𝙃𝙊𝙈𝙀

𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜

Jenna turned around to look at her friend and crossed her arms.

"Lela, we just lost our only home. If we stay here any long we might end up dead. It's best we take the risk and get moving."

The atmosphere was tense, the two girls stared down each other.

"Lela, Jenna's right we can't stay here. It's no better staying here as well." Carlos said breaking the silence.

"It doesn't matter, if you go out there you'll get caught by them." Lela voice was filled with venom at the thought of inklings.

Jenna sighed giving up arguing with Lela, she always too stubborn to change her mind on things. Jenna quickly turned into her octopus form before going into the manhole.

Lela watched in disbelief, her shocked expression quickly turned into a angered one. The girl scowled before storming off the other direction leaving the others.

"Lela, where are you going!?" Lee called out.

"Lela, come back!"

The girl didn't respond, she just continued marching off.

"There's no point going after her, Jenna is waiting for us," Carlos spoke, walking over towards the manhole, "We should join her before she actually gets caught."

─────

Jenna was standing against the wall as Carlos and the others popped out from the manhole. She frowned when she noticed when she noticed someone was missing.

"Figured she wasn't coming." She muttered, pushing herself off the wall and gesturing the others to follow her, "Come on, let's get moving."

As they walked, the octolings couldn't help be amazed by their surroundings. Big buildings, and lights shining, the plaza was way different from where they came from.

"It's so huge!" Joy exclaimed with a big smile on her face but it quickly faded when Carlos told her to be quiet.

The walk was fairly quiet, only the crickets and their footsteps could be heard. In all honesty, Jenna didn't know where to go, all she knew that they should get out from the light so they had a lesser chance of getting caught. One thing she didn't want to do is proving Lela's point of getting caught.

The octoling girl smiled to herself when she noticed an alleyway.

'Perfect, an alleyway, maybe we can hide for a bit-'

"Woah."

An unfamiliar voice behind made the group come to an halt.  They all turned their heads to see an inkling.

An inkling boy, he wore a black hoodie and some gray shorts with some sandals, his tentacles were short and ruffled a bit, in his hands he held two plastic bags.

"You are octolings?" He asked, before smiling.

"Cool, never seen one before, the name's Apollo!"

...
...
...

Silence, the octolings just stared at him wide eyed.

Apollo scratched the nape of his neck, letting out an awkward laugh, "What? I'm not gonna do anything to ya'll."

He glanced around his surroundings to see if anyone was there watching them. Even if they were in a alleyway, someone could still see the octolings because of some features that make them stand out more.

"I do have to ask, what are you guys doing here? Roaming around the streets of Inkopolis Plaza where you could clearly get caught." Apollo said.

...
...
...

Again, awkward silence. Eyes still wide open filled with fear.

That's when came to a realization.

'They don't understand me.'

Honestly he should've noticed when they kept staring at him when he first spoke.

Apollo clearly couldn't just walk away, especially since it's dangerous for them to be out here in the  first place. He has an idea but it was a stupid idea, he was going to let them rest at his home.

The young boy gestured the octolings to follow him, which they were hesitant to do.

"Should we really be trusting him?" Lee whispered, unsure to follow.

"I don't think so but if he's taking us to shelter we should go, it's not safe out here." Carlos said, following after Apollo.

"..I guess that's a yes.." Lee muttered, following after.

Apollo noticed the group joining him and smiled.

'Hopefully, Cosmo doesn't mind some visitors.'