Transparency

Chapter-Twenty Five, Part Two

What the hell do they want from me?!

Mesonii's next emotion to come after her fourth splatting was that of fear more than anything. Was she to be splatted in the next minute? Next ten seconds? Were they just going to let her wait in this prolonged agony?

Nobody else was getting splatted. Not even Peppie, whose performances weren't the greatest.

She decided she couldn't think on it anymore, and the only way to know was to bring out that pragmatic attitude for once. Get into the field, figure out the fiasco, get out of there, kick the Cetatceas off TV, get Sankra back from wherever she left to, forget about the past, and move on. If only things were as simple as that.

While swimming to the wall once more, she realized there was no sight of her team, or of the enemy. She couldn't hold any real trust, though, for what anyone could be doing- everyone had completely left her behind for now. Her squid form came to a halt, and she rose out of the ink.

She tossed the decisions of staying and leaving. Both had benefits, but both also held risks.

Why was she standing? Mesonii fell to her rear end and leaned against the wall. Nobody was going to come and attack her for the moment, so maybe for once there would be some relaxation and a chance to think on things.

The resort's lights glimmered, the three tall skyscrapers of hotel rooms looking intimidating. A couple of lasers flashed. She passed it off as a rave happening somewhere else and continued eying around.

Once again, the lasers flashed, going left and right, until Mesonii noticed it was reflecting off her glasses. She looked up and saw the familiar sights of the E-Liter 3K and the N-ZAP '85 in her face.

"Excuse me," Aqua Helmet boasted as she reached behind her, into a knapsack tucked behind the ink tank on her back, "have you just chosen to give up?"

It didn't seem like either of them were going to splat her anytime soon. "If you want an honest answer, yes. I don't know what else to do."

The turquoise-hatted sniper looked to her partner and whispered something unintelligible, before turning back to Mesonii. "Well, you know, we aren't going to give up. Not to be anything like you."

"What do you mean, 'just like me'?"

Aqua Helmet seemed as if she was going to mutter something out, but Green Helmet quickly silenced her and took his turn to talk. "Listen, Misses. T-there's a reason why you're here, and it's our job to put you in your place."

Mesonii nodded, as if she beckoned him to continue. At least he had some empathy.

"You're a good kid, I bet, on the inside. It's just- it's just that life hasn't been working out for what you've been doing to other people. They've been hurt and negatively affected by your actions."

"Like what?"

"Well..." He coughed before he resumed speaking. "In--- Delpha has been especially upset. This is why this battle is happening, to tell you you've been making things bad for -ahem- some of us."

Mesonii couldn't believe it. Delpha wanted to settle her troubles over a battle? A little overdone, but it was a battle. She noticed the tiny sounds of anger Aqua Helmet was murmuring under her breath. It was time to continue this Turf War.

"So that's that? Well, why don't you just keep splatting me?"

Aqua Helmet finally muttered something legible as she grasped onto the object she had pulled from behind and placed it onto her weapon. "That's what I've been trying to say all this time, smart twit."

Even Green Helmet seemed to be shocked by the sudden remark.

"Yeah, you've done a lot of bad things. But the most detestable thing of all? Thinking you can belittle MY DAUGHTER the way you are," Aqua Helmet said as she reached for the top of the hard hat, beginning to pull it off.

It immediately became clear to Mesonii; the voice, the remark of 'daughter', Green's slip.

Inia Cetacea, in all her renaissance grace, held up the E-Liter 3K, with a newly conjured bayonet at the muzzle of the charger. "Delpha can't do anything wrong. She's a perfect child, isn't she, Odonto?"

Odonto, still not taking off his pear-colored helmet, looked at his wife, then muttered something while glowering Mesonii's eyes. "I am so sorry, Misses."

"Sorry!? Don't tell her you're sorry! You know we can't have our perfect world screwed up like this again."

Mesonii, beginning to lose her composure, scrutinized the sharp bayonet as it turned towards her chest, not ready to splat, but to kill. Delpha really was intending to hurt her.

Inia grimaced and gritted her teeth. "Once again, we can't have people like you tainting this planet any longer. You're nothing special, just because you changed your whole self-identity for the sake of not being like that 'father' of yours. At your age, you don't have any sort of sense in that head of yours. All you are is a COWARD.

"And frankly, we can't have cowards living here anymore." She readied the bayonet by thrusting it back. Odonto was whispering something along the lines of the word "no" as quickly as he could.

Mesonii closed her eyes in the sense of not knowing what else to do.

Guess there was no changing anything else for the better; her last words to anyone would be the idiotic remarks to her friends she never thought about.

She awaited the knife to stick inside her chest like a scoop through ice cream.

"STOP!"

The bayonet came only so far as to rip a small hole in her Splatfest shirt, and she frowned. Things were not over yet.

The three of them looked to the wall, to a tiny figure standing at the top, holding his Splattershot unthreateningly. All it took was that primitive gesture to let Mesonii crack a small smile.

Peppie.