//------------------------------//
// Land Ho! 
// Story: An Inkling Of Friendship 
// by Green Akers 
//------------------------------//

Dear Mom and Dad,

I hope this letter makes it back home to you, because it's looking more and more like I won't. It's been four days since the engine broke down and we lost power, and not only are we no closer to fixing it now than we were before, but I think Craig used half the pieces to plug a leak that popped up yesterday.

Food, morale, and sanity are all in short supply. Last night, Tommy led us on a wild squid chase for three hours because he started hallucinating and swore he could see land off in the distance. Either his eyesight is way worse than he's letting on, or his brains are baked from standing in the sun keeping lookout all day.

Of course, Brianna is handling all this about as well as you'd expect. She speaks mostly in curse words now, and she tried to break an oar over Tommy's head after last night's episode. She's also started keeping a list of all the people she's going to splat for getting us into this mess. It's mostly higher-ups and Council members, but Craig and Tommy are the first two names she added, so I'm keeping a close eye on her.

Anyway, I hope this letter finds you all well. If I never make it back home, my final wish is that my room remain untouched, so that it will serve as a memorial to my far-too-short existence. If you turn it into a storage room or let my little sister have it, I WILL know, and I WILL come back and haunt you.

Love,

Danielle



Danielle sighed as she finished her letter and stuffed it into a glass bottle. If only it were this easy to send ME home, she thought to herself.

As she stood up from the table, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror mounted on the wall. It wasn't a pretty sight: The Inkling looking back at her was tired and dirty, and sported bloodshot eyes, yellow teeth, and a badly-wrinkled pink polo shirt. A rumbling in her stomach reminded her that it had also been four hours since breakfast, and given that Brianna had accidentally dropped the group's fishing pole into the sea two days ago, it would be a long while before she ate again.

Danielle shook her head and walked over to the door, her shoes making watery squishing noises with every step. She hurried down the ship's narrow hallway, plugging her ears to block out Brianna's ranting from the kitchen and Craig's Uptown Ink CD blasting from the engine room, and quickly climbed up a ladder to the ship's main deck.

Tommy, a scrawny male Inkling wearing coke-bottle glasses and a heavy yellow sweatshirt, was leaning against the railing at the front of the ship trying to use his sniper rifle as a telescope, but Danielle ignored him and walked to the back of the ship instead. She took one last look on the bottled note, and then reared back and flung it as far as she could into the sea. She sighed as she watched the bottle disappear out of sight, and imagined that it was her stuck inside instead of the letter, floating back to Inkopolis and home. 

"Land ho!" The sound of Tommy's shout barely registered in Danielle's mind, and she calmly walked back to the front of the boat. "Check it out, Danielle! A huge beach, dead ahead!" he shouted.

"Tommy, we've talked about this," Danielle replied calmly. "You can't just go screaming about seeing something and getting everyone excited about—"

"No, really! See for yourself!" Tommy took his rifle and tried to hold it out so Danielle could see through the scope, but only succeeded in hitting her in the nose with the butt of the gun.

"Ow!" Danielle glared at Tommy, pulled the gun from his hands, and peered through the scope. Her eyes widened at the sight of an empty shoreline off in the distance. "You're... You're right! We did it! We've found something!" she screamed, throwing her arms—and Tommy's gun—into the air in celebration.

"Yikes!" Tommy ducked as his gun flew over his head, and he watched in horror as it landed in the water with a splash. "Um... That's okay! I'll, uh, just get the net before it sinks..."

Danielle ran back to the hatch and stuck her head down into the opening. "Brianna! Craig! Come look! We've found land! We've finally found land!"

"WHAT?!" The yell was followed by the sound of someone rushing down the hall, and Brianna, a dark-skinned Inkling wearing a green hooded sweatshirt and matching backwards ball cap, popped out of the hatch. "You better not be messing with me, D," she said. "I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I've had to listen to Craig's bizarre playlist for the past four hours. If this is another false alarm—"

"You're always cranky, Bree," Danielle said with a giggle. "But unless I'm seeing things now, we might survive this trip yet. Take a look!"

Brianna hurried over to where Tommy was fishing his gun out of the ocean, grabbed the rifle out of the net, and aimed the scope eastward. "You're right! It is land! Beautiful, beautiful land!"

Brianna dropped the gun, which promptly fell back over the side of the boat, and she and Danielle grabbed hands and began dancing in a circle. "We're saved!" We're saved!" they sang.

"What's all the buzz about?" Danielle and Brianna turned to see Craig, who was wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt and a set of headphones around his neck, poke his head out of the hatch. "Looks like a good time up here."

"Uh, yeah!" Brianna replied. "We finally found a place to land and get off this stupid boat!"

"Righteous, dudes. I knew we'd make it." Craig gave Brianna a thumbs up. "I guess that means I should stop working on the engine and start working on the radio." With that, Craig disappeared back below deck.

Brianna gave Danielle a perplexed look. "One of these days, we're going to have to check him for a pulse."

"We’ll think about that later!" Danielle grabbed a pair of oars off of the deck and handed one to Brianna. "Right now, we’ve got a boat to beach!"



Danielle and Brianna spent the next forty-five minutes rowing harder than they had ever rowed in their lives. The boat flew across the water as if it had a jet engine, and struck the shoreline so hard that it flipped both Tommy and his gun over the railing and onto the sand.

"Booyah!" Brianna leaped onto the beach, fell to her knees, and started kissing the sand. "Beautiful, magnificent terra firma!" she said in between smooches. "I’ll never leave you again!"

Danielle walked over to the ship’s railing and looked up and down the deserted beach. "You know," she remarked, "if we ever find our way back home, we might be on to something here. Tommy, do you see anything?"

Tommy brought his scope to his face and scanned the treeline. "It looks clear to me," he said. "The trees are mostly deciduous, which indicates that the soil here is very rich, and the rocks appear to—"

Brianna rolled her eyes as Tommy droned on about the geological composition of the rocks. "Can you imagine if we found a big old deserted island?" she asked Danielle. "Ol’ Sarge would be so impressed, he’d stop yelling at us for at least a few minutes."

"That’s Sergeant Sardine to you, plankton!" The three Inklings jumped in shock at the sound of an angry voice behind them, and they all turned to find Craig balancing a small portable radio in his arms while turning a hand-crank generator to power it. "Who let you use the radio anyway?" the angry voice from the radio demanded. "Where’s your splatoon leader?"

"Oh, uh, right here, sir!" Danielle replied. "Splatoon leader Danielle reporting!"

"Is it true what I heard?" the sergeant asked. "Have you found an uninhabited island?"

"Well, sir, we’re not sure yet," Danielle explained. "We just got here."

"Then find out at once!" the sergeant shouted. "I want every inch of this new land scoured, double-time! If there’s anyone else out there, I want to know!"

"Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, sir," Danielle said. "Our rations are low, our boat’s engine is dead, and—"

"And we’re tired of taking orders!" Brianna interrupted.

"That’s enough out of you, plankton!" the sergeant growled. "Are you threatening to disobey a direct order from a superior?"

"You’re darn right we—Mmph!" Brianna started to tell the sergeant off, but Tommy cut her off by covering her mouth.

Danielle sighed. "No, sir. If you want the island scoured, we’ll start scouring."

"That’s better. Now get going, on the double!" With that, the radio went silent.

Brianna pulled out of Tommy’s grip and blew a raspberry at the radio. "Dried up old shark," she muttered.

Danielle shook her head. "Craig, you’d better bag up the rest of the food—we’re going on a road trip. So Bree, which direction do you want to go first?"

Brianna pointed towards the trees. "I want to be as far away from the ocean as possible," she declared. "In fact, I don’t ever want to see water again!"

"But we can make another fishing pole and fish for more food if we stay near shore," Danielle offered.

"No worries." Craig called from the boat. "We’ve still got most of our seaweed jerky left. We can live on that."

Danielle scrunched up her face at the thought. "Like I said…"

"Aw, come on, D," Brianna goaded her friend. "We bust out our gear, we ink our way across the island, and we’re back here before the sun goes down. Seriously, how big could this stupid island be?"

"Fine." Danielle waved her fellow Inklings back to the boat. "Let’s suit up."

The four Inklings boarded the vessel and dove below deck, emerging a few minutes later decked out in their battle gear. Each now wore a large ink tank on their backs, with each tank hooked to the Inkling's weapon of choice: A gray, handgun-like zapper for Danielle, a golden paint sprayer for Brianna, Tommy's trusty sniper rifle, and what appeared to be a giant paint roller for Craig. "Craig, you take the lead," Danielle directed. "Tommy, you hang back a little bit, and cover us if things get a little hairy. Bree, you know the drill: If it moves, ink it."

"And if it doesn't move, ink it anyway," Brianna said with a smile.

"Exactly." Danielle pointed towards the treeline. "All right, gang. Let's move out!"



The team spent the next three hours slogging through the dense forest, slowly blazing an inky trail across the land. "'Back before the sun goes down,' you said," Danielle grumbled. "'How big could this island be,' you said."

Brianna scowled back at Danielle. "I don't want to hear about it."

"Can we stop and take a break?" Tommy asked, his tongue almost dragging on the ground. "I'm practically melting back here!"

"Serves you right for wearing that stupid sweatshirt in the middle of the summer," Brianna muttered.

"But it's my lucky sweatshirt!"

"Well, maybe you should—Oof!" Brianna walked straight into Craig, who had stopped short just in front of her.

"Sorry, dude," Craig said as he picked up his roller and started pulling out a long vine that had gotten rolled up in it. "I got something caught in my gear."

"Well, I guess that's as good an excuse as any," Danielle said with a shrug. "Take five, squids."

"Yes, ma'am!" Tommy fell backwards into the group's ink trail and relaxed. "Proper rest is essential for a healthy body and sharp mind."

"I say we keep moving," Brianna said, stepping over Tommy to get to Danielle. "This forest gives me the creeps. Who knows what might be out there?"

"Who cares?" Danielle replied. "Besides, what could possibly be in this forest that's scarier than you?"

"Hardy har—wait, what was that?" Brianna spun around and pointed her gun at a bush behind the group.

"What was what?" Danielle asked.

"Tommy, get behind me!" Brianna ordered. "All right, you! Come out from back there! We've got you covered!"

A low growl echoed through the forest, and a large, wolf-like creature made entirely of sticks and branches suddenly stepped through the bush to face the Inklings. "What is that?!" Danielle shouted.

"Who cares?" Brianna shouted back. "Just shoot it!"

Danielle and Brianna unloaded their ink tanks on the wooden wolf as it lunged forward, spraying it in the face and stopping its momentum in mid-air. The wolf landed hard on the ground and scrambled back to the safety of the bush, its paws slipping in the ink. "Ha! That'll teach you to mess with us!" Danielle declared.

Danielle's taunt was met with a chorus of growls, and several more wooden wolves emerged from the brush behind the Inklings. "We're surrounded!" Tommy shrieked. "What do we do now?"

"Chill, bro." Craig slapped Tommy on the back. "I got this." He punched a button on his roller, causing him to transform into a giant, mean-looking squid.

"Yeah!" Brianna cheered as the giant squid plowed into the wolves. "Release the Kraken!"

The Kraken made short work of the remaining wolves, leaving nothing but a pile of twigs and branches. "Great work, Craig!" Danielle commended her teammate. "That ought to show these things who's... Boss?" Her eyes widened as the twigs and branches began reforming into fully-functional creatures. "Okay then... Does anyone have another plan?"

"Already on it." Brianna smiled and pointed at the sky.

Danielle looked up just in time to see a giant ink missile coming down directly on their position. "Not again," she muttered.

BOOM! The missile's impact sent Inklings and wolves flying in all directions, and coated the entire area with a thick layer of ink. When the smoke cleared, Danielle found herself upside down at the base of a large rock, holding a wolf's wooden tail instead of her gun. "Darn it, Bree!" she shouted in between coughing up mouthfuls of ink. "For once in your life, could you not drop your inkstrikes on my head?"

"Hey, it did the job, didn't it?" Brianna popped out of the ink and pointed to the wolves, who had decided they'd seen enough and were running away as fast as they could reassemble themselves.

"Yes," Danielle conceded, "but it seems like every time you do a job, I end up with a migraine."

Brianna walked over to where Tommy lay face-down in the ink, and yanked him to his feet by his head tentacles. "I found our fearless sniper," she called to Danielle. "Where did our Kraken go?"

On cue, Craig burst out of the brush. "Check out this scene, dudes," he said, waving the others over. "I think I found something."

The other Inklings gathered their gear and followed Craig to a small clearing, where a set of train tracks could be seen emerging from the forest and cutting across the plain. "Holy mackerel!" Tommy exclaimed. "Those are train tracks!"

Brianna smacked Tommy on the back of the head. "We can see that, Captain Obvious."

"Well, so much for this island being deserted," Danielle said with a sigh. "The question is, whose tracks are they?"

Tommy crouched down and examined the tracks closely. "They look like they're well maintained, so they're probably still in use," he offered. "Judging from the size of the tracks, the trains that use them can't be much bigger than the ones at home, which indicates that the creatures that use them are about our size as well." 

"Could they be... Octarians?" Danielle's grip on her weapon tightened.

"No way," Brianna said. "Octarians aren't smart enough to build stuff like this."

"Actually, Octarian technology is considered comparable to ours," Tommy corrected Brianna. "It could very well be Octarians, or an undiscovered civilization of Inklings, or maybe something else entirely."

"There's one way to find out," Danielle declared. "If we follow these tracks, they'll lead us right to whoever uses them."

"You mean... More walking?" Tommy's face fell. "Why don't we wait for the next train? I'm sure one will pass by here eventually."

"Yeah, but that means we either try to board or stop a moving train, and in either case we're forced to engage creatures we know nothing about," Danielle reminded Tommy. "I mean, what if those wood things we met know how to build trains?"

Tommy gulped. "You know, uh, I suddenly feel better!" he said unconvincingly. "I bet I could walk from here to Inkopolis and back! We don't need to bother these, uh, nice creatures yet."

"My thoughts exactly." Danielle pointed over to where the tracks disappeared off to the east. "Now let's get out of this clearing before someone sees us!"

With that, the Inklings dashed back into the forest, following the train tracks to whatever might be waiting at the end of the line.