"Welcome to Flounder Heights!" Marie said through the loudspeaker.
"Today's match is a regular turf war! Ink the most turf to win!" Callie added.
Serena tensed up, she wondered who she'd be teamed up with, and who she'd be against. As the countdown started Serena and her teammates emerged from their ink, their team color was pink.
"3!" Callie counted.
"2." Marie continued with a bit less enthusiasm.
"1!" Callie was practically bouncing up and down now.
"Ready?" The Squid Sisters said in unison.
"Go!"
The pink team zoomed out of their spawn and disappeared in only seconds. Serena hesitated. She was unsure whether she should avoid her teammates for fear of bothering them, or whether she should stick with them to avoid getting splatted. She decided to ink the area around the spawn that her teammates ignored. They were in Flounder Heights, so she figured that most of the fighting would take place near the center as both teams pushed to get to cover the other team's turf. As she was inking the ground with her splattershot she heard a yelp from nearby. Serena ducked into her ink, squid eyes poking out and surveying the area. There was a new trail of light green ink that went past her hiding place. It was a large and perfect path, obviously made by a roller. Rollers needed to get close to someone to splat them, and with Hunter watching her back and sniping any attackers before they could get close, she'd never had to fight one. The coast seemed clear so she popped out of her ink and began covering the green back up. She should have known better than to turn her back on enemy ink, where an enemy inkling could be hiding. She didn't even see them coming, and when she turned all she saw was a flash of a carbon roller deco coming down. She teleported back to her spawn, still shocked. How could someone with such a large and heavy weapon avoid being spotted?
"Ha, did you get caught by the roller, too?" One of her teammates, a short inkling boy who had just respawned asked.
"Yeah! I got snuck up on, how'd they do that?" Serena asked, genuinely confused.
"The green team has that carbon roller user and an inkbrush user that are both wearing Zekko hoodies. They have an ability called ninja squid that keeps them from leaving ripples in their ink." The inkling explained.
"That's a bit unfair, don't you think?"
"Well, yeah, but there's no rules against it. We gotta go, we're running outta time!" The inkling vanished into the ink, leaving a ripple in his wake. For the rest of the match, Serena was splatted over and over by surprise attacks from the roller and inkbrush users that her teammate mentioned. At the end of the match her team lost, but she got a good look at her opponents. The inkbrush user was an older teen, he wore a Zekko hoodie, studio headphones, and red hi-tops. His team had changed back into their normal colors, but he was still light green, so Serena figured that was his natural ink color. He was leaning on his inkbrush casually, like it was a cane, while he spoke to his friend. His friend was a taller, purple inkling. She looked about his age and wore a Zekko hoodie, a jungle hat, and blue motto boots. She had her carbon roller deco over her shoulder with one hand on the handle. Her camouflaged hat was tipped back, almost falling off her head as she smiled and laughed with her companion. Serena recognized them from one of her previous matches. The two worked well together and almost always won, but they didn't really talk to the other inklings. Serena would have loved to talk to them, but she had to hurry home for dinner. She gave the pair one last glance and hurried down the street towards her home.