center showed green. She was still synced to a respawner, and quite close to it at that.
The alarm still blared, unwavering in it's mission to warn everyone what was happening. It grew rapidly louder as Marie threw herself forward, until she could see the shape of the building, no longer obscured by the rain. It was essentially a large circular building with 4 large sections jutting out, making a plus shape. A massive dome capped off the building— the Great Zapfish's enclosure— while all the smaller zapfish, maintenance equipment, and the like.
There wouldn't be any chance to actually approach the building, since the security systems were currently in overdrive. Dozens of red lights around the building's perimeter strobed as the alarm screamed. Reinforced, climbing resistant fences lined the outside, with barbed wire and nets along the top and over the open areas within the fence to prevent anyone unauthorized from getting inside.
Lucky for her, Marie wasn't trying to get inside. Marie charged around the building as fast as she could, scanning the skies until she spotted what she was looking for. A floating disk in the sky was making a steady getaway from the facility, with a large writhing form clasped between two hooks beneath it. It far too high for her Squiffer to reach, and past the bounds that a normal super jump could take someone.
Marie was not about to make a normal superjump. Hours spent with Agent Three training her superjumps flooded her mind as Marie prepared herself for launch, and then flew. Rain pelted her face as she shot through the sky, but she didn't feel it.
The entire UFO structure buckled under her impact. Two cries of surprise carried over the wind, giving Marie all the information she needed. By this point, the storm was picking up. Tiny droplets closer to a mist swirled in the air, carried by the breeze fast enough to obscure her vision of the UFO's other end, but the glow of one soldier's goggles gave them away.
"YOU BITCH" She howled as she swung the Squiffer forward, aiming directly at the twin lights as a BEEP echoed, and took the shot. The sounds of ink splattering and a second, cut off scream were her reward.
There was no break between the end of the first shot and the BEEP from the next. Marie stalked forward, her vision clouded red. The moment she could see the outline of another octoling, Marie pulled the trigger, and the shot hit... something. The ink splattered out over nothing as if she had just hit a wall, and the octoling stood behind it, unharmed.
Marie stalked forward, as the rest of the structure came into focus. It was hardly more than a basic cover, a basic metal frame welded to the top of the UFO with sheet metal on its edges to provide cover. The ink splatter prevented her from seeing the octoling, but now that she was closer, Marie could just barely make out the end of a long black tentacle, the ends of which faded to pink.
CALLIE!
"I'LL RIP THIS THING APART WITH MY BA—OOF! The air fled her lungs with a pained wheeze as Marie was slammed against the UFO. Despite the scream in her muscles, Marie immediately tried to push herself up, but her foot lost purchase against the slippery metal it was made from.
Her assailant dug their claws into Marie's arm, trying desperately to hold them down. With no other choice, Marie wrenched herself the other way, causing the soldier's claws to rip her sleeve off, but freeing her in the process. Using the momentum she already had, Marie swung around and threw the hardest punch she could, finding the soldier's goggles in the process.
They staggered back with a cry of pain, breathing heavily as their hands flew to their eye.
Marie spared herself a dangerous few moments to desperately trying and failing to catch her breath, before immediately winding up for another attack. She immediately tried to lunge forward, only to have her leg give out below her, sending Marie face down onto the cold metal of the UFO.
Immediately, her body was alight with pain. Every injury from the past hour, from the strain on her knees from jumping the fence twice, her shoulders from slamming into multiple locked doors, her knuckles from the punch, and now her leg for giving out beneath her, it all came back. Even accounting for all of that, nothing hurt more than than the excruciating burning in her left arm. The one with the missing sleeve.
By now, the rain was coming in heavy, the droplets ringing off the UFO in a horrid metallic chorus. This was bad. She was sluggish, tired, heavy, and weak.
Marie tried to bring the arm under her chest, to shield it from the rain, but a new blinding pain in her side ended any possible chance she had at recovery. The soldier kicked Marie in the side, sending her tumbling down the slanted edge of the UFO. Marie barely managed to catch herself on some kind of light. Marie looked around frantically for anything she could do, but there was nothing.
The Squiffer flew off the edge of the UFO, kicked by the soldier again.
Marie tried desperately to pull herself up, even as the enemy soldier stared down at her, a single glowing . She couldn't hardly lift her left arm anymore. The downpour whipped against her, splattering in and around her meager rain protections, but she tried anyway.
The soldier made sure she was looking before forcefully slamming their boot down onto Marie's fingers. Hard.
Something snapped in Marie's hand as her grip was lost, and Marie started to fall.
The world might as well have been paused as she hung in the air. She could count the seconds between every centimeter the UFO moved in the air, and feel every centimeter she fell. Hours passed as she watched the gap between them grow agonizingly bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
I failed her. This is all my fault. What have I done? Thoughts echoed through her head as she watched her cousin get stolen away.
Until she hit the ground.
chapter like, 4? When we get back to Marie's POV: