Chapter Three: Shooting Starfish

Hello again! Sorry this chapter is a bit short, but the next one will be longer, I promise! Enjoy!

A figure sat in a dark, metal room, staring at several glowing monitors. Steady drips of a leaking pipe were echoing throughout the chamber and the air, which smelled of strange metal and seawater, seemed to crackle with tension. On the monitors, the figure could see several darkened roads, with the occasional passerby on the sidewalks. The monitors weren't picking up anything useful, which frustrated the figure. Their hand crumpled into a fist and thumped it on the desk before them.

Before they could do anything else, scuffling footsteps reached their ears, telling the figure that the person coming had a slight limp. "You'd better have some good news, Ico," spat the figure, his rough tones echoing through the chamber.

"Y-yes sir," Ico stuttered. The rustling of papers were heard in the brief pause that followed, "The target has moved on to the subject's house. As far as our sources know, nobody else has seen the specified target."

The figure allowed a fierce grin to creep across his face, the light from the monitors reflecting off his pointed teeth. "Very good," he muttered quietly, "Right on time."

Team Paintsrike and Raven walked into the dining room and seated themselves at the table, leaving a seat open for Raven's mom. "Won't we need an extra seat for your dad?" Natt asked.

"Nah, he's on a business trip in New York." Raven explained.

Mrs. Lacee walked into the dining room just then, her auburn hair tied up into a messy bun and a pair of round spectacles perched on her nose. She set a large pan of food down on the table and smiled. However, her eyebrows furrowed slightly as she saw the team, now with her glasses on. "Thanks for having us over," Cass smiled, trying to break the ice.

"Oh, anytime," Mrs. Lacee chuckles. "So, where are y'all from?"

"Inko-"

"They're from a different country," Raven interrupted Laurel's response.

"Which country?" asked , beginning to plate the food.

"Uh, Calamari County?" Natt said.

"Hm, sounds like a nice place." smiled Raven's mom.

"It is," grinned Cass. She looked at her plate. "Wait, is this lasagna?"

"Yup," said Raven, "It's mom's special 5-cheese Lasagna!"

"Ooh," Natt eyed the plate, "I freakin' love lasagna."

"Same," Cass cheered.

"Well, then dig in!" Mrs. Lacee made a sweeping motion with her hands, and then quickly plated her own food.

"So, Mrs. Lacee," Cass began, trying to make polite conversation, "How are you doing?"

"Good, thanks," Mrs. Lacee responded, "I'm glad to see she's made some new friends."

"Me too," Raven said, beginning to eat.

"May I ask what the hats are for?" Mrs. Lacee asked the sealings after a few minutes. They guessed she was referring to their odd, shiny tentacle-hair.

"Mom," Raven hissed.

"What? I was just asking a question!"

"Oh that's okay," Laurel responded, thinking fast, "We were on our way back from a gaming convention when we ran into Raven, here."

"Yeah," said Scarlet, catching on, "We were there trying out a new game."

"Oh," Mrs. Lacee nodded.

The rest of the meal was filled with silence and the occasional comment to ask if someone would pass the salt or parmesan. It wasn't that they didn't want to talk, it was just a matter of the team not wanting to give too much away, combined with the fact that Mrs. Lacee's 5-Cheese Lasagna was too good to stop eating. After the teens ate and downed their cups of milk (which had been set at the table before they had started the meal) Raven excused herself and her friends and said they'd be in the basement.

"Oh, honey!" Mrs. Lacee called as Natt opened the basement door for her friends, "Don't forget you have school tomorrow, so don't stay up too late!"

"Yes, ma'am," Raven called back.

As they entered the basement and went back to the couch area, Scarlet looked at Raven. "School tomorrow?"

"Yeah, today's Sunday," Raven said slowly, "So tomorrow's school."

"Huh, well like you said before," shrugged Scarlet, "It's another clue to how far into the future we are."

"Wait, y'all are from the future? I thought for sure you were from an alternate Earth or somethin'."

"No," said Natt, "In the time we come from, humans are long extinct."

"Wait, but Laurel said-" Raven started.

"Laurel," grinned Natt, "failed in Inkopolis history before trying again and barely passing."

"I'm not that bad!" Laurel protested with a small smile.

"Okay then," Scarlet smirked, "Who was one of the major Generals in the old Turf Wars against the Octarians?"

"Captain….. Crawfish?" Laurel tilted her head, then laughed as the rest of her team collectively facepalmed.

"No, Laurel, Its Cap'n Cuttlefish," Natt smiled.

"Anyway," Cass brought everyone back on track, "We're from the future, and back at Inkopolis, it's the middle of the Summer, not the middle of the school year."

"Oh. That's interesting." Raven said. "Speaking of Inkopolis, when do you think y'all will go back there?"

Natt shrugged, "I honestly have no idea. I have a few theories as to how we got here, but I'm still figuring out how to get back." The purple inkling had paled considerably and began sweating nervously.

"Do you think we could check the alleyway again tomorrow?" asked Cass, "That brick wall might be open again."

"And if it isn't?" asked Raven.

"Lets… not think about that." Laurel also looked a little more pale.

"Hey, can we watch a movie?" asked Scarlet, abruptly changing the subject. She looked at Natt worriedly. Usually Natt was the optimist in Team Paintstrike, and right now she looked about to faint. Raven caught on to the situation and nodded.

"Yeah," the girl said, opening a cabinet underneath the TV, "Here's the movies I have, what do y'all wanna watch?"

Laurel, Natt, and Cass joined Scarlet and Raven in looking through the movies, and after much debate they chose Pirates of the Caribbean. The rest of the night was spent cuddled in a blanket fort and forgetting about their stresses for a few short hours. They fell asleep around the end of the third movie.

At midnight, the small-town neighborhood was nearly silent, except for the occasional rustling of leaves as a warm breeze blew through the piles on the side of the road. Street lights lit the road with soft orange light as a stray cat puttered across the empty neighborhood street.

Suddenly the cat stopped, looking around with its ears perked uneasily. It heard something in the bushes, and decided not to take a chance, instead streaking down the street in the opposite direction of the noise.

The street light near the said bushes suddenly flickered and died. A large shadowy silhouette used the dark cover to run across the street, fast enough that a passerby could have blinked and missed it entirely. The figure looked around, and headed down a familiar alleyway ending in a brick wall. There was a crash of metal and the flickering flashes of electricity, and then all was silent once more.

Ehehehehe, here's a cliffhanger! I felt like this chapter needed to be a bit shorter and leave you hanging... be sure to drop a review so I can hopefully improve in future chapters, and a big thanks to Dumirin the Dutiful and ElectricBlaster for reviewing!

Dumirin: Thanks for the advice- I was trying to avoid going really slow with the beginning of the story, hence the 'sonic speed', but now that you've mentioned its too fast, I may consider going back to revise the first chapter, and maybe split it into two chapters. And also 'sealings' is a term I use to refer to multiple sea-based races. So, like Octarians, inklings, the jellyfish, sharklings, etc. would all fall under the category of 'sealings'.