An Inkling Of Friendship

by Green Akers

The Most Unpopular Team I've Ever Seen

Danielle's valiant actions led off every six o'clock newscast in Inkopolis that night, and within thirty minutes her team was reunited in a posh suite on the top floor of the Inkopolis Grand Hotel, which the High Council had reserved for their Equestrian guests.

The city's newest hero spent the next hour on the phone dealing with the aftermath of her newfound notoriety. "For crying out loud, Dad, listen to me!" Danielle demanded, holding her head in her hands as she paced around the suite. "Do not tell the media stories about how I was a bed-wetter until I was eight, do not let Mom distribute naked baby pictures, and do not, not, NOT let my little sister give quotes to the press! I'm under enough stress as it is—I do not want to wake up tomorrow to the headline 'Danielle Smells Like Poo!' ...No, Dad, I understand nobody's been this interested in your stories since Aunt Lilly visited, but please..."

Brianna sighed. "Let me talk to him, D," she offered, snatching the phone out of Danielle's hand. "Hey Mr. S! Say, you know what really gets reporters excited? Money! Oh man, they can't get enough of stories about money. Remember what you were telling me about those APIs you were working with last month? ...Right, yeah, APRs, whatever. I'll bet those guys would love to hear stuff like that. Seriously, you've got, like, the most interesting job in the world, Mr. S. Now go impress the press! ...You're welcome. Bye!"

Brianna hung up and handed the phone back to Danielle. "You can thank me later," she said. "Twenty minutes of your dad droning on about boring accounting stuff, and those bloodsuckers'll go back to camping out around my house again."

Danielle sighed. "I still don't know how you put up with it."

Suddenly, the Inklings heard a knock on the suite's front door. "Good grief, don't tell me she's back again," Danielle groused.

Sure enough, when Danielle opened the door, she was greeted by a smiling member of the hotel staff. "Hello again!" the Inkling squealed cheerfully. "I just wanted to see if our guests were comfortable, and ask if they needed anything to eat or drink or—"

"You literally asked us this question five minutes ago," Danielle grumbled.

"And ten minutes ago, and fifteen minutes ago, and twenty minutes ago..." Brianna added.

Danielle sighed. "As I said before, Princess Shine is resting comfortably right now, and does not wish to be disturbed. We'll let you know if we need anything."

"Okey dokey!" the hotel staffer agreed. "I'll check back with you in a bit to—" Danielle slammed the door shut before the staffer could finish.

"Seriously, where do they find these people?" Brianna wondered aloud. "Being that perky all the time just isn't natural."

"I wouldn't know," Danielle replied.

Suddenly, a loud crash made both Inklings leap into the air, and they rushed into the bedroom to find one of the beds sagged and broken, with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie standing on the mattress. "What did I tell you two about jumping on the bed?" Twilight told her friends. "We're already going to be asking these Inklings to make peace with their mortal enemies; we don't want to cause any more trouble than we have to!"

"I couldn't help it!" Pinkie insisted. "It was just so bouncy!"

"Yeah!" Rainbow seconded. "Besides, we're huge celebrities here. We're not just allowed to trash our hotel room, we're practically obligated to do it."

"Don't worry about it," Brianna assured Twilight. "For the amount they're probably charging the city for this room, they can replace this thing ten times over. We'll just make Tommy and Craig share it tonight."

"Ugh..." Twilight smacked her forehead with her hand. "Danielle, please tell me we're supposed to be somewhere soon."

"Well..." Danielle fished a piece of paper out of her pocket. "We'll need to be at Inkopolis Plaza in another hour to kick off the Splatfest, but the car taking us there won't be here for another half-hour or so. You'll probably end up watching ink battles for most of the night—the city never sleeps when there's a Splatfest. Now, for tomorrow—"

A sudden loud knock at the suite door made Danielle flinch. "Oh, for the love of swordfish..." she muttered. "Tommy, could you get that? I don't think I can take dealing with Miss Smiley one more time."

"Sure thing!" Tommy jumped up from his chair and headed for the door.

"Now then," Danielle continued, "the High Council has scheduled a private lunch with all of you at noon tomorrow, followed by a meeting to discuss establishing diplomatic relations between your colony of Inklings and ours. After that, they'd like to take you on a tour of the—"

"OH, HI, CLARK!" Tommy suddenly shouted from the kitchen in a loud, meerkat-warning-the-herd tone. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"Clark!?" Danielle's face turned bright red. "Oh crab!" She immediately transformed into her squid form and dove behind the bed. "If anyone asks, I'm not here, got it?" she whispered. "Not here!"

"Oh dear!" Fluttershy jumped behind the bed without bothering to switch forms. "What is a Clark? Is it scary?"

"More like extremely annoying." Brianna grabbed her gun from the table and headed for the front door. "I'll handle this. Just follow my lead."

The Equestrians followed Brianna to the suite entrance, where Tommy was trying to block a tall, well-dressed Inkling carrying a handful of heart-shaped balloons and a large box of chocolates from entering the kitchen. "Oh my," Rarity whispered as she laid eyes on the mystery Inkling, whose muscles rippled underneath his slightly-too-tight clothing. "This fellow is certainly more... defined than other Inklings."

"Hmph." Spike frowned and folded his arms. "I don't like this guy already."

The muscular Inkling's eyes lit up upon seeing Brianna. "Why hello, Brianna!" he said with a smile, casually shoving Tommy out of the way as he stepped into the room. "Tell me, is Danielle around? I brought her a few things to welcome her back to Inkopolis."

Sorry Clarkie, you just missed her," Brianna replied. "She had to step out and get another one of those weird drinks for our guests. Why don't you go down to the Shake Shack and see if you can catch her?"

"Aw, that's too bad." Clark turned his attention to the Equestrians. "And these must be the foreign dignitaries I've heard so much about!" He bowed in Twilight's direction. "On behalf of the people of Inkopolis, let me say—"

"They can't understand you, dummy," Brianna interrupted. "You should probably go—after all, you wouldn't want to accidentally offend our guests, would you?"

"Oh, there's no chance of that. The language of chivalry is universal!" Clark took Twilight's hand and kissed it, drawing a confused look from the princess. "Besides," he pointed out, "if you haven't offended them yet, I think the rest of us are safe."

"Hardy har har," Brianna said. "I have to say, you're looking well these days, way better than the last time we talked." She leaned around Clark and looked down at his rear for a second. "I can barely make out the imprint of my foot in your butt anymore."

Clark's smile never wavered. "Say, there was something I wanted to show you," he recalled, pulling out his phone. "There have been some recent changes in the ink battler rankings that I thought you would be interested in."

"Is that so?" Brianna squinted at the screen of Clark's phone as he held it out towards her. "I didn't think it was possible for you to drop any farther, but... Wait, what?" Brianna's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "You're number one!?"

"That's right!" Clark beamed. "At long last, I, Clark Hornpout, am officially the best ink battler in all of Inkopolis!"

"But... But you suck!" Brianna insisted. "How is this possible? You were nowhere near No. 1 when we left! You weren't even in the top forty!"

"I was No. 38, actually," Clark corrected Brianna. "But through a combination of strategy, hard work, and determination, I have finally claimed the top spot on the ink battle rankings, just like I said I would! Incidentally, the squid I replaced—you guys might have heard of her—fell all the way to..." He scrolled down a little on his phone. "Wow, eighteen! That's down one spot since lunch, actually."

"I'm down to eighteen!?" Brianna's jaw fell on the floor. "How... Why... This doesn't make any sense!"

Clark's grin grew even bigger. "There, there," he offered. "I know it's hard to lose something you've held for so long, but nothing lasts—"

"Actually, it makes perfect sense," Tommy interrupted. "We've been gone for several weeks, which is an eternity in terms of the ink battle rankings. It's only natural for an inactive battler to get passed by more active ones. In truth, the fact that Brianna is still inside the top twenty after being out at sea for so long is pretty impressive."

Brianna's face brightened. "Four-Eyes makes a good point," she agreed. She scrolled down a little more on Clark's phone. "Jeez, everybody's taken a dive, huh? Carson dropped to 22, Hawke sunk to 25, Spider's down to 27, Emily's fallen to 30, and... Wow, Violet's not even in the top 35! I guess I'm not the only one in a sea-induced slump these days." She shot Clark a smug smile. "I hope you've enjoyed your little stint on top, Clarkie, 'cause the real squids are back in town now. By the end of this Splatfest, I'll be back on top of the heap, and you'll be back down where you belong."

Clark shot a stink-eye at Tommy before turning back to Brianna. "That's awfully tough talk for a salty squid like you," he retorted. "While you've been getting rusty and seasick, I've been honing my skills on the field. I'm even stronger, faster, and smarter than before."

"Which brings up another interesting point," Tommy said. "Given that the army was desperate enough to let me in on Operation Expansion, I assumed that all the top JIBs were already out on the ocean, but apparently I was wrong." He folded his arms and gave Clark a stern look. "So... Exactly what was a top-forty player like you doing 'honing your skills' in the comfort of your own city while I was risking my tentacles out at sea and taking your place as Brianna's whipping boy?"

Brianna put her hand on Clark's shoulder. "You don't have to answer that, Clarkie," she said in a mock-consoling tone. "I mean, having Daddy on the High Council has got to be good for something, right?"

Clark shook off Brianna's hand and glared at the Inklings who were tag-teaming against him. "I will not respond to such libel in front of the princess," he declared, nodding in Twilight's direction. "If you think you're squid enough to take your ranking back, than—"

"Read my lips, pal." Brianna jabbed her finger into Clark's chest. "I'm squid enough to take three scrubs out of the C ranks and beat the snot out of you and any kid that's dumb enough to join your team."

"Oh really?" Clark smirked at Brianna's boast. "Well then, perhaps I can arrange for you to put your money where your mouth is. In fact, I think you've got half of your team right here! I certainly couldn't think of two staler scrubs than Hippie McSpaceCadet and the inferior Pike twin."

"Inferior?" Tommy grimaced. "Look, I know I'm not the best battler in the world, but—"

"Now there's the understatement of the century," Brianna muttered. "All right Clark, if this is the team you want, it's the team you'll get. I'd still take me, D, Tweedledee, and Tweedledum over any squad you could assemble."

"What? No!" Clark objected. "I couldn't bear to fight against dear, sweet Danielle! The very thought of having to splat her... Why, it kills me inside!"

"How appropriate," Brianna quipped. "Killing you is exactly what she'd like to do."

"Hmph," Clark sniffed. "Spoken like a lonely squid whose heart has never been touched by true love." He shook his head. "No, I will not stand for it! Danielle must not be a part of our petty dispute."

"Fine," Brianna agreed. "I guess somebody's got to stay with Princess Shine and explain the rules of Turf War anyway."

"Good." Clark reached past Brianna and offered his balloons and chocolate to the Equestrians. "Please, accept these as a token of—"

"Ooh!" Pinkie immediately snatched the gifts from Clark's hands. "Now which do I taste-test first?" She looked back and forth between the items a few times, and then tossed the chocolates away and started sucking the helium out of the balloons. "Oh wow, this is high-quality stuff!" she proclaimed in a voice two octaves higher than normal, as her head swelled up and she began to float slowly upwards. "You really know your balloons, Clarkie!"

Clark stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at Pinkie for a few seconds. "You get used to it," Brianna said as she began pushing Clark towards the door. "Now then, I think you were just leaving..."

"Uh... Right. After all, I need to put together a squad to take on yours." Clark bowed one last time to Twilight, and then turned to leave. "Tell Danielle I'll call her later!"

"Maybe!" Brianna followed Clark into the hallway. "Hey, have you ever looked up the definition of insanity?" she called after him. "You should probably see a doctor about that! I mean, you'd think after thirty-five losses in a row—"

"It's only thirty-one!!" Clark shouted angrily back.

Brianna chuckled as she re-entered the hotel room. "He's right," she revealed to the others. "I just wanted to see if he was still keeping track."

"That was a rather, er, indelicate conversation," Rarity remarked. "I take it you have a bit of a history with him?"

"Actually, it sounded to me like it was Danielle who had the history," Applejack said as Danielle nervously poked her head in from the bedroom. "What's up with you and that Clark feller?"

"N-N-Nothing! Nothing at all!" Danielle insisted. "He... I don't know, he just decided a few months ago that I was his forever soulmate or something. He's forever giving me gifts, and writing me notes, and—"

"And performing embarrassing public displays of affection." Tommy added. "That singing telegram act he pulled a while back makes me cringe even now."

"Ah yes..." Rarity shook her head. "Matters of the heart can make even the most refined ponies behave strangely, even when their feelings go unrequited."

"Clark isn't stoic or refined," Brianna declared. "He's a spoiled, pompous brat who thinks he's the Squid Spirits' gift to the world, and that said world should bend over backwards to give him whatever he wants. In fact, do you really want to know how bad he is?" Brianna turned to Craig. "Hey Craig, what do you think of Clark?"

Craig shuddered. "He give off some bad vibes, dude."

"See? That's the most disturbed I've ever seen Craig get." Brianna clenched her fists. "Well, I'm about to make Clarkie an offer he can't refuse: a big old piece of humble pie in exchange for my number one ranking." She pulled out her phone and began scrolling through her list of contacts. "Of course, this means I've got twenty minutes to find a fourth for our epic battle. Let's see... Who should I call first..."

"Hey, what about me? I'll play!" Rainbow volunteered.

"You?" Brianna gave Rainbow a skeptical look. "I think you'd better stay on the sidelines. I mean, have you ever even used a—"

Rainbow dashed in and swiped Brianna's hat off of her head. "Hey!" Brianna shouted, taking a swipe at Rainbow but hitting nothing but air.

"If it's anything like last time," Rainbow recalled as she put on the hat, "I think I can handle myself."

"Give me that!" Brianna snatched her hat back. "It's not that easy, Rainbow," she insisted. "Without your wings, you can't just fly away from enemies, and even if you could, there are plenty of other ways to shoot you down: Killer Wails, Inkzookas... You're going to have to defend yourself, and you barely know how to use your fingers, let alone an actual weapon."

Aw, how hard can it be?" Rainbow replied. "You just squeeze that little thing by your hand, and aim for the bad guys."

"Wrong," Brianna said. "The goal of a Turf War is to cover the ground with your ink, not take out the other team."

"Well, that makes it even easier!" Rainbow declared. "I mean, how hard is it to hit the freaking ground? You don't even need to aim!"

"Come on, Brianna, give her a chance!" Pinkie said. "I bet Dashie would be awesome!"

"You did say that you could win with anypony—er, anyone," Applejack pointed out.

Brianna sighed. "Me and my big mouth." She extended a hand to Rainbow. "All right, Rainbow, you're officially on Team Brianna for the night. You'd better be as good as you think you are."

Rainbow grinned. "I'll be better." She tried to give Brianna a fist-bump, but only succeeding in smashing the fingers of the handshake-expecting Inkling.

"Ow!" Brianna yanked her hand back and looked as her sore fingers. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

---

Eventually, a long black limousine arrived for the Equestrians, and the entire crew piled into the car and set off on their journey towards Inkopolis Plaza. As the limo snaked through the city streets, the ponies marveled at the scene before them, as the streets were filled with Inklings wearing seven distinctly-colored T-shirts (Team Spike had been assigned a snot-green color to avoid confusion with Team Twilight) who waved and cheered as the car went past. "Wow!" Pinkie shouted, hanging her head out of the window to view the cornucopia of fireworks going off in the city sky. "These Ink-thingys really know how to party!"

The all-too-brief ride ended at the plaza itself, which appeared to have been turned into the world's largest disco. The area had been blocked off from regular traffic, and was now filled with cheering Inklings that were unleashing wacky dance moves with varying degrees of awkwardness. In the center of the plaza were two female Inklings wearing glittery outfits while singing and dancing on top of two large trucks. "Those are the Squid Sisters," Craig explained to the Equestrians. "Callie's the one wearing pink, and Marie's the one in green. There's the biggest pop stars in town, and for good reason. Those two have some serious soul, bro."

"Those two sing and dance nonstop through every freaking Splatfest," Brianna marveled. "They must have one heck of a personal trainer."

The limo pulled up alongside the plaza train station, and a roar went up from the crowd as the car doors opened. A group of Inklings wearing dark suits and sunglasses quickly emerged from the crowd and began clearing a path for the Equestrians. "Bring the princess and her friends over to Callie," one of the suit-wearers told Danielle as she exited the limo. "The High Council would like them to officially open the Splatfest."

"In a minute!" Brianna called from behind Danielle. "First, we've got an important decision to make." She grabbed Rainbow's arm and started dragging her through the crowd to a small booth behind the trucks, where a group of Inklings were handing out T-shirts.

"Yo, champ in making!" one of the booth workers called to Brianna. "Good to have you back, Bree. What team are you going with tonight?"

Rainbow Dash's eyes lit up at the sight of her picture on the light-blue shirts. "Team Dash? Heck yeah! That's the one we want right there!"

"Cool your jets," Brianna advised. "You've got to be strategic about selecting a Splatfest team." She leaned in close to the booth worker. "Level with me, Mac: What's the stalest team right now? You know, the one scaring all the scrubs away?"

"Say no more, Bree." The Inkling reached behind the counter and pulled out a large stack of orange T-shirts. "This might be the most unpopular team I've ever seen. I can't even give these things away."

"Great. We'll take them." Brianna grabbed four of the orange shirts and handed one to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow's face fell as she looked at the image on the shirt. "Team Applejack? Oh, come on! I don't want to be on Team Applejack!"

"You do if you want 24 Sea Snails," Brianna replied. "Smaller teams mean fewer wall-inking newbies for cannon fodder. Now come on, let's get this party started."

Brianna dragged Rainbow Dash back over to the others, who were being helped up onto the top of one of the trucks. "All right, Inkopolis!" Callie shouted from the truck. "Are you ready to fling some ink?" She put a hand to her ear as the crowd roared. "I can't her you!" she teased, drawing an even bigger roar in response. "I said, I can't hear—"

"For crying out loud, Callie, clean your ears out and start the Splatfest already!" Marie called from the opposite truck. "This crowd's ready to explode!"

"Ask, and you shall receive!" Callie gestured towards the Equestrians. "And now, to give the official command for tonight's festivities... Give it up for Princess Dusk Shine of Equestria!"

Twilight stood still for a few moments, than gently elbowed Danielle. "Quick, tell me what she said," Twilight instructed. "We've got to keep up appearances, after all."

"Oh, right," Danielle agreed. "Um, they want you to say a few words to open the Splatfest, if you would."

Twilight nodded and stepped forward to face the cheering crowd. "Thank you for this wonderful welcome!" she shouted. "Now then... Let the games begin!"

The crowd roared one final time, and began pushing past the trucks towards the tall tower that sat adjacent to the plaza. "But wait, there's more!" Callie called out, stopping the Inkling mob in its tracks. "We've got a doozy of an opening battle for you tonight! Tell us more, Marie!"

"Well," Marie explained, "it seems that a certain former number one ink battler has called out our current champion, and challenged them to a no-holds-barred grudge match!"

"Ooh! I love grunge matches!" Callie declared. "Nothing's fresher than a grunge look done right!"

"That's grudge match, Callie," Marie corrected her partner. "It'll be a knockdown, drag-out heavyweight clash, and if you want to see it, you've got ten minutes to get your squiddy behinds over to the pit! So what are you waiting for?"

Brianna shook her head as the crowd changed direction and started heading west out of the plaza. "Clarkie, Clarkie, Clarkie... You're just dying to get humiliated in front of a huge audience, aren't you? And what was he thinking, choosing Piranha Pit as a battle site? It's got way too much room for an Aerospray user like me to go crazy in. He'd have been better off booking the match somewhere small, like Port Mackerel or Walleye Warehouse."

Rainbow, for her part, was starting to get nervous about the size of the crowd. "Gosh... That's a lot of ponies—I mean, Inklings out there," she offered tepidly.

"Don't you chicken out on me now, Rainbow," Brianna said. "Besides, I've got a foolproof plan that'll really mess with Clark's head." She motioned for Rainbow, Tommy, and Craig to huddle around her. "All right," she declared, "here's what we're going to do..."

Comments

[Razalon The Lizardman]

"OH, HI, CLARK!" Tommy suddenly shouted

[ikarosfan]

Nice. What would that splatfest even be?

[Watercolor the Pegasus]

This made it to the front page. Congrats

[Dilos1]

Carson dropped to 22, Hawke sunk to 25, Spider's down to 27, Emily's fallen to 30, and... Wow, Violet's not even in the top 35!

I think I recognize a few of these names.

[KiyoHosokoawa00]

Why do I have a bad feeling about Bri's plan...?

[Scarce]

[Dilos1]

badbooksgoodtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/cookie-monster-bored.gif

[Green Akers]

7870295 Yeah, it's true...I started a music/gaming blog a few months ago, and that's been eating up all my writing time.

I have an idea for Brianna's sneaky plan, but I haven't put it on paper yet. I'm hoping to get back to this eventually, but it's on hiatus for now.

[Dilos1]

7870310 That's alright, take your time. I'd rather you do that and give us a good chapter as opposed to something shoddy.
PS, are you looking forward to Splatoon 2 as much as I am?

[German Kaiserreich]

This is interesting I like the world you've made here i hope you'll continue soon.

[Twilight Connor]

7533739 I only recognise Spider.

[Time Reaper]

There's an Splatoon group here

[Jigoku Luna]

I'm interested in seeing where this goes. I want to see how Twilight interact with the city once Splatfest is over. Also I'm surprised no one is questioning why Dan and her team know what they saying.

8318186
Thanks

[Time Reaper]

8318901

You welcome.

[ShadowLight96]

7870310
Will you be continuing this at some point? This is one of the only splatoon fics with more then a few chapters in it and i enoy how your building the world.

[Green Akers]

8384065 I'll never say never, but it doesn't look good right now. I've tried sitting down and working on this a few times recently, but I never seem to make any progress.

[ShadowLight96]

8401471
Would you like someone to bounce ideas off of? I play splatoon 2 really often. And have seen the original as well.

[Magnethooves]

Mind if i make this a base to my splatoon 2 crossover Green Akers

[Green Akers]

8412312
Sure, I'm cool with that. Go crazy with it!

[Blue Charm]

Brianna's face brightened. "Four-Eyes makes a good point," she agreed. She scrolled down a little more on Clark's phone. "Jeez, everybody's taken a dive, huh? Carson dropped to 22, Hawke sunk to 25, Spider's down to 27, Emily's fallen to 30, and... Wow, Violet's not even in the top 35! I guess I'm not the only one in a sea-induced slump these days." She shot Clark a smug smile. "I hope you've enjoyed your little stint on top, Clarkie, 'cause the real squids are back in town now. By the end of this Splatfest, I'll be back on top of the heap, and you'll be back down where you belong."

some of these names are splatoon ytbers like alex spider, and violet inkling

[Twilight Connor]

Woomys and neighs, probably. Maybe a nyges, but let's be honest, almost everyone prefers the female inklings.

[MaLechugaon]

Unfortunate that so many great stories get cancelled. I read this whole story in a day and now i’m Just sad that there won’t ever be any more.

[TrueEnder]

kinda sad that this has been cancelled, just binged it and this is quality. ah well, plenty more squids in the ink.