"N-No...get away from her! Francis! I swear if you..DON'T! Desti! No! NNNNNN-AHHH!"

An errant jolt sent the sleeping Meggy careening out of a nightmare - and straight to the floor with a crash. There was an automatic, "Oof!" as she hit the floor, then rolled a little to the side of her bed. Well, what was left of it. With all that happened in the past week, she didn't have the time to get it replaced. Grasping the side of the ruined bed, she heaved with effort and clambered back onto it. The mattress was hard and unforgiving, the sheets rough and course. Her new body couldn't sleep on stuff like this...and yet she tried. Well, for a while. Then the nightmare kicked in. Behind the glass. Seeing her skewered. Again and again.

"Just a dream...oh man..." she whispered to no-one in the dark night. This was...just what it was like, now. A week and a few days ago, she had been an Inkling. A carefree...okay not carefree, but happy Inkling who had just overturned a ban on anime within the Mushroom Kingdom. Things were fine, Splatfest was around the corner, all was well. And then she got kidnapped. Swept away by a glowing anime icon, tearing her apartment to shreds in the process. Stuck in a cell. Shown all of her fellow Inklings getting tortured. And then shown it was all the work of an otaku lizard...thing who just wanted an island full of anime girls...and was more than happy to chew through all of Inkopolis to do it. Tortured, beaten, drained of her ink, left to die...and then there was Desti. Oh, wretched, wonderful Desti. Octoling rival. Later friendly rival...and now, dead. From her mistake. An errant sob welled in Meggy's throat just from the sheer thought of her lying cold on the concrete, a stab wound in her abdomen. She saw it, in perfect clarity. Every time.

Stumbling towards the bathroom to calm herself, the light flickered on and bathed the room in cheap yellow glare. Meggy squinted as the light hit her eyes, and arched forward on wobbling legs to the sink to run the tap and splash herself with water. Water that didn't really hurt anymore because...well. She looked up in the mirror, vision slowly returning, slightly apprehensive at the new face staring back at her. Something about the final sacrifice she had to give, the last of her ink, it should have killed her. She should have been bundled in a grave, sent off to sea, like the Octoling. But instead, it transformed her. It made her...human. A human face stared back at her, with human eyes and ears and a human nose. Human, ginger hair, with a human mouth and a human tongue. It felt wrong, to stare at this being. Hair disheveled, hat missing, headphones off, eyes red and puffy and marked with tears. Made for a fair sonnet, at least. The final act of this anime war was not death, but life.

But that wasn't really enough. Meggy dried herself off with a towel and stumbled back towards her bed. She flopped down onto it, lights off and in total darkness once more. Nothing. She tried closing her eyes, counting sheep. Angling her body so she was sleeping north, all of that stuff. But she no longer felt tired. The clock read 1:23AM. The light was blue and shining in from outside her window. She felt wide awake and the visions were flooding in. Cell block. Inklings in tubes. Evil weeb gecko. Desti's body. They never stopped, it never ended.

She growled, "C-Come on, Meggy. Back to sleep. Come on, sleep! SLEEP!" she screamed at herself. Minutes passed, lying in bed with a distraught face, "...Please?"

This was hopeless. Every angle reminded her of that horrible day when this all went wrong. Scratches in the floor. Holes in the walls. Smoke and ash everywhere. Every area bared the scars of getting the absolute squid kicked out of her (perhaps literally in this case) from a clone of some anime dude with a monkey tail. Gooka? Joku? Bah, she didn't remember. And after all this, she swore to never even peer towards the general direction of that wretched art style ever again. Even if it upset Boopkins. Though by this point, even he had to understand. But no, this wouldn't do. She wasn't getting back to sleep for a good long while, and she knew it. Not here, anyway.

Perhaps...perhaps it wasn't wise to bottle all this up. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to. To get all this off her chest. It was too late for a therapist. But she had something better. Well, someone better...maybe. Sitting up in bed, she reached for her phone, a new, human-branded one after her old squidphone was busted up in the kidnapping fight. She switched it on and accessed the Contacts on it. She hadn't put everyone back on yet, but she had the essentials. She began to scroll through the list of the rabble, looking for someone to talk to;

"Let's see...Mario? No, he's said himself he's no help emotionally. SMG4? He's probably asleep. Saiko? Nah, she's in a bad mood. Tari's probably streaming. Boopkins? Watching something weird. Bob?" an errant pause as a look of disgust crossed her face, and she continued swiping, "Absolutely not...who the heck's gonna be awake at THIS time?" and then, a pause. And then a lightbulb above her head, "Oh, yeah..."

Scrolling to the very bottom of the list, she found him; the last Inkling friend she had, of sorts. Even if he was next door. Still had to make sure he was even awake first...well she KNEW he was, he rarely slept, but still. She poked the call button and waited. The dull tone was misery, but it didn't take long for the click to connect the phone to another. A voice echoed through the speaker, deep and in Inkling, "...Hello?"

Meggy sighed half in relief, "...Markus?"

"Oh, hey Megs!" his voice was oddly chipper, despite the time of day, with the errant tapping of his laptop keyboard present in the background. It was almost soothing...almost.

"Yo," Meggy chuckled halfheartedly, "Knew you'd be awake. You ever sleep?"

"Sleep is for the weak," Markus grumbled, "Well, Charger mains. What's the prob? It's almost half 1 in the morning."

"Well..."

She trailed off. She didn't know what to say. Her tone of voice was, thankfully, enough to carry the tone. Markus himself was quiet for some time before, "...Did you have another nightmare?"

Meggy nodded subconsciously, "...Yep."

"About Desti?"

Another nod, "Yeah."

Markus went quiet again, "...You want to come over and talk about it? I think you could do with that..."

"Sure. I'll be right over. Thanks," Meggy smiled.

"No problem."

There was a click as she disconnected the call and slipped the phone into her pocket. She was still wearing the clothes this body was...born with. Partly because they were the only ones that fit her new form. White shirt with long grey sleeves, grey shorts, socks. The boots were in the corner, but she was only going next door. No point slipping them on. Walking was hard enough now. She was just happy these clothes weren't starting to smell...yet. SMG4 promised they'd help get her some new clothes from outside Inkopolis. It was the least they could do, they said. Sighing, she got to her wobbling feet, arching over this way and that, desperate to keep her balance...

"Argh!" and another crash as she headbutted the wall. She got back up, rubbing her head in pain, "Aah...stupid shaky human legs..." she huffed, before she continued to amble to the door, resting on the wall for stability. She made it out of the apartment and lost her balance again, collapsing to the floor. Walking on long legs like this was...a struggle when she had been much shorter in a past life. Grumbling further, she reached up to lock the door and dragged herself to her feet. She kept leaning on the walls as she walked down the corridor past the remnants of her own boarding, to right next door. Not a long trip, thankfully. Door looked similar to her own. Well, if you ignored the scratches and burn marks on her own, but whatever. Standing up as straight as she dared to, she rapped politely on the door. Three knocks, nice and simple.

There was a shuffling sound as someone inside messed around and headed towards the door. The door clicked a few times before it swung open. There was a standard Inkling on the other side. Short and small, like the rest of them. Despite being male, he let his tentacles hang freely over bunching them up into a ponytail like most other male Inklings did. Perhaps so it was that he could wear his brown cap and studio headphones, which he was still wearing so late into the night. He wore an Octo Hoodie, dyed a bright red, as well as grey shorts and fingerless gloves. He wore socks, likewise being shoeless, and wore glasses with thick lenses. He smiled upon staring up at the human in his doorframe, "Hey Megs."

"Hey..." Meggy sighed, hand rubbing her opposite arm in comfort. Her face was...trying to look happy? Wasn't doing a very good job, though. Meggy was always quite chipper when it came down to it. She always had a smile somewhere. But this time? There was a small sulking look to her.

"Oof. You really don't look well..." Markus huffed, staring at Meggy's human face. Expressions were a bit difficult now that she was so...different, but her eyes were red and puffy all the same. Markus tilted his head, "You been crying?" a nod from Meggy. He sighed, "You poor thing. Come in, make yourself at home. I'll get you some tea and some biscuits. Looks like you need 'em..."

"Thanks..." Meggy giggled, a fake smile on her face. Markus walked back into the apartment to let Meggy in, which she took with another fake smile and a stumble forward. Perhaps too much of a stumble, feet clambering all over the place as she tried to keep herself stable, to no success. She yelled, "W-Woah, wooooooah!" before a twisted ankle sent her falling again.

"Aah I got you!" Markus cried out in panic. He rushed over and caught her before she hit the floor. He strained under her new human weight, puffing and panting, "There we go, I got you...still not used to your new look, then?"

"It's like walking on stilts..." Meggy grumbled bitterly. And it really was. A new centre of balance was one hell of a learning curve. And Markus being standard Inkling height meant that he wasn't really able to help her walk, but he tried his best. Getting her to her knees, Markus led her across the room on shuffled kneeling before they reached his couch. Well, "sofa", as New Inkshire-born Inklings called them. Lifting herself into the sofa, she sighed,

"Thanks."

"No prob. Let me put the tea on..."

He left for the kitchen to get some tea. He would be gone for a while, Meggy wagered, so she laid back on the sofa to stare around the room. It was one of those apartments where most of it was one room segmented into bits, with only the bath and bedrooms being sectioned off with walls. It was a nice apartment, actually. The apartment block wasn't cheap, as Meggy herself would know, but this one Markus had redecorated to be a little less...bland. The walls were a nice shade of crimson, as were the carpets, with the breakfast bar in the corner and some nice paintings on the walls. In the corner, a locked display case holding some old human firearms - Meggy recognised a few of them from when they were trying to overturn the Anime Ban, but none by name. The kitchen was off to the side, with the dining room and the front room being but one and the same. She was currently lying on one of the two sofas in the front room, staring up at the TV on the wall. It was covered in dust - clearly, he didn't watch a lot of it. Instead, his laptop was on and plugged into the wall, showing that he was...writing? A program called "Notepad" was open and a good amount of text was dotting the white text box that made up the entire thing. It was a story. A very rough draft, but still a story. Meggy thought of kicking herself for looking into his work, but...well, a small peak wouldn't hurt, right? She studied the text closely, figuring out what it was fairly quickly. It was about this girl who got kidnapped by some evil otaku and sent to an island to be a part of his dream of making...wait a minute.

"Wait a minute...is that...me?"

"Okay, tea's done!" Markus suddenly burst out of the kitchen, holding a tray of two mugs and some biscuits. Weird biscuits, too. Matcha green tea pocky sticks. His face was aflutter with panic, like he knew that Meggs was reading his glorified fanfiction. He set down the tray and Meggy peered into her mug. It had to be her's, as Markus had his name written on his; this one was blank. Pale brownish liquid sat inside the mugs, smelling sweet and feeling warm. Markus handed Meggy her mug as he took his own, "Here you go. Lovely," and took a noisy slurp of his tea. He smiled so fervently it looked like he won on a scratch card, "Mmm, that's good."

"...Don't think I ever tried this before..." Meggy paused a little, staring into the warm liquid in her mug, before she shrugged and took a small sip of it. A warm wave of herby, fruity flavours followed soon after, alongside a splash of milk and a dash of sweetener. It was a taste that could only really be described as...comfortable. Meggy smiled in a mixture of contentment and shock, "Oh, that IS good."

"Yeah, Eel Grey, imported from my hometown," Markus beamed proudly, "I asked the people 'round here where I could get some locally," his face twisted into a sneer, "I have NEVER seen stares so blank...urgh...but, enough about me! So what's it like, being human?"

"...Weird," Meggy mumbled, taking another sip of her tea, "Everything's so much...smaller now. Eyes see less, nose picks up a few more scents, walking's hard and now I feel...warm. It's...well, it's weird. I mean, I can survive in water now, so that's cool, I guess. But the others keep...staring at me. Toad, Bob, even Mario and Tari give a weird glance sometimes, while I'm training. Like I'm some sort of alien..."

"Well, those lot are think as ink," Markus chuckled, another gross slurp of tea following, "Especially that plumber, there is absolutely something wrong with him. I wouldn't expect them to understand what you're going through, even if they WERE there to see it in person..." his bitter tangent trailed off awkwardly, and he began rubbing his head in embarrassment, "Do you...want to stay like this?"

"...I dunno," Meggy shrugged after an awkward pause, staring longingly at her warm, fleshy hand, "I'm not sure this is temporary or not. SMG4 said he'd get working on a cure, but..." her face began to fall, a look of barren misery spreading across it, "Axol thinks he drained too much of my ink recharging that stupid pen...he thinks I might never be able to turn back..."

"Oh boy..." Markus bit down on the matcha pocky in his hand and set the rest of the stick into his mug. He shuffled closer to Meggy and leaned against her arm, "Well, we don't know for sure, do we? I'm sure there's a cure out there. Though, I suppose it's wherever or not you take it. Maybe you'll end up liking being human! But then again...perhaps the choice is out of our control," he shuffled back over to his side of the sofa, "How're those other Inkos taking it? Stares and hushed whispers?"

"Hushed whispers and stares," Meggy pseudo-corrected, a deep sigh following, "They don't know what to think. They thought humans were extinct, but then this here plumber comes in..." she glanced off into the distance, staring out of the large conservatory window into the city outside. Turf Wars had closed down until the late morning, so the city was deathly quiet barring the howling of the errant wind. She sighed, "Only reason I can still take part in Turf War is because we helped save that green one."

"Marie?" Markus shuddered, a look of sadness and a pang of guilt in his face and voice, "Yeah, I hear they were quite grateful. Should've seen Callie while Inkopolis was locked down, she was so hysterical after losing her cousin. Perhaps it reminded her of when she was the one getting kidnapped. I wish sis was around to find her when THAT happened..."

"...Wait," Meggy turned to stare at her neighbor with a look of confusion, "I thought YOU were Agent 3."

"No," Markus shrugged casually, and took a sip of his tea, "I just took on the mantle and helped keep Inkopolis in check because she got, uh, oh yeah, captured," his sneer returned and he bitterly growled into his half-empty mug, "By some stupid weebo gecko! Wretched creature...glad he got what he deserved..."

"Y...Yeah..." Meggy trailed off. She stared into the floor, mug of tea in hands, face twisted into a pained sneer. Her eyes went redder, like she had run out of tears to shed long ago. Markus could only guess what images were flashing in her head, and none of what he was guessing was pretty. Meggy's breathing became erratic, "Yeah...good uh...g-good memory..."

"Oh, right. Uh, whoops," Markus grimaced, placing his empty mug back onto the table, "Sorry. Forgot that was a touchy subject with you. But then...that's why you're here, right?" he took another bite out of some matcha pocky and sighed. He didn't want to ask this. But if he was going to be of any help, he had to. He took a breath or two, "So...what happened?"

"Same as last time..." Meggy mumbled, staring into her half-empty mug of tea as she spoke. She was shivering, hands gripping the mug tightly, legs crossed inwards, "Stuck in the blender, Desti comes in, that stupid swordsman comes sweeping through and..." she accented her tale by slapping an open palm onto the side of the mug, "Boom! Straight through her back! Her death was so...so slow..." a long pause followed. The shivering was intensifying, and her voice was sounding hollow, "I can still hear her last words...'You better win Splatfest for me, Okay?'..." she paused, her composure failing quickly, "Oh Cod..."

"Damn, that's a shell of a way to go...though, to be honest with you, I'm not sure a lot of people would agree. Desti was weird," Markus hummed, his face one of unamusement, "Weird-bass girl. Always one to insult everyone, including my own sister, when she was an insult to her own kind with snobbishness like that. Paints a bad picture of Octolings in gene-" he didn't get any further in his rant, because now the tears started flowing. In loud, warbled cries did Meggy sob, her human face still screaming out in Inkling bawls, tears dripping down her face and into her tea. Markus sighed harshly, "Oh fish me, I'm bad at this comfort thing..." and he reached to set Meggy's mug on the table and then pull her into a hug. His small size compared to her was not unlike trying to hug a lamp post, and to her it was like she was being hugged by a large teddy bear. She pulled him closer into the hug, sobs muffled into his hoodie-set shoulder and her hold on him tight. Markus stroked her soft, amber hair, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...I mean I know Desti wasn't well-liked 'round these parts, but..." another harsh sigh, "She didn't deserve any of this."

"She deserved NOTHING like this!" Meggy cried out between sobs, "No-one did...to be killed or mulched or worse for some stupid gecko's anime island! Why is anime so destructive?! WHY?!"

"I..." Markus pondered, "...I don't know..." he trailed off, unsure as of what else to say. Perhaps there wasn't much more he could say. At least, not at a time like this. She was still sobbing hysterically, bawling into his shoulder and getting tears into his hoodie. He grumbled a little, but not too much - better an easily washable cotton hoodie over getting someone else's tears and mucus absorbed into his tentacles. THAT was nasty. He simply closed his eyes and tightened his own hold on her in the hug. He began to slowly stroke her back as well as her hair, waiting patiently as she continued to rock back and forth in her despair. It took a long time before Meggy would recover enough composure to speak again, but even then it came out as warbled grunting. Markus shushed her and continued the hug, "Shh, shh, it's okay..." he mumbled softly, "Take your time..."

"I'm sorry..." came a hoarse whisper after a few seconds, "I'm sorry..." she broke from the hug, and picked her mug back up, "I...I know what they all said. Gotta get up when we get down. I taught her that. I know I should keep going on, in this form. Win that Splatfest. For her. In HER memory. But..." she continued to cry, more tears dropping into her tea as she wiped at her nose and eyes with an errant sniff, "It still hurts. I was finally burying the hatchet with her! I don't want to admit it, but...I miss her."

"Well I'm..sorry for your loss. I'm sure a lot of people miss her too," Markus chimed, motioning to a camera that absolutely wasn't there, "But...look, I'm not exactly going to change my opinion of her because of that. Heroic end or no, she hurt a lot of people, my sister among them. But, you know, I'm sure she's in a much better place now. That great big Turf War in the sky."

"...You think she's in heaven?"

"WELL it's not like I'm gonna say she's burning in..." Markus stopped cold, sighing, "Never mind. What I'm trying to say is, human or otherwise, I'm rooting for you to win that there Splatfest. For her."

"...For her," Meggy smiled in a genuine manner, for the first time that night, "I'm gonna do it for her."

"Exactly," Markus beamed, "Might even find a cure for this. I mean I'd rather you keep this form. You are kinda...kind of..." he began to stumble, struggling to speak that one word, "You are...c-cute, yes..."

"...Did you say..." Meggy blushed, "I'm cute like this?"

"WELL you know as a friend thing, it's not a love thing I'm just saying..." he blustered, "Yeah, you look cute. Freckles suit you..." he trailed off, face scrunched with embarrassment. He started up again, "So, you feeling better? You ready to get some sleep now?"

"Yeah, I think I am," Meggy smiled again, and got up to leave, "Thanks, Mar-"

"Woah woah woah, wait!" Markus called out, jumping to his feet, "I didn't mean leave..." Meggy looked at him, a look of confusion born on her face. Markus shrugged, "I mean, your room's still in shambles, Meg. I think you should stay elsewhere until it gets cleaned up. I'm sure SMG4 would let you stay somewhere in the castle...it's not like that Princess is lucid enough to even know you're there."

"That's true," Meggy shrugged, "Or I could stay with Mario or Tari or...well, not Boopkins..." she sighed, "But it's way too late for that. Where'm I gonna stay tonight?"

"...Well..." Markus shrugged back, "My bed's still clean. Had it made, but I haven't used it in like, two days. Most times I just pass out on the sofa."

"Are you..." Meggy asked, "Offering to let me sleep here for the night?" Markus nodded, "That's...kinda creepy. But also, p-pretty generous."

"Megs, you indirectly helped save half the population of this city, one of the Sisters and my OWN sister included, from being mulched into weeb food," Markus noted, leaping off of the sofa as he did so, "The people of Inkopolis owe you a shell of a lot more than a clean, comfortable bed for the night. But at this time, it's all I have to offer..."

"...Alright then. Might be good to get outta that place for a while," Meggy grinned, running over to pick up Markus and engage in a friendly hug, "Thank you..."

"Nooooo problem, neighbor!" Markus muffled, before Meggy let him down again, "Goodnight!"

"...'Night, Markus," Meggy sighed, vanishing behind the bedroom door. Markus sighed, turning to his writing on the laptop. It was...loosely based off of what Meggy had went through. Girl gets captured, tortured and mutated as a way for some bad guy to get his fair share of anime assets. Only here, she went mad, and it spiraled headfirst into this entire story of people running across universes to track the girl down. And there were a few old self-inserts and it was kinda more them than the girl and her friends and...hmm. On second thought, this was probably a bad foundation, let alone a bad story. He blanked the text field and closed the laptop down. Maybe his supernovel would have to wait for another idea. He lay back on the sofa, eyes still stretched open after the tea and matcha, half-formed ideas circling in his head. Meanwhile, there was a soft shuffle as Meggy collapsed onto the bed a door over, flipping around until she was somewhat under the covers, and drifted off as the Callie soft toy stared at her. Tonight had certainly been weird, a cap to a month of misery and anime-inspired antics. But now, it suddenly didn't seem so bad. Sure she was now a human, the Inklings looked at her funny and she was still having nightmares, but...well, not that last one tonight, at least. She did dream of Desti again, though. Only now she was given a halo and some wings. Offering half-strained, slightly smug words of encouragement and comfort. It was...heaven, compared to what had come before. Her snoring soft, she slept peacefully into the dawn, knowing for sure this was to be the best sleep she had in weeks.

The snoring was all that could be heard from the room. No more mumbles, or screams of terror or grief. As Markus slowly drifted off into sleep himself, he smiled warmly at a deed done good.

"Heh...it's nice to be nice, sometimes."