The days were closing in on the one year anniversary of the tragedy that took Four's life. Inkopolis wanted to honour her memory properly, they knew how much the battles meant to her, and so collectively they agreed that on the exact one year date, they would hold a commemorative match on the same stage which saw Four's final moments. But this meant a lot of work needed to be done.

Judd told the workers that unless they were certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the new spawn point they were going to install wouldn't fail, that the match would have to be held on a different stage. The spawnpoint technicians worked tirelessly to ensure that their new design wouldn't have the same failure.

Three had mixed feelings about the match. On one hand, she knows Four loved battles and spending time doing them, so it's the perfect way to honour her. On the other hand, it's a painful reminder of what happened. But Three knew she couldn't dwell on Four for too long, she had her life to plan. But she still felt the need to personally check on the progress they were making.

Three walks into the stage and makes her way over to where the spawnpoint was being constructed, the workers were on break at the moment so she wouldn't be interrupting anything by taking a look around. She wasn't going to touch anything, she just wanted to see it.

Three walks by the control panel and looks over the settings on the screen. Looks like the battle was going to be held with the same ink colours as Four's final match, as it's set to purple. The spawnpoint itself wasn't hooked up to power yet, but Three assumed that it would be soon. Three worked as a spawnpoint technician for a few months after Four was lost, she didn't want anyone else to suffer the fate she did, so she knows how their diagnostic settings work. It'll be hooked up near the end of the work day, and then it'll have its diagnostics run through the night. Usually, if the spawnpoint is installed right, it's powered on and ready to use around midnight.

The workers spot Three looking over the spawn point and give her a wave. She has more than enough clearance to be here so they're not about to start something with her. Three simply waves back. She's seen what she wanted to see, so she throws her baseball cap back on her head and starts making her way back to Inkopolis. Eight had promised to help keep Three's mind off of Four for the night and Three hoped it meant bad movies with junk food and cuddles on the couch. Three smiles to herself at the thought of how she and her fiance were going to spend the evening, and disappeared back to Inkopolis.

The sun was beginning to set, which meant the work day was almost at a close. The technicians finish bolting in the new spawn point, making sure it's stable and not going to move. After receiving a nod from the worker who bolted in the last rivet, the power is connected to the spawn point and it comes to life. They set it to diagnose and prime for use on the control pad, and start packing up their tools. They'd come back in the morning to make sure everything worked properly.

The clock ticks just past midnight, 12:04am, the screen of the spawn point flashes, the diagnostic is complete and everything is functioning as intended. The spawn point initiates and powers up for use, ready to be used for the match… Wait a second, why is the respawn system active?

The spawn point steams as the spirit of a squid circles into the center. The ink in the middle rises as it reconstructs the form of the fallen inkling, merging their spirit back with the ink of the world. Slowly their form takes shape, their gear and weapon are rebuilt and finally their eyes shoot open. And now, standing in the middle of the spawn point… is a very confused looking Agent 4.

Four doesn't understand, why is it dark? She was in the middle of a match, she was making her push to X rank… why is there no one in the stands? Four holds her weapon out in front of her, slowly making her way through the stage, surely this has to be some kind of prank. Four rounds the corner and makes her way to the center of the stage, and when her eyes land on what lay there, they go wide as her pupils shrink. Her weapon clatters on the ground as she steps closer to the memorial in the center of the stage… the memorial for her.

"No… please no…" Four feels the tears welling in her eyes, this can't be happening, this isn't fair! How did this even happen anyways? She was in a match, and she got splatted, and then she respawned and suddenly it was dark and the world thought she was dead?

Four turns and runs away from the memorial, this has to be some kind of prank, some kind of elaborate joke. Some kind of sick, twisted, elaborate ruse. She throws open the door to the locker room and finds the one she had reserved… there's spiderwebs over the lock, great. Four quickly swats them away and puts in her code, the locker coming open revealing her few belongings that she left inside. She snags her phone and its charger, slamming the door shut. Just as she suspected, the battery's run out. She quickly runs over to a spare outlet and plugs her phone in, tapping her foot impatiently as it boots up.

The screen comes to life and… no service, great. Okay that doesn't matter, there's a hotspot she can access. She never used it before because so many of the other battlers did so it was always bogged down, but she figured right now it would be safe to use it. She logs in to the network and her phone goes wild, missed notifications and alarms all going off at once. Four panics and quickly tries to silence all of them, nearly dropping her phone in the process.

Finally she's able to calm her phone down and figure out what the hell happened. The first thing she does is check the time. 12:18am. Okay that makes sense given how dark it is outside. Then she checks the date, praying it's been less than a week. She opens her calendar, and looks at the day… wait it's the same day as the match she was just in? Then she looks up to the year. Oh no, oh no no no.

"No… this can't be…" Four flips to her messages, she tries texting Marie first.

4gent A: Marie? What's going on?

4gent A: Marie I'm scared

No reply, perfect. Four knew she was awake, but maybe she just wasn't by her phone? Or maybe she was writing new song lyrics, she does that sometimes. Okay new strategy, find out what happened… if it's been a year, and there's a memorial, then surely there's got to be some kind of news report right? She opens up her web browser and goes to SNN (Squid News Network). Oh, they've changed their name to CNN (Cephalopod News Network). Fun. She's prepared to scroll through hundreds of pages to find some miniscule report of what happened… only to find it on the front page.

"One year aniversary of Jay Narakai's passing" The headline reads. There's a video attached to it, looks like someone in the audience was recording the match on their phone. Four reluctantly taps play, she watches herself reclaim the tower, she watches the roller come swinging down onto her and causes her to explode into ink. Then, she sees why she didn't respawn. She sees instantly that something was wrong with the spawn point, the electrical wires running to it were sparking, there was far too much power being pumped into it. She watches in horror as the spawn point violently sparks and steams before finally sending metal shrapnel flying as a fireball reaches skywords from the center of it.

Four covers her mouth in shock, but the video doesn't end yet. She sees a squid flying through the air towards the now destroyed spawn pad, and when they land Four can see that it's Marie, and her heart sinks. That was supposed to be a special day for the two of them, she had made dinner reservations and had a really cute dress picked out. She wanted to thank Marie for always being by her side, for being there for her when she needed her, and then this happens. Four had planned to make sure that, even if it was her accomplishment they were celebrating, that she made Marie feel like the inkling being pampered, because she deserved it. But instead… she'd left her lover without even giving her a chance to say goodbye.

Four falls to her knees and clutches her chest as lines of tears begin to find pathways down her face. She looks down at her phone again, seeing Marie kneeling by the spawn point that should've reunited them. Four is heartbroken, how could she have done this? How could she have left Marie to hurt? It wasn't fair…

"Oh shit… what about Alex?!" Four fumbles with her phone again, closing the webpage and once again opening her messages, she hopes Alex knows it's actually her.

4gent A: Alex?

4gent A: Alex… I'm so sorry…

There was a long pause, the message was read but there wasn't even a typing bubble for ages. Four wasn't sure what she expected from her cousin, it had apparently been a year. She figured Alex might get mad thinking someone had stolen her number and was playing a prank on her, but she hoped to dispel that by using her real name. Almost everyone only knew her as "Three". This was her own choice, and fortunately it gave Four some plausibility to her survival.

Agent 3: How did you get this number and how do you know my name?

4gent A: Alex… it's me… I promise I'm not lying to you

Agent 3: My cousin died a year ago today, how fucking dare you mock her memory like this.

4gent A: Alex please… I promise you I'm actually alive…

Agent 3: Stop. You're making an enemy you do NOT want to have.

4gent A: Alex I… fine. You know what? Fine.

Four locks her phone and rubs the bridge of her nose between her fingers. She KNEW that wouldn't go well, so why did she bother? She didn't know. Probably something to do with desperation. Speaking of desperation… if it's been a year then there's no way her apartment was still, well, hers. Shit.

"Well, I've got no choice now… Marie's place is closer than Alex's…" Four unplugs her phone and starts making her way back to Inkopolis.

Four exits the battle lobby, it was always open because sometimes after a battle someone would fall asleep on one of the couches and just not wake up until an ungodly hour like this, so they leave the doors unlocked to allow people to leave. Four shields her eyes from the harsh light of the square as her pupils adjust to it. There were a handful of squids walking around the square, mostly just the night owls who couldn't sleep and needed to get out of the house. Four doesn't spend too much time wandering however, she's on a mission.

Four calls her mission: "Operation make my loved ones realize I'm not dead."

It's a little on the nose but there's no time for a cool nickname for it, she has to get things done. Four walks in the direction of Callie and Marie's apartment, the walk becomes a fast walk, which shortly after turns into a jog, which within moments is a proper run, before finally becoming a full on sprint. Four remembers the way to Marie's from the battle lobby very clearly, she'd walked it so many times with Marie that she could never forget the path.

Four turns sharply and finally comes up to the entrance of a rather well off apartment complex. It wasn't anything super fancy or anything, but it was well kept and at least somewhat modern. Okay, there's the keypad, and their room number, and oh god what is she going to say? Four sighs and just inputs the number into the keypad, the dial tone is heard and after a second, the unmistakable voice of Marie comes through the speaker.

"Hello? Who is this? It's nearly one am." Marie's voice calls, it sounds irritated, like someone had woken her from a nap.

"M-Marie… it's me… it's Jay…" Four feels a single tear leave her eye, Marie's voice like music to her ears. She doesn't hear her voice again but she does hear the unmistakable buzzing of the door unlocking. Four silently celebrates and pushes her way through the door and into the building.

Four finally makes her way up to their suite, her hearts racing and her breathing uneven, but she hopes to god that they're not mad at her for what happened. With a shaking hand, she raises her fist and knocks on the door. She hears a rustling noise, it's louder than the usual scrambling to get to the door noises but she doesn't think much of it. That is until the door swings open and now shoved right into her face is the end of a Dynamo roller.

Four instinctually backs away with her hands raised in front of her, not that they'd do much to block from the swing of a Dynamo. Her eyes trace back to its wielder, where she spots a very angry looking Callie. Four has never seen Callie like this, she could swear there was literal fire in her pupils. Callie's enraged expression doesn't last long however, as her eyes slowly widen, realizing that yes, the person standing at her door is, in fact, Four.

The roller clatters to the ground, followed by the sound of a charger doing the same. Marie was behind Callie, she'd been ready to fire had anything happened to Callie… But instead there was something she thought impossible standing on her doorstep.

"J-Jay?" Marie steps forwards, her eyes watering as her trembling hands reach upwards towards Four's face. "Jay is that… really you?"

Four smiles through the tears now forming in her own eyes, she nods and holds her arms out towards Marie. Even though it hadn't been longer than a few moments for Four, she still missed Marie so much. She can't even begin to fathom how much despair Marie must've felt over the last year without her. She'd have to find some way to make it up to her.

"Yes… It's me… I'm so, so sorry…" Four sniffles as Marie closes the distance and pulls her into a hug. Four quickly wraps her arms around Marie in return and the two of them cry into the others shoulder.

The pair dared not separate, Marie refused to let go of Four for any reason. Marie could hardly believe it… Her love had come back to her. Four was crying harder than she expected. She never knew just how much Marie meant to her, and seeing her so distraught just confirmed to her how much love they truly held for each other. Maybe this was why Marie could never truly move on, why she always felt a pang of guilt any time she gave a passing glance to an inkling she found attractive. Because deep down she knew that somehow, some way, Four would come home to her one day; she knew it in her hearts. Marie and Four both silently promised to themselves that they were going to treasure this gift, they weren't going to lose their lover again.