[Silver]

Springfest was in full swing in Inkopolis square and the young Inklings were all scrambling to get their teams together for the big egg hunt. Whoever found and snapped a photo of the most hidden eggs would be crowned the winner. It was like turf war but way more important.

Indigo was standing on a table at a cafe and waving to the crowd, trying to whip together a handful of smart looking teammates. If she was lucky, there would even be someone she knew walking by. She watched as a couple of others pretended not to know her, but she tried not to let that bother her.

[Silver]

Eventually, a smallish orange Inkling in a big hat came up to her. It was hard to even see his face with the rain hat casting a shadow onto it. He was quiet for a minute, then he swallowed with a loud gulping sound and looked up at her.

“Are you putting together a team?” he asked.

“I am! Are you going to be in it?” Indigo grinned as she spoke.

“I would like to be, uh, if that’s okay.”

“I’d love to have you,” she said. She was trying to be encouraging, but she was also genuinely happy that someone finally approached her. “Now, do you want to help me find some others?”

[Silver]

“I… I can try,” he said. He was just hoping his brother didn’t notice that he had already found a team. He loved his brother, as much as he could anyway, but he really did not like to play games with him.

“What about you?! Hey, gameboy!” Indigo called out to an Inkling whose face was buried in a video game. She was actually a little surprised when the boy looked up at her and nodded. Was that him confirming he wanted to be part of the team? She had no idea, really, since he didn’t seem to want to say anything, but he did wander over to the table she was standing on and sat down.

[Silver]

“Alrighty, orange, just one more,” she said with a confident nod. She had no idea who these boys were or what their skill levels looked like, but she was happy to have them anyway. With her leading the charge, she was sure they’d do just fine.

“Tangerine, my name is Tangerine,” he said quietly.

“Ok Tangerine, I’m Indigo. No idea what his name is,” she said waving a hand in the other boy’s direction. Cerulean did not respond. “Welp, that’s fine,” she said. “Now who else are we picking up for the hunt?”

[Silver]

“How about her?” Tangerine said, pointing to a girl in a school uniform with bouncy looking pig tails. He thought he recognized her from somewhere, but he couldn’t remember.

“Good eye,” Indigo nodded. Then she called out to Mazarine, “Hey, pigtails, you still need a team?”

Mazarine looked down at her shirt for a second, then back up at Indigo. She pointed at her chest and mouthed, ‘Who, me?’ Indigo nodded and Mazarine practically skipped over with joy.

“Tangerine-y!” Mazarine cheered, throwing her arms around him. “I’m so happy to see you! Are you on this team, too? Oh man we’ll do so good together! I can’t wait.”

[Silver]

Tangerine looked mildly surprised that the girl was hugging him, and he was considerably uncomfortable as well. He knew he kinda recognized her from somewhere, but he didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know where. Obviously she was better at remembering this stuff than he was.

“Oh, she’s a friend of yours? Good. You two can work together, then. I’ll take gameboy over here.”

“Gameboy?” Mazarine echoed, sounding confused.

“Yea, that guy over there with the game won’t tell us his name,” Tangerine explained softly.

“You didn’t ask,” Cerulean finally said.

[Silver]

“Oh good you do talk,” Indigo said.

“Hey, uh, what is your name?” Tangerine finally asked. He got the sense that Indigo was just going to keep being snarky instead of trying to be nice.

“Cerulean.”

“That’s great,” Tangerine said. “Are you going to be part of our team?”

“Sure.”

"Great. Well it's about to start, so we should all go register." Indigo hopped down off the table and made her way to the registration kiosk. It was the same one they used for ranked matches, but this time it had a special option for the egg hunt.

[Silver]

"Here, you can all find yourselves," Indigo said after starting and naming their team.

Cerulean whizzed through the screens and placed himself next. He hardly looked up for his game for more than a few seconds. Much to Indigo's surprise, his name flashed by as a highly ranked player. She would have to keep an eye on him for the future.

Mazarine scrolled through to get her own name, but it took her much longer. Partially because she was not so near the top of the list. She was new to ranked play, after all, and only had a few points scored overall for her team.

[Silver]

"I... I um..." Tangerine was trying to say something, but nobody was listening. When it was his turn to register, Indigo gave him a little push toward the machine. It was clear that she wanted to get on with this.

"I don't have a ranked profile," he admitted, looking at his shoes. Indigo's demeanor changed in an instant and she tapped him on the back.

"That's alright, buddy, you can use your turf war one." She punched a few commands into the computer to pull up the turf war profiles. To her surprise again, he was pretty good at scoring points in turf war.

[Silver]

"Hey you're pretty good. Ever consider hopping into a few ranked matches?" she asked.

"Uh well, I mean... thought about it but like..."

"Ah, okay," she said, partially to stop him from rambling awkwardly. It seemed like he was a little too shy for that kind of spotlight. She should have known, given the huge hat he wore to hide his face. "Well if you ever want a team, give me a shout, I might be able to use someone like you around."

"T... thanks," he squeaked.

"Oh my gosh it's staaaaaaaaaaaaarting!" Mazarine cheered, bouncing over to watch the announcement for the event. The other three tried to keep up with her, each of them wondering how the event was going to go.