Splatoon: A Dash Of Colour

Chapter 7: Ranked on Top

It was a sepia polaroid photo with two girls on it. One had long hair and was smiling and making a peace sign. The other was in the middle of tying her hair like how guys do it here.

   "Wow! Do you remember that, Marie? That's when we first started!" Callie moved closer to take a better look.
"Where'd you get it?" Marie looked in awe at her young self.
   "It was on the floor at HQ, decided to take it along with me here to ask you about it." Percy's voice trembled as every lie came out of his mouth.
   "Cool!" Callie sat back again. "Don't forget to give it back to Gramps, he's forgetful."
   "Mmhmm." Marie nodded.

We had a nice conversation about the Agency more in-depth and how it actually improves the skill of playing in matches.

   "We can show you two what we play like now, as experts." Marie offered.
"Yeah! Since we're in a World's team, it'll be like watching TV, but in your point of view." Callie noted, and began to get up.

Wow, I'm going to watch Callie and Marie play? What more of a day cou,d I ask for?

They left the room and told us to follow. They told the worker here that they were leaving to play ranked, and they took us through a secret path to the Community Tower.

   "Wow! I could imagine what walking in the plaza while being super famous would be like, I see that this patch would be helpful." I looked at every building we passed were the backs of the storage house and the café we were at earlier.
   "Totally, it makes it easier for us to get a game or two while we're not busy." Callie looked back and smiled at us.

Once we got inside a special area of the tower, they told us to split up with one of them.
   "I use the Hero Splat Charger and Callie uses the Hero roller. If any of you guys use those it'll be cool to watch high-level gameplay to show you what it's like." Marie held her hands to her hips.
   "How coincidental. I use a Hero Splat Charger too, and Psyche uses a Krak-on Roller." I could hear Percy try to hide his exitement.
   "Sweet! Come with me, Psyche!" Callie lead to a special change room, so did Marie.

My heart was throbbing against my ribcage. Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.
Her Hero Roller was already in the room, inside a special pink and black zip-up case, with sequins that matched her outfit. She didn't change into any special gear, since as she told me while pulling out her roller, "It's too much of a hassle to wear gear with its power ups for a scrim. Having none makes it wayyy easier for a skill-based game."

   "Stay here," She told me. "I'm going to get a headset that's set up between us."
I sat on the bench and watched her go into a room off to the side. It looked like an office space. When she returned, she was wearing a pink ink tank and was untangling two small and lightweight headsets with a microphone attached.

She handed me one. "Here, put this on! It'll wireless connect to the nerest headset and then it'll stay connected until you turn it off."

I did as told and put it on, then I ajusted the size. She flicked it on and as soon as you know it, they connected to each other.

   "Doing good?" Her voice boomed into my ears. She sounded like a plane captain.
"Yep!" I gave her the double thumbs up. She returned the sign.
   "Hop on in in the teleporter. Marie's probably waiting for us."

I hopped on and we immediately got wisked off to Arawana Mall for a game of Rainmaker. As a level 4, I've never played Rainmaker because it's a ranked game, but almost all the tournaments are ranked.

   "Oh! I hate his map! Marie keeps splatting me here!" Callie grumbled. I giggled at her frustration and she smiled back.

3..
2...
1...
GO!!!

Marie used momentum to swim forward and get over to the middle faster. She flung ink, swam in the droplets, rinse and repeat. I ran up the sides and watched from afar. From the angle I was at she was behind a palm tree. To gt a beer view I jumped down the side onto one of the sniping points of this map. My knees hurt when I landed, but it was nothing to cy about.

Marie was on the opposite side of me. Her ink was obviously green. She was aiming in the general direction of Callie, but since she was hiding on the ramp, it was hard to see her.

The Rainmaker bubble hasn't been splatted yet, so Callie threw a suction bom at it, recovered ink and repeated this action until it exploded.

   "Once I get the Rainmaker, I'll start glowing. Even if I'm in the ink, so I'll be an easy target for Marie unless I keep constantly moving, which is hard with such a heavy weapon." Callie's voice told me.

I watched as she swam up the ramp into mid without notice and begin to spread ink into Marie's Base while moving in unexpected directions. This was no match for Marie though, as she shot her mid-jump.

   "AAAAAAHK...!" Then silence. She was respawning.
"...That was not what was supposed to happen."

Marie was already off her perch and grabbing the Rainmaker. She shot a large, Inkzooka-like tornado towards Callie's base, while receiving recoil in the process. Then she swam into it and rested behind a ramp. I could see Percy in the background running after her.

   "I don't think she knows where I am. I could try going head-on or ambushing her in his moment. I'm going to ambush her, because she'll probably wreck me if I went straight for her."

Callie was up above Marie and then she jumped and swung her roller on top of Marie, causing an explosion of pink ink.

   "Quickly! I can get the Inkzooka and go across of Marie using secret trick."

A secret trick? I wonder what it was.

Callie swam up remaining fragments of her ink to save time. She shot a mini tornado at a small piece of wall, leading up to Marie 's "hallway." Marie was already back at her perch and was aiming at Callie, but she swam fast up the wall. Cool. I never knew you could swim up that space. What a time-saver!

Callie hid behind a wall and charged up a big tornado and shot it straight for Marie. It was close, but she managed to run on the grates as an escape.

   "Shoot! I need to get rid of her."

As a second attempt, she jumped towards her as she released the shot, making it closer and bigger than last time, since the tornadoes die down after being shot.

Splat! Percy was ducking from the ink explosion happening beside him.

   "Gotcha!" She began quickly shooting small tornadoes and swimming in them to get closer and closer into Marie 's base.   
   "Some chargers are so focused on what happens from afar, they don't notice the small things coming for them. Especially chargers who scopes, as it lowers their peripheral, looking through the scopes all day long."

She was only 10 meters away until Marie was at a good angle of shooting her.
Calling began to panic and charged up a shot to ink the pedastol, where you dunk the Rain maker to end a game.

9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
4...
SPLAT SPLAT!!

But it wasn't Marie who did it, as she only shot "Warning Shots." The ink was almost the same colour as Callie's pink, but it was a little more purple.

"What was that...?"