Inkling beneath the surface — Story

In the cosy confines of their living room, Zeydaan perches upon her couch - eyes fixed on a large screen. They grip a pair of Joycons in her paws, making her character in Splatoon navigate the virtual battleground whilst armed with an ink-spewing Sploosh-o-matic. They strategize on the fly, anticipating the moves of her opponents as she coats the battlefield in ink, all while those funky Inkling tunes blast out her speakers. Zeydaan bobs her head in time to the beat - the atmosphere feels almost electric, as a big grin is plastered across her face.

It isn’t too long until the round is over, and victory is achieved at last! The wolf smirks to herself, a sense of accomplishment washing over them; five wins in a row wasn’t half bad and should be a fine place to end her gaming session for the day. They get up off of her sofa, extending her arms out to stretch in the process. Though just before they can turn the system off, a most unexpected sound takes them by surprise…

"NICE GOING THERE! YOU'RE A REAL NATURAL AT THIS. ONE MIGHT THINK YOU WERE EVEN BORN TO DO THIS"

Zeydaan jumps a little, dropping her joycons on the floor in response, as her head swivels around in confusion. Who said that? Where did that voice come from? They stay quiet for a moment… almost long enough for them to start questioning if that voice they heard was just her imagination, or maybe someone outside. Though just before they write it off, it’s heard once more!

"I MEAN SINCE YOU'RE AN INKLING AND ALL I GUESS YOU WERE BORN TO DO IT. YOU'VE GOT SOME REAL SKILLS KID!"

W-Who’s there? What’re you talking about?

"HEH YOU FEELING GOOD? GOT SOME INK IN YOUR BRAINS OR SOMETHING? OR IS THIS COSTUME YOU'RE SPORTING MAKING IT HARDER TO COMPUTE?"

The voice responds. It’s rather hard to understand, but the snarky, sarcastic tone it had was as clear as day to register underneath her peculiar blubbering accent. Zeydaan continues to scan the room for the source of this mocking voice, before coming to a rather uncomfortable realisation. That voice… it wasn’t coming from the game, or somewhere in the room… it was coming from them.

I… you… w-who are you? Answer me!

Zeydaan snaps, impatience and worry audible in her voice, as she holds her paws against her head whilst drawing in quick and shallow breaths. They felt stressed, sure, but that alone wasn’t causing this sudden shortness of breath for them… no, this was something more.

"I'M YOU, DUMMY! YOU TALK TO YOURSELF ALL THE TIME REMEMBER? HERE, LET'S TAKE THIS LAME COSTUME OFF - THAT'LL HELP YOU THINK MORE CLEARLY, I'M SURE."

The voice elaborates, doing little to calm the wolf down. Zeydaan begins to wonder if this was just a dream; she’d wake up in her bed soon, and none of this was ever real… at least that’s what they were hoping for. Alas, this was not to be the case, as Zeydaan peers down at her chest to see… metal? It was only small, but a metallic nub was forming from out of her skin. It shone in the light above, and didn’t take long to spread and grow, staying flat but elongating until it detached from her skin to form a zip! Totally flabbergasted, Zeydaan reaches to touch it, though rather than her hand travelling down to the destination they desired, it instead acts upon its own violation, reaching up to pinch the left side of her mouth. With one swift and smooth motion, a zipper forms to seal Zeydaan’s mouth shut as she drag it!

"THAT'S ENOUGH YAPPING FROM YOU, ME. YOU JUST CHILL FOR A MOMENT AS I TAKE THIS SUIT OFF"

Zeydaan is powerless to stop all of her motor functions being taken away from them by this anonymous voice, as her body seizes up and goes totally unresponsive to her internal commands – they couldn’t even twitch a finger. It is whilst they’re in this state that they feel… loose. All over her body, the sensation of her skin detaching from her insides was unlike anything they’d felt before. A feeling of pure emptiness washes over them, with said feeling doing well to reflect the actuality of what was happening to them, as her internals faded away into nothingness. Without organs, there was now naught but air within them… leaving just enough space for a humanoid being to fill it.

The zipper that’d formed at the top of her torso stretches downwards in a straight line, her fur morphing to faux fur in the process, as her organic components were swapped out for convincing, but nevertheless, fake replacements. The wolf’s lips remain sealed shut, unable to protest against her forced transformation as her eyes are locked forwards, her vision starting to get foggy and blurry as she could taste the steel zip that was her mouth. Without any lungs, her breathing ceases soon after – a simple fursuit has no need to do that, anyhow!

Zeydaan’s very essence is detached and moved elsewhere - her former body drained of life to become little else than a mere costume. The furry fabric around her ankles, wrists, and lower neck is cut, detaching sections of her limbs before Zeydaan’s vision fades to black, only to return in a few ticks, though slightly tinted by the fine mesh that’d grown over her former eye sockets. She realises that her new eyes were now behind her old body; they reach up, pushing against her jaw line until… pop! Her head comes clean off, detaching from their neck to reveal the Inkling that Zeydaan’s very being had been transferred into. Her shiny, damp tentacles dangle out over her shoulders. They’d gotten rather cramped after being held within such a tight wolf head for so long.

Zeydaan, for now, was no more - now Inku’s here to play!

"EH, DON'T THINK I'LL WEAR THAT FIT AGAIN ANYTIME SOON. I SAY IT'S HIGH TIME TO DITCH THIS COSTUME AND GET BACK TO INKOPOLIS"

Inku affirms to herself, as she quickly strip the costume off of her fishy body and let it fall to the floor around her fresh sneakers. She picks it up and toss her old body aside - it lands in a scrunched-up, undignified heap in the corner of the living room. She takes a moment to readjust her tentacles, and without even taking another glance at it, the suit is abandoned as Inku takes the form of a squid and glides out of the house, leaving a slick trail of glossy blue ink in their wake…