#ckau

I’d usually start my day off with getting dressed in work attire and sliding my Cardinal-based mask on, but today is different. Today is the 50th anniversary of the founding of our company and Empire, which means I have to dress up. 

How stressful…. 

Luckily, I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm goes off, so I have a little extra time to reflect on myself and prepare for the day. 

Walking over to my private bathroom, I swipe my towel off of the counter while heading in and looking at myself in the mirror. I look at myself directly in my wide, anxious eyes. ‘Why are you scared, Prince? This is a happy day, isn’t it? Snap out of it.’ I think to myself as I shake off the icky feeling, gently wash my face and dry it before heading out of the room. 

I sigh as I dress myself in fancy clothes, wondering why this was all so necessary at first, but then silencing my thoughts afterwards. I quickly finished getting ready for the day, walking to my door and carefully placing my hand on the knob. 

My eyes close as I start to overthink about everything that could go wrong today. My breaths quicken, and for a moment, I take my hand off the door knob. I open my eyes again and look back at my room to regain my composure, eventually nodding to myself as I turn back to the door.

I take a breath as my hand starts shaking on its way to the door, but I push through and turn the knob, opening the door with a smile on my face. 

Mask in hand, I take my time walking to the designated room. I take a second to notice how no one else is wandering the halls. ‘Maybe they’re already there?’ I ask myself, slowly approaching the large doors.

I feel my hands start to get clammy again as I reach for the handle. I sigh again and put on my mask, figuring that might help with the irrational anxiety I was feeling. I push open the door to see my cowor- teammates talking at a table. They all stopped talking and stared at me when the door closed, as if they didn’t notice me coming in at first. “BROTHER!” Emperor saw me and ran over to me, taking my mask off “What do you need this for? We’re not strangers, are we, Prince?” He lightly punched my arm, before putting his own around my shoulder “Besides, you don’t need that yet, the after party’s later.”  He winks and giggles at my stupidity. “Right.. My mistake.” I nervously say, looking around at the others. “What’s the plan for today? Anything special?” I already know the answer but I might as well feed his ego. The Inkling grinned ear to ear as he unwrapped from my shoulder and walked to a white board.

“Why, I am so glad you asked.” He pauses to clear his throat. “Sit down everyone! Let’s revise for today.” Me and the other two members sit down on the cosy chairs that are assigned to us.

 “As you all already know, today marks a very very special day for us as a family.” I try not to think about what’s coming next, hoping that my irregular breathing isn’t being picked up by the others. 

“Today marks the 50th anniversary of our family business, and empire, Kamabo Co.”

I must look zoned out because my brother nudges me slightly, pulling me out of my self-induced trance “Prince, pay attention. its status report day.” He glares at me, before signalling N-Pacer to go over to him. She starts to talk about the project she's working on, but my mind is on everything but what anyone is saying right now. 

‘50 years.’ My mind floods with thoughts that are far too dangerous for me to have, though despite that, not being able to move on. how terrifying. I realize that as I'm stuck swimming in my forbidden thoughts, Jr had already gone halfway through his report about weapons. ‘If they knew what I was thinking right now, would they jump me?’ I think, before mentally shaking the thought away ‘no. no, why would they? we're family.’ before I know it, Emperor is snapping his fingers in my face 

“HEY. Wake up, your time to sleep was over an hour ago.” 

‘has it really been that long?’ I think, forgetting to answer back. 

“PRINCE. Get up here” I quickly snap myself back to reality, standing up and going to the front as my brother sits down. I take a deep breath, swiftly thinking of the words I'm going to say. 

“This year we have employed a total of 100 Inklings, and have uhm.

 lost. half that amount to work related incident. I'm sure you three can agree, that kind of ratio is extremely dangerous for our wellbeing. I fear that if this continues, we will be investigated in some way. So, in order to sway this ratio to lower numbers, I have a proposal.” I stop to catch my breath, and Emperor responds in the time I take to pause

.

“Go on.” He says, crossing his arms in his chair and tapping his foot on the floor.

“I propose that when the new employees this quarter come in today, I have the permission and resources to train them more so we are not required to-” I'm cut off.

“Permission granted, status report dismissed.” Emperor says, before standing up and walking out the door. everyone is silent.‘Was I really that boring.?’ without a word, the other two followed. ‘I didn't even finish..’ I sighed and held my head in my hands, trying not to cry as I look around the room, mentally preparing to continue for the day. I take another breath as I push through the door, putting my mask back on while I head to the dining area for breakfast.

DIFFERENT P.O.V -----

My feet carefully pad along the, surprisingly clean, tiled floor, tapping along the squares as I walk. I think about why they even called me here if I'm already employed. Some kind of post-employment interview or something?

I glance around the space, shocked that almost the entirety of the building is underground. After I finish walking through the huge-ah hallway, I turn the corner only to see ANOTHER coddamn hallway.

“The fuck,” I mumble, cursing under my breath, though this time there's an actual door at the end of the hall. The taps of my shoes bounce around the area as if it were an empty gymnasium. That in itself was suspicious, but I chose to go on anyway.

Soon, I reach the door and turn the handle to be met with an office of sorts, with someone seated at a desk in the middle.

“Sit.” They order. Wow, kinda rude for the first time meeting me, jeez. Even so, I sit down, but only on my own accord. The Inkling isn’t identifiable, wearing a mask to supposedly hide their face. Their voice, however, seems very familiar to me... But I can't put my finger on why.

“Before we start, I need you to sign something.” They state, before reaching behind themselves and handing me a piece of paper.

“What’s this?” I ask, taking it and preparing to read.

“Just a non-disclosure agreement.” They state with a calm voice, resting their arms on top of one another.

“For a mechanic's job?” Okay, this is getting weird. “Give me a second to read.”

“Take your time.” They adjust their sleeves.

I carefully read through the paper, my eyes widening at how genuinely messed up the requirements were.

“The... fuck?” I’m speechless, quickly realising how stupid I was to ignore that gut feeling out in the hallway. The person across from me seemed perfectly content with it all.

“This is a joke, right? There’s a different paper for me?” I ask, holding my breath.

“No, Rider. This is the paper you’re meant to sign.” They calmly say, passing me a pen.

“Go ahead.”

“There’s no way I’m fucking signing this.” I stand, enraged. I think of how many people must have signed some kind of messed up paper like this without reading the fine print. “You’re sick.” I snarl at them, and they... Sigh?

“You have to.” They say, standing from their chair and going to a bookshelf before grabbing something that looks like a phone while they’re turned away from me.

“I’m sorry, Rider. You need to sign the NDA.” They press something on the phone, and suddenly, without warning, several guns are pointed at me. “Otherwise, I’m going to have to kill you.”

They turn back around. “We are out of range of the closest respawn point. If you die here, you will not respawn. Not until you sign.” I’m taken aback as I try to find a retort.

“Wha-” They quickly cut me off. “Do or say ANYTHING but sign that paper, and you’re gone.”

They look away for a moment. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve given me no choice.”

My heart is racing and my thoughts are running through how messed up of a situation I’ve gotten myself into. Without even thinking, my hand picks up the pen and shakily signs on the dotted line. I don’t know why, I’ve never been afraid of death.

My eyes are all blurry as if I needed glasses, and the person must have done something since the weapons were now gone.

“Good.” They took the paper and placed it into a filing cabinet. “I’ll give you a moment. I’ll be back in 5 minutes to give you a tour.” They walk around me, open the door, and leave. Not a second later, however, they reopen it. “Oh, and don’t try leaving. That would end badly for you.”

Just like that, they were gone, cruelly leaving me with my thoughts. What in Cod’s name did I just agree to...? Unsilenceable thoughts run quickly through my head, focusing on any individual one being simply impossible.

Sure enough, they returned after 5 minutes, their bird-shaped mask still firmly plastered to their face.

“Stand. We must get going now.” I stand up and follow them out the door, still taken aback.

As it turns out, while they were out of the room, the surroundings of the entire room had changed, completely out of nowhere. I run through my mind for any explanation. They gigged, snapping me out of my trance. “Hahaha! your confusion amuses me. It’s an elevator. One we have to get away from in the next 10 seconds, since it’s going to explode.”

Without a second thought, I ran away from it. It didn’t explode. I look back at the employer, confused once again. “Did I say explode? I meant it would go back up. My mistake.” I watch as my only way out ascends without me. This fucking guy—

Interrupting my thoughts, they walk over to me. “You seem speechless. Most new hires are, but I didn't expect that from you, Rider. Now that you can’t leave, I might as well introduce myself.”

They continue walking, and I have nothing to do but follow as they continue their monologue. “My name is Cardinal. I am one of the four minds in charge of this place, and my job is getting the new hires trained and ready for work. You’ll meet the other three eventually, but that’s all I need you to know for now.”

I decided to build my courage back up. What am I doing, anyway? I’m not scared of this pipsqueak, they're so damn tiny.

“What is this place for?” I ask, determined to get answers. They were forcing me here against my will anyway, I deserve answers.

“Questions later, employee, we need to get you a badge number and radio.” They said, voice cold as they continued walking.

Wow. Okay, rude... I continue to follow, looking around as I do so. This part of the building seems to span twice the size of a normal Turf War stage. I’m unable to look around properly right now, but perhaps Cardinal will give me some time to later. Maybe I’ll even find a way out of this place.

“Okay, step in front of this machine and do what it says, then I’ll take you to your living quarters.” Living quarters? What is this, prison? I step up to the machine and read the instructions.

Insert arm... Into hole?

Oh fuck no.

“Is there any other way to do this?” I turn, asking a question that’ll likely be fruitless, but it’s worth a shot.

“I mean, one of my coworkers could, but she doesn’t have the time, or resources for someone unimportant such as yourself.” They end with a snarky remark. Of course.

I roll my eyes before reluctantly putting my whole arm into the machine. I yelp as I feel a sharp pain, quickly pulling my arm out. “And now you’re chipped! Hurray. Let’s see here...” They say, taking a look at the screen.

“Huh... Strange... Wonder what happened to the third one... Oh well!” Cardinal takes a wristband from the machine, wrapping it around my wrist. “Congratulations, Rider.” They look up at me as they speak again,

“You are employee 3.5 this quarter.”