[Silver]

The chaos in Inkopolis could not be understated.

The Inklings chose as their favorite pastime a sport which covered the ground in bright colors. Arguably, their second favorite was shopping for clothing, almost exclusively available in bold colors. While Toni Kensa was popular, even their black and white style was not as impressive without the red accents.

They woke up that morning to a great surprise: their colorful world was completely grey. Everything from the Inklings themselves, to their clothing and gear, all the way to the sky itself was entirely devoid of color. For a species which can normally change color at will, this was a pretty big deal.

[Silver]

Many of the young Inklings and Octolings turned on their TV and hoped for good news. Pearl immediately suggested that they must be under attack! She called for her army of fans to rise up and fight back against the color thieves! Marina took a more measured approach, and implored those watching to be careful and stay safe.

The Turf War and Ranked matches set up for the day had been hastily cancelled. How could they possibly play without being able to determine which team was which? Highly ranked participants started to speculate about their position in this new grey world. If the games didn’t come back up, would they keep their high standing? How long would they be without practice? It was a buzz of confusion and upset.

[Silver]

Sheldon immediately went to work, seeing if he could create anything that might be of use. He tossed old projects around and tried to think of something, anything, that might help them. He had once worked on a project that had to deal with automating the judging process of turf war, but it was unstable and poorly received.

Sheldon ripped open the old box of parts and hastily screwed them together. It was more or less just a color detector at the end of the day, right? He flicked the switch and listened to the mechanisms whirr to life. It still worked! He was practically cheering aloud at his own cleverness.

[Silver]

“Alright, Shelly, what do you got for me?” Sheldon was surprised to hear a voice in his secret workshop. He jumped up and whipped around, pointing his odd gadget right at the intruder. A huge smile cracked across his face when he realized who it was.

“Agents 1 and 2!” Sheldon winked. “Boy am I glad to see you!”

“Tell us you know something,” Marie pleaded. If anyone knew how to help the world, it had to be Sheldon.

“Well I have this,” he waved the gadget around as if that helped them understand what was going on.

[Silver]

“I think we can use it to detect color… if there is any color left, that is. It’s an old turf war gauge I invented to automate the deciding of battles, but the judges didn’t like that idea and it took too long anyway, but it should be useful.”

“Spare us the details,” Callie said. She yanked the device out of Sheldon’s hands and turned it over.

“How does it work?” Marie said, looking over Callie’s shoulder to examine it.

“In theory, you just turn this knob and point it in the direction of the color you want to detect. I’m not sure if there’s anything out there to detect, though.”

[Silver]

“Great!” Callie cheered. Marie shook her head, fearing that Callie yet again didn’t understand the full gravity of what they were facing. Her optimism could get in her own way sometimes, which was concerning in times of crisis.

“If it’s out there, we’ll find it,” Marie said with a confident nod.

“Maybe we could ask Agent 3 to come with us, they were pretty cute!” Callie suggested.

“Agent 4 was considerably more effective,” Marie said flatly.

“Yea but 3 was cuter, and they didn’t shoot me in the face!”

“I shot you in the face.”

“Oh right.”

[Silver]

“There’s not a lot of time, we should just go out and do what we can and hope the other agents figure something out on their own.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out and turf war will be back on by tomorrow!” Callie said cheerfully.

“I hope you’re right,” Marie said. She yanked the gadget from Callie’s hands and started to head out of the workshop. Sheldon tried to explain some things about the device as they were leaving, but neither of them listened.

Callie pulled her beanie onto her head and pushed up her shades. She helped Marie tie her face mask so that the two of them looked less identifiable. Not that anyone was looking at them and what they were doing amongst all the chaos.

[Silver]

“Well… what now?” Callie asked. She was already exasperated and it showed.

“Calm down. We need to figure out where to start looking.”

“I bet it was Octavio again!” Callie said. She started stomping toward the storm drain that led into the Octo Canyon.

“I’m pretty sure we still have Octavio locked up,” Marie said. She snickered at the thought. “But the canyon might not be a bad idea.”

Callie clearly wasn’t listening to her anymore as she was already off on her way. She slipped through the grate and didn’t even wait for Marie to follow her. Again Marie rolled her eyes, but she did follow along anyway.

[Silver]

“Wow this place is weird and even weirder than how weird it usually is! … Does the word weird sound weird to you now, too?”

“Yep.”

“Do you think our gear still works?” Callie looked at the soft grey ink dripping from the end of her hero roller.

“I’m not sure, so be careful, okay? I wouldn’t want you to fall into one of those kettles and get ambushed.”

“I could always beat the Octarian menace back with it! It’s still a big stick, right?” Callie brandished the roller as if she were thwomping something over the head with it.

[Silver]

“Eh, good point,” Marie said. She looked at her charger and thought about how she seemed to get the short end of both the metaphorical and literal stick.

“Hey look Marie! The thing’s buzzing! Come this way and see if it changes!”

“Right,” Marie nodded. She waved the device around to see if its reaction to certain areas was different from others. So far, it all looked the same. “Now what did Sheldon say about this dial?” she asked while wiggling it around.

“Oooh I’m so excited! Maybe it found a color! I sure hope it’s pink!”

[Color Harvested]