Chapter Text
Lucky spins the combination on her turf locker, humming to herself. It's all she can do to keep from having her own little squid party, but that can wait. Other squids, older squids, use this room; she doesn't wanna look like a baby.
“Hey, that was a great game,” says someone, and Lucky starts. She turns to see another girl with a smile pressing her cheeks, her arms held up in defense, luna blaster pointed at the ceiling. “Jumpy Lucky,” she teases, moving past Lucky to her own locker. “That overtime win of yours was fresh as all fuck, I just wish I hadn't been on the other side of it.”
Lucky grins. “Mochi, right? You were all over the place that match,” she says, pulling out her warm clothes and hanging her dualies on the hooks in the back of her locker. “Between the bombs and the baller, it was a struggle to keep up.”
The other girl laughs. Lucky smiles at her and ducks behind the curtain to change. When she emerges, Mochi's styling her tentacles. On the bench nearby, not bothering to use a changing booth, sits another girl. She scowls when she sees Lucky. “That was a lucky run, baby,” she says.
Lucky takes a deep breath. She has to go past them to reach her locker. “Thanks,” she says.
The girl stops buttoning her shirt to scowl at Lucky. “Don't bother acting like you don't care,” she says. “We all know you're playing ranked and won't go anywhere. Me? I'm gonna be in the IKA's Freshest Raw Talent soon.”
Lucky stops putting on her boots to turn a blank look at Mochi. She rolls her eyes. “It's a competitive tourney,” she says.
Lucky snorts. “You have to be eighteen to do any comp,” she says, turning back to the first girl. “You made a huge deal about turning seventeen last month, remember?”
“Of course an inkblot like you wouldn't know about it,” she says, tugging down her leggings; Lucky's cheeks heat, and she looks away from the girl's very nice legs. “IKA started it about five years ago. They send invitations to a bunch of splatoons, divisions 4-7. Every splatoon that plays gets free coaching the whole month leading up to it, but the catch is, they can only play if they take along an underage squidkid.”
“The point is that a bunch of new splatoons fail because no one can figure out tournaments,” Mochi says; she lies down on the bench and kicks her feet up. “So they bring in a bunch of inklings too young to play, so they can learn how it's done and get really fresh cash just for participating, and it helps lower-tier splatoons get better so the higher ranks have more competition.” She snorts. “And just what splatoon's recruited you, Sparkles?”
Sparkles sniffs. “That's a secret,” she says, and flounces off.
“What she means,” Mochi says, sitting up and grinning at Lucky, “is no one has. Splatoons had to wait until they got the invite to recruit anyone, that was last week, and the ten or twenty underage squidkids with an X rank get snatched up almost immediately.”
Lucky smiles back. “I know she doesn't have any of those.”
“Yeah, she's an S bouncer,” Mochi says, “and I'm pretty sure you just got to +7. She's jealous. Ignore her, Jumpy Lucky. There's at least a few thousand squidkids in S+, and that's if they don't dip down to the lower ranks. She's not gonna get chosen.”
Lucky finishes tying on her boots and stands, stamping her feet a couple times to make sure they're secure. “Doesn't matter to me,” Lucky says. “I'm not gonna get chosen, either, and that's okay.” Who wants a comp splatoon? Not her—she's gonna be a profreshional ranker and make her living meeting all sorts of different people.
“That's the spirit,” says Mochi, and gives Lucky a carefree wave as she heads out. Lucky leaves, too, in a different direction. She's gotta hurry.
Marlin and Eight are waiting for her.
There's a bus she could take, but that last win gave her the jitters, so she runs. Lucky takes off down the streets, weaving through inklings and jellies alike; she only sees one octoling as she goes, and he stands well to the side to let her pass. She has to detour around puddles from the melting snow, and at one point leaps over a melted river in the road, turning squid in midair so she can use her flaps for more distance. It's all worth it when she gets to Tentacle Topper and sees Marlin waiting at their usual booth.
Marlin waves at her. “Breathe,” they say, passing her a menu; she takes it and uses it to fan herself. “No jacket?”
Lucky shakes her head. “Not cold enough today.”
“It'll be cold enough by the time we leave,” Marlin says. “I live closer, you can stop by my place and borrow one if you'd like.”
Lucky shakes her head. “I'll be fine. It's only about ten minutes from here.” She's done that run several times before. “Where's Eight?”
“She texted me about five minutes ago,” Marlin says. “Her whole team got slimed by a bunch of grillers, and she refuses to come until after a shower.”
“That's the fifth time,” Lucky says, sliding so she's against the booth's wall. “They should really have proper locker rooms at Grizzco.”
Marlin shrugs. “Anyway, I'm gonna text her to bring your jacket—”
“Don't!”
“And to ask her if she wants something special, or if we should just order her a surprise.” Marlin taps away at their phone. “She may want something specific this time; Sharp's on vacation.”
Lucky takes the chance to study her own menu. Decisions are hard. There are so many good things on it...
Marlin sets down their phone with a sigh, just as their replacement waitress comes up to take their orders. “and Eight'll have the calamity basket,” Marlin finishes.
“I'll have a bowl of tomato soup and the mini-slider mini-meal,” Four says. “And a soda with juice cubes.”
“What flavor?” asks the waitress.
“Apple and raspberry.”
“You can only do one flavor at a time, squiddo,” the waitress drawls.
Cod, Lucky hates when Sharp isn't here.
“Can I get juice cubes on the side of my seltzer? I'll get apple,” Marlin says, and winks at Lucky.
The waitress grumps, but notes down everything and takes off. Marlin rolls their eyes and turns back to Lucky. “We still on for Wednesday afternoon?”
Lucky brightens at once. “I'm eating brunch with Lexi at ten, before she goes to work—she wants to know how I've been doing, since she actually comes to my matches sometimes but still doesn't understand clams—but I'm free after that.”
“Great,” Marlin says. “One o'clock? We can turf together and every time we're on other teams we can try and 1v1.”
Lucky grins. “Betcha I can win more than one in twelve times tomorrow.”
Marlin grins back, baring their beak dangerously. “You're on.”
“I here!” Eight collapses onto the bench next to Lucky, her coat half-undone, panting. “Sorry! Sorry, everything was just ??? busy and ??? ??? ??? when ???? but ????— oh. I, uh...”
Lucky laughs and grabs Eight's tentacle. “It's fine,” she promises.